Re: Homework from C... I have a friend, a map maker, who sends me puzzles--he says they'll help me learn about the world. I'm usually pretty good at them, but I can't figure this one out! I need to fill in the blank and pass my friend a token connected to it. He says that's to make sure I exercise my feet as well as my brain! My friend is kinda shy, and very hostile by nature, so I'd better not tell you his name. But you can probably figure that out, too. When you do, email him the whole "sequence" and the name of the token that goes with it. Tell him I asked you to pass it on for me, and that I'll pass him the token in person later on, and I bet he'll reward you!
Ready? Here's the puzzle:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 7UC3? Sequence: 79101414__30323641 Sequence incomplete. Required parameter missing. Please supply. Additional information: ** Disk ** 561.5.1280 1411.12.127 ** Pin ** 898.4.1556 132.4.258 ** Feather ** 955.1.707 493.18.174
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Pretty tough, huh? He wants the answer in less than one week, exactly. I hope someone can figure it out!
My friend sent me this!
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Re: A little help from my friends...
I see you got your friends to solve your "homework" for you. Personally, I wouldn't have given them the time of day, but they seemed quite insistent in bothering me with the solution to the problem I set for you. You'll never learn anything unless you do it yourself, Sati. Remember that. I gotta say though, I was damned surprised when some of these "Red Pills" actually showed some working brain cells. I wouldn't have expected any of them to be able to solve that problem, yet they proved me wrong. I know how these "Red Pills" love to feel all special like, you know, and boast of their achievements, so how about I give ‘em something to feel all proud about inside? Who am I kidding! Even you know that sorta thing isn't within my nature. So how about I tell you who to pat on the back, and you reward them in whatever way you wish.
So, in keeping with that "Red Pill" competitive streak, the so-called ‘winners' would be Mercio and ECW420 (the names these "Red Pills" come up with!) for working together and firing off the answer first--it was close. Only 4 minutes between ‘em. I guess they worked together. These "Red Pills" are known to reside within the Vector instance of the Matrix, the same one as myself. Guess we share the same natural traits. Too bad not one soul from the Syntax or Recursion instances managed to contact me. Maybe next time, they'll be more willing to show me that their instances of this simulation are also up to the task. You might be interested to know the first one to contact me--after you hid my name, oh so well--was a guy named after a steak, Tbone. I suppose then, you may also want to know that one "Red Pill," rev0l3r, likes you so much that he even did your foot work and collected the token for you.
So Sati, what do you think? Should I test the brains of these "Red Pills" directly or do you just want to pass them your next homework?
Cartographer
Wow, good work! Gee, I should give Mercio and ECW420 a reward for being the first to solve the puzzle... What can I send them...? Oh! I know! The Oracle just finished a fresh batch of cookies! I bet she won't mind if I send a few of them to my friends. :)
Someone else who worked the puzzle out sent me a nice description of the solution. If you wanted to know what it was all about, read this!
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Sati,
I too, was stumped at first when I looked at this puzzle. 7UC3? made no sense to me at all, so I dismissed it as just a reference number for the puzzle. Likewise, I dismissed the sequence with two digits missing, as there was no way I'd figure it out just by staring at it.
That just left the coordinates and the three marked words (Disk, Pin, Feather) as clues that could be used in finding the solution. I noticed then, that the coordinates were wrong. Something was missing from them. Then it hit me: negative coordinates were not marked correctly, thus a parameter in the coordinates was missing! So I had to run my feet to the bone searching all over Mega City trying each possible coordinate set I could come up with.
For example, 561.5.1280 could be any one of:
+561 +5 +1280 +561 -5 +1280 +561 +5 -1280 +561 -5 -1280 -561 -5 -1280 -561 +5 -1280 -561 -5 +1280 -561 +5 +1280
Thankfully, I could just ignore the Y part of the coordinate and concentrate on +/- variations for X and Z.
Oh! Before I forget, it seemed your friend was trying to confuse you with the formatting of the coordinates. He grouped them in an order that implied they would be located in the same areas but this turned out to be not so. Forget the formatting and treat each one individually.
Anyhow, after doing this for a few of the coordinates I noticed that they were all pointing to construction sites within Mega City. And then the "reference" number: 7UC3? finally made sense to some obscure part of my mind. Most of the sites I looked at were simply listed as "Under Construction" within city records that my operator pulled up for me. I then searched until I found all the construction sites in Mega City. There were ten in total. Seven of which were "Under Construction" (the 7UC) while three of them were named (the 3?). The puzzle gave us the coordinates to six of these sites, and the items listed were connected to the gangs residing in three areas that each had a construction site.
In total, we had been given enough information to point us to nine of the ten construction sites, so it seemed obvious that the solution was connected to the missing one. Which just happened to be a named construction site found in the International district.
But how did this match to the sequence, 79101414__30323641? The answer to that, too, literally hit me in the head. I was sitting in the middle of a construction site pondering this problem, when I was attacked by a member of the local gang. He was quite a tough guy - at least for me! But once I'd killed him, he dropped a token. I remembered then, that the tokens these gangs held, played a part in this puzzle. As such it wasn't long until I'd gone and collected tokens from each gang to see what the connection was. During my fights, I noticed that each gang was of a different level in strength. The lowest being 7 and highest being 41. With nine sites given by the puzzle, I soon noticed we had nine numbers too: 7, 9, 10, 14, 14, 30, 32, 36 and 41. These were connected to the strength of the gang hanging around the construction site. The missing number was thus 19, the level of the gang at the unlisted construction site. The required token was the one that they dropped: A dragon medallion.
Well, Sati. As I have no interest in rewards, I sent this solution to you, and not your overly hostile friend. I'll be in touch.
Halgarth
Perhaps, you know, just maybe, the only reason no one on Syntax or Recursion "got it" is only because we didn't think to send the answer to another instance. Congrats to everyone who figured it out.
My friend is kinda shy, and very hostile by nature
No excuses. She said it he was on vector-hostile
Wait... we can email to different instances now? Did'nt know we could...
Vector-hostile.10011
Syntax.10011
Recursion.10011
Now you know how.
Well done to all those who got or came close on this, hind sight is 20/20 which is why it seems so simple and connected now, but lord knows when i saw it, i just played with the buttons, and contemplated casque and cryptos.
Darminian
