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[Rogi Ocnorb]

Allow me to introduce you to Numerical Chameleon.

ETA:
92410919055033166107744971373646490145550715134320953804152826689209926273011536900861158553 in decimal

[sixsidedsquare]

Time for some course correction I think, to point you more in the right direction. Firstly, I totally wasn't that clever back then and don't think I could have worked that number out. I'm also wondering myself if there was meant to be some meaning to only some having leading zeros, but I'm guessing it was a quirk of the converter I used at the time Strike that, just writing this I saw why they were there. Sneaky former self...

As for a more direct hint to a hint, which is a pretty crappy hint anyways, switch which order round ruler-marks are. You can also ignore the +'s, they were just part of what I must have thought was an awesome cool photoshop brush at the time, which is also what that mess in the background is all about. And finally, there's actually more to that hint above then first meets the eye, something to give you a bit of direction (these Puzzle Hunt puzzles are having a bad influence on me..).

[catherwood]

i thought

[la!uep]

Something about switching the order which round ruler marks, huh? Switching around, you mean? Turning it around?

So, maybe the long marks were zeroes and the shorts were ones...
011010010010100101101001 (ASCII:"i)i")

Or maybe I was reading it in the wrong direction:
011010010110101101101001 (ASCII:"iki")

hmm... they're both almost symmetrical. To make them perfectly symmetrical it would have to be this:
011010010110100101101001 (ASCII:"iii") or...
011010010010101101101001 (ASCII:"i+i")

hmmm...

Bacon, right (the C's and D's threw me off that path) so using the original version of a Latin alphabet with i=j and u=v (used earlier in this thread), the ruler-marks might be:

ABBAB AABAA BABAA BABBA BAABA = "OEWYT"
ABBAB AABAA BABAA BABBA BAABB = "OEWYU"
BAABA BBABB ABABB ABAAB ABBAA = "T?MKN"
BAABA BBABB ABABB ABAAB ABBAB = "T?MKO"

Maybe I got those marks wrong...

[Edit]
Interpreting the huge hex number as bacon ([A-F]->B, [0-9]->A):

[sixsidedsquare]

[Rogi Ocnorb]

Leetkey made quick work of the reversing and translation to "iki" and I tied that to the big honkin' "W", nearby to get "Wiki", which I assume is a Wikipedia reference (that I am unable to exploit).

[sixsidedsquare]

Okay, enough with obscure hints. I don't know if it's just me but this puzzle is starting to smell a little stale.

switch which order round ruler-marks are
Switch it round to get arrows. I'm sorry for calling something that obscure a hint

There are a few steps involved in this puzzle, that are all described in the picture. The Wiki spec was right, and it ties into something close by to it.

See if you can get it with that.

[la!uep]

Sorry six, I'm not getting it. I can't tell what it is I need to switch the order off to get arrows, but thanks for clarifying the hint. I've tried flipping a few things, mostly working with the hex numbers, but I keep getting gibberish. I think the thing related to wiki must be the ABBA code but I can't think of any way of applying some Spanish rhyming pattern.

My kind of puzzles are much more direct in stating the problem (like the one I posted before, or the next one I'm thinking of sharing, or even your Fibonacci squares). I peeked into the puzzle hunt puzzles and I couldn't figure out how or where to start in none of them... I think I must be too lazy or just plain dumb, but I'm sure once I'm told the right path It'll be obvious and I'll want to kick myself.

I hope something clicks for someone, but I'm stumped with this one.

[Rogi Ocnorb]

I've always enjoyed Six' puzzles. He generally gives plenty of info for finding the required path.
When catherwood's Bacon idea was shot down, I found myself at a loss as to how to proceed. I still had no idea what to do with the obvious hex strings, but the arrows made it seem like we'd need to do a Bacon cipher on a book (probably identified and chapter/page/line setup for us by the aforementioned hex and likely id'd by ISBN) and then use that to find a movie, likely at IMDB.
The final arrow has a specific either decimal to hex or hexadecimal clue built into it. So, maybe find the "tt" value for the title.

I tried to figure out a way to convert the hex to binary (based on the Wikipedia clue and leading zeroes in the hex), but couldn't see a way to do it that provided any consistency.

[sixsidedsquare]

You are certainly aren't too lazy or dumb, it just a matter of not having seen this particular thing used before. So much of puzzle solving is about pattern recognition, having seen something similar and hopefully being able to 'see' it again when used somewhere else. I really feel sorry for you all having to trudge through this puzzle, I was still young in my puzzle making days and used things that I must have thought were clever at the time, but were really very shallow (in that things could have been much more elegant and flowing). The arrows in the picture were meant to clue in the method to take, but I think all the ideas are out there now, let me just pick them out for you:

[la!uep]

Grr... I was hoping to sleaze away from this... (yup, lazy ass it is)

[sixsidedsquare]

Hell, I think I was wrong about the puzzle smelling stale, I think it's actually gone bad. I don't know what exactly has happened, but I was certain all the ISBN's came out to books with numbers in the titles when I made it.

So sorry, I should have really checked it right through before I posted it. I did I quickly looked at 3 of the ISBNs before posting and saw they came out to what they should and I just assumed the rest would too. Now I just feel like an idiot who has wasted other people's time.

I guess I'll just back down now. la!uep can go next if he wants, as he put a lot of effort into my broken mess. From now on anything I post here I will check, check and check again to avoid something like this happening again. The really sad thing is, I can't even remember what movie this one was meant to lead to and can't find any of my notes from back then

[la!uep]

Alright so what we have is:

A:1000
B:7
B:7
A:airtight
A:4
C:family
C:9
D:fun
D:frightful
C:(missing ten)

Collecting them:
A = {1000,airtight,4} = 1000/4 = 250
B = {7,7} = 7/2 = 3,500 (this one's a little trickier because of the localization issue)
C = {family,9,missing 10} = A family of 9, 7 missing children (2 parents looking for them) + 10 more missing, probably the cousins = 17 missing
D = {fun,frightful} = about a million horror movies

Clearly we need to multiply AB, subtract C (because of the missing clue), then take the ratio of D to find our movie:

[la!uep]

New post because the silliness above is quite distracting.

[Rogi Ocnorb]

Is there a rule that says the marbles must be removable from the box without breaking the box?

If not (and while I'm pretty sure I lack the ability to do the math correctly), I can say that my best guestimate for the required size of a 4-sided base pyramid box is 2.372x2.372 for the base and 2.031 for the height, following the rules given.

If the box doesn't have to be completely closed, you can take .254 inch off the top. But again, you'd have to break the box the get the marbles out.

ETA: If there is a requirement that the box allow the marbles in and out without being damaged, I'm sure there is enough material in the top and square sides (blue lines, below) to create two new pyramids to add to the ends (yellow-ish lines). Or even just straight-up walls.