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 Forum index » Diversions » Perplex City Puzzle Cards » PXC: Yellow Puzzle Cards
#93 Crossed Wires Wave 4 Water Set
Moderators: AnthraX101, bagsbee, BrianEnigma, cassandra, Giskard, lhall, Mikeyj, myf, poozle, RobMagus, xnbomb
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fruppet
Boot


Joined: 08 Apr 2006
Posts: 23
Location: Sydney, Australia

#93 Crossed Wires Wave 4 Water Set

Text Reads

I'm notoriously bad at tidying my house, paticuarly my office.
Going against all safety regulations I've plugged my four desk lights into a variety of battery powered timer switches (ON/OFF) and extension cables, but i've no idea what time the next light is going to come on, Given that is now 06:35,

CAN YOU HELP?

Card is Signed by Kurt

If i can get to a scanner i would put an image up

Frup
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 31, 2006 7:01 pm
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thereverendeg
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Joined: 16 Jul 2006
Posts: 74
Location: Rochester, NY

Confirmed solve:
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
12:34

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PostPosted: Mon Jul 31, 2006 7:10 pm
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TwonkyJMA
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Joined: 05 Apr 2006
Posts: 20

Flawed puzzle!

This is a flawed puzzle I think... I solved using the assumption that all timers were always powered on and in sync.

But if these are typical timers, then they only work if they have power. Which means that five of the timers are only operating when one of the first two timers are powered on. And if you follow that line of thinking we have no clue what times those timers are on at the current time...

That version of this puzzle sure would have been interesting... It would need one more piece of data "all timers were pulled out of the box and set to current time of xx:xx."

But putting that aside, this was a fun puzzle, I solved it via a spreadsheet.

PostPosted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 5:26 pm
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Agent Lex
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Joined: 11 May 2006
Posts: 1188
Location: No longer London, still in England

Re: Flawed puzzle!

TwonkyJMA wrote:
But if these are typical timers, then they only work if they have power. Which means that five of the timers are only operating when one of the first two timers are powered on.

They're specified as battery-powered timers, so they'd all be going the whole time.

PostPosted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 5:28 pm
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TwonkyJMA
Boot

Joined: 05 Apr 2006
Posts: 20

Re: Flawed puzzle!

Agent LexT wrote:
They're specified as battery-powered timers, so they'd all be going the whole time.


d'oh - I missed that completely!

PostPosted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 6:35 pm
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European Chris
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Joined: 19 Jul 2005
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Re: Flawed puzzle!

TwonkyJMA wrote:

But putting that aside, this was a fun puzzle, I solved it via a spreadsheet.


How did you set up yor spreadsheet? I just did it by inspection.
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 05, 2006 1:28 pm
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TwonkyJMA
Boot

Joined: 05 Apr 2006
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Re: Flawed puzzle!

European Chris wrote:
TwonkyJMA wrote:

But putting that aside, this was a fun puzzle, I solved it via a spreadsheet.


How did you set up yor spreadsheet? I just did it by inspection.


I'll try to attach it here. Basically I just did a bunch of formulas where given a time, it tells you which timers are on and which ones are off. I then took every single time listed and sorted them, and just entered them one at a time to see when a light turned on.
PDX 093 Crossed Wires.xls
Description 
xls

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Filename  PDX 093 Crossed Wires.xls 
Filesize  21KB 
Downloaded  526 Time(s) 

PostPosted: Sun Aug 06, 2006 6:51 pm
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zepheria
Boot


Joined: 26 Feb 2006
Posts: 27
Location: Las Vegas, NV

There appears to be additional text on this card, possibly with sun-sensitive ink - for example, look above and just to the left of Kurt's signature (underneath "at what time" and parallel to the text) and you'll see (something) can you help?

Of course, today is the first cloudy day Las Vegas has seen for months, so I'm having trouble testing it in direct sunlight right this minute. Has anyone else has scrutinized this card for tricky ink (maybe run a current through it? Idea)

* updated - the text offset underneath and behind the card's instruction text appears to be the same, although 'can you help' is obviously a different size and font than the instructions. Sunlight is a no go. Also tried heat and cold, to no avail, and water and lime juice, which left the card wet but otherwise unchanged.

PostPosted: Sun Aug 13, 2006 6:04 pm
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FranG
Boot

Joined: 23 May 2006
Posts: 35

There's more. Look at the top left switch. Just above the bottom timer you can barely make out 'AS' and possibly a 'P'. Below that there is a pretty clear 'S'. On the righthand bottom switch, just under the top timer, there's 'and'. On the timer itself, it looks like '60' with the 0 around the center of the dial.

I put it in the freezer for an hour or so, used a hair dryer to heat it and looked at it with UV. Didn't find anything else.

There's kind of an off-color patch in front of CAN YOU HELP?, but I couldn't see any letters in it.

I am puzzled.

PostPosted: Sun Aug 13, 2006 8:29 pm
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Agent Lex
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Joined: 11 May 2006
Posts: 1188
Location: No longer London, still in England

I'm tempted to call banana on this, since I don't see any relevance between these, and it's unlike any of the other meta stuff we've found on wave 4 cards.

PostPosted: Sun Aug 13, 2006 8:59 pm
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FranG
Boot

Joined: 23 May 2006
Posts: 35

Just comments about the card. I don't see any relation to anything else either, but somebody else might. You do see the letters, don't you?

PostPosted: Sun Aug 13, 2006 9:39 pm
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Agent Lex
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Joined: 11 May 2006
Posts: 1188
Location: No longer London, still in England

FranG wrote:
You do see the letters, don't you?

I do see the letters, but to me it just looks like general background stuff, is all I'm saying. Nothing special Smile

PostPosted: Sun Aug 13, 2006 10:00 pm
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FranG
Boot

Joined: 23 May 2006
Posts: 35

Probably isn't anything special, but it's in front of the switches, so I don't see how it can be background.

Can't be useful unless there's something else to go with it.

PostPosted: Sun Aug 13, 2006 10:31 pm
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Uhtoff
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Joined: 09 Dec 2005
Posts: 75

Quote:
On the timer itself, it looks like '60' with the 0 around the center of the dial.


Looks like 'so' to me with the 'o' around the centre of the dial. Similar colour and shade level to the clock in the top left...guessing it's just background, but worth keeping in mind.

PostPosted: Mon Aug 14, 2006 8:19 am
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Flying_squirrel
Guest


If you look carefully you will see that the text you all are trying so hard to read is just a "shadow" of the plain text message on the card. it is particularly easy to recognize on the first line at "...my office. Going..." The shadow is above and to the left.

PostPosted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 5:18 pm
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