Author
Message
Omnie
Entrenched
Joined: 07 Oct 2003 Posts: 772
[NEW] Orbicon brochure in the mail A brochure for Orbicon Corp. came in the mail today. I'm trying to get my scanner working (I haven't used it in years) so I can post it, but it's basically a description of a trip to their orbital colony via the space elevator. Ooh, plus there are coupons for things like Low-G Dance Lessons. Did anyone else get this?
Also, there seems to be something that looks like morse code in the folds of the brochure. I'll transcribe it if I can't get my scanner working soon.
Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2005 5:56 pm
Delusional
Entrenched
Joined: 16 May 2005 Posts: 839
when i saw this i ran out to check the mail, and yep i got it too.
and there does indeed apper to be morse code. i havn't tried translating yet as i wanted to post this first. heres my scans.
Edit: if anyones interested the letter is postmarked GARY,IN 46401
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Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2005 6:20 pm
Last edited by Delusional on Thu Aug 18, 2005 6:26 pm; edited 1 time in total
Tweak
Greenhorn
Joined: 17 Aug 2005 Posts: 6
GAH hopefully this means its about to start, but where do you guys live? i didnt get one of thoes =\
Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2005 6:22 pm
Omnie
Entrenched
Joined: 07 Oct 2003 Posts: 772
Cool, thanks for scanning! Here's my attempt at transcribing the line to the right of the coupons:
brochure wrote:
_._.__.._..__._._..._.___.._.______._..____.______...__.._..._.___.._.__._.._..___.._..____.
_______..___.._..____._.._...__.._...__.._...._..._.____.______..____._..___.._..___.._..__._._...__.._...__..__.______.
(I added a linebreak to avoid breaking margins)
Tweak, I live in NJ.
[edit]Eek, I left off the final dot!
[edit2] And I underestimated the size of the longer stretches of dashes. Sorry, guys! See, I did say it was just an attempt...
Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2005 6:40 pm
Last edited by Omnie on Thu Aug 18, 2005 9:01 pm; edited 2 times in total
Tweak
Greenhorn
Joined: 17 Aug 2005 Posts: 6
well i ran it through an online translater (i suck at morse code) and came up with this
EEIIEESEIEEIESISEIEEIIIIEIIIEISISIHSEEIEIIIIIEESISIE
also there was a character in the text that the translator cannot translate.
The allowed characters are A-Z a-z 0-9 ., '-/()"
The offending character has been removed and the rest of the text translated.
time taken to play the morse code with sound: 1:42
translater: http://scphillips.com/cgi-bin/morse.cgi
nothing that i can see thats useful...but then again ive only been doing this for a little bit
Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2005 6:52 pm
Delusional
Entrenched
Joined: 16 May 2005 Posts: 839
Tweak wrote:
well i ran it through an online translater (i suck at morse code) and came up with this
EEIIEESEIEEIESISEIEEIIIIEIIIEISISIHSEEIEIIIIIEESISIE
also there was a character in the text that the translator cannot translate.
The allowed characters are A-Z a-z 0-9 ., '-/()"
The offending character has been removed and the rest of the text translated.
time taken to play the morse code with sound: 1:42
translater: http://scphillips.com/cgi-bin/morse.cgi
nothing that i can see thats useful...but then again ive only been doing this for a little bit
with this translater use "-" instead of "_" i'm assuming that was your problem.
what i can't figure out is what the longer and shorter dashes are for. i'm guessing they are there to break the code up but i'm not sure how that works
Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2005 6:57 pm
Giskard
Sassypants
Joined: 07 Oct 2003 Posts: 2066 Location: Chicago
Wow, amazing work went into this apparently
I hope I will recieve one!
If it is indeed morse, using it in this format might get you more results:
Code:
-.-.--..-..--.-.-...-.---..-.------.-..----.------...--..-...-.---..-.--.-..-..---..-..----.
-------..---..-..----.-..-...--..-...--..-....-...-.----.------..----.-..---..-..---..-..--.-.-...--.
.-...--..--.------
I can recommend this morse code converter as it allows you to play with different breaks in the code while translating realtime. I've been fooling around with it for a bit, but nothing jumps out at me yet...
** edited long morse string for window width -- jamesi
_________________"They never tell you truth is subjective, they only tell you not to lie." -- Gary Jules
Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2005 7:02 pm
Lewis the Second
Decorated
Joined: 23 Jun 2005 Posts: 198
Didn't get it. Are you guys US based? I really hope this game's not ignoring us UK ruffians...
Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2005 7:12 pm
Delusional
Entrenched
Joined: 16 May 2005 Posts: 839
Lewis the Second wrote:
Didn't get it. Are you guys US based? I really hope this game's not ignoring us UK ruffians...
i'm not very far from indiana where the letter is postmarked from on the 16th. i think it will proably just take a couple extra days to make it over seas.
Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2005 7:23 pm
Giskard
Sassypants
Joined: 07 Oct 2003 Posts: 2066 Location: Chicago
No results with morse so far, in binary (where .=1) it translates to:
Code:
Seth9º4¶6Ø[››ÝXØÙ\ÜÈ
which is rather odd... it starts with "Seth" ?? Maybe the translation is not 100% accurate and screws up the rest??
I've tried isolating the last few bits, but that's gibberish too
_________________"They never tell you truth is subjective, they only tell you not to lie." -- Gary Jules
Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2005 7:32 pm
rose
...and then Magic happens
Joined: 26 Nov 2003 Posts: 4117
heist In heist we had a morse puzzle which madam o'brien solved by substituting long underscores as spaces. That puzzle isn't identical to this one, but perhaps some sort of substitution would help you guys solve this one?
_________________I love this site for being free, in every sense of the word~Spacebass
Mankind was my business, the common good was my business.~ Dickens
Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2005 7:36 pm
Giskard
Sassypants
Joined: 07 Oct 2003 Posts: 2066 Location: Chicago
A thought on the transcription above...
Omnie used underscores and not dashes, this is because of how it looks on the brochure (there are no gaps between the dashes, and in most fonts, that can only be done by using underscores). However, in Morse, it is more logical to expect dashes, which you get when you turn it upside-down... which might mean the text should be transcribed backwards?
_________________"They never tell you truth is subjective, they only tell you not to lie." -- Gary Jules
Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2005 7:56 pm
Dr. Oid
Boot
Joined: 17 Feb 2005 Posts: 13 Location: Budapest, Hungary
It isn't morse code, it's binary.
- = 0
. = 1
All symbols from the 2 pages converted to binary:
Code:
010100110110010101110100011010000010110000100000
011100110111010001101001011011000110110000100000
011000110110000101101110011011100110111101110100
001000000110000101100011011000110110010101110011
011100110010000001100101011011010110000101101001
011011000010000001110101011100000010000001101000
011001010111001001100101001011100010000001001001
001000000110111001100101011001010110010000100000
011101000110111100100000011100110110010101100101
001000000111100101101111011101010010110000100000
010101000110100001101001011011100110011101110011
001000000110000101110010011001010010000001101101
011101010110001101101000001000000111011101101111
011100100111001101100101001000000111010001101000
011000010110111000100000011101110110010100100000
011101000110100001101111011101010110011101101000
011101000010111000100000010100110111010001100101
011101100110010101101110
Here is the decoded text:
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
Seth, still cannot access email up here. I need to see you, Things are much worse than we thought. Steven
Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2005 8:01 pm
Giskard
Sassypants
Joined: 07 Oct 2003 Posts: 2066 Location: Chicago
Wow, nice job... must have been something slightly off in the transcription I used... looks like we are being fed the first bit of story here!!
Apart from introducing us to Seth, I do not think we can get anything else out of this for now though... let's hope there'll be more soon! Maybe Seth will provide Steven with a way to access e-mail, that we will be able to intercept?
_________________"They never tell you truth is subjective, they only tell you not to lie." -- Gary Jules
Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2005 8:04 pm
Tweak
Greenhorn
Joined: 17 Aug 2005 Posts: 6
great job man, grr giskard is all your fault we could have gotten this sooner
now lets hope we can get access to the intranet via seth/stephan
Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2005 8:29 pm
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