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[Prizefighter-Inferno]

I'm looking at the cube now, were those buttercups you received in the package? Can't give you a solution, but perhaps if you take what is written on each of the colored squares and put the text together, 9 for green, 9 for yellow etc and see if there is a message of some sort.

[Kazic]

I have no idea. Someone else thought they were yellow violets. I've been so focused on trying to solve the thing so we can get the letter order, I haven't done much else. Puzzles are not my thing.

[Prizefighter-Inferno]

You don't necessarily need to solve it to know what is written on each colored face, simply write the letters down and their associated colors and post it here.

[goodluck]

yeah dont worry about the actual rubiks cube when you can totally cheat lol

[Prizefighter-Inferno]

Not exactly cheating, more of a shortcut hehe

[Kazic]

So what do you guys want me to do? Just post all the letter groupings?

edit: someone in the pad thinks that the flowers might be broccoli flowers. Someone else thinks yellow violets. I have no idea. Any guesses?

[Prizefighter-Inferno]

Yes, if you post the letter groups so they are grouped by color that would be good thanks. Hmmm, I think the flowers might be yellow violets to, just a little difficult to tell.

[El Neil]

Hi guys, im still here, was lurking while we waited for the package. Good job on the latest cipher - post up the rubiks stuff asap and i'll give it a try. Its midnight here at the moment so might not be for at least 12 hours or so. Hooray for snail mail!

neil

EDIT:

[Kazic]

Hey guys sorry for the poofing. I went home for easter and didn't realize till I got there that the internet was down at my house so I couldn't put up the stuff. But I'm back now. Still haven't figured out what exactly is wrong with the internet. Weird.

One issue I'm having is for some of the letters it's hard to tell which way is rightside up. And there are a few things that don't look like letters.

Yellow cubes: mio, wlo or olm, x "upside down L" f, q with the tail being in a cross x o, v upsidedown L f, twy, uui.

Orange: upo, q with a cross w z, u q with cross y, ecx, mcu, fyu, ss (looks like a 2 but must be a z), tvy, the next one is an o with two sticks, dunno if they are i's or 1's, but don't think their l's because all of the other l's have been uppercase.

green: jvm, izl, wrg, bac, obr, won, vvl, hwx, wzl

note: i think that upside down L thingie may be be an r. I just realized it was probably hard to scratch the hook of the r into the cube.

blue: sae, ggl, xwc, fkc, fxy, pwa, vvn, imk, pds.

red: xwe, jkm, pty, sqq (maybe bbs), q with cross w v, gny, fyx, yzp, duh

White: pex, mix, kmc, nk q with cross, sdn, ewd, wki, b something that looks like an upiside down v y, rcc (i think).

[El Neil]

dang - theres a guy at uni who solves rubiks cubes for a living. he has an algorithm, and can do any cube manually in less than a minute. hes amazing - if only i had the cube here. theres got to be an online guide somewhere.

EDIT: tried to track down the guy from uni, but i cant remember his name and havent got his card, and he has almost no internet presence so i cannot google him. gah!

EDIT 2: kaz, how did you know it was

[Prizefighter-Inferno]

You could try this site;

http://www.wrongway.org/cube/solve.html

At work at the moment so no time to play, also V-Cipher decoder here is good;

http://stackoverflow.org/tools/vigenere.php

[Kazic]

Sorry neil it's

[Kazic]

Final order

[Kazic]

Well we figured out that our previous solution for the instructions can't be right because green can't be south of white. So the key to the solve has to be that damned slip of paper.

[squid808]

I worked with Kaz in IRC tonight, and we figured some things out. It seems that Green CAN be below white. Then, after looking at the pictures I decided we definitely have to solve the puzzle. If you look at the pics, you see that some cubie faces are vertical, some horizontal. This tells me that the person who sent it scratched everything in when it was all solved, most likely. Also, why else send such a cube if not to solve it? =)

So, using the spreadsheet she provided (attached) I reasoned that if white was on top green could be below the white, on the side. Left of that is Orange. I reasoned that, if white is on top, and we're starting with orange, and it's solved... then the SSZ corner should be in the upper left, if we held the orange out to face us. So, asking some 'how is this oriented' type questions it seemed like when solved, the orange face would be readable left to right, top to bottom without having to rotate it or turn it upside down. After getting all the orange face, we'd go 'east' or right, and do the same with green, then red, then blue; each face starting in the proper upper left corner and doing left to right, top to bottom. Seemed reasonable.

Then I tried to figure how the orientation of the white face by checking the orientation of the letters against that of the red on the red/white cubie which she said if you have the red on top, and tip the white towards you the white is upside down. Good, that'd place red at the top if white was facing you. Checking myself, we looked at the blue/white cubie. As expected, when tipped towards you you could read it if you tip your head to the left. And for shits and giggles, I had her check the orange/white. We'd expect it to be readable when tipped, but... it was upside down like the red/white. So, I'm stuck as to how to do the white face, and then the yellow.

If we could get some pictures showing two or three sides at a time (looking at corners or edges) that'd help us figure out orientations. Or if Kaz can solve it and take pictures that way, that'd work too.

Until then, I believe we might be able to work with the order of the first four sides, assuming my theory is correct.