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Puzzle for December 1. 2/12: That thing in the centre - that's a kind of "2D" barcode. But what kind? 4/12: The name of that citrus is wholly unimportant. The name of the jpg file is crucial, though. 6/12: The name of the jpg is a cryptic clue. There's an anagram in there somewhere. 9/12: I've just become aware that the only site (I was aware of) on the internet that allowed you to decode the barcode has... been taken offline. Damn. If you need the decoding email me @ advent2006 (at) richardjackson.org Puzzle for December 2. 4/12: There may be a mathematical relationship between those numbers, but I don't know it. 9/12: The hyphens are often omitted. Puzzle for December 3. 6/12: I'm really reluctant to give "real" clues for this puzzle too soon because it'll be fun to get on your own. Small clues though - "Mamonaku, Douzo!" means "Next; here it is" in Japanese, and the background picture is a Japanese vending machine. Neither of these require "solving" (it's just the obvious numbers and letters stuff) but they do point you in the direction of a definite Japanese bent to this puzzle... but don't worry if you only understand English, you'll be fine. 8/12: OK, this is really hard. You need to convert the key by recognising the siginificance of the combinations of letters and numbers. The key is very strange, yes? Repeated letters, restricted alphabet containing only Japanese letters, but not even all of them. Search? ;P 10/12: Those pairs of numbers & letters belong to a unique Japanese series (or perhaps more correctly series of series.) Googling some pairs will definitely help... Puzzle for December 4. 5/12: Gee, Shakespeare almost fading to black. Or, is that, Shakespeare fading to almost black? 7/12: Are you sure that background is solid black? Absolutely sure? 9/12: You need to download the "solid black" graphic and manipulate it with a (reasonably good) graphics program. It's not at all solid black. Puzzle for December 5. 6/12: Well, it's not an eel. What would you call it? 8/12: What features does this fish have that other creatures you know have? 10/12: What would you call the thing above the fish's head? Puzzle for December 6. 7/12: I'm extremely embarrassed. This puzzle contained an error caused when I saved a file. I've corrected the error now. As for a clue, it's going to be much clearer from the change to the stripey background, whereabouts you might find some things that are, say, 6, and turn them into some other things that just happen to be, say, 24, and then, say, convert them into letters, numbers and symbols, and then, say, solve the puzzle. Oops. 9/12: Colours are often represented by hexadecimal numbers 6 figures long in internet/computer applications. 15/12: So get those hexes and turn them into something else. The lowest common denominator... Puzzle for December 7. 10/12: This writing is strange. It means something, but only just. It's almost like it's... constrained. But how? 12/12: The meaning of the text in this puzzle is totally coincidental. It only exists to hide another text. 14/12: There's no decoding involved in this puzzle at all. 23/12: The answer is right in front of you. You just need to decide which letters to subtract... Puzzle for December 8. 10/12: So you'll end up with a 12-digit number that doesn't mean much. How would you turn it into a five-letter word which did? 12/12: There's two transformations involved in getting from 12 numbers to 5 letters. 14/12: If you were working backwards from text, which would be the two most obvious transformations? You've got to turn letters into numbers first. Puzzle for December 9. 12/12: There are three letters in the puzzle which don't behave according to the rule which governs the puzzle. Which three are the impostors? 14/12: This is an English language puzzle. 16/12: Solution lies in discovering why some folders contain other folders and the other ones don't. 3 folders should contain other folders, but don't. Which three? Puzzle for December 10. 12/12: I'm a bit devious so I didn't pick a country that still exists. 14/12: The country that supplanted this one has a pretty similar flag. 20/12: In Europe. Puzzle for December 11. 14/12: Ignore the background until you've solved the foreground. Ni hao ma? 15/12: Try Googling some of those code fragments. 20/12: You should end up with Chinese characters, but if you try to translate them into English, you'll hit a snag. 28/01: Gongche. Puzzle for December 12. 14/12: Don't look for over-complexity in this puzzle. It's only 5/10. 16/12: No mathematics is necessary in solving this puzzle. View source? 23/12: Nice colours. Wonder what they're called. 28/01. Search those colours! Puzzle for December 13. 15/12: Look at the source. Weird, huh. 20/12: It's really hard to talk about "terrorists," "governments," and "mutual understanding" when all of those words are "forbidden." 23/12: There's only two-syllable and one syllable words, and those non-breaking spaces are really weird. 28/01: It's not binary, but that's the long and the short of it. Puzzle for December 14. 16/12: This is genuinely what it looks like. This is a piece of (fairly formal) music for four voices, governed by the rules of four-part harmony. There are notes missing which need to be filled in in accordance with the chord nomenclature below them (i.e. IV, V, I, III) and then you use the notes you filled in as the basis to solve the puzzle. For solving those notes, O=440. If you can't read music you're in a bit of a bind. If you can read music but don't have any theory, you could read up on chords & harmony. Try here for a start. You also need to know about "voice leading" and the ranges of the voices in four-part harmony. Owing to its specific difficulty, I may waive this puzzle if you've completed the other 23. If you're familiar with four-part ecclesiastical vocal music (and I know some of you are) you could also try guessing the notes that are missing. Your intuition may well be good enough. The arrows indicate which direction the voice should go to / has come from where this may be ambiguous / choicy from the other information. Good luck! 20/12: Yeah, this is pretty tough isn't it. Well, so I overshot the mark. Shoot me. Puzzle for December 15. 20/12: Each line is a separate clue and each of the constituents belongs to a group. The answer is the name of the group. Above that there's no meta-solution. 28/01: Google some of these. Puzzle for December 16. 20/12: Find the words. The letters left over... Puzzle for December 17. 20/12: Look at the overall shape. 28/01: If you don't see the shape at first, keep checking back periodically! Puzzle for December 18. 20/12: After the lecture for 136-203, better go to the library and get those books before someone else does. 23/12: Or at least, visit the Unimelb library catalogue. 28/01: Feeling Dewey-eyed about this puzzle? Puzzle for December 19. 20/12: The answer is a very linguistic number. 23/12: You need to convert this number into a linguistic number. How could you make a number that could also be read as language? 28/01: What base would you need to represent any word as a number? Puzzle for December 20. 23/12: What a horrible, bombastic building. Think 20th century authoritarian. And big. 28/01: It has a lot of floor space. Famously so. Puzzle for December 21. 28/01: How magical! Puzzle for December 22. 28/01: Well, it's not actually sudoku, it's suudoku. Puzzle for December 23. 28/01: Come fly with me... Puzzle for December 24. 28/01: 26 letters, 25 squares. Go, er, figure. |