I'm really struggling with the concept of distance between words. I seem to be doing it wrong. Should it be as simple as lining up the words to where the most letters match, then counting the number of mismatches between the two words? Or take the first word and count the number of changes needed to get to the second? I also tried taking the characters in each word and finding the number of differences irrespective of order. I'm probably overthinking this or maybe I just made some simple error in the process.
I feel like I am in the same boat as those who said the suffix is easy to find and the rest of the puzzle is much harder: The word transformations are much easier at the end.
Also, I am assuming the first distance is between something and nothing.
Finally! Done for this week. I was trying for like 6 hours but couldn't wrap my head around it. Thanks for all the tips and clues, guys! Merry Christmas!
Argh - holiday time! I am so intrigued and looking forward to doing this one, but traveling to family and doing decorations and food and family will engulf some days but what I wish I was about to start was this challenge. I can only hope for even more hints by the time I come back :)
I remember from my two last solves that they ended with 13AR, I see a couple of a in nationalist and a couple of r in the last word, and the bold words would then become 13, but could not in 2 minutes spot if this is a key or if it is the reddest holiday herring!
Based on my own personal experience, so far, with the three challenges and the forums, I might say: Spend less time decoding the “hints” in the forums and more time decoding the actual challenge.
If you’ve successfully decoded the passcode, then the “hints” are blindingly obvious. But hindsight is always 20/20. If you have yet to decode the passcode, those same “hints” seem as likely to lead you towards the solution as they are to lead you away from it. What one person calls useless might be your key to making everything fall into place. Worse are the comments that confidently assert something as fact, only to be wrong.
Start from the beginning. Don’t skip ahead without reason.
I wonder where's the hate in a simple and honest question, because you did give the puzzle away. If you wanted to help people learn to solve this kind of puzzles you could have pointed to the background text, since even if you don't have access to the whole there's something subtle but very noticeable that stands out; or you could have asked them to notice any patterns in the text, anything that strikes them up; or better yet, you could have told them to play around with the string in the bottom right corner and that would have told them pretty much what to do.
But you didn't do any of that. You didn't believe people here were up to the task of learning to do something new, to figuring it out gradually by themselves, hint by hint, so that they were better equipped when the next puzzle came up. You took the fast road, the command, "do as I say and you'll get on the leaderboard before it's time for Christmas' Eve", because apparently that's what this is all about for you, getting up there as soon as possible, for fear that you might not be noticed. You took away the opportunity for them to learn something, people here deserve better.
To be fair, the hint at the bottom right might not be very useful for poeple that don't work in a specific industry because the names you get from it will not be known to people outside the industry,
My work couldn't be farther from that industry. That's where Google comes in. Without that hint at the bottom you could have been wandering around for days...
I am still pretty lost. I am assuming that like the previous passcodes that I can fill in the blanks if the format is x#xxxxkeyword##xx then I can guess that the numbers are x3xxxxkeyword13ar but I still havent found the keyword or any method to get the rest of it. if I can get ar out of the end of it then I could use the same method to get the rest of it but nothing seems to match up to confirm if I am going about it the right way are there any hints I am missing?
As for how to proceed: You could try to analyze the hint at the bottom right. But I find that very difficult although I work in the right industry. Or you could think about the past challenges. What we were supposed to do there were always well established formal algorithms. First for decoding a barcode, then for turning sound waves into a spectrogram. This challenge too uses a well established algorithm. If you understand what the image tells you to do, go and look for algorithms that have been developed to do that.
"You didn't believe people here were up to the task of learning to do something new, to figuring it out gradually by themselves, hint by hint, so that they were better equipped when the next puzzle came up."
∆ This is not a fact. Please, don't put words in someone's mouth. Ask all people that were HELPED because of it, and how reading it just won't give anything away.
- without proper understanding of the correct format that comment wouldn't make any sense until you dig deeper and try to figure it out gradually by yourself.
- a person trying to decode would in no way be able to input any passcode by just reading that hint.
- the reason you think I was giving it away is because you already figured it out.
If you’ve successfully decoded the passcode, then the “hints” are blindingly obvious. But hindsight is always 20/20. If you have yet to decode the passcode, those same “hints” seem as likely to lead you towards the solution as they are to lead you away from it.
P.S. I honestly do NOT check or care about the leaderboards.
Peradventure, you're fond of it.
No hate, no red herrings; not spilling any beans, just purely facts.
Enjoy, have fun, this is not a do or die competition that you would even shwack to keep the trophy.
Get challenged but make sure you don't forget what it's all about, see you on the next Decoding Challenge. ❤️💙💚
And oh the joys when you keep getting “invalid passcode” because one of your characters was incorrect and then suddenly being told “inventory is full” instead!
It’s always interesting to look back after you figure these out to see differences in what others think are “giveaways” or “useless”, sometimes referring to the same thing!
For example, I still have no idea what that code in the lower right is, even though I’ve solved this passcode and others have said it was the key to figuring it out!
Still with all these hints, I've nothing on how to interpret the prefix. I've seen something about a bullet point, but doesn't make any sense to me. The whole distance, I've decoded the keyword, and using the hint of the end being 13AR. The keyword is in fact, not any of the words, so you need to understand the cipher and decode. However, apparently an 'invisible word' which I'm not seeing anywhere is what is stumping me right now. This is where I'm just completely unable to make any further progress.
I am pretty sure that it is supposed to end with 13ar I found a way that checks out for the 1 a and r but keep getting 5 instead of 3 so I am not sure I am solving the rest of it correctly. its just the differences in letters? It is with the words rationalised and nationalism they are bolded are they different?
“Invisible word” at the beginning is the kind of clue that can be a giveaway for some and a ticket down a false path for others. Don’t spend any time trying to “see” the “extra” word.
Also, if your method givers you 5 when you know it should be 3, think about how you need to adjust the method you are using to get a 3.
finishing it like that gives me 15 numbers when transposed to letters that don't give me a keyword that makes sense so I am not sure where I got off place when I still get AR
Comments
Edge cases are always fun...
For those stuck at the beginning, use this format for reference: x#xxxx keyword ##xx.
hopefully get out of the trap
I'm really struggling with the concept of distance between words. I seem to be doing it wrong. Should it be as simple as lining up the words to where the most letters match, then counting the number of mismatches between the two words? Or take the first word and count the number of changes needed to get to the second? I also tried taking the characters in each word and finding the number of differences irrespective of order. I'm probably overthinking this or maybe I just made some simple error in the process.
I feel like I am in the same boat as those who said the suffix is easy to find and the rest of the puzzle is much harder: The word transformations are much easier at the end.
Also, I am assuming the first distance is between something and nothing.
Finally! Done for this week. I was trying for like 6 hours but couldn't wrap my head around it. Thanks for all the tips and clues, guys! Merry Christmas!
Argh - holiday time! I am so intrigued and looking forward to doing this one, but traveling to family and doing decorations and food and family will engulf some days but what I wish I was about to start was this challenge. I can only hope for even more hints by the time I come back :)
I remember from my two last solves that they ended with 13AR, I see a couple of a in nationalist and a couple of r in the last word, and the bold words would then become 13, but could not in 2 minutes spot if this is a key or if it is the reddest holiday herring!
Based on my own personal experience, so far, with the three challenges and the forums, I might say: Spend less time decoding the “hints” in the forums and more time decoding the actual challenge.
If you’ve successfully decoded the passcode, then the “hints” are blindingly obvious. But hindsight is always 20/20. If you have yet to decode the passcode, those same “hints” seem as likely to lead you towards the solution as they are to lead you away from it. What one person calls useless might be your key to making everything fall into place. Worse are the comments that confidently assert something as fact, only to be wrong.
Start from the beginning. Don’t skip ahead without reason.
If you know what to do but you don't know how - google it! 😊
I wonder where's the hate in a simple and honest question, because you did give the puzzle away. If you wanted to help people learn to solve this kind of puzzles you could have pointed to the background text, since even if you don't have access to the whole there's something subtle but very noticeable that stands out; or you could have asked them to notice any patterns in the text, anything that strikes them up; or better yet, you could have told them to play around with the string in the bottom right corner and that would have told them pretty much what to do.
But you didn't do any of that. You didn't believe people here were up to the task of learning to do something new, to figuring it out gradually by themselves, hint by hint, so that they were better equipped when the next puzzle came up. You took the fast road, the command, "do as I say and you'll get on the leaderboard before it's time for Christmas' Eve", because apparently that's what this is all about for you, getting up there as soon as possible, for fear that you might not be noticed. You took away the opportunity for them to learn something, people here deserve better.
No hate, no red herrings; just facts.
To be fair, the hint at the bottom right might not be very useful for poeple that don't work in a specific industry because the names you get from it will not be known to people outside the industry,
My work couldn't be farther from that industry. That's where Google comes in. Without that hint at the bottom you could have been wandering around for days...
I am still pretty lost. I am assuming that like the previous passcodes that I can fill in the blanks if the format is x#xxxxkeyword##xx then I can guess that the numbers are x3xxxxkeyword13ar but I still havent found the keyword or any method to get the rest of it. if I can get ar out of the end of it then I could use the same method to get the rest of it but nothing seems to match up to confirm if I am going about it the right way are there any hints I am missing?
The number in the first part is not 3.
As for how to proceed: You could try to analyze the hint at the bottom right. But I find that very difficult although I work in the right industry. Or you could think about the past challenges. What we were supposed to do there were always well established formal algorithms. First for decoding a barcode, then for turning sound waves into a spectrogram. This challenge too uses a well established algorithm. If you understand what the image tells you to do, go and look for algorithms that have been developed to do that.
"You didn't believe people here were up to the task of learning to do something new, to figuring it out gradually by themselves, hint by hint, so that they were better equipped when the next puzzle came up."
∆ This is not a fact. Please, don't put words in someone's mouth. Ask all people that were HELPED because of it, and how reading it just won't give anything away.
- without proper understanding of the correct format that comment wouldn't make any sense until you dig deeper and try to figure it out gradually by yourself.
- a person trying to decode would in no way be able to input any passcode by just reading that hint.
- the reason you think I was giving it away is because you already figured it out.
I'll quote what @Toxoplasmolly said in his comment.
If you’ve successfully decoded the passcode, then the “hints” are blindingly obvious. But hindsight is always 20/20. If you have yet to decode the passcode, those same “hints” seem as likely to lead you towards the solution as they are to lead you away from it.
P.S. I honestly do NOT check or care about the leaderboards.
Peradventure, you're fond of it.
No hate, no red herrings; not spilling any beans, just purely facts.
Enjoy, have fun, this is not a do or die competition that you would even shwack to keep the trophy.
Get challenged but make sure you don't forget what it's all about, see you on the next Decoding Challenge. ❤️💙💚
Fatto!! Grazie mille per i numerosi aiuti e buon natale a tutti 🎅🎅🎅
I'd love to know someday what the heck means the bottom right hint. That will be my decoding challenge for the rest of the week.
The spaces are just another character to distinguish.
Thanks, this was key.
Yeah, finally!
none of the hints here are giveaways ... ty all!
And oh the joys when you keep getting “invalid passcode” because one of your characters was incorrect and then suddenly being told “inventory is full” instead!
17hs later still completely lost having "all" the clues.
Yah! Done :)
Thank you to those that gave hints.
The "google calculator" was the key for me to finally get past and get this solved!
(6 characters)KEYWORD(13ar)
Help please.
I finally did it.
I confirm: the hint in the lower left corner is misleading. Pay attention only to the words and everything will work out.
It’s always interesting to look back after you figure these out to see differences in what others think are “giveaways” or “useless”, sometimes referring to the same thing!
For example, I still have no idea what that code in the lower right is, even though I’ve solved this passcode and others have said it was the key to figuring it out!
Still with all these hints, I've nothing on how to interpret the prefix. I've seen something about a bullet point, but doesn't make any sense to me. The whole distance, I've decoded the keyword, and using the hint of the end being 13AR. The keyword is in fact, not any of the words, so you need to understand the cipher and decode. However, apparently an 'invisible word' which I'm not seeing anywhere is what is stumping me right now. This is where I'm just completely unable to make any further progress.
I am pretty sure that it is supposed to end with 13ar I found a way that checks out for the 1 a and r but keep getting 5 instead of 3 so I am not sure I am solving the rest of it correctly. its just the differences in letters? It is with the words rationalised and nationalism they are bolded are they different?
“Invisible word” at the beginning is the kind of clue that can be a giveaway for some and a ticket down a false path for others. Don’t spend any time trying to “see” the “extra” word.
Also, if your method givers you 5 when you know it should be 3, think about how you need to adjust the method you are using to get a 3.
Passcode confirmed. Acquired items:
Thank you for the challenge!
If I adjust my method for that one wouldn't that change my answer for the rest of it too?
no.. if your method is correct, it shouldn't change anything else.
finishing it like that gives me 15 numbers when transposed to letters that don't give me a keyword that makes sense so I am not sure where I got off place when I still get AR