unforum

[Si]

Ok guys this silver needs cracking but it doesn't seem like we're getting anywhere so lets look at what we know for sure ;

1 The guys name is Satoshi
2 The picture was taken in Kaysersberg
3 Time of year is Autumn / Winter or early Spring
4 Satoshi is (more than likely) of Japanese descent
5 We have to find him to complete the card

What we don't know :

1 What Satoshi's surname is

2 What Satoshi was doing in Kaysersberg (and just as a gut feeling, I doubt he was there studying as he looks to me to be around 30ish which means he would more than likely not have attended university there, this leads me to believe he was there either on a work based project or simply on holiday, a day trip etc.

3 What year the picture was taken

4 What nationality Satoshi is, he may be British, French, Japanese etc. just because he has a Japanese name gives no clue to his nationality (i.e. on his passport).

5 What do we do if we do find him? Just say "Hi Satoshi, you are on card number 256 as you know, so how's it going? Oh, by the way . . do you have an even more obscure puzzle for us to solve now or do you have a question like "What is my favourite chocolate" for us to get the points?

6 How he is linked to Perplexcity and Mind Candy. Obviously he has some connection for them to use his picture and for him to be expecting us, it is not just a picture of some random person, is there any way we could trace a link from him to anyone in MC?

All the work that has been done already is fantastic, I just wonder if reaching anyone in Kaysersberg is going to help especially as he may have only been there for a day, and as we don't know when or where he stayed, even if someone who lives there gets in touch, will they remember one face from the thousands who pass through. As also pointed out, MC didn't expect us to figure out the place, so I don't see how getting in touch with someone there will help as it seems MC don't think that will help.

I know there are more questions than answers still and this post seems negative, but I'm just trying to recap for people who may be put off by the 30 odd pages already here and hopefully inspire someone to come up with a new idea. The fact is, what do we know now that we didn't know months ago apart from where the photo was taken? Nothing much, so surely we're missing something apart from emailing everyone in the Wold lol.

Feels depressed at not being clever enough to help more

[Afgncaap5]

When all hope is lost, it's time for crazy-spec.

Has anyone tried five cow-Sorry, sorry, sorry...

The other thing we know is that there isn't an author on the card. I noticed a card without an author the other day, but I couldn't remember what card it is (assuming, of course, that I wasn't just missing it when it was plainly there.)

If MC is actively against letting us know who wrote the card, perhaps there's something that we're meant to infer from the lack of a name on the card. The word "Earthy" does seem strange.

Possible reasons for not telling us the name:

-The name of the card author would make the puzzle too easy. Perhaps the card's solution relates to the author of the card. Perhaps the puzzle scribe who created the card is related to Satoshi in some way. Perhaps this card is a guest-scribe, and Satoshi *is* the guest artist (which would mean that he's one of the many, many players.)

-They don't know for some reason. Possibly they forgot who printed the card and are unable of retrieving the information.

-The puzzle scribes may fear Satoshi for some reason, and as such don't want Satoshi to be able to track down the one who pointed us in his direction. Seems unlikely, unless Satoshi is allied with The Third Power or V or someone along those lines.

-What if the Puzzle Scribe is also wanted and searched for, and doesn't want MC to accidentally reveal anything about his or her location? A fugitive of some sort, or a celebrity?

Any other possible reasons?

[Tornan Steel]

I suppose there is a chance that Satoshi may be Combed Thunderclap.... might be an interesting twist

[Si]

I doubt that Satoshi is CT, I think we're forgetting that this is a game, the cube was buried (I think) before the game started, CT, as the text says, lives or came from Perplex City which we know doesn't exist IRL, so cannot be a real person.

The thing that got my attention thinking about it is why Satoshi is expecting us (apart from knowing he is on a card that millions of people have seen). Going back to the six degrees of separation idea, I wonder if this experiment is Satoshi's own project and he is expecting us to see how long it takes us to find a random person in the world, may be as part of a study or something.

I started looking up Satoshi's with something to do with anthropology but didn't get very far, anyone else got any ideas?

[echidna]

In response to Afgncaap5 - I wouldn't read too much into there not being a puzzle author on the card. Quite a few cards don't have the name of the puzzle architect on - #239 Persian, #238 Riemann, #237 Roaming Identity, #234 Mosaically Challenged, #233 The Earth's Destiny, #209 Little Pigley Farm, #207 Huey Teocalli, #205 Whipsmart Hot Fudge, #204 Script, #203 Ecliptic, #202 Mother Tongue and #201 Smoke and Mirrors for example - and that's just the blacks and silvers!

When a guest puzzle architect submits a puzzle to Mind Candy they are given the option of having their name on the card. There are probably lots of reasons why people choose not to put their names on their cards but in this instance I would guess that the author didn't want to be inundated with requests/bribes/demands/etc to know who or where Satoshi is. If the guest puzzle architect has chosen not to put their name on the card then Mind Candy are kind of honour-bound not to release this information despite requests from other players.

[Boomanda]

Really, shouldn't the easiest way to find him be to send a mail to, say, the five friends you think are most likely to know Satoshi and have them pass them on to five friends that THEY think are most likely to know Satoshi, and so forth? As far as I know, this is already being done, so, in theory, isn't the answer supposed to reveal itself eventually?

[frog51]

We don't want to limit unnecessarily

[Si]

Re: We don't want to limit unnecessarily

[Afgncaap5]

Okay, I'd become really intrigued by the signatures on the cards, so I looked into a few patterns. Didn't see anything. On a whim, I emailed them about cards lacking signatures and cards that list both a signature, and a guest artist. It doesn't reveal anything, but I'll put it here in case anyone's interested.

[Si]

I have resorted to downloading japanese text onto my laptop and am now searching using googles japanese version - Interestingly I found this :

The official word:

"Satoshi has agreed to appear on this card and, of course, knows you're looking for him. He isn't hiding, but he isn't looking for you either. If you track him down, he will happily provide you with the information required to solve this card, and will also be able to prove his identity as The Real Satoshi - you don't need to coerce or harass him into co-operating, you just need to find him. Satoshi has no connection with any employee of Mind Candy or Mind Candy's business partners - pursuing them for information will be of no use. Finally, Satoshi possesses no information regarding the location of Perplex City's $200,000 Cube, so you needn't interrogate him about that either! As always with Perplex City, you needn't (and mustn't) break the law - or be mean! - in the course of your adventures. With all that said. good hunting, one and all...."

Interesting but not much help but it might clear up a few questions people may have !

[AtionSong]

[Si]

Here is the link to the page where the passage came from :

http://www.findsatoshi.com/theplan.html

Hope this helps, although on the page itself it also says the creators of Perplex City want us to use the six degrees of separation approach.

I have probably spent about 50 hours searching Satoshi's and looking at pictures and after reading this I am thinking that we aren't going to find Satoshi by googling him or by any other search engine, unless anyone else thinks otherwise ?

[aliendial]

Looks like that's Laura Hall's version of the website approach. There's a livejournal account set up too. She's a PXC mod here.

[Bakers_12]

I don't remember this being brought up before... so here goes

I has been stated that our man does not have a link to any members of MC and that he also knows about the challenge that has been set for us.
If you wanted a picture of someone who would be fully aware of what will be asked of us and not be linked to your self where would you go?
I think it might be possible that they could have hired Satoshi from a model agency? If so we could e mail some London or near Kaysersberg modelling agencies?

[jaikaiman]

That could take a while Bakers_12...probably no longer than searching the world for 1 bloke named satoshi...

I like your thinkin though