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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: The Haunted Apiary (Let Op!) » The Haunted Apiary (Let Op!): Puzzles
[SPEC] Coordinates and Radio Broadcast
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Dorkmaster
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 		Extrasonic, I see your point. However, I reserve my right to disagree. I also do tie in a little bit with sfsdfd's point that not EVERYTHING would have to be motivated by plot... as long as it works with previous plot, I have no problem with just being presented a new puzzle. However, I cannot argue with your presentation. Therefore I bow and exit stage left. (or was that 47.0236803 North?) Cool
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 19, 2004 4:21 pm
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sherpa
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 		I don't see why both telephone, radio and turn-up-on-the-day specs can't co-exist. That is the point of spec, after all! Wink

Turn up on the day with a radio, twiddle it to a frequency or set to scan or listen to local radio -- whichever seems most sensible in light of developments nearer the time -- while waiting for a payphone to ring or other event to happen. C'mon, it's not just girls that are good at multi-tasking Smile
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 19, 2004 4:30 pm
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sfsdfd
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Extrasonic wrote:
sfsdfd, and anyone else who is counting on a physical event to occur at these coordinates, please read this post:

http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=56551#56551

Think about it seriously, and then come back here if you still want to argue that physical interaction at these exact locations and times is the easiest and most likely justification for what's on links.html.

</shameless plug>

I remember reading and considering that post. I'd like to suggest that (a) it's not as logistically taxing as you might expect, and (b) fault-tolerance for volunteer and player failure (e.g., fiddling too much with a radio, and therefore overlooking a package) can be built in or overcome.

(a) Logistical nightmare: Microsoft is a massive, unusually distributed company with dozens of commercial partners. It wouldn't be hard to find a few willing volunteers in each state, mail them a GPS device, and ask them to pinpoint locations - e.g., two distinctive trees and two bodies of water (the original Cleveland coord set, more or less.) Better still, ask them to pinpoint a library and a fountain.
Now, once you have the coordinate set (and can be sure they're right... or correct them afterwards), you ask those same people to visit the coordinates at a particular time. They already know where the locations are, and they only need to do one or two things once they get there, and then leave. In fact, it could be as simple as a package delivery. This entire game started with a package delivery. (I'm hoping for a robot dance. Very Happy )
And, of course, you don't need 210 volunteers for 210 coords. You need 60, maybe less. One of the interesting patterns with the coords is that they can be clustered, and those clusters have a decent amount of time separation. In Cleveland, the three coords are scheduled for 9am, 1pm, and 5pm. Not hard for one person (player or PM) to visit all three.

(b) Fault tolerance: Of course PMs can expect some error, from both the volunteers (screwed up instructions) and players (no-show.) Indeed, that may explain the large number of coordinates. Maybe we're supposed to receive 30 discrete pieces of data - and each one is replicated seven times.
Even a redundancy failure isn't necessarily a puzzle failure. In the AI game, the PMs screwed up and didn't give us some puzzle pieces. In response, we coordinated and brute-forced a solution: someone built a distributed client, like Seti@Home, and we ran every possible combination that the missing pieces may have contained. It worked - and the PMs even played this off as part of the game ("How did you solve this puzzle? By abandoning your biological constraints and relying on computers...")

I have to keep stressing that we don't have a common vector. My original, strong instinct was that each location included a pay phone, and that we'd get a phone call. This would explain the unique staggering of the times, since one guy can't call two places at once. But this spec failed, since there aren't any phones at several locations. And in the absence of a strong inclination toward another vector, I think that this event can't feature a transmission.

(It's possible that the vector will be suggested in tomorrow's update. If that occurs, then I'll happily abandon my theory for a much more likely scenario.)
Extrasonic wrote:
We have proof that Melissa wants to make a transmission.

Absolutely. I fully expect creepy phone calls in our collective future.

But I don't expect a transmission next Tuesday, because we'd have to guess blindly at the vector.
Extrasonic wrote:
So, from an in-game perspective, the best that anyone who is physically going to these locations at the specified times can hope for is passive observation, since all of other characters who could have added the coordinates to links.html have demonstrated absolutely no knowledge that any of us exist and therefore their motive could not possibly be for us to attend. And since all of the characters that could have authored the coordinate list exist in a virtual world, what do we expect to be able to observe?

I follow your reasoning. But passive observation would be an acceptable result.

As for an in-game tie: Of course Melissa doesn't know about us, specifically. But she still wants to make a transmission, which is pointless without a recipient. It's not impossible that she just wants to deliver a message to anyone at those axons, with the hope that the recipient will be friendly.

And I share your feeling that what we'll get next Tuesday will be puzzle pieces of one form or another. Maybe the message will be encoded - going back to Melissa's speculation that she doesn't know if she's behind enemy lines.

- David Stein

PostPosted: Thu Aug 19, 2004 4:34 pm
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improvius
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 		I didn't see this mentioned before, but it seems HIGHLY unlikely that anyone could schedule radio spots at times that come down to the minute. I've worked a bit as a DJ in the past, and IMO it would be very difficult for a radio station to guarantee such a precise broadcast time.

-Imp

PostPosted: Thu Aug 19, 2004 5:20 pm
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sherpa
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sfsdfd wrote:
(a) Logistical nightmare: Microsoft is a massive, unusually distributed company with dozens of commercial partners. It wouldn't be hard to find a few willing volunteers in each state, mail them a GPS device, and ask them to pinpoint locations


I know Microsoft well (used to work there), and this just doesn't ring true as the Way Things Would Be Done there. Sure, theoretically it's possible, but it's not the Microsoft Way *shrug* the company is too big and too spread out that internal communication is Very Very Hard.

Anyhow, my 2p. I'm now off for good until after Wide Awake and Physical -- best of luck to all of you, whatever happens, and I look forward to hearing the results!
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 19, 2004 5:37 pm
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Extrasonic
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Joined: 03 Aug 2004
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sfsdfd wrote:
(a) Logistical nightmare: Microsoft is a massive, unusually distributed company with dozens of commercial partners. It wouldn't be hard to find a few willing volunteers in each state, mail them a GPS device, and ask them to pinpoint locations - e.g., two distinctive trees and two bodies of water (the original Cleveland coord set, more or less.) Better still, ask them to pinpoint a library and a fountain.
Now, once you have the coordinate set (and can be sure they're right... or correct them afterwards), you ask those same people to visit the coordinates at a particular time. They already know where the locations are, and they only need to do one or two things once they get there, and then leave. In fact, it could be as simple as a package delivery. This entire game started with a package delivery. (I'm hoping for a robot dance. Very Happy )
And, of course, you don't need 210 volunteers for 210 coords. You need 60, maybe less. One of the interesting patterns with the coords is that they can be clustered, and those clusters have a decent amount of time separation. In Cleveland, the three coords are scheduled for 9am, 1pm, and 5pm. Not hard for one person (player or PM) to visit all three.


What in-game physical interaction makes sense, though? As I mentioned (and as you seemed to agree), the best a person at one of these sites can hope for is passive interaction. There is no in-game reason for a package to show up at these points. I agree with the assertion that not everything in the game has to be plot-driven, but it does have to be plot-compatible. At the risk of repeating myself, I'll remind you that all of the characters that could have conceivably authored either version of the coordinate list are purely virtual and completely lost. Sending physical items to those locations is not plot-compatible. If anything physical were to occur at these locations at these times, it'd be more akin to a performance - faux explosions, light shows, ONI agents snooping around, robot dances, etc. - than anything else.

While I agree with your assumption that Microsoft is bankrolling this (it is their product after all), that doesn't mean that Microsoft employees are running the game or that any Microsoft employee anywhere is fair game for soliciting into the cause. I work for a company much larger and more distributed than Microsoft, and while we have employees near all of these GPS coordinates (and, indeed, in most countries of the world) it would be difficult for me to find them, recruit them with any confidence that they'd be able to keep a secret, get their managers to let them go play robot dance, etc. I suspect you're not (or haven't discussed this with) a Microsoftie or an employee of a large company based on your "it wouldn't be hard" statement.

sfsdfd wrote:

(b) Fault tolerance: Of course PMs can expect some error, from both the volunteers (screwed up instructions) and players (no-show.) Indeed, that may explain the large number of coordinates. Maybe we're supposed to receive 30 discrete pieces of data - and each one is replicated seven times.
Even a redundancy failure isn't necessarily a puzzle failure. In the AI game, the PMs screwed up and didn't give us some puzzle pieces. In response, we coordinated and brute-forced a solution: someone built a distributed client, like Seti@Home, and we ran every possible combination that the missing pieces may have contained. It worked - and the PMs even played this off as part of the game ("How did you solve this puzzle? By abandoning your biological constraints and relying on computers...")


...which, if we could reasonably expect to take something physical away from these sites, might make sense. But since logically, we can't have anything other than simple observation of an event/performance, this makes fault tolerance or acceptance even less practical. Counting on people to photograph/video capture/have perfect, total recall of the event is even less reliable than counting on players (or PMs/their agents) to show up at the right place at the right time.

sfsdfd wrote:
I have to keep stressing that we don't have a common vector. My original, strong instinct was that each location included a pay phone, and that we'd get a phone call. This would explain the unique staggering of the times, since one guy can't call two places at once. But this spec failed, since there aren't any phones at several locations. And in the absence of a strong inclination toward another vector, I think that this event can't feature a transmission.


...unless (and I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record) the puzzle will feature one or more transmissions on the ilovebees.com website and we will have to correlate them to the coordinates (or the physical locations they represent). The one thing I have in common with the pro-physical interaction camp is that I believe we're being prepped for a puzzle that we haven't been given yet.

sfsdfd wrote:
Extrasonic wrote:
So, from an in-game perspective, the best that anyone who is physically going to these locations at the specified times can hope for is passive observation, since all of other characters who could have added the coordinates to links.html have demonstrated absolutely no knowledge that any of us exist and therefore their motive could not possibly be for us to attend. And since all of the characters that could have authored the coordinate list exist in a virtual world, what do we expect to be able to observe?

I follow your reasoning. But passive observation would be an acceptable result.


If passive observation would be an acceptable result, then answer my follow-up question: what would you expect to observe?

sfsdfd wrote:
As for an in-game tie: Of course Melissa doesn't know about us, specifically. But she still wants to make a transmission, which is pointless without a recipient. It's not impossible that she just wants to deliver a message to anyone at those axons, with the hope that the recipient will be friendly.


Hoping that someone friendly has seen her coordinates on the website and hoping they show up seems implausible at best, but - given what we know of Melissa's abilities - even if we were to accept those two hard-to-swallow points, how could her communication be physical in nature? More importantly, why would it be? And why would she prefer (or, alternatively, be limited to) physical communication with 210 discrete points over a massive transmission that would hit everyone within transmission reception range (especially if it's encrypted)?

PostPosted: Thu Aug 19, 2004 5:43 pm
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GunsmithCat
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improvius wrote:
I didn't see this mentioned before, but it seems HIGHLY unlikely that anyone could schedule radio spots at times that come down to the minute. I've worked a bit as a DJ in the past, and IMO it would be very difficult for a radio station to guarantee such a precise broadcast time.

-Imp


I had thought that advertisment blocks, however, were relatively stable. Maybe not the precise time of the ad, but a basic time of the advertisement slot. I mean, companies have to be able to check that their money is actually being used for an advertisement, right? Or is that an inaccurate assumption.

PostPosted: Thu Aug 19, 2004 5:44 pm
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Revealer
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 		Okay, I was having some difficulty with the idea of coordinating all these physical locations and an event until someone mentioned radio. Then I suddenly remembered my retail chain days and remembered that we did use radio as a way to broadcast specific messages from specific locations at specific times. And radio stations all over the country are already set up to do this for not much cost and still be able to give stuff away at the same time.

The selected radio station would drive it's mobile transmitters out to the location, broadcast an ad/message about what was going on there and give out goodies at the same time. You wouldn't have to worry about whether or not anyone actually showed up to the coordinate because anyone listening to the station would get the message. Once the message is transmitted the van would drive on to the next location and repeat.

This seems perfect to me because it answers:
1) Why the coordinates are so specific.
2) Why there are now times.
3) Why there are multiple locations in the same city but at different times.
4) Why we haven't been able to come up with a good pattern in the actual numbers in the coordinates.
5) How a radio message could be transmitted to us without having to know a frequency (people at the site would hear it through speakers)
6) How new puzzle pieces might be distributed phycially at the site.

What doesn't fit to me is how Melissa would be able to hire all these ad spots and stay in game. Unless this is the way she's found of escaping but that seems like a stretch.

Tag, you're it! Smile

PostPosted: Thu Aug 19, 2004 8:11 pm
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Revealer
Boot


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 		Hmm... just realized that Melissa wouldn't have to hire the promotional events herself. She could simply break into the broadcast of events already going on. But this would imply that she's able to hack into the computers and schedules of all these radio stations. If she could do that, and there's no IG evidence that she can, wouldn't there be an easier way of spreading the message?

But this theory does:
6) Fit in with the "radio" and "voice" comments of hers.

Thinking....

Tag, you're still it!

PostPosted: Thu Aug 19, 2004 8:22 pm
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GunsmithCat
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Revealer wrote:


This seems perfect to me because it answers:
1) Why the coordinates are so specific.
2) Why there are now times.
3) Why there are multiple locations in the same city but at different times.
4) Why we haven't been able to come up with a good pattern in the actual numbers in the coordinates.
5) How a radio message could be transmitted to us without having to know a frequency (people at the site would hear it through speakers)
6) How new puzzle pieces might be distributed phycially at the site.



It's a really interesting addition to the spec. I'd agree that it would simplify or combine some of the issues.

But I guess my problems are the same as other physical specs. Some of these coords are roadside in kinda nowhere. Two in Chicago are right across the street from each other. (Actually those two coords are probably the most problematic for any spec. It doesn't make any sense).

And why would the times be in three or four minute intervals? Why a nearly perfect twelve hour period?

The real problem with the physical specs is that they don't look at the whole dataset. Sure, some of these coords + times might make logical meeting places. All the ones in Chicago do, if you ignore the fact that two are across the street from each other.

But look at these:
37 km SW of Orlando, Florida ( 07:43 )

4 km W of Gulf Shores, Alabama ( 07:15 )

33 km SW of Orlando, Florida ( 08:43 )

They certainly don't seem good spots to set up a radio tent and almost dangerous spots to have an intern sit by the side of the highway at a very specific time.

This is total meta, but:

If clues were going to be placed at these spots, they wouldn't require a time.

If people were going to be placed at these spots, the time wouldn't require intervals.

If people were supposed to get to these places, they probably wouldn't off the side of a highway.

I do think it's a good addition. It could still work out to be true. Right now I'm in a holding pattern because I'm near convinced we'll be seeing an update before Tuesday. The information before us just doesn't seem to add up to any given spec I've read so far. We could see these highway spots removed, or we could see frequences added, or the times could round up to make more sense.

PostPosted: Fri Aug 20, 2004 8:11 am
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jegger
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 		More text that supports radio as a method of transmission:

Melissa says from the Phase 3 Monologue:

Quote:
The Castaway had some connection there: sending out signals to confuse the enemy. Details unclear.


In the Links puzzle from Phase 2, she says about the Castaway:

Quote:
We picked him up in deep space, where he deployed Buoys, sending out waves of sound to confuse the Enemy.


Of course, there is no sound in deep space, so I interpret that to mean radio transmissions. Because she says that the Castaway's signals have a connection to field-rigging a way to make her talking heard, she seems to be searching for a way to send radio transmissions.

Note that I am not necessarily convinced anymore that the Axon puzzle is directly related to Melissa's attempts to make radio transmissions, but I believe that it will come into play very soon.

PostPosted: Fri Aug 20, 2004 11:29 am
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GunsmithCat
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 		Another question is who put the Axon count up and why. It's in SPDR's "writing", but there's no IG text to support him starting a second countdown, particularly one that doesn't really seem to fit with the others.

If it was Flea posing as SPDR, then what did it mean? Has it changed the countdown's purpose?

PostPosted: Fri Aug 20, 2004 11:56 am
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Extrasonic
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GunsmithCat wrote:
Another question is who put the Axon count up and why. It's in SPDR's "writing", but there's no IG text to support him starting a second countdown, particularly one that doesn't really seem to fit with the others.

If it was Flea posing as SPDR, then what did it mean? Has it changed the countdown's purpose?


Technically, I guess, it was originally in SPDR's writing and wasn't deleted when Melissa and/or The Flea wrote the new coordinates.

But isn't the links.html countdown exactly the same as the index.html countdown to "wide awake and physical"? I see it as reinforcing the same point rather than as something different and new.

If what you're getting at is that the text associated with the countdown(s) on index.html was to serve as a warning not to mess with the process, and we're not really sure why the countdown was labelled "axons go hot", then I agree... I'm stumped there. I mean, the meaning seems pretty clear - the axons at these locations are going to be activated when this countdown ends - but who was the SPDR's intended audience? Was it another "don't interfere" directive, or just an FYI?

PostPosted: Fri Aug 20, 2004 12:05 pm
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Dorkmaster
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 		No offense to anyone, but read dana's blog, and i think we can safely say we are supposed to go to these coordinates. (Doesn't necessarily take anything away from the radio theory, but it does make physical presense a bit more interesting)

-DM
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 20, 2004 12:07 pm
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Andy
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 		Yup, Dana's blog sure makes it sound like we're supposed to go. Don't they know I've got meeting on Tuseday, darn it!
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 20, 2004 12:10 pm
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