2011 Microsoft Puzzle Hunt

[Scurra]

7 The Selfish Gene -> The Selfish Gent
10. The Emperor's New Mind - > The Emperor's New Mend
15 Godel Escher Bach -> Godel Escher Bash
18. Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice to all Creation -> Dr Tatiana's Hex Advice to all Creation
20. The Tao of Physics -> The Tab of Physics
_________________
_{still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon}

[Scurra]

edited for new page

1. A Brief History of Time -> A Brief History of Lime
2. Black Swan -> Black Stan
3. Chaos -> Chars ???
4. The Wisdom of Crowds - > The Wisdom of Crowns
7 The Selfish Gene -> The Selfish Gent
8. Nudge -> Fudge ???
9. The Calculus Wars -> The Calculus Wart
10. The Emperor's New Mind - > The Emperor's New Mend
13. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat -> The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hut
14. Bully for Brontosaurus -> Bulky for Brontosaurus
15 Godel Escher Bach -> Godel Escher Bash
16. Broca's Brain -> Brock's Brain
18. Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice to all Creation -> Dr Tatiana's Hex Advice to all Creation
19. Freakonomics -> Creakonomics
20. The Tao of Physics -> The Tab of Physics
21. Guns, Germs and Steel -> Gins, Germs and Steel
22. A New Kind of Science > Pew
23. Pale Blue Dot -> Pale Blue Cot
24. The First Three Minutes -> Tie First Three Minutes
25. The Red Queen -> The Rad Queen ???
26. River out of Eden > Diver???
27. The Night is Large -> The Night is Largo
_________________
_{still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon}

[Scurra]

Original letters from titles that were changed read

TWO D--ENSI--AL CA-S FOUND HERE

I think the answer to this must be: FLATLAND -> FIATLAND

I was intrigued to discover how many of these books (I think more than half) I had on my shelf (some of which I have even read!), and I have now added a couple more to my list...
_________________
_{still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon}

[Jack_Ian]

"The Red Queen" was one of my favourites. Sent me to the dictionary a few times (always good to learn), and My God!, did I want to be a Bonobo after I read that section.

[Scurra]

That's one of the ones I have but haven't read. I have moved it up the to-read pile now.
_________________
_{still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon}

[Suspence]

I've only read five of the books we've ID'd so far (Black Swan, The Wisdom of Crowds, Nudge, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and Freakonomics). I attempted GEB, but realized I wasn't smart enough.

Looking forward to trying to some of the others on this list.

12. The Society of Mind -> The Society of Mild
17. The Golden Ratio -> The Golden Patio
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[Jack_Ian]

GEB was on my list for ages until I finally got to read it last year.
I was actually quite disappointed. Maybe I expected too much. I found it to be a little repetitive and covered a lot of topics that I would have already been very familiar with, especially relating to computers.
When it was written, it was quite ground-breaking, but now, for me, it's definitely lost its sheen. YMMV

I read The Red Queen many years ago, when it first came out. The cover was a vivid pink .
Thankfully I was comfortable enough in my own sexuality to allow me to read it on a crowded bus. It did get a few looks though. A pink book about a queen is bound to give the wrong impression.
The next time I saw it on the shelf, it had a different cover.

[Suspence]

11. The Code Book -> The Code Bock

I think that just leaves 5 and 6.
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I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[Suspence]

[Suspence]

5. A History of Pi -> A History of Pa

For 6, we need an M to change. Given that it's about gender, and that "wan" is in the clue, I'm thinking Male -> Pale, possibly?
_________________
I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[Quailman]

Pale and Female by Margaret Mead.

[Suspence]

So to summarize everyone's work and put a bow on this one:

1. A Brief History of Time -> A Brief History of Lime
2. Black Swan -> Black Stan
3. Chaos -> Chars
4. The Wisdom of Crowds - > The Wisdom of Crowns
5. A History of Pi -> A History of Pa
6. Male and Female -> Pale and Female
7 The Selfish Gene -> The Selfish Gent
8. Nudge -> Fudge
9. The Calculus Wars -> The Calculus Wart
10. The Emperor's New Mind - > The Emperor's New Mend
11. The Code Book -> The Code Bock
12. The Society of Mind -> The Society of Mild
13. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat -> The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hut
14. Bully for Brontosaurus -> Bulky for Brontosaurus
15 Godel Escher Bach -> Godel Escher Bash
16. Broca's Brain -> Brock's Brain
17. The Golden Ratio -> The Golden Patio
18. Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice to all Creation -> Dr Tatiana's Hex Advice to all Creation
19. Freakonomics -> Creakonomics
20. The Tao of Physics -> The Tab of Physics
21. Guns, Germs and Steel -> Gins, Germs and Steel
22. A New Kind of Science > A Pew Kind of Science
23. Pale Blue Dot -> Pale Blue Cot
24. The First Three Minutes -> Tie First Three Minutes
25. The Red Queen -> The Rad Queen
26. River out of Eden > Diver out of Eden
27. The Night is Large -> The Night is Largo[/quote]

TWO DIMENSIONAL CARS FOUND HERE

Fiatland -> Flatland
_________________
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[Zahariel]

GEB was utterly groundbreaking when it was published (in 1979). In the 30 years since, many of the concepts there advanced have become standard fare in computer science, particularly the various treatises on undecidability, recursion, and Turing-completeness. Remember that these were essentially unknown concepts at the time except to the most esoteric of mathematicians; GEB was one of the first works that tried to make them accessible, if maybe not to everyone, then at least to any engineer or scientist, in much the same way that A Brief History of Time does for astrophysics and relativity. I actually ran across it at a summer camp, of all places, when I was 12; one of the counselors had a copy lying around. At the time it was extremely interesting, but a bit too dense for me at the time. But a memory of some of the subject matter stuck with me, and I rediscovered it a few years ago, in my last year of college. At that point I had much the same response as Jack_Ian, because it does cover a lot of the same ground as my professional training. But it's still an excellent introduction to the bizarre modes of thought necessary to reason about recursion and undecidability, even if the actual content is somewhat dated.

Regardless, FIATLAND is of course the answer to this one, nice job. The next puzzle, Thinking of a Number, is a Silverlight app, so you'll need that to try it out.

[Jack_Ian]

Installed Silverlight on OS X and tried it out, but not sure if it's working correctly.

This is what I see.

[Suspence]

Worked fine for me. I am "the very mod-L of guessers"!

Between 1 and 100,000 - 57,220
Between 1 and 1,000,000 - 453,558
Between I and C - 55 (LV)
Between I and M - 5,919 (DXIX)
Between one and ten thousand - 2,309 (two thousand three hundred nine)
Between one and one million - 719,369 (seven hundred nineteen thousand three hundred sixty-nine)

Then I tried again and my numbers were different:
370
555,008
5
519
4159

So, given that the numbers aren't consistent, there must be more to it.
_________________
I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[referee]

The numbers aren't consistent, but the mod-Ls are. The answer is THESIS.
_________________
Jan 21st, 2008: The pillaging continues.
Mar 4th, 2008: Rest in Peace, Gary Gygax. May your dice always roll a natural 20 wherever you are.

Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!

[Zahariel]

Good job, referee. THESIS is correct. Isn't that a fun little game?

Next up is Trainyard.

[Suspence]

Not sure what "trains" are in the instructions. So far I've got

[Suspence]

I've got large chunks of the grid complete, but certain parts aren't fitting together, likely because I'm still not understanding the "trains" concept. Anyone have any thoughts on that?
_________________
I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[Suspence]

Here's what I have so far. Grids are identical, just presented twice to cleary show horizontal progress vs. vertical.

There are several clues I believe I've solved but don't fit in. For instance, the second word in C looks like it should be RADAR. In that spot, the horizontal words give me RNR, which is close enough to be potentially promising, if I could figure out the "train"concept.

Same with the 1st clue in E, which should be ELECTRICITY or similar, but nothing quite fits.

1st clue in O should be SPANAKOPITA, but doesn't quite fit.


_________________
I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[Zahariel]

Look carefully at RADAR, SPANAKOPITA, and ELECTRICITY assuming you meant for it to be in column Q, not E. All are correct, and given the grids you have so far, those are going to be the key to understanding the final mechanic.

[Suspence]

It's amazing that when someone simply tells you to look at the exact thing you've already been staring at for 3 days, things come into focus.

Looks like the ADA in RADAR are found by jumping left to column B. That should be enough to get me moving again.
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[Suspence]

Updated image above - TRAIN CLUES INITIALS

Initals spell out - WES ANDERSON RAILWAY

Points to THE DARJEELING LIMITED
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[Scurra]

Good work. I couldn't get enough of an entry into this one to get going properly.
_________________
_{still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon}

[Zahariel]

Good going. DARJEELING LIMITED is correct. I didn't work on this one myself, so I don't really know what our process was for solving it.

We're getting pretty close to the end here, only 3 puzzles left! Next up: Travel Itinerary.

[Suspence]

1) Whitehall (London)
2) Wood St (Cardiff)
3) ?
4) EDSA? (Manila)
5) Prambanan
6) Rue de la Paix? (Paris)
7) Strandvagen (Stockholm)

Starting with two W's. Maybe we'll get WWW for a web address?
_________________
I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[Scurra]

I am presuming this is a Monopoly puzzle given the clues in the introduction.
Haven't looked at translating anything yet though.
_________________
_{still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon}

[PuzzleScot]

I'm honoured by Zag's suggestion in the first post - thank-you!
However, I've only just come across this fascinating thread. I feel obliged to make a contribution.

Links from this page will prove useful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licensed_and_localized_editions_of_Monopoly

8. Just Visiting, or Go To Jail (?) Swiss edition (="Also in Switzerland, you do not want to go to jail")
9. Community Chest. This is how it appears on the Mexico edition.
10. Empress Place (?) Technically it's on Armenian St, but the building is called the "Empress Place Building". Singapore edition.
11. Johnson Space Centre. US edition(?) (http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/everydaylife/jsc_monopoly.html)
12. Bryn stasjon, Oslo edition
13. Income Tax(?) Translates to "Any good crook would not be caught paying bet on their income" (original: "Einhverjar góðar Crook yrði ekki veiddur að borga betta á tekjum sínum")
14. Bilstraat, Netherlands edition
15. (Lower) Abbey Street, Dublin edition
16. (??) Translates to "statement of cash to look at some of the community" (Portuguese = Brazil/Portugal). However, seems much more likely just to mean something to do with "community chest"
17. Beşiktaş, Istanbul, Turkish edition. http://www.muurkrant.nl/monopoly/turkey.htm
18. Unioninkatu, Helsinki, Finnish edition

I've not double-checked earlier answers. If the initials mean nothing, then perhaps the 'standard' name for the location of the sites visited spell something out?
_________________
http://www.ukpuzzles.org/

[Zag]

[Scurra]

OK, I think I have a solution, although I was assuming that the answers listed here were correct!*

A little bit of backsolving has filled in:
3. Australia Post (Elec. Co)
4, Tomas Marato Ave (Manila)

Based on the introduction saying that he always went to the first spot if there were identical ones, I did some counting.

Go to Whitehall: 13 spaces (M)
Whitehall to Wood St: 21 spaces (U)
Wood St to Australia Post: 18 spaces (R)
Aust. Post to Tomas etc. 4 spaces (D)

continue like this and the message reads
MURDER VICTIM IN CLUE

Although I am UK based, so my immediate answer to this was Dr Black , I think the answer wanted is MR BODDY

*I am not sure about #11 though since the JSC seems to be in the wrong space for the message that it ought to be.
_________________
_{still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon}

[PuzzleScot]

Good work Scurra finishing this off. It does rather bewilder me where the last 2 names came from though.
_________________
http://www.ukpuzzles.org/

[Zahariel]

MR BODDY is correct. He's the guy whose murder you're supposedly investigating in the game Clue (or Cluedo if you're French).

I expect this one to fall pretty fast here: Tribond

[Suspence]

Assuming alphabetical:

ACCIDENT
ALARM
BACK
BATTERY
BEER
BONE
BOTTLE
BUS
DOG
FACE
GARBAGE
GRANDFATHER
HOCK
KEYS
LAUGH(ING)
LOTTERY
OIL
OXYGEN
PEN
PLANE
RACE
SANDWICH
SKI
SKY
SLIDE
WATER
WOLF

27 clues suggests a 3x3, as does the title. Some words seem to naturally combine, but that may be a coincidence - WATERSLIDE, WATER SKI, BEER BOTTLE.

For the 3x3 concept:

HAM - BONE, HOCK, SANDWICH
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I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[Elethiomel]

ALARM, FACE, GRANDFATHER -> CLOCK
BOTTLE?, BUS, PLANE -> AIR

[Suspence]

SLIDE, SKI, BOTTLE would all work with WATER, however WATER is already on our list of words.

CLOCK - ALARM
CLOCK - GRANDFATHER
CLOCK - FACE
HAM - HOCK
HAM - BONE
HAM - SANDWICH
CAR - ACCIDENT
CAR - BATTERY
CAR - KEYS
BACK
BEER
BOTTLE
BUS
DOG
GARBAGE
LAUGH(ING)
LOTTERY
OIL
OXYGEN
PEN
PLANE
RACE
SKI
SKY
SLIDE
WATER
WOLF
_________________
I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[Elethiomel]

BACK, BATTERY, WOLF -> PACK

[Scurra]

[Suspence]

Trying to incorporate everyone's ideas:

CLOCK - ALARM, GRANDFATHER, FACE
HAM - HOCK, BONE, SANDWICH
PACK- BATTERY, WOLF, BACK
TICKET - BUS, LOTTERY, PLANE
CAR - ACCIDENT, KEYS, RACE?
CAN - BEER, GARBAGE, OIL
BOTTLE
DOG
LAUGH(ING)
OXYGEN
PEN
SKI
SKY
SLIDE
WATER

OXYGEN and SKI go with MASK, maybe?
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I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[Elethiomel]

Maybe BEER, GARBAGE, OIL -> CAN

[Suspence]

I like it. Added above.

Not solid, but JET - SKI, SKY, WATER.
_________________
I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.