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 Forum index » Diversions » Perplex City Puzzle Cards » PXC: Silver Puzzle Cards
[Puzzle] #243 Silver - Shuffled Part 2 (Read 1st Post!)
Moderators: AnthraX101, bagsbee, BrianEnigma, cassandra, Giskard, lhall, Mikeyj, myf, poozle, RobMagus, xnbomb
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x
Guest


 		I seriously cant recall. Has anyone asked Mind Candy if the Map print was done in Error? ...

The upsidedown map has been mentioned, but i dont believe any conclusions were found.

If we confirm the map print was correct, it would be very suspicious. The card spells out the scenario fairly clearly, ... guy gets deck of cards, guy gets clue message, guy decodes message. ... Nothing is said about anything being upside down.

Clearly the map piece is different. But why. Would the solitare turn out very different if we took the decryption from back to front? (bottom to top, right to left) Starting at the end and decrypting backwards.

Or even bottom to top, Left to Right. That would reorder the whole string. Its very possible we havent found anything because we are assuming the order of the encrypted text.

PostPosted: Wed Jan 17, 2007 2:17 pm
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Bakers_12
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Joined: 01 Feb 2006
Posts: 195
Location: Dartford

 		I do believe MC have confirmed that there was a print error on map of the first print run of this card.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 17, 2007 5:05 pm
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echidna
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Joined: 28 Jan 2006
Posts: 288
Location: Notts, UK

 		Yes, they have and the reply has been posted in the Puzzle Card Map thread for those who wish to check - linky.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 17, 2007 5:34 pm
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sloth007
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Joined: 05 Aug 2006
Posts: 8

 		Cheers for that. And for not being harsh on me.

It is an amazingly 'relevant' coincidence non-the-less.

ATB Sloth007

PostPosted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 1:45 pm
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jaikaiman
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Joined: 08 Oct 2006
Posts: 55

 		Just on the off chance of getting a good trouting...I like it...Has anyone tried Cognivia as the Passcode?
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 3:03 pm
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sirichj
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Joined: 15 May 2006
Posts: 85

 		Thermodynamic entropy
Apologies if this has been covered but for those of you still looking into entropy related to thermodynamics this is quite interesting :
Quote:

The dealer shuffling cards in Monte Carlo or Las Vegas, the professor who mixes the papers and books on a desk, the student who tosses clothing about his or her room, the fuel for the huge cranes and trucks that would be necessary to move the non bonded stones of the Great Pyramid of Cheops all across Egypt — each undergoes physical, thermodynamic entropy increase in these specific processes. The thermodynamic entropy change from human-defined order to disorder in the giant Egyptian stones themselves, in the clothing and books in a room or papers on a desk, and in the millions of cards in the world's casinos is precisely the same: Zero.

If one wishes to substantiate a claim or a guess that some particular process involves a change of thermodynamic or statistical entropy, one should ask oneself whether there exists a reversible heat effect, or a change in the number of accessible energy eigenstates, pertaining to the process in question. If not, there has been no change of physical entropy (even though there may have been some change in our "information").

Thus, simply changing the location of everyday macro objects from an arrangement that we commonly judge as orderly (relatively singular) to one that appears disorderly (relatively probable) is a "zero change" in the thermodynamic entropy of the objects because the number of accessible energetic microstates in any of them has not been changed. Finally, although it may appear obvious, a collection of ordinary macro things does not constitute a thermodynamic system as does a group of microparticles. The crucial difference is that such things are not ceaselessly colliding and exchanging energy under the thermal dominance of their environment as are microparticles.

A postulate can be derived from this fundamental criterion:

The movement of macro objects from one location to another by an external agent involves no change in the objects' physical (thermodynamic) entropy. The agent of movement undergoes a thermodynamic entropy increase in the process.

A needed corollary, considering the number of erroneous statements in print, is:

There is no spontaneous tendency in groups of macro objects to become disorderly or randomly scattered. The tendency in nature toward increased entropy does not reside in the arrangement of any chemically unchanging objects but rather in the external agent moving them. It is the sole cause of their transport toward more probable locations.

The Error
There is no more widespread error in chemistry and physics texts than the identification of a thermodynamic entropy increase with a change in the pattern of a group of macro objects. The classic example is that of playing cards. Shuffling a new deck is widely said to result in an increase in entropy in the cards.

This erroneous impression is often extended to all kinds of things when they are changed from humanly designated order to what is commonly considered disorder: a group of marbles to scattered marbles, racked billiard balls to a broken rack, neat groups of papers on a desk to the more usual disarray. In fact, there is no thermodynamic entropy change in the objects in the "after" state compared to the "before". Further, such alterations in arrangement have been used in at least one text to support a "law" that is stated, "things move spontaneously in the direction of maximum chaos or disorder"1.

The foregoing examples and "law" seriously mislead the student by focusing on macro objects that are only a passive part of a system. They are deceptive in omitting the agent that actually is changed in entropy as it follows the second law — that is, whatever energy source is involved in the process of moving the static macro objects to more probable random locations. Entropy is increased in the shuffler's and in the billiard cue holder's muscles, in the tornado's wind and the earthquake's stress — not in the objects shifted. Chemically unchanged macro things do not spontaneously, by some innate tendency, leap or even slowly lurch toward visible disorder. Energy concentrated in the ATP of a person's muscles or in wind or in earth-stress is ultimately responsible for moving objects and is partly degraded to diffuse thermal energy as a result.

So there you go - doesn't help with the answer but interesting I thought !

PostPosted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 5:37 pm
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kian
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Joined: 16 Feb 2006
Posts: 24

 		I got to thinking about the reference to Perplex City Police on the card text, and while searching perplexcitypolice.com, I discovered the following text, relating to the volunteer access portion of the site...
Quote:
COMMUNICATION STREAM Y M E H C L A S U I B O M N O G Y L O P A R E D L A C A E S D L O C R E I D N A M A S U T A R T S Y E K.

Initially, it was interesting to note that the middle of the string nearly contains "RED ACES". I also was excited to discover that the strange sequence (after "COMMUNICATION STREAM") contained exacty 52 letters. Eventually, I realized that it was the seven police precints spelled backwards. So, now I'm wondering if this is just a strange artifact of search engines and flash files.

Any thoughts on whether this might be relevant, and how it might be used in conjunction with the ciphertext?
In any case, the Coldsea precinct could be relevant, due to the many "cold" references in Shuffled.

PostPosted: Mon Jan 22, 2007 10:45 pm
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wonkothesane
Boot


Joined: 05 Nov 2006
Posts: 27
Location: Newcastle

 		human distributed effort
it occurred to me that it may be easier to mount a human distributed effort to solve the card by entering the name of every character in perplex city into the solution box for the puzzle , splitting the list of very character to three a person till the card is 'solved' then to 'reverse engineer' the solution to the puzzle from the solve of whodunnit with the djinn worm. whatchya reckon ?

PostPosted: Wed Jan 31, 2007 7:55 pm
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x
Guest


 		What if the answer is Satoshi? lol

Honestly that "might" work. But... i dont think many people will be into that approach. It kinda steps around the puzzle, and most people want to actually solve the puzzle the right way.

Its more about the satisfaction of knowing youve figured it out or helped to figure it out.

Its like this. If you find the answer to a square sudoku in the back of a puzzle book. Then you solve the puzzle, you still feel like youve cheated yourself. You didnt actually diagnose and dissect the problem, instead you got the concept of HOW... but you didnt get the inspiration. And in effect you are killing the part of your mind capable of being inspired. You become a number cruncher, instead of a creative problem solver.

Finding original thought in a sea of preprogrammed information is what makes a great problem solver. Dont let that part of you die, take the effort to solve this the "right" way. And by that i mean solve the puzzle, not the problem.

I must say despite what ive said. This is a rather original approach to the problem at hand. But myself, i wanna solve the puzzle not the problem.
I play this game for the puzzle. The points are the last thing on my mind.

Dont pull the rubiks cube apart... solve the puzzle, not the problem. Learn how to turn. Smile

PostPosted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 10:37 am
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UKver2.0
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Joined: 09 Feb 2006
Posts: 270

 		Re: human distributed effort
wonkothesane wrote:
it occurred to me that it may be easier to mount a human distributed effort to solve the card by entering the name of every character in perplex city into the solution box for the puzzle , splitting the list of very character to three a person till the card is 'solved' then to 'reverse engineer' the solution to the puzzle from the solve of whodunnit with the djinn worm. whatchya reckon ?
Well, the card says,"...can you decode the message and find out who created the Worm?" Now this might leave you with the question, 'Do they want the name or the message?" The answer box says: "What is the message?" So it's probably more than a name - in which case I think your approach wouldn't work.

If it were just a name, I agree with "x" that this would be a cheap way to get the answer. That being said, I would still worship you as the solver of Shuffled just the same. Smile
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 11:39 am
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sirichj
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Joined: 15 May 2006
Posts: 85

 		Now the cube has been found we need to solve these 2 remaining cards (I don't count Reimann on account of it being stupid and impossible), I just had a thought (which is dangerous lol) we've heard a lot about all of the heat sensitive cards and special ink cards but still nothing about the card with the microdot, I'm just wondering that maybe it's on here somewhere which would exlain why everyone is having so much trouble?

I don't think any of the other cards in the box matter just the joker card as shown, and as Von's hint said, "everything you need is on the card", maybe she's trying to tell us the microdot is on there and it will help with the solution??

I don't have the card or know what a microdot looks like, anyone else with the card and a degree in spying know anything?

PostPosted: Sun Feb 11, 2007 11:14 am
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smartyman
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 		New online solitaire solver
I noticed that the online solitaire solver that used to be located at rochester.edu (linked on the Wiki and on Schneier's page) is no longer available. At least I can't find it. So, I decided to create a new one. Please check it out at http://pxcshuffled.dnsalias.org/pxcshuffled and reply with some feedback if you have any.

It's geared directly toward solving this card and has a pretty intuitive interface so it should be quick and easy to use.

I've still got plenty of improvements in mind for it (add links, images, ranking statistics) but with with so many changes promised for the next 2 weeks I thought I better roll it out sooner rather than later. I'm specifically thinking of what Rand0m mentioned regarding MC releasing a couple of puzzle hints at the party next weekend. If they had it in mind to give a hint for Shuffled I'd much prefer to solve it before their hint, thank you very much!

It also accepts a couple of URL parameters so you don't always have to type in your handle and hide the "About" box at the top. Just add ?handle=your_cool_name&hide_about=X to the end of the URL given above (and replace "your_cool_name" with your own handle).

PostPosted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 9:00 pm
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FairmontKing
Boot

Joined: 05 Sep 2006
Posts: 25
Location: Michigan, USA

 		Looks cool. I'll play around a little with it. What does "Handle" mean?

PostPosted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 11:50 pm
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smartyman
Guest
FairmontKing wrote:
What does "Handle" mean?

It's pretty much like a username. You'd probably enter "FairmontKing". I plan to put up some sort of scoreboard showing most guesses, most unique guesses, most recent guesses, or the like (haven't decided exactly yet). This is something I wish was present on the 13th Labour site (or in the client) so I could compare the number of units I've processed to what others have done.

PostPosted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 12:30 am
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Scribe
Unfettered


Joined: 09 Jun 2006
Posts: 300
Location: Brighton, UK

 		Re: New online solitaire solver
smartyman wrote:
I noticed that the online solitaire solver that used to be located at rochester.edu (linked on the Wiki and on Schneier's page) is no longer available. At least I can't find it. So, I decided to create a new one. Please check it out at http://pxcshuffled.dnsalias.org/pxcshuffled and reply with some feedback if you have any.


Thanks for this smartyman - I have a local copy of the old page, I think, but it's good to have an on-line version. I can't see it in Firefox 2.0 though - nothing appears. Any thoughts?

Not sure on the legalities of re-posting the original page somewhere too. Will look into it some time.
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 8:58 am
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