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[Nighthawk]

...but then the "99.99..." numbers you used to make the graph work are too high.

In order to make a number that makes sense, we'd have to lower some of the numbers, but in so doing we'd have to raise others. That's impossible if they're all "9"s.

[thebruce]

no I know, that's the point - there are too many combinations to check that sum up to the correct ascii total. A 48 ascii difference is more than a 'typo' as it were... so either the coordinates for the two locations are quite wrong, someone entered them wrong, or those simply are not the coordinates we're supposed to use.
I'm not sure which is right though. But it's odd they're both off by 48.

[Kayberry]

If you have a difference of 48, perhaps amending a 0 to the end of one of the coordinates would satisfy the backend?

30.474281,-97.9854280 = 1078
30.4742810,-97.985428 = 1078

28.683445,-81.3966040 = 1074
28.6834450,-81.396604 = 1074

Coordinates that Dyson Trust sent us for 10 Liberty Ship Way also work:
37.862577,-122.492763 = 1078

And coincidentally, "Forty-Eight" = 1074

[Nighthawk]

Duh... Yeah, you're correct; don't know why I didn't realize that. Adding a "0" does come up with the correct graph, but it still doesn't acknowledge a right answer no matter where I seem to put the zero.

Provided you have a login to the Dyson website, here is a form post you can use to try options out. It's quicker than using the Flash component at least.

Of course, without confirmation of a right answer, I can't be sure if this even works.

BTW: The coordinates are direct from the puzzle, as stated on the SCC Wiki page.

[Nighthawk]

OK, after going through it from both an application and mathematical standpoint, we have a problem.

The *only* way I can get the diagram to match up is by adding a "0" to the fourth and fifth coordinates. That way the seeds match identically to what is necessary to make the chart the way it appears in the last memo.

But the BlueCom site is not only returning "fail" every time, but we're not sure *where* the zero needs to be thrown in.

And it's mathematically impossible to add the values to the rest of the numbers without coming up with a radically different coordinate. The fact that it perfectly comes to a "0" being necessary is not concidential, in my opinion.

I've programatically calculated all permutations that would match the seed value necessary to generate the chart and posted them to the BlueCom PHP responder; all fail. Granted, I don't know if that's because of the method I'm using (I'm not spoofing the referrer), but it's a good guess.

So there are one of three possibilities:

1) We don't have all the information. We had access to the BlueCom terminal before the latest memo, but it was a DIFFERENT terminal that functioned radically different. I think that was only meant for us to analyze how it works, hence the first diagram being made with the simplistic "one", "two", "three"... etc.

Therefore, it is possible that they have one piece of information left to give us, and then they might change the responder and terminal once again so that the answers we put in DO respond positively.

2) The PMs screwed up and, when creating the diagram we see, DID put in an extra "0" that didn't belong. This is highly unlikely due to QA procedures (which I assume they have), but I'm throwing it out there just in case they are reading this wondering "why haven't they figured this out yet? It's right there!"

3) We are overengineering this and are doing something horribly, horribly stupid.

[KookieB]

I feel like we HAVE to be missing a piece... or completely off (which doesn't seem plausible)... or it just isn't "ready" yet to be solved. I think I have tried every existing number in every possible order in the terminal

Hopefully someone will either have an epiphany or we will get some help from the PMs.

[vmackey08]

Build Your Own Combat Robot

[thebruce]

yeah that pretty much sums it nighthawk.

Only the 4th one does work as the coffee shop GPS coordinates. So we've got 5 of 6:

* 34.046935,-118.250688 LA (match)
* 40.714924,-73.991906 NY (match)
* 37.947057,-122.570434 SF (match)
* 37.862577,-122.492763 Liberty ship way (match)
* 28.683445,-81.396604 FL?
* 37.894244,-122.528222 SF (match)

a little bit of exchange with dyson/enitech...

[Nighthawk]

Now THAT doesn't make any sense... They wouldn't have given us that location (which, BTW, we see is not the coffee shop; the one in the Flash file is the coffee shop), but they did because we decompiled the Flash file, which is not standard procedure to begin with.

[thebruce]

ok... so, to wrap my head around this - in the flash file we got a coordinate to a location in sausalito which appears to be a coffee shop by Humboldt Ave. at 37.859576,-122.48479

In an email from dyson, they gave us the coordinates to Enitech, on Liberty at 37.862577,-122.492763


The Enitech GPS works in slot 4.
The coffeeshop GPS doesn't work (even with a 0)

[Kayberry]

I agree with that Night, but for what they know of our progress we had already uncovered the first video and the coffee shop coordinates were revealed, and even then those coordinates have not been used yet. It was in a response to questions about the flash itself that they revealed the liberty ship way coordinates, which is a suitable fit for the puzzle. For what it's worth it's not proper gaming to disassemble the flash file, but in this case it was unavoidable because it seemed that we had the correct answer and the scripting was flawed, thereby refusing to output the video in the first place. As far as I'm concerned it's solved as "one two three four five six"

However, the puzzle has its own problems, as we already figured out there can be a whole bunch of solutions that can be calculated that produce the same diagram but aren't a successful solve because they don't return the right response from the post script. And for each new possible answer for a node, we have to go back and retest everything that we've already tested with the new node change.

Of course, it is completely possible that the last email refers to our difficulty in finding the last 2 cameras after reverse-engineering the answer to the number puzzles. Since these are the two cameras whose coordinates do not fit into nodes successfully, it's worth going back and rechecking the solve to ensure the accuracy of those coordinates. (Edit - ciphers look fine to me.)

If not, then I assume the correct solve should be the Liberty Ship Way coordinates for node 4, and Forty-Eight for node 5, that the unused coordinates were to be used to solve the 5th node, and that the PM's screwed up the scripting in the backend.

[lergnag]

I noticed something odd about the bot's face, and it looks like there is some skin on the face, but it's hard to tell.

[euphdon]

Another set of coordinates

[MrToasty]

Re: Another set of coordinates

[Gupfee]

I hope this is not remembered as the ARG That Bored Everyone to Tears with a Bad Math Puzzle.