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Game 1: Puzzle #3
By admin | December 7, 2007
Game 1: Puzzle #3 discussion
Topics: Game 1 |
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By admin | December 7, 2007
Game 1: Puzzle #3 discussion
Topics: Game 1 |
December 7th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
I see some places. Mostly very obscure places. Five of them, of course. What meaning could they have?
December 7th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Ah, looking at things differently has given me different places, not nearly so obscure. So what do they have in common?
December 8th, 2007 at 2:45 am
They’re all buildings shaped like letters, except for one which has a large letter painted on its roof. But they don’t spell any word I know.
December 8th, 2007 at 8:51 am
Yeah, I see the letters, although the one in LA seems different than the others, so I’m a little suspicious of that one. Does it matter that they’re all lying on their sides?
December 8th, 2007 at 11:05 am
Hey, good spot — I didn’t notice that they’re *all* sideways. That seems significant, but I’m drawing a blank on what it might mean.
Do you suppose the LA letter is different to indicate that it comes first? It also happens to be on a blue background, which matches the color of the equations for its coordinates…but I’m really dubious about that being at all relevant.
If I haven’t had any brainstorms by the time I get back from work tonight, I’ll try the brute-force approach and see if *any* combination of these five letters is the passcode.
December 8th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
Well, I wrote out all the combinations and not a single one of them is a word. I still think the letters are involved with the solution, but I don’t think they go directly into the passcode.
December 9th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Well, not only do the five letters not anagram to a word, but none of the permutations appears to be the passcode (I tried them all). I will note that on puzzle#2, the five-letter key, when put into the code from puzzle#1, spells “rebus”, which is clearly a red herring. So I doubt the code come into play here, either.
December 9th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
ok, i’ve got a set of co-ordinates but I don’t know how to convert degrees/feet/inches to degrees/minutes/seconds. Any tips?
December 9th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
clarification: if the numbers are actual feet & inches, the real distances are insignificant. But interpreting them as minues & seconds doesn’t seem to work either, since they give places pointing to the middle of nowhere. So there must be some trick I’m missing..
December 9th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
Yes, you’re missing some trick. The places in the middle of nowhere are the wrong places. Consider things in a different light, and you’ll come up with less random spots.
December 9th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
Ok, I get it.. duh. I’m having a slow day today.
maybe the ‘X’ one isn’t an X? could it be a plus sign or a t or something?
December 9th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
Or maybe the ‘H’ is a trick and it should be an ‘O’ because of the shape of the building… I don’t know. I’m calling it a day.
December 9th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
..or the H could be an ‘I’.
December 9th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
.. or the ‘E’ could be an ‘M’
December 9th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
How in the heck are we supposed to do anything with these huge math things?? I’m just a French Major at FSU… math is beyond me. Any links to sites that could help with decoding this stuff?
December 9th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
I typed them into Excel and had it do the math…but the typing was a very laborious process.
December 10th, 2007 at 6:01 am
It’s tedious, but if you use a scientific calculator it’s not hard.
I’m tempted to post the answers here, but it took me so damn long I think others should also suffer the pain.
Of course if puzzle 6 requires you to translate a passage of Balzac, I may regret that decision
December 10th, 2007 at 7:06 am
Small hint. The thought process in posts 12-14 is in the right direction. The answer is not the combination of the letters but what the right combination alludes to.
I know, that leaves it wide open but someone will get the right combination of letters and understand what it means.
Fortunately this is the only time I do this to you, I think.
December 10th, 2007 at 8:32 am
Ok, so I’m thinking maybe you apply a circular cipher to the letters (in whatever order..) to get a word.
December 10th, 2007 at 8:51 am
Since ciphers can be complicated and time consuming, I will tell you that no cipher is needed.
December 10th, 2007 at 9:29 am
ok, thanks for the hint!
Other things about the letters:
E (or M) and Y have one line of symmetry
H (or I or O), O & X have two lines of symmetry
December 10th, 2007 at 11:19 am
A-HAAAAAAA!
I got it…it’s no longer Greek to me!
And to think, I probably *said* the answer out loud the first time I saw all those honkin’ equations…
December 10th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
I cannot figure this one out. I’ve solved the equations, but I can’t find anything other than water on Google Maps with these values (definitely no buildings shaped like letters…) Can anyone hint as to what I should do??
December 10th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Okay, google reveals that this horrible misspelling is apparently pretty widespread. What a mess. I will help you folks out a little, by at least giving you the right order:
LA (not what it initially appears to be, have to rotate)
Colorado (this one is okay)
The one on the mall (as it appears)
Vegas (okay)
The other DC one (as it appears)
and then you might want to do a web search, and then start guessing.
December 10th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
@megss73: Ditto.
Come on, all you bright sparks who are rambling on about some letters, how about at least sharing the trick for turning the degrees-feet-inches into something other than sea on Google Maps.
December 10th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
When I was confused, I wasn’t hitting water (except in one case), so I don’t know what you’re doing wrong.
December 10th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
I had a similar problem; I was able to fix it by double-checking the URL of the Google Maps page, which should read something like “http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=XX.XXXXXX,-YY.YYYYY&t=h&z=8″, with numbers where the X’s and Y’s are. Make sure the Y number has a minus sign in front of it and the X number does not, or GM will be looking at the wrong semi-hemisphere.
December 11th, 2007 at 3:07 am
Two tips for the co-ordinates:
1) They are actually degrees/minutes/seconds, the feet and inches mean nothing
2) If you don’t get buildings, either you have the wrong numbers or you used them incorrectly..
As for the letters, I was thinking this morning that they could be Cyrillic characters.. I guess I was on the right lines
December 11th, 2007 at 3:26 am
Yeah, got it by following Jack Hare and JJCote’s hints. Holy christ, though, I’d never have got it without them.
December 11th, 2007 at 6:06 am
I really hate these math equations. Is there anyway to avoid doing the math?
December 11th, 2007 at 6:57 am
You just type the numbers into a spreadsheet. Let the computer do the arithmetic.
December 11th, 2007 at 10:09 am
Now I have the numbers, I think I am supposed to turn them into coordinates. I think. God this is making me feel stupid.
December 11th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
*chuckle* kinda hard to solve it without coming back here to make puns, isn’t it?
The feet, inches aren’t *entirely* irrelevant — minutes and seconds of a coordinate are typically written with the marks ‘ and “, same way that feet and inches are often abbreviated. It’s the same sort of misdirection as using a picture of degrees Fahrenheit to indicate geographical degrees.
December 11th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
I’m just not getting what the letters mean… I tried some google searches, I must not be getting the right combo. Someone have a hint for me?
December 12th, 2007 at 5:38 am
Yeah, quite a few of us have had hints for you. Read the posts. They’re subtle.
December 12th, 2007 at 9:24 am
I just got to this puzzle today, and I’ve read all the posts but feel like I must be missing a few early steps.
Are the equations and giant math everyone is talking about just converting sixtieths to decimal?
And I must be missing something, because I don’t see how this gives five locations. I only see two co-ordinates — which I’m interpreting as north and west, giving one spot. Can anyone tell me what I’m missing?
Then the next step will be to put these co-ordinates into google maps (however that works) and see what we see. Then I’ll catch up to you all with your letter puzzling.
December 12th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
knightsknitting: the five colours correspond to five sets of co-ordinates. The degrees-feet-inches are degrees, minutes and seconds. Convert those to decimal degrees and enter them in GMaps. Then you can join the confusion.
December 12th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
Is the E an E or an M? I tried googling this crap, and found nothing LOL. Bleh
December 12th, 2007 at 8:12 pm
NM I got it!
December 12th, 2007 at 8:17 pm
If you’ve followed all the instructions about coordinates and are still coming up with maps of nothing, double-check your math to make sure you added things up correctly (and be sure to use Excel or a calculator that obeys the order of operations).
And when it’s time to try solutions, make sure to use the “enter your guess” button at the bottom of puzzle 3. You have to scroll down.
Other than that, everything you need for a solution has been hinted at already.
December 13th, 2007 at 11:05 am
I am fairly confident that I left Puzzle 2 and found Puzzle 3. I am worried because I don’t see large amounts of math or calculations - just two arrows, two wall thermometers, two feet, and two rulers, it even has the answer box available. I won’t go into how long I’ve taken just to figure out if I’m in the right place. I thought I was supposed to be solving for a hypotenuse of a right triangle before I came here and found people doing all of this. Unless someone can help me understand why I don’t see what you see I will probably have to figure out the answer just from the posts without being able to see the pictures which sounds just lovely.
December 13th, 2007 at 11:44 am
There does seem to be alot of confusion regarding this puzzle. For that I apologize. The buildings are what they look like. Together they represent a word that is normally seen using Greek letters. Since I could not find buildings that looked like Greek letters I thought part of the mystery could be realizing that the letters have similar Greek alphabet characters. These letters, in the right order represent the English alphabet version of the Greek word. Google the word and the one word answer should be fairly easy to figure out, especially if you understand the hints that have been given by other players.
This is the only puzzle like this (in my opinion).
Uncle Ben & knightsknitting: click on the pictures (except for the arrows).
December 16th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
Sorry to come across a bit harshly, Mr Cowpattybill. Not being Greek, my googling efforts have come up a bit short so far.
December 17th, 2007 at 6:59 am
This is a difficult one. Allow me to shed some “light” (as in son) on this.
The most helpful posts so far:
#22 - the last sentence
#24
Those should make it clearer.
December 18th, 2007 at 6:27 am
Being Greek, once I had the letters it didn’t take me too long to find the word!
However I’m pretty much stuck in puzzle #4…
In post #24 the correct order has been given…
December 18th, 2007 at 11:55 am
Still a bit hazy as to whether the letters in the pictures are meant to be Greek characters (in which case there are several possibilities for each, and none of the combinations seem to translate into an English word) or vice versa (same problem). This is what I get for taking Physics instead of Classics at school.
December 18th, 2007 at 11:58 am
Maybe it’s not an English word. Just English letter versions of the actual Greek letters.
Perhaps you’ve seen these letters on the back of somone’s car. They mean (or represent) something else though.
By the way, there are no spelling errors in #44.
December 20th, 2007 at 1:07 am
If I may:
Σ C E are all used in the word as the last letter, as may be seen on the back of a car.
December 20th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
…on a Mitsubishi Sigma, perhaps? Probably not on a Lancia Beta, those have long since rusted away
(FWIW my car has the letters ‘B’, ‘M’ and ‘W’ on the back, but that’s it)
Or do you mean that the solution is some thing that might be seen on the back of a car?
Sorry, I’m still not getting any further with this puzzle. Although you seem to be suggesting that the letters are re-used in different ways.
December 20th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Normally it is added by the car owner. Like a bumper sticker but it’s usually plastic. Sometimes it’s just a symbol. Sometimes it has these letters inside the symbol. Somtimes it has the actual puzzle answer in it. Sometimes it has a completely different word but with little feet added to the bottom of the symbol.
Maybe this is mostly just seen in America. Are you in the U.S.?
December 20th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
Cue lightbulb illuminating above my head. Or maybe an LED.
No, I’m in New Zealand but I know what you mean, I’ve seen photos of this thing. I’m not sure what it’s called but I’m sure I can find out.
I’m hitting the beach for a couple of weeks’ summer holiday so plenty of time to think about it. Hey, maybe I’ll even see one of these things!
January 2nd, 2008 at 7:00 am
It has become quite clear that this puzzle was a bad one. I apologize. I really liked the idea of using complicated math equations (yes I am quite aware that most would type them into Excel or someting to solve them, that’s why I saved them as a picture so you couldn’t just copy and paste) to come up with coordinates. My original intent was to make some of the puzzle very complicated so most could not solve it but a few could. This would encourage the use of the message boards and make the game last a little longer. I did not imagine that this puzzle would be TOO hard.
As I’ve said before, this is my first time doing this. This is the only puzzle like this. There are others that are somewhat subject to my own interpretation but not to the degree of this one.
Also, I think most of the puzzles have enough clues on the message boards that you can figure them out.
So, I apologize for this puzzle. I hope you have fun with the rest of them. Good luck.