Author
Message
Varin
I Have No Life
Joined: 02 Dec 2002 Posts: 2456 Location: South of where I used to be
[PUZZLE SPEC] Possible ingame/meta explanation for coords I've been reading the really long puzzle spec threads and things are all over the place. We're trying everything we can possibly think of with these coords. Maybe we're missing the most obvious idea that we are supposed to be focusing on distances (and yes I know some are working on that idea )
Ingame support for this - Dana's blog is linked from the ilovebees site. So if our little friend has learned how to use the internet there's no reason to believe that it doesn't know about ilovebees.blogspot.com.
Dana's most recent post says...
Quote:
being persuaded to come back
5913 miles is a long way to go just to keep thinking about the same problem.
So if we agree that the entity knows about the blog site, I think it's safe to guess that our entity also followed that link. It's trying to learn about it's environment and about Dana. So it has access to a distance calculator. I don't think it could be just a big coincidence that the next thing our entity spits out is a bunch of latitudes and longitudes.
From a meta view, the PMs give us a distance in miles (5913) in the blog from one point to another (San Fran to Beijing). They even go further and link to the specific tool that provided that exact mile measurement. The next big puzzle has to do with 220 coordinates. Are some of us just overlooking the most obvious connection that the PMs are trying to show us. Didn't they give us a big ol' hint before they even gave us the puzzle?
_________________"I still miss him to this day and probably always will." - Todd Keeler, Chasing the Wish
"meta meta meta, I made you out of play..." ~ j5
Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 10:48 am
lure x
Boot
Joined: 26 Jul 2004 Posts: 15 Location: columbus, ohio
i like this idea the best so far.
_________________This is not for you.
Muss es sein?
Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 10:52 am
krystyn
I Never Tire of My Own Voice
Joined: 26 Sep 2002 Posts: 3651 Location: Is not Chicago
I just posted in the mammoth thread about this, a little.
If these coordinates are indeed the axons, and the formatting possibly indicates that they are to be paired, then it makes sense to plot them all out from SF (the Queen's home base), and outwards, starting with the left column, and then connecting the coordinates in the right column to the points from the left column.
I would like to say, though, that I have seen plenty of posts using Dana's blog link as a cue - it hasn't been completely ignored, from what I've seen.
Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 10:54 am
sherpa
Unfettered
Joined: 10 Aug 2004 Posts: 338 Location: cam.ac.uk
Indeed, we're already totally working on this (as well as several posts in the mammoth thread). Though my approaches so far playing with the distances haven't got anywhere.
_________________stercus, stercus, moriturus sum!
~ a girl of many names ~
Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 10:59 am
Mukaikubo
Boot
Joined: 28 Jul 2004 Posts: 56
Just to keep anyone from going down the same blind hole I just did:
The specific distance 5913 miles isn't relevant to the puzzle. Just converted all the distances in kilometers to feet and miles. Although some come close (Pair 99 is 5.919 miles apart) nothing's near enough to be anything but coincidence.
Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 11:04 am
Varin
I Have No Life
Joined: 02 Dec 2002 Posts: 2456 Location: South of where I used to be
I've read some of the attempts at getting the distance idea to work. Doesn't seem like many are working on it though. I was trying to provide the ingame support to the idea along with the PM's actions as support. It seems that many are saying that this idea or that idea don't work because they either don't fit with the game's story or they couldn't be done by the PMs. Just supporting the distance believers cause here with some SPEC My intention wasn't to take away from anyone's work on the distance idea, hence the bit in my post in parathesis near the top and the PUZZLE SPEC in the topic.
edited for clarification
_________________"I still miss him to this day and probably always will." - Todd Keeler, Chasing the Wish
"meta meta meta, I made you out of play..." ~ j5
Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 11:08 am
Mukaikubo
Boot
Joined: 28 Jul 2004 Posts: 56
One point of curiousity-
The distances are fairly smoothly rising. What I mean is, if you sort them by length and plot them so that you have a point at x=1 y=(shortest distance) on up to x=110 y=(longest distance), you get something that fits pretty well into a smoothly rising power curve. It's not a group of short distances and long distances.
Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 11:11 am
Varin
I Have No Life
Joined: 02 Dec 2002 Posts: 2456 Location: South of where I used to be
krystyn wrote:
I would like to say, though, that I have seen plenty of posts using Dana's blog link as a cue - it hasn't been completely ignored, from what I've seen.
I've seen it mentioned too and I just wondered why the majority didn't think it very significant. When I was reminded of it by one of those posts it hit me like a neon sign.
_________________"I still miss him to this day and probably always will." - Todd Keeler, Chasing the Wish
"meta meta meta, I made you out of play..." ~ j5
Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 11:13 am
krystyn
I Never Tire of My Own Voice
Joined: 26 Sep 2002 Posts: 3651 Location: Is not Chicago
I think there was a lot of spec of, "OMG, that coordinate is right near my house, we must be meant to go there on August 24th and camp out with the dancing robots!" excitement. Combine that with all the other possibilities, and any one method of approaching this problem looks like it's being lost in the shuffle. It's getting more focused now, I think, which is thankfully a wonderful thing.
I think it's good that you're pointing it up, though!
Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 11:18 am
Zedix
Veteran
Joined: 26 Jul 2004 Posts: 93 Location: Ottawa
Well it's been tried if you look in this excel chart . All the distances were calculated between the two points. Unfortunately, I can't find any relation between those numbers... They seem to vary widely (from 0 miles to over 1000 miles...) and in no pattern. Either it needs a more thorough (sp?) look, or there's nothing to be found in the distances, although I agree that this theory would be the most plausible right now, storywise and all...
Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 11:39 am
peeveen1
Boot
Joined: 28 Jul 2004 Posts: 51
In case it helps any ...
I just wrote a quick Java app to fire all the coordinates at www.indo.com (the site referenced on Dana's blog, which she uses to calculate the distance). In this Excel file are the distances between the left and right columns, and also the distance from each to the supposed location of ILB (as provided by someone in another thread). The distances in miles, kilometres and nautical miles are listed.
Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 11:43 am
babbler
Boot
Joined: 02 Aug 2004 Posts: 48
Mukaikubo wrote:
One point of curiousity-
The distances are fairly smoothly rising. What I mean is, if you sort them by length and plot them so that you have a point at x=1 y=(shortest distance) on up to x=110 y=(longest distance), you get something that fits pretty well into a smoothly rising power curve. It's not a group of short distances and long distances.
Good point. Well, we know that most locations only have one point and a few have many, so that pretty much fits the edge-heavy conditions for a power-law graph.
You lead to an interesting question: what could the conditions be for a point to appear at a location? Conversely, what makes certain locations (such as everywhere in Texas except possibly El Paso) unfit for points? I'm not sure if we've really phrased our research objectives in these terms yet.
_________________Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito.
-Virgil
Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 11:54 am
Zedix
Veteran
Joined: 26 Jul 2004 Posts: 93 Location: Ottawa
Awesome, that's pretty usefull. I'm going through the numbers, trying to find a connection. So far, haven't found anything tho
Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 11:54 am
Varin
I Have No Life
Joined: 02 Dec 2002 Posts: 2456 Location: South of where I used to be
peeveen1 wrote:
In case it helps any ...
I just wrote a quick Java app to fire all the coordinates at www.indo.com (the site referenced on Dana's blog, which she uses to calculate the distance). In this Excel file are the distances between the left and right columns, and also the distance from each to the supposed location of ILB (as provided by someone in another thread). The distances in miles, kilometres and nautical miles are listed.
Nice peeveen1!
Would it make any sense to try to use the Beijing, China Coords? I can't really come up with an ingame reason why we would. I really like the idea that we use the distances from the ILB server. Makes more sense to me that for some reason our entity would be calculating distances from herself rather that between the locations themselves.
edited to delete a useless question that was already answered
_________________"I still miss him to this day and probably always will." - Todd Keeler, Chasing the Wish
"meta meta meta, I made you out of play..." ~ j5
Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 11:58 am
sherpa
Unfettered
Joined: 10 Aug 2004 Posts: 338 Location: cam.ac.uk
peeveen1 wrote:
I just wrote a quick Java app to fire all the coordinates at www.indo.com (the site referenced on Dana's blog, which she uses to calculate the distance).
Looks good -- didn't have the ILB distances before -- 'though I'm worried about the 0-value distances...
_________________stercus, stercus, moriturus sum!
~ a girl of many names ~
Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 11:59 am
Display posts from previous: All Posts 1 Day 1 Week 2 Weeks 1 Month 3 Months 6 Months 1 Year Sort by: Post Time Post Subject Author Ascending Descending