Puzzle Solving Exercise Thread

acidfingers · Post by **acidfingers** » Tue Jan 23, 2007 5:55 pm

yes, sorry. The largest digit.

Now I encourage you to look at the other hint more carefully.

deagol · Post by **deagol** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 9:55 am

Well Acid, I guess it's my turn to be stumped. I've tried a few ideas but came up with nothing sensible. Yes, I'm working with Courier, I always use that when puzzling. I'm guessing I have to align bits of text or something like that? Any other hint you could share?

sparkyb · Post by **sparkyb** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 11:02 am

acidfingers wrote: Ok, so I figured I'd post a puzzle now. This one will hopefully get people thinking outside of the box.

After reading through OpAphid's YT profile again I discovered there was a secret message hidden in it. The key that I discovered was:
Code: Select all
8244387645628363631212557156253533452727
It only applied to this part of her profile though:
Historically it is important to note, however, that most Emperors and politicians enjoyed their greatest triumphs when the forums remained largely unaware of their actions, and did not inquire about their intentions. But Nomanyuos, like most philosophers, had virtually no wealth, power or influence. Would you find it coincidental that history is full of "populists" with similar views?
Hint: What is the largest number in the key?
I would recommend using the font Courier New.

Since the largest number is 8 and Courier New is a fixed width font I divided the message into groups of 8 letters (removing all spaces and punctuation). There just so happened to be 40 of them, the same number of the number of characters in the code and so I took one letter from each set of eight according to the code and got:

Code: Select all

clonematsherfulltasteisnotsaneflintrusts

or

Code: Select all

clone mats her full taste is not sane flint rusts

It seems like it could be some kind of anagram, not exactly sure what to do with it now, but that's what I have so far.

acidfingers · Post by **acidfingers** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 11:51 am

Good job sparkyb. I actually just had to do this as a homework problem in one of my classes, so I tried to make a quick puzzle out of it. Problem was trying to make a legitimate message out of it. So instead I just made whatever words I could that were actual words.

I suppose I could have then fed it through a vigenere cipher to get what I wanted, but oh well.

deagol · Post by **deagol** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 12:15 pm

sparkyb wrote:...groups of 8 letters (removing all spaces and punctuation). There just so happened to be 40 of them...

Wait, I swear I tried that last night and got a string of 319 letters, not 320 as it should if it was 40*8... I guess if you keep the question mark at the end it fits. grrr... ok, good job Sparky. Got anything?

deagol · Post by **deagol** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 12:29 pm

acidfingers wrote:...Problem was trying to make a legitimate message out of it. So instead I just made whatever words I could that were actual words.

Liar!
Take the last letter of each word:

clonE matS heR fulL tastE iS noT sanE flinT rustS

ESRLESTETS

LESSER TEST

Sad Panda · Post by **Sad Panda** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 2:04 pm

I think Deagol just called Acid out, puzzle geek style.

Now you must battle! Get your graphing calculators ready!

deagol · Post by **deagol** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 2:35 pm

Sad Panda wrote:I think Deagol just called Acid out, puzzle geek style.

Now you must battle! Get your graphing calculators ready!

LOL, my HP 48GX has been collecting dust for at least 10 years. Even if I could turn it on, I don't remember how to do 1% of all the things I used to do with it.

sphinx · Post by **sphinx** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 3:09 pm

deagol wrote:
acidfingers wrote:...Problem was trying to make a legitimate message out of it. So instead I just made whatever words I could that were actual words.
Liar!
Take the last letter of each word:

clonE matS heR fulL tastE iS noT sanE flinT rustS

ESRLESTETS

LESSER TEST

Danielle · Post by **Danielle** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 3:15 pm

sphinx wrote:
deagol wrote:
acidfingers wrote:...Problem was trying to make a legitimate message out of it. So instead I just made whatever words I could that were actual words.
Liar!
Take the last letter of each word:

clonE matS heR fulL tastE iS noT sanE flinT rustS

ESRLESTETS

LESSER TEST

hahah, deagol. You are such a b-a-m-f.

acidfingers · Post by **acidfingers** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 7:42 pm

Good call Deagol!

I guess I'll just post quickies until someone else posts a puzzle.

Get a piece of paper and a pen or pencil.
Draw a 4x4 grid
How many squares do you see?

Jewelybug · Post by **Jewelybug** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 8:05 pm

Wow. I have a headache just from reading this thread.

*skips off*

deagol · Post by **deagol** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 9:37 pm

acidfingers wrote:Good call Deagol!

I guess I'll just post quickies until someone else posts a puzzle.

Get a piece of paper and a pen or pencil.
Draw a 4x4 grid
How many squares do you see?

Doing it in my mind as I type, should be:
1^2 + 2^2 + 3^2 + 4^2 = 1+4+9+16, whatever that is... ok it's 30.

Ok, I'm working on a pretty nice one, need another hour or so to double check everything. In the meantime, how about a 4-unit sided triangle grid? How many triangles? And a 5-unit sided triangle?

deagol · Post by **deagol** » Thu Jan 25, 2007 12:53 am

Alright, I've worked on this since monday so I want it to last more than a day, hoping to reach the weekend. Thus, I won't be giving any major hints until then. Here goes:

________________________________________________________

Driving directions for "the middle of nowhere" (Jonastown?)
City, ST Zip (?)
From: 'z'
To: 'a'

Code: Select all

       _                 _     _     _           _     _ 
 a\    b\   \c\    d\   \e    \f     g     h\    i\   \j 
 ¯     ¯     ¯                       ¯                   
                           _                 _     _     _ 
   k     l\    m\   \n    \o     p\   \q     r    \s     t 
   ¯     ¯     ¯     ¯           ¯           ¯           ¯ 
                 _           _     _     _     _     _ 
    \u    \v     w\    x\    y\    z     0\   \1     2 
     ¯     ¯     ¯     ¯           ¯                 ¯ 
       _     _     _     _     _     _     _ 
       3     4     5     6     7\   \8     9 
       ¯     ¯     ¯     ¯           ¯     ¯

aaahhhgg I'm lost!!1!12!asd;flkjas;dlkjf

Driving directions are supposed to tell you where to turn, what road to take and stuff... wtf is this?

deagol · Post by **deagol** » Thu Jan 25, 2007 2:25 pm

In light of this morning's video from OpAphid, I'd like to attach the following disclaimer to the previous post:

Any information about Jonas' location derived from this puzzle's results are entirely made up by me, and any similarities with "real" lonelygirl15 characters, locations, or videos are purely coincidental and unintentional. I have no relation with the persons or companies involved in the production of the lonelygirl15 and other character's videos, or the lonelygirl15.com website, nor with youtube.com or revver.com. I have no idea what the location of this supposed drop could be, except that it's probably one of the locations mentioned in the most recent OpAphid video. I have no clue if Daniel's "fake" id shows his "real" name, or even if his "real" name is Daniel. I do believe the real name of the actor playing that character is Yousef. I've read his last name somewhere, but can't remember it at the moment.

It's still kinda cool that I can channel Op like that, right when they were probably making the last minute edits on that video.