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Message
Shad0
I Have No Life
Joined: 20 Jun 2004 Posts: 2180 Location: Southern California, USA
[PUZZLE] He that is of the opinion money will do everything Today's puzzle from Lyn.
_________________These were the puzzles that would take a day, these were puzzles that would take a week, and these puzzles they'd probably never figure out until we broke down and gave them the answers. ... The Cloudmakers solved all of these puzzles on the first day.
Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2006 2:24 pm
ScarpeGrosse
Site Admin
Joined: 30 Nov 2002 Posts: 1678 Location: The Shiny Castle in the Sky, Full of Cotton Candy and Hazelnut Lattes
In the source code of the 1st page:
<!--You know, Leibniz was interested in this stuff...-->
_________________
Allow me to take off my 'assistant skirt' and put on my 'Barbara Streisand in The Prince of Tides ass-masking therapist pantsuit.'
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Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2006 2:29 pm
aliendial
Unfictologist
Joined: 29 Sep 2002 Posts: 3438 Location: Far Far Away. Nowhere Near You. Really.
From the url, I am guessing this may be a puzzle trail. And I think the text of Lyn's message might be useful:
Quote:
I like computers. And not just because I made some money on software.
Computers can put a lot of power in the hands of just about anybody. Power to learn. Power to create. That little ditty I made up a few weeks ago? A decade ago I would have needed a real piano and a real guitar. (And even more problematically for me, the ability to play them.) But now anyone can make music, whether they have years of training and expensive instruments, or just a computer and some speakers.
Anyone can create. You don't need anyone to give you permission or tools.
There was a member of the Royal Society who envisioned the computer pretty much as we know it today, way back in the 1670s. Gottfried Leibniz -- sound familiar? He had this idea for a machine that could do math: binary numbers (he worked that out himself) represented by marbles, operated with punchcards.
That's more or less what we ended up with. (We've got electricity and voltage gradients and shift registers, but the concept's the same.) He even wanted an empirical database available to a "community of minds," to further the advancement of knowledge.
Too bad he didn't live long enough to see the internet.
Leibniz saw meaning, and logic everywhere -- it seems like he even thought of God as a mathematician. I suppose, to come up with the stuff he imagined, you have to find meaning in what looks random to other people. Can you do the same?
_________________aliendial
Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2006 2:35 pm
EGo
Unfettered
Joined: 24 Oct 2005 Posts: 545 Location: Wasting time in east New Jersey
This reminds me of Stephenson's Baroque Cycle. I think I was just talking about that with someone...
_________________When I speak, I cross my fingers.
Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2006 2:37 pm
Shad0
I Have No Life
Joined: 20 Jun 2004 Posts: 2180 Location: Southern California, USA
Re: [PUZZLE] He that is of the opinion money will do everyth
aliendial wrote:
From the url, I am guessing this may be a puzzle trail.
It is a puzzle trail, of sorts. Click on GO.
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
I am fairly confident that the six pictures of three coins on each of the following ten page represent I Ching hexagrams. Unfortunately a few of them are ambiguous. I'm playing with them now.
_________________These were the puzzles that would take a day, these were puzzles that would take a week, and these puzzles they'd probably never figure out until we broke down and gave them the answers. ... The Cloudmakers solved all of these puzzles on the first day.
Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2006 2:57 pm
ScarpeGrosse
Site Admin
Joined: 30 Nov 2002 Posts: 1678 Location: The Shiny Castle in the Sky, Full of Cotton Candy and Hazelnut Lattes
Uhhh, I'm going to throw out the not-so unoblivious spec that the page where we have to rest Lyn's throwing arm is a space between two words
Ok, I win at puzzles! GO SHADO!
_________________
Allow me to take off my 'assistant skirt' and put on my 'Barbara Streisand in The Prince of Tides ass-masking therapist pantsuit.'
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Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2006 3:00 pm
EGo
Unfettered
Joined: 24 Oct 2005 Posts: 545 Location: Wasting time in east New Jersey
Perhaps... all touching -> 1/unbroken line, else -> 0/broken line?
So for the first five...
010110
000001
100011
010001
100101
After the break...
101010
010100
001101
001000
100010
_________________When I speak, I cross my fingers.
Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2006 3:30 pm
Shad0
I Have No Life
Joined: 20 Jun 2004 Posts: 2180 Location: Southern California, USA
EGo wrote:
Perhaps... all touching -> 1/unbroken line, else -> 0/broken line?
My thought exactly. Interestingly, just about all the ones I think are ambiguous (2, 5, 8, and 9) are ones in which you read them differently than I did.
Anyway, the I Ching I've come up with are:
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
48 ("The Well" or "Welling")
19 ("Approach" or "Nearing") or 24 ("Return" or "Turning Point")
41 ("Decrease" or "Diminishing")
3 ("Difficulty at the Beginning" or "Sprouting")
26 ("Taming Power of the Great" or "Great Accumulation") or 9 ("Taming Power of the Small" or "Small Accumulation") or 22 ("Grace" or "Adorning") or 37 ("The Family" or "Dwelling People")
64 ("Before Completion" or "Not-Yet Fording")
39 ("Obstruction" or "Limping")
49 ("Revolution" or "Skinning") or 55 ("Abundance" or "Abounding")
45 ("Gathering Together" or "Clustering") or 16 ("Enthusiasm" or "Providing-For")
4 ("Youthful Folly" or "Enveloping")
Any thoughts on how to turn this wide range of numbers into a couple of words?
(Straight binary-to-ASCII conversion of the underlying 0s and 1s does not appear to work, so I do think it involves the actual I Ching numbers. I also tried looking at the first letters of the most common English translations for the hexagrams, but got nothing coherent.)
_________________These were the puzzles that would take a day, these were puzzles that would take a week, and these puzzles they'd probably never figure out until we broke down and gave them the answers. ... The Cloudmakers solved all of these puzzles on the first day.
Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2006 3:43 pm
vidstudent
Decorated
Joined: 26 Aug 2004 Posts: 244 Location: Toledo, OH
I'm trying the educated guess method.
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
Her "throwing arm is a little tired"? If each of those pages with coins on them is one letter, then we have two five letter words - and I bet one of them is "pitch".
_________________Nicholas Eckert
vidstudent
Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2006 3:44 pm
Shad0
I Have No Life
Joined: 20 Jun 2004 Posts: 2180 Location: Southern California, USA
vidstudent wrote:
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
Her "throwing arm is a little tired"? If each of those pages with coins on them is one letter, then we have two five letter words - and I bet one of them is "pitch".
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
Or Lyn could be referring to the fact that I Ching divination traditionally involves "throwing" the coins.
_________________These were the puzzles that would take a day, these were puzzles that would take a week, and these puzzles they'd probably never figure out until we broke down and gave them the answers. ... The Cloudmakers solved all of these puzzles on the first day.
Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2006 3:52 pm
ScarpeGrosse
Site Admin
Joined: 30 Nov 2002 Posts: 1678 Location: The Shiny Castle in the Sky, Full of Cotton Candy and Hazelnut Lattes
I think we're getting excessive with the spoilering, peeps
I Ching isn't that great of a mystery
_________________
Allow me to take off my 'assistant skirt' and put on my 'Barbara Streisand in The Prince of Tides ass-masking therapist pantsuit.'
Tumblr
Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2006 3:53 pm
Wojcik
Boot
Joined: 14 Oct 2002 Posts: 25 Location: Massachusetts
my thought process is leading me to it depending on the coins being heads or tails. At least I think that's what the dragon is telling us about the coins on the start page.
Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2006 3:54 pm
EGo
Unfettered
Joined: 24 Oct 2005 Posts: 545 Location: Wasting time in east New Jersey
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
WHOA SPOILERS
But really, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Ching_divination#Three-coin_method
_________________When I speak, I cross my fingers.
Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2006 4:00 pm
Shad0
I Have No Life
Joined: 20 Jun 2004 Posts: 2180 Location: Southern California, USA
Re: [PUZZLE] He that is of the opinion money will do everyth
Wojcik wrote:
my thought process is leading me to it depending on the coins being heads or tails. At least I think that's what the dragon is telling us about the coins on the start page.
And in fact that's what the last link I posted
*
says. Essentially, one or three heads is an unbroken line, and zero or two heads is a broken line. Drat. Now we gotta do that all over again.
Umm... Anyone know which is heads and which is tails on these lovely Chinese coins?
*
Which is the same link that EGo just posted as well. Take off your shoes!
_________________These were the puzzles that would take a day, these were puzzles that would take a week, and these puzzles they'd probably never figure out until we broke down and gave them the answers. ... The Cloudmakers solved all of these puzzles on the first day.
Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2006 4:04 pm
ScarpeGrosse
Site Admin
Joined: 30 Nov 2002 Posts: 1678 Location: The Shiny Castle in the Sky, Full of Cotton Candy and Hazelnut Lattes
Re: [PUZZLE] He that is of the opinion money will do everyth
Shad0 wrote:
Wojcik wrote:
my thought process is leading me to it depending on the coins being heads or tails. At least I think that's what the dragon is telling us about the coins on the start page.
And in fact that's what the last link I posted
*
says. Essentially, one or three heads is an unbroken line, and zero or two heads is a broken line. Drat. Now we gotta do that all over again.
Umm... Anyone know which is heads and which is tails on these lovely Chinese coins?
*
Which is the same link that EGo just posted as well. Take off your shoes!
If we go off of the picture at the start, the four chinese letters on a coin denote tails, while the ornate designs denote heads.
At least that's my interpretation (of the situation) (i need to stop listening to Outkast)
_________________
Allow me to take off my 'assistant skirt' and put on my 'Barbara Streisand in The Prince of Tides ass-masking therapist pantsuit.'
Tumblr
Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2006 4:06 pm
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