Puzzles
From This is My Milwaukee
Puzzles
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Below are brief summaries of puzzles currently being analyzed, and their current status. For discussion, seen the talk page, or the community discussion forum threads.
Unsolved
Basic Dark Dollar Arrangements
- Source: "Milwaukee: A Reasonable Haven"
- With its connections between symbols, reorientation, and phrases, the Basic Dark Dollars Arraignments on the inside cover of M:ARH are somewhat compelling as a potential puzzle or key to some other puzzle.
Notes:
- There are six arrangements
- Start, Good Morning, School Day, Almost Right, Second Gear, New Feeling
- There are six symbols used.
- 1, 2, circle (or oval), diamond, triangle, X.
- There is also an "NM" on School Day. This is commonly interpreted as "No Movement", referring to the circle card.
1230768000
Seemingly the "solution" to the Simple and Direct puzzle is now an unsolved puzzle itself.
- http://thisismymilwaukee.com/20138/ is now titled "HNY" (happy new year?) and the number string is linked to this image: http://thisismymilwaukee.com/20138/1230768000.jpg
- It can refer to a date: 1230768000 is a code used in POSIX, a timestamp representing midnight Jan. 1 2009.
- Major theories:
- It is a message that something important will happen at that date - 12:00am January 1, 2009.
- Since this string is the number of seconds since midnight January 1st, 1970. That equates to 39 years precisely. Thus the solution might be that 39 years is significant.
- This link may have something to do with 1230768000 - The m-rotor and the rotary club. A picture of the M-125 Russian Rotor Telegraph Cypher can be found here: http://w1tp.com/enigma/mfialka.htm
- US Patent 01230 is by Franklin Hatch and J. W. Terry for "Improvement in Elliptical Springs for Carriages" and US Patent number 768000 is by J. S. Stone for "Space Telegraphy". The flavor texts were "simple and direct" and "a long walk", and maybe you can take a "long walk" on an elliptical machine...
Dating System
- Source: "Milwaukee: A Reasonable Haven" - See History for listed events.
- DOR dates appear to count backward from 2007. While TRO and ACT dates appear to count up (units unknown) from some unknown start date. (eg, DOR 4 = our 2003)
- "DOR" likely refers to the dormant period, "ACT" to the active period, and "TRO" to the 300 Troubles -- It is uncertain whether these dating periods overlap.
- Taking both "Blackstar Merger" entries to be the same event: DOR 4 = ACT 5.
- Some relevant data on this (Haven-inside-front):
- Voltaire born (activated) - 1694 AD = Appx DOR 300
- Declaration of Independence - 1776 AD = Appx DOR 250
- Debussy wins Prix De Rome for Composition - 1884 AD = DOR 123
- Birth of the Cool (Influential Slow Jazz Album by Miles Davis) 1950 AD = DOR 57
- Fall of the Berlin Wall - 1989 AD = DOR 18
- Blackstar merger - 2003 AD = DOR 4
- Page 9 of Haven references "The Me Generation" from DOR 27-18. This fits well as a reference to the 1980s.
- The jobs listing implies our current date (c.2008) is ACT 10.
Color Connections
There have been hints of patterns in Color References.
Get Mars More Friends
- Mars Madison frequently states that she needs more friends to feel comfortable opening up. (For example, her Facebook states, "i don't really like talking about myself, but when i'm around enough friends, i feel a little more comfortable" and in an email she wrote "i wish i could tell you more, and i'm happy to have had a few people become friends with me recently, but i'll need a lot more coaxing before i'll really feel comfortable opening up.")
- At first glance, this appears to be a social engineering puzzle - get as many people as possible to become friends with Mars.
Speculation:
- how many friends does she need before she is comfortable enough to talk? It appears the more people become friends, the more she talks and shares information.
Solved
Access Code
Status: solved (leading to the fax mystery)
- November 24 - hidden in the HTML source of Thisismymilwaukee.com is the following comment:
<!-- http://www.youtube.com/14251612181818198HD -->
- This led to a new Youtube user named 14251612181818198HD.
- "14251612181818198HD" when converted to corresponding letters of the alphabet becomes "NYPL RRR SH"
- "HD" when converted to corresponding numbers becomes "84"
- NYPL Rose Reading Room has a South Hall as seen here
- The end of the video shows the letters R-RMRR AI 3 .A23 (including the spaces) (direct link)
- This suggested a dead drop in the New York Public Library, Rose Main Reading Room, South Hall, in an item with the call number AI3 .A23
- AI3.A23 corresponds to 1984 edition of "Access: The Supplementary Index to Periodicals" in the NYPL catalogue
- Player Big T traveled to the NYPL for its opening at 11am, and succesfully followed instructions, retrieving the intended information (report).
- Inside the book with the call number AI3 .A23, in the South Hall of the Rose Reading Room, was a note, folded, with a picture of a "family tree" (a fennel) reading:
414-688-8471Leave this in the book &
return it.
- The new phone number went to voicemail, where a female voice asks callers to leave their fax number in a message.
Simple ... and Direct (p.27)
- Source: "Milwaukee: A Reasonable Haven", page 27
- Based on the hint from the lower table of a "long walk", and the hint "simple directed" graph, each letter used once spells out:
SURELY YOU KNOW WHAT IM REFERRING TO
- This is a phrase used at the begining of the promotional video and later correspondence with MTC [citation?].
- Following the letters' order and noting numbers for each letter, the result is
5062910122406026095830245_____
- When then split into rows of 5:
50629 and sorted by the leftmost column: 10122 10122 _____ 40602 30245 60958 40602 30245 50629 _____ 60958
- Each row indicates a timecode (1:22, 2:45, etc) within the promotional video at which time a fennel becomes visable.
- Ordered 1 through 6 (1st column) the missing item #2 becomes the timecode for the 2nd appearance of the fennel - at 1:38.
- Appending to the url leads to http://thisismymilwaukee.com/20138
- The page display a single number string: 1230768000
- No other page source code.
- This is now a potential puzzle itself.
- The page is now titled "HNY" (happy new year?) and the number string is linked to this image: http://thisismymilwaukee.com/20138/1230768000.jpg
San Francisco Dead Drop
- The early tweets at ChuckDideEat all referred to food in some way, but more recently there was a long tale of a hallucinatory vision. See The Dinner Party twitter archive for the tale.(Unfiction discussion)
- The clues suggested a dead drop at the Gratitude Cafe in San Fransisco
- After a number of failed attempts to retrieve the drop, someone posted a photo of a mysterious paper on the Unfiction forums.
- The veracity of this was more or less confirmed by the ChuckDideEat twitter shortly after its appearance.
Doleful City (p.26)
- Source: "Milwaukee: A Reasonable Haven", page 26
- The graph, titled "The Way Into the Doleful City" appears to measure depth along the y axis and the energy of muons across the x-axis. The graph's title comes from the inscription on the gate to Hell in Dante's Inferno.
- When combined with Mars' Fax to Facebook, the Dec. 10 fax and the San Francisco dead drop, it created the Central Park map
