unforum

[nmarciano]

Latin

[Axys Denyed]

I think what we need for this one is a higher res scan of just the text box. When you fold it into a crane, the markings on the side definitely spell out something, but you can't quite make it out fully from this scan. Flidget, any chance for a high res scan of the middle part?

[JebJoya]

Does anyone else find this card a little... odd... It does actually require you to scan and print a larger version of it onto paper, at a decent quality... it just doesn't seem to follow the idea of the other puzzlecards...

Jeb

[am520dj]

or you could try to cut out and fold the actual card... but i wouldnt do that. ... or maybe i would?

on one hand, you don't really have the card anymore, so collectorswise kind of bleh, but on the other hand, you'll have a special little paper crane with the solve to place on your desk or whatever...

[Flidget Jerome]

Please stop tempting me to cut up and fold my own cards. A tiny paper crane saying 'Cloudmakers' sitting on my desk is too damn appealing.

[Daffy889]

For those interested (and those requesting them), here's some pics of my crane.

When I first did it, I made it the way I remembered doing it years ago. Since then we have found out about the instructions on the back of the card, and I actually skipped Step 4 of those, but it still works.

[Leeravitz]

To put to rest any lingering fascinations with the Latin text...:

Cassandra was quite right earlier to point out that this text is *extremely* well - known, if you know where to look for it. It is taken from Cicero's 'De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum' (On the Ends of Good and Evil - 45 B.C.) and it is known as the 'Lorem Ipsum' placeholder text.

Its usage is explained well as follows:

(and I quote) : Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.

'Lorem Ipsum' is used, basically, so that you can see how your page layout is well set out without being needlessly distracted by an actual vernacular language text.

The translation (for what it's worth) has been rendered many times (and I simply quote, rather than take any credit for) the following:

"But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?"

There is, in other words, no mystery in the actual text - the fact that it's a 'placeholder' may actually have been a clue that the focus on the text was needless - what is important is the paper folding. But I suppose a piece of paper with placeholder text on it is more interesting than one that's blank?

[Leeravitz]

Well, I feel a bit of a fool now. I quoted the translation for the wrong bit of Cicero - the *relevant* section is the one that translates as:


'On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammelled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains."

Doh!

[tanner]

that latin piece was one of the first things we found on the sentinel but then they killed the page in about 5 minutes

[Atrophied]

Cloudmaker

so is that a solve?
what's the other text that's between "cloud" and "maker"?

[Spankit]

[Atrophied]

From what I can make out it's:

GJIFFLU

if anyone wants to correct me, feel free, but I'm working from a crappy monitor at uni.

Edit: It doesn't ROT or anagram to anything useable

[Daffy889]

Looking at the actual crane, the 'GJIF' on the first wing I can agree with, but the letters on the second wing aren't so clear. The first letter on the second wing looks like a very square 'S' or '6', and there's an extra stroke above the join on the 'L', so it looks like the top half of a 'U' joined with the bottom half of a 'L'. The letter following that appears to have a horizontal stroke on the top half, as if it were the top half of a 'H' joined with the bottom half of a 'U'. There could also be an extra 'I' on the first wing, depending on whether or not it is meant to be joined with the start of the second wing.

This could all be because of the text in the background interfering, and the poor quality scan that I significantly enlarged to make the crane with. I would still like to see this done with a high-res scan of the text area.

I have attached a reconstruction of what I see on my crane.

[Seej]

Here's a thought for that mystery text; unfold the crane, rotate the piece of paper 90 degrees and re-fold. I could be mistaken, but I think that should make the edges (and thus the text) line up differently. In fact, I'll try this myself later this afternoon....

EDIT: Well, that didn't seem to work. I also tried cutting out the edges and running them alongside each other in the hope that I might have some sort of breakthrough but it didn't work.

[SteveC]

Can we get close up scans of the edges here?