Lonelygirl15

deagol wrote:

ignatzmouse wrote:So in retrospect this puzzle had a simple solution, I think the thing that bogged us down was the sidetrack into chemistry. I was sooo sure that IKYOIYK was Iodine_Potassium_etc and that ITIYETI was a good half-way solution.

Turns out that Walter just grabbed any old reference card with "8" on it, and the fact that I,K,O,Y are elements is pure coincidence (about a 1-in-12 coincidence). If Walter had grabbed pretty much any other card, I bet we'd have had this solution days ago.

Anyhow, we have the answer now, hooray! Hooray for Jane!

Actually, he couldn't have avoided I, K, O, Y, given that he used octal ascii codes to make DNA, to make aminoacids.

Since t=20 can't be used as a base in the DNA sequence, and a=1 is required as a starting base in every triplet in order to form a valid 3-digit octal ascii code, these are the 9 remaining combinations available:

Code: Select all

aaa aca aga = 111 131 171 = I Y y
aac acc agc = 113 133 173 = K [ {
aag acg agg = 117 137 177 = O _ DEL

So, turns out the only letters available for his coding system were I, K, O, Y, and y, and their respective aminoacids, K N K T R. If he didn't want to use that lowercase y that leaves only three aminoacids: lysine, asparagine, and threonine. The available letters from those are: aeghilnoprsty.

Limiting the shifts to +/- 8 or 16, and even excluding any wrapping (-):

Code: Select all

 +0:aeghilnoprsty
 +8:imopqtvwxz---
+16:quwxy--------
 -8:----adfghjklq
-16:---------bcdi

Which shows how Walter did have every letter to chose from for his message, even after all those constraints, so he didn't really need that +24 shift, nor wrapping around z or a!

deagol wrote: Actually, he couldn't have avoided I, K, O, Y, given that he used octal ascii codes to make DNA, to make aminoacids.

deagol wrote: Which shows how Walter did have every letter to chose from for his message, even after all those constraints, so he didn't really need that +24 shift, nor wrapping around z or a!

deagol wrote:Red herrings are the puzzle maker's best friends.

deagol wrote:Red herrings are the puzzle maker's best friends.

LuminousEmail wrote: What do you mean we've been destroying the cure - doing your dirty work for you?!

I'm not here to do anyone's "Dirty Work". I thought we were doing a good deed for an old man in need.

Adjust your bifocals you old fart. You're going to have to provide more information than that if you want our help!

Luminous wrote:I'm a little PO'd with Walter, so I just sent him a message. We'll see what he has to say about this:

LuminousEmail wrote: What do you mean we've been destroying the cure - doing your dirty work for you?!

I'm not here to do anyone's "Dirty Work". I thought we were doing a good deed for an old man in need.

Adjust your bifocals you old fart. You're going to have to provide more information than that if you want our help!

TOSG - Ready with your strategy! We may need to move into action!

ShardinsKitten wrote:see what we do is, keep the new viles he sends us and not open them right... and then we take the old ones we have re lable them and pretend they are the new ones. YEA! lol