Sorry about the blur, I'll figure out a better way to put these up.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Chegg?
So I recently came across this website via SlickDeals. Its a site called Chegg, and they describe themselves as a cross between ebay and facebook. It is supposedly only for students, but you can reap all the benefits by having a .edu address. The site is built (somewhat amateurishly of you ask me) around students' posts. They are currently trying to generate traffic in two ways. The first way is by daily "hatches". These usually occur at 3PM PST and vary from crappy deals ($20 for Borat DVD) to awesome ($99 for a Wii). The site is not consistent in the method or the time that they announce these deals. Sometimes it is through video, sometimes they can be found on dealspl.us . Shipping is free, which is nice, but you'll see that they are also awful at shipping.
The second way they generate traffic is golden egg hunts. Basically, they hide "golden" egg items in their posts. At first, whoever found these first won the items. This is awesome for people who know about the site, but leaves no reason for people to tell their friends (more people = more competition). Also, some stanford kids were caught for "cheating" - using java scripts to pull all the images down from the website and then comparing hashes to find the golden eggs. The "added security" for this was what they call "requirements" for winning an item. These have ranged from awful (email 100 friends about chegg 1st to win a Wii) to fun (various puzzles). The site is influenced a lot by user suggestions also, (ie someone complained about spamming people to win prizes and they pledged to never do email reqs again) which is interesting in itself.
The real question is, "How does chegg make money?". No idea here. Also, how did these kids get $2 million in investment capital? The website interface and security suck. Also, items have been shipped to me with a decent amount of address info missing from the envelope and the stamps are not your standard "printed from the USPS postage", but actually a collage of stamps with varying postage ($.02, $.37, etc), like they had rifled through their parents drawers looking for stamps. All in all though, I have won some great swag, pictured here, but also recently received a Wii.
Ha.
The second way they generate traffic is golden egg hunts. Basically, they hide "golden" egg items in their posts. At first, whoever found these first won the items. This is awesome for people who know about the site, but leaves no reason for people to tell their friends (more people = more competition). Also, some stanford kids were caught for "cheating" - using java scripts to pull all the images down from the website and then comparing hashes to find the golden eggs. The "added security" for this was what they call "requirements" for winning an item. These have ranged from awful (email 100 friends about chegg 1st to win a Wii) to fun (various puzzles). The site is influenced a lot by user suggestions also, (ie someone complained about spamming people to win prizes and they pledged to never do email reqs again) which is interesting in itself.
The real question is, "How does chegg make money?". No idea here. Also, how did these kids get $2 million in investment capital? The website interface and security suck. Also, items have been shipped to me with a decent amount of address info missing from the envelope and the stamps are not your standard "printed from the USPS postage", but actually a collage of stamps with varying postage ($.02, $.37, etc), like they had rifled through their parents drawers looking for stamps. All in all though, I have won some great swag, pictured here, but also recently received a Wii.
Ha.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Vanishing Point Game Entry 11 - Meta development
From VPWiki (originally posted by thebruce in Unfiction):
It looks like the number of little white and filled in patches on each feather are not accidental and will possibly lead to something. At least we now know this to be a major part of the game, thanks to Loki's new video. Also, people have noticed in the videos that when Loki says the word "Right" in the videos, she always adjusts her glasses:
This image was found at www.vanishingpointgame.com/images/loki.jpg
It looks like the number of little white and filled in patches on each feather are not accidental and will possibly lead to something. At least we now know this to be a major part of the game, thanks to Loki's new video. Also, people have noticed in the videos that when Loki says the word "Right" in the videos, she always adjusts her glasses:
This image was found at www.vanishingpointgame.com/images/loki.jpg
Vanishing Point Game Entry Ten - Puzzle Box Two
Seven Card Monte:
Use each card like a phone keypad. Where you have to click to get them to flip is the number. Filling these in, along with the 263 from the LA clue gives us: 877-263-4786
Calling gets Loki, who asks what disappeared Halloween night, 1:26, in rm 401, detroit - HOUDINI
The Rest of Them:
I am too tired to explain all the rest, there are plenty of explanations in the forums, and its not worth repeating here.....sorry.
RABBIT TRAIL : PRESTO
POSTERS : WHITE
MIND READER : MATE
X-RAY CARDS : 2:H, 4:D, 6:H, A:S, 5:C
TALE OF 2 BROTHERS : AMAZE
GRAVITY LOCK : SECRECY
DOMINO : DRAWING A BLANK
MAGIC LESSON : SEWANEE
HEADLINER : LIGHT
SEVEN CARD MONTE : HOUDINI
POSTCARDS : T. NELSON DOWNS
CUPS AND BALLS : STAGE
Use each card like a phone keypad. Where you have to click to get them to flip is the number. Filling these in, along with the 263 from the LA clue gives us: 877-263-4786
Calling gets Loki, who asks what disappeared Halloween night, 1:26, in rm 401, detroit - HOUDINI
The Rest of Them:
I am too tired to explain all the rest, there are plenty of explanations in the forums, and its not worth repeating here.....sorry.
RABBIT TRAIL : PRESTO
POSTERS : WHITE
MIND READER : MATE
X-RAY CARDS : 2:H, 4:D, 6:H, A:S, 5:C
TALE OF 2 BROTHERS : AMAZE
GRAVITY LOCK : SECRECY
DOMINO : DRAWING A BLANK
MAGIC LESSON : SEWANEE
HEADLINER : LIGHT
SEVEN CARD MONTE : HOUDINI
POSTCARDS : T. NELSON DOWNS
CUPS AND BALLS : STAGE
Friday, January 12, 2007
Vanishing Point Game Entry Nine - White Box Phenomenon?
I saw this: http://vanishingpointwiki.com/wiki/White_Box_Phenomenon on the VP wiki. Very interesting. Looks like some sort of other puzzle, but very complicated, seeing as the boxes are so small.
Weird.
Weird.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Vanishing Point Game Entry Eight - Thoughts So Far
I'm kind of amazed at the level these puzzles go to, involving MS customer support, phone lines, automatic faxes, etc. One thing I have noticed is that some of the clues let you know what is going on, but answers to the puzzles don't answer the question in the clue. Also, as I stated before, I wonder if there is going to be some further work done (post 5) with these answers for the meta puzzle, although the solutions seem to have very little to do with each other. I guess we'll see.
Vanishing Point Game Entry Seven - Hard Puzzles
STARFIELD:
For this one, we are presented with a sky with stars and a journal:
Again, from the video, there was a star with a time in it, probably filling in the first line of the journal here. If we use the simple alpha-numeric cipher, converting the hours to their respective letters in the alphabet, we get: CONNECT THE MINUTES. It took me a little while to figure out, but starting from the start and moving in the direction of the minutes as if it was a clock, i.e. 15 is directly right, connecting the stars makes a shape. The shape is the state of: WASHINGTON
CALENDARS:
Looking through the calendars here, there are the six mentioned by Loki in the Vegas video. So first we print each calendar out, and then fill in the dates based on the note on the right. 1 = June, 2 = Jan, 3 = April, 4 = March, 5 = May, 6 = February. You then notice that the written in things on the edges of the calendars all occur twice. Arranging the calendars so that all of them are touching forms a cube. The cube has a question mark and an exclamation point on it. An INTERROBANG is exactly that, a mix of the to symbols.
REPAIR TABLE:
To repair these, we need to remember the cube from the beginning of the Vegas video. Each item has a number associated with it: 101 Dalmations, 76 trombones, 3 blind mice, an 8 ball , Route 66, 21 is Blackjack, 9 lives in a cat. Put the numbers into the clocks. The blinking then synchronizes into a morse code message: "Morse is the key, use the code". If you use the filled in sections (a dot is a vertical bar, a dash is a horizontal one) You get: WRINKLE
HOURGLASSES:
This one is a pain to get to work. The best method is given on the VP wiki - hit start and flip any hourglass that is COMPLETELY empty until they all are empty. They will then light up the words GRAINS. This doesn't work as the answer though, but from the video, there were all those @ signs around the hourglass. Emailing grains@vanishingpointgame.com sends us back an email with the answer: CANDELABRA
Word.
For this one, we are presented with a sky with stars and a journal:
Again, from the video, there was a star with a time in it, probably filling in the first line of the journal here. If we use the simple alpha-numeric cipher, converting the hours to their respective letters in the alphabet, we get: CONNECT THE MINUTES. It took me a little while to figure out, but starting from the start and moving in the direction of the minutes as if it was a clock, i.e. 15 is directly right, connecting the stars makes a shape. The shape is the state of: WASHINGTONCALENDARS:
Looking through the calendars here, there are the six mentioned by Loki in the Vegas video. So first we print each calendar out, and then fill in the dates based on the note on the right. 1 = June, 2 = Jan, 3 = April, 4 = March, 5 = May, 6 = February. You then notice that the written in things on the edges of the calendars all occur twice. Arranging the calendars so that all of them are touching forms a cube. The cube has a question mark and an exclamation point on it. An INTERROBANG is exactly that, a mix of the to symbols.REPAIR TABLE:
To repair these, we need to remember the cube from the beginning of the Vegas video. Each item has a number associated with it: 101 Dalmations, 76 trombones, 3 blind mice, an 8 ball , Route 66, 21 is Blackjack, 9 lives in a cat. Put the numbers into the clocks. The blinking then synchronizes into a morse code message: "Morse is the key, use the code". If you use the filled in sections (a dot is a vertical bar, a dash is a horizontal one) You get: WRINKLEHOURGLASSES:
This one is a pain to get to work. The best method is given on the VP wiki - hit start and flip any hourglass that is COMPLETELY empty until they all are empty. They will then light up the words GRAINS. This doesn't work as the answer though, but from the video, there were all those @ signs around the hourglass. Emailing grains@vanishingpointgame.com sends us back an email with the answer: CANDELABRAWord.
Vanishing Point Game Entry Six - Medium Puzzles
AIRPORT:
If you remember, in the video, the word DEPARTURES scrolled in the background of a clock whose numbers were messed up. Here is how they were rearranged (supposed to be:actual) 1:6 2:4 3:11 4:8 5:12 6:3 7:5 8:10 9:7 10:1 11:2 12:9 So you look for the flight departing at 1, and take the 6th letter and so on... You get: HGRPORAERCAT. Rearrange by the original order on the board and voila: CARTOGRAPHER
CUCKOOS:
Remember the cuckoos from the video? One cuckooed 3 times and the other 4 times. Those are to be filled in for the missing clocks. The rest you have to count. This ends up giving you coordinates, and looking them up shows: BIG BENPOCKET WATCHES:
The clue here says to synchronize the watches. kind of like the lights out game, but a little different. Turns out the easiest way to do this is by clicking on each one in a clockwise pattern, starting at the upper left watch. Then the center one has to be clicked until they are all glowing green. It will then say "time to cash in your chip" and ask you what color it is. From the video, the chip shown was: GREEN
CURRENT EVENTS:
Building demolitions in Vegas. Search for these dates on Google and you can figure out which building each one is. Connect the building to the date of demo. Then read the numbers from left to right that the strings cross (3795211). Remember the 866 from the Vegas sign? Calling 866-379-5211 gives us a message from Loki asking: "What line separates the earth from the sky?" Obviously, the: HORIZON
Vanishing Point Game Entry Five - Solutions and Idea
Here are the solutions for week 1 (description of solutions to follow):
I have done MS puzzle challenges before and this looks like something to do with a meta puzzle. Seeing as Loki let us know it all has to do with time, I wrote down the time on the broken pocket watch, which is 11:05 (first thought it was 11ish, but the 11:05 is reinforced by the red 5):
I also thought the gears might be important, but who knows. I tried using the number of spokes and the time 11:05 as indexes or similar into the answers, but so far nothing. Also, the image behind Loki seems to be of an eye. There are 13 "I"s in the solutions and answers, taking out the one in "time" gives us 12, both the number of hours on the clock and the number of puzzles. Of course, it is possible that these things have nothing to do with the rest of the contest....ah well.
| Puzzle | Answer | Spokes on Gear |
| SUNDIAL | HELIOS | 5 |
| WATCH SPRINGS | FIVE | 1 |
| MANTLE CLOCK | HONEY | 2 |
| GEARS | TIME TRAVEL | 1 |
| AIRPORT | CARTOGRAPHER | 3 |
| CUKOOS | BIG BEN | 1 |
| POCKET WATCHES | GREEN | 3 |
| CURRENT EVENTS | HORIZON | 5 |
| STARFIELD | WASHINGTON | 4 |
| CALENDARS | INTERROBANG | 3 |
| REPAIR TABLE | WRINKLE | 1 |
| HOURGLASSES | CANDELABRA | 3 |
| Time on broken pocket watch - 11:05 | ||
I have done MS puzzle challenges before and this looks like something to do with a meta puzzle. Seeing as Loki let us know it all has to do with time, I wrote down the time on the broken pocket watch, which is 11:05 (first thought it was 11ish, but the 11:05 is reinforced by the red 5):
I also thought the gears might be important, but who knows. I tried using the number of spokes and the time 11:05 as indexes or similar into the answers, but so far nothing. Also, the image behind Loki seems to be of an eye. There are 13 "I"s in the solutions and answers, taking out the one in "time" gives us 12, both the number of hours on the clock and the number of puzzles. Of course, it is possible that these things have nothing to do with the rest of the contest....ah well.
Vanishing Point Game Entry Four - Easy Puzzles
So if you register with vanishingpointgame.com and login, it brings you to the screen in the previous post. The first four puzzles are marked as EASY. Here they are:
SUNDIAL:
"USE THE SUN TO TELL TIME" - clue to use the times from the sun in the Vegas video here. By sliding the time through 2:30, 5:00, 12:00, 1:30, 8:00, and 7:00 you get the answer: HELIOS
WATCH SPRINGS:
The spring snaps to the grid pretty easily, the trick is writing down the letters whose center the spring passes through as it winds in: HOW MANY WAVES Remembering the end of the video, there were: FIVE
MANTLE CLOCK:
Time is written upside down and backward....familiar? Its from the video again, remember the word SOLVE? So we take the numbers from that part of the video and put them in: 694+42 = 736 or 7:36, 114+224 = 338 or 3:38. We put these into the clocks by clicking the time we wish to change and then spinning the center hands. I expected something to happen, but then thought of the upside down thing. It looks like BEE GEL upside down. So the answer is: HONEY
GEARS:
Now here's a fun one. You have to arrange all the gears to get all the silver gears to turn the right way. Here's how I did it:
After a little animation, you get a note asking you what he wrote about. Who? HG Wells from the video of course. He wrote about: TIME TRAVEL
SUNDIAL:
"USE THE SUN TO TELL TIME" - clue to use the times from the sun in the Vegas video here. By sliding the time through 2:30, 5:00, 12:00, 1:30, 8:00, and 7:00 you get the answer: HELIOSWATCH SPRINGS:
The spring snaps to the grid pretty easily, the trick is writing down the letters whose center the spring passes through as it winds in: HOW MANY WAVES Remembering the end of the video, there were: FIVEMANTLE CLOCK:
Time is written upside down and backward....familiar? Its from the video again, remember the word SOLVE? So we take the numbers from that part of the video and put them in: 694+42 = 736 or 7:36, 114+224 = 338 or 3:38. We put these into the clocks by clicking the time we wish to change and then spinning the center hands. I expected something to happen, but then thought of the upside down thing. It looks like BEE GEL upside down. So the answer is: HONEYGEARS:
Now here's a fun one. You have to arrange all the gears to get all the silver gears to turn the right way. Here's how I did it:
After a little animation, you get a note asking you what he wrote about. Who? HG Wells from the video of course. He wrote about: TIME TRAVELWednesday, January 10, 2007
Vanishing Point Game Entry Three - Vegas Video
So, part of the viral part of this game was that MS sent out a bunch of free stuff to frequent bloggers that were small puzzles, which you can read about elsewhere. I don't think they will have much of anything to do with the game from now on. Anyway, once solved, the puzzles gave a location (The Bellagio in Vegas) and a time. There, in the fountains, a video of Loki was shown to kick-off the real part of the game. There are some you-tube videos of it as well as a video of it at the vanishing point game website itself. Pretty elaborate and cool. The only problem is that the resolution of it was not very good, what with being projected onto streams of water and whatnot.
Many clues were in the video for the puzzles. The video is summarized here (let me know what I left out):
(note, Loki is the only speaker)
(church bell rings 3 times)
"It's time."
(church bell rings once more)
"Listen carefully, I don't have very long, and it is my nature to disappear. My name is Loki. My job is to find the smartest people on the planet. My employer is rewarding them with astonishing prizes, including a trip up to the edge of space to see the ultimate Vista. And being immortalized on a computer chip around the world. "
(a bunch of white clocks with spinning hands fly from the center of the screen out)
"Pay attention, its all about time. To challenge the cleverest people in the world, I have devised a series of intricate puzzles. Think you've got what it takes?"
(screen fades to an hourglass with 20 @ symbols around it)
(screen fades to a side of a cube - a picture of a dalmation, next side - trombone, next - a mouse with sunglasses and a walking stick, next - a magic 8 ball, next - an interstate sign, next - the Jack of Spades, and lastly - a cat. The screen fades to some sort of blend of these images quickly and then to black)
"Calendars. Lets think outside of the box. First there's June, then January, April, March, May, and February."
(A white star appears with the time 3:15 written in it)
(The traditional Las Vegas sign then appears, but the Vegas turns into (866))
"Everyone knows the color of money."
(A green poker chip with the $ symbol appears, turns into two clocks with no hands, then cukoos appear and cukoo (is that a verb?) 3 times - one clock falls on the first bird, then the second cukoo cukoos 4 times before being covered by the other clock.)
(A new clock appears, with no hands, but the numbers are messed up, reading from the normal 12 position to the 11 clockwise: 9-6-4-11-8-12-3-5-10-7-1-2 Also, the word DEPARTURES appears numerous times behind the clock in yellow text)
(Next, a spinning gear, with a picture of H.G. Wells in the center, whose ID is aided by his birth year - 1866 on the left and year of death on the right - 1946)
(Loki appears with arms outstretched, with the word SOLVE upside-down and backwards below her. The equation 694+42 is on the viewer's left and the equation 114+224 is on the right)
"The use of calculators is allowed. (Pause) All done? Now lets make some waves."
(five waves of water from the fountain and she waves goodbye)
"Okay, I have time for one more."
(A sun, with the times: 2:30, 5:00, 12:00, 1:30, 8:00, 7:00)
"Now you should have everything you need. You'll see me again before too long. But act fast, things in my world tend to...disappear."
(vanishingpointgame.com)
Many clues were in the video for the puzzles. The video is summarized here (let me know what I left out):
(note, Loki is the only speaker)
(church bell rings 3 times)
"It's time."
(church bell rings once more)
"Listen carefully, I don't have very long, and it is my nature to disappear. My name is Loki. My job is to find the smartest people on the planet. My employer is rewarding them with astonishing prizes, including a trip up to the edge of space to see the ultimate Vista. And being immortalized on a computer chip around the world. "
(a bunch of white clocks with spinning hands fly from the center of the screen out)
"Pay attention, its all about time. To challenge the cleverest people in the world, I have devised a series of intricate puzzles. Think you've got what it takes?"
(screen fades to an hourglass with 20 @ symbols around it)
(screen fades to a side of a cube - a picture of a dalmation, next side - trombone, next - a mouse with sunglasses and a walking stick, next - a magic 8 ball, next - an interstate sign, next - the Jack of Spades, and lastly - a cat. The screen fades to some sort of blend of these images quickly and then to black)
"Calendars. Lets think outside of the box. First there's June, then January, April, March, May, and February."
(A white star appears with the time 3:15 written in it)
(The traditional Las Vegas sign then appears, but the Vegas turns into (866))
"Everyone knows the color of money."
(A green poker chip with the $ symbol appears, turns into two clocks with no hands, then cukoos appear and cukoo (is that a verb?) 3 times - one clock falls on the first bird, then the second cukoo cukoos 4 times before being covered by the other clock.)
(A new clock appears, with no hands, but the numbers are messed up, reading from the normal 12 position to the 11 clockwise: 9-6-4-11-8-12-3-5-10-7-1-2 Also, the word DEPARTURES appears numerous times behind the clock in yellow text)
(Next, a spinning gear, with a picture of H.G. Wells in the center, whose ID is aided by his birth year - 1866 on the left and year of death on the right - 1946)
(Loki appears with arms outstretched, with the word SOLVE upside-down and backwards below her. The equation 694+42 is on the viewer's left and the equation 114+224 is on the right)
"The use of calculators is allowed. (Pause) All done? Now lets make some waves."
(five waves of water from the fountain and she waves goodbye)
"Okay, I have time for one more."
(A sun, with the times: 2:30, 5:00, 12:00, 1:30, 8:00, 7:00)
"Now you should have everything you need. You'll see me again before too long. But act fast, things in my world tend to...disappear."
(vanishingpointgame.com)
Vanishing Point Game Entry One
So I read today at slashdot.org that Microsoft is hosting a viral marketing puzzle competition for Vista (which, by the way, I like saying Vee-sta, not vis-ta, but enough about me). I have always been interested in puzzles and such, so I checked it out - www.vanishingpointgame.com
VISTA is in there, maybe: www.VanIShingpoinTgAme.com
So it turns out there are two "competitions". Well, not really, one of them is really a sweepstakes for non-lazy people. I will talk about the actual competition first, seeing as it is rather absurd. The first person to solve it gets their name inscribed on every AMD Athlon 64 FX chip that is made from when you solve it until March 31st, 2007. Now I know there are two audiences reading this (if I actually have any viewers), the audience that just said to themselves, "holy crap - thats awesome" and those who thought, "why the hell would that be a prize?"
Either way, the puzzles for that line of the Vanishing Point Game have been pretty ridiculous thus far. First, after solving all of the first week puzzles (I'll get to this in a later post), you see a video by the main character of this contest, Loki. At the end, the phrase /on_the_run flashes on the screen. Tagging this to the main website (www.vanishingpointgame.com/on_the_run) yields this:
Hopefully you can read it (sorry, new to blogging), but the important part is the "Contact Me" at the bottom. Since the character's name is Loki, we try loki[at]vanishingpointgame.com to see what happens. Auto-response:
Life is a mix of work and play. You've found play...
Okay, call this gets you: "Please enter your fax number and press the pound key". Man this is a great way for MS to gather information about people.... A quick trip to Kinkos later and I got a fax from 561-297-3481 (boca raton, FL) (no it doesn't spell anything at phonespell.org) (also, I believe it was uploaded to the system originally at the time at the top: 01/05/2007 02:33 , hey, she said its all about time):
Itenerary for: L. KITSUNE
*note, the last time (12:08p) is circled with a handwritten note below:
Former AT+T Bldg.
X55654
First thing I noticed was the "L. Kitsune". Putting an "O" after the "L" gives us L.OKItsune. Maybe a nickname.... You ready for the next part? Looking up the last flight (AK - Alaska Airlines (flight 394)) at www.alaskaair.com/airport/flightstatus/FlightStatus.aspx shows us that it is a daily flight from Seattle to San Jose. So we search San Jose for a former AT&T building. After a little searching at Google, you find that this is AMD's headquarters (phone #1-800-538-8450). Enter in the extension x5-5654 and we get another voice mail from Loki:
"Hi, this is Loki - or rather, her electronic footprint left behind on this machine. Funny how the inanimate world retains traces of things long after they've disappeared, isn't it? If you're calling about the murmuring rock project, it's on hold indefinitely. Unfortunately."
Someone named josh has uploaded this to: www.windowsconnected.com/files/folders/misc/entry5565.aspx
Entering "Murmuring rock project" at wikipedia shows us the translation for murmur into German is loosely: "lureln" and for rock: "ley" or Loreley (also written Lorelei). So I guess Loki's real name is Lorelei Kitsune. From here, I will take "on hold indefinitely" to mean that there will be no update until one of the following events or puzzle sets (but I could be wrong, let me know if you see something).
VISTA is in there, maybe: www.VanIShingpoinTgAme.com
So it turns out there are two "competitions". Well, not really, one of them is really a sweepstakes for non-lazy people. I will talk about the actual competition first, seeing as it is rather absurd. The first person to solve it gets their name inscribed on every AMD Athlon 64 FX chip that is made from when you solve it until March 31st, 2007. Now I know there are two audiences reading this (if I actually have any viewers), the audience that just said to themselves, "holy crap - thats awesome" and those who thought, "why the hell would that be a prize?"
Either way, the puzzles for that line of the Vanishing Point Game have been pretty ridiculous thus far. First, after solving all of the first week puzzles (I'll get to this in a later post), you see a video by the main character of this contest, Loki. At the end, the phrase /on_the_run flashes on the screen. Tagging this to the main website (www.vanishingpointgame.com/on_the_run) yields this:
Hopefully you can read it (sorry, new to blogging), but the important part is the "Contact Me" at the bottom. Since the character's name is Loki, we try loki[at]vanishingpointgame.com to see what happens. Auto-response:Life is a mix of work and play. You've found play...
~L
(by the way, I accidentally sent the email first to loki[at]vanishingpoint.com, I bet email collectors could do well with a few domain names near a lot of the puzzle ones)
Alright, so where the hell is work? Microsoft, of course. Emailing loki[at]microsoft.com gives us:
Out of Office:
Listen closely....hmmmm. Well, the only way I can listen is by talking to someone, right? So call Microsoft. The number? (1-800-MICROSOFT of course) Press 5 to talk to someone at MS. Press 2. Talk to the computer for a while until she nicely transfers you to an operator. Ask to be transferred to Loki. A pre-recorded message congratulates you:
"Awesome work. All knowledge eventually needs effective diagnosis."
Take the first letter of each: A-W-A-K-E-N-E-D. Try this at the website (www.vanishingpointgame.com/awakened), and voila:
(by the way, I accidentally sent the email first to loki[at]vanishingpoint.com, I bet email collectors could do well with a few domain names near a lot of the puzzle ones)
Alright, so where the hell is work? Microsoft, of course. Emailing loki[at]microsoft.com gives us:
Out of Office:
Hmmm. Not quite what I had in mind. Try harder - then listen closely.
~LListen closely....hmmmm. Well, the only way I can listen is by talking to someone, right? So call Microsoft. The number? (1-800-MICROSOFT of course) Press 5 to talk to someone at MS. Press 2. Talk to the computer for a while until she nicely transfers you to an operator. Ask to be transferred to Loki. A pre-recorded message congratulates you:
"Awesome work. All knowledge eventually needs effective diagnosis."
Take the first letter of each: A-W-A-K-E-N-E-D. Try this at the website (www.vanishingpointgame.com/awakened), and voila:
Okay, call this gets you: "Please enter your fax number and press the pound key". Man this is a great way for MS to gather information about people.... A quick trip to Kinkos later and I got a fax from 561-297-3481 (boca raton, FL) (no it doesn't spell anything at phonespell.org) (also, I believe it was uploaded to the system originally at the time at the top: 01/05/2007 02:33 , hey, she said its all about time):Itenerary for: L. KITSUNE
DATE FLIGHT DEPART ARRIVE
Jan 4 AW 291 12:05p 2:22p
Jan 11 SW 608 7:00p 8:05p
Jan 18 AA 1308 1:45p 6:40p
Jan 24 UA 373/339 9:15p 1:07p
Jan 28 AK 394 9:55p 12:08p
Jan 4 AW 291 12:05p 2:22p
Jan 11 SW 608 7:00p 8:05p
Jan 18 AA 1308 1:45p 6:40p
Jan 24 UA 373/339 9:15p 1:07p
Jan 28 AK 394 9:55p 12:08p
*note, the last time (12:08p) is circled with a handwritten note below:
Former AT+T Bldg.
X55654
First thing I noticed was the "L. Kitsune". Putting an "O" after the "L" gives us L.OKItsune. Maybe a nickname.... You ready for the next part? Looking up the last flight (AK - Alaska Airlines (flight 394)) at www.alaskaair.com/airport/flightstatus/FlightStatus.aspx shows us that it is a daily flight from Seattle to San Jose. So we search San Jose for a former AT&T building. After a little searching at Google, you find that this is AMD's headquarters (phone #1-800-538-8450). Enter in the extension x5-5654 and we get another voice mail from Loki:
"Hi, this is Loki - or rather, her electronic footprint left behind on this machine. Funny how the inanimate world retains traces of things long after they've disappeared, isn't it? If you're calling about the murmuring rock project, it's on hold indefinitely. Unfortunately."
Someone named josh has uploaded this to: www.windowsconnected.com/files/folders/misc/entry5565.aspx
Entering "Murmuring rock project" at wikipedia shows us the translation for murmur into German is loosely: "lureln" and for rock: "ley" or Loreley (also written Lorelei). So I guess Loki's real name is Lorelei Kitsune. From here, I will take "on hold indefinitely" to mean that there will be no update until one of the following events or puzzle sets (but I could be wrong, let me know if you see something).
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