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posted by martyb on Wednesday April 01 2015, @01:56AM   Printer-friendly
from the can-you-solve-all-of-them? dept.

So that as many as possible may participate, please provide only your answers in the comments. Moderation may be useful.

Puzzle #1:

... .. -- .--. .-.. . / . -. -.-. --- -.. .. -. --. / ... -.-. .... . -- . ... / ... ..- -... ... - .. - ..- - . / --- -. . / ... -.-- -- -... --- .-.. / .-- .. - .... / .- -. --- - .... . .-. .-.-.- / .... --- .-- / -- .- -. -.-- / .-.. . - - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .. -. / - .... . / . -. --. .-.. .. ... .... / .- .-.. .--. .... .- -... . - ..--..

Puzzle #2:

ΩΝΕ ΚΑΝ ΥΣΕ Α ΛΕΣΣ ΣΤΡΙΚΤ ΜΑΠΠΙΝΓ ΦΡΩΜ ΠΛΑΙΝ ΤΕΞΤ ΤΩ ΤΗΕ ΕΝΚΩΔΕΔ ΦΩΡΜ * ΒΩ ΔΕΡΕΚ ΣΤΑΡΡΕΔ ΙΝ?

Puzzle #3:

N Pnrfne plcure zncf bar punenpgre va na nycunorg gb nabgure yrggre hfvat n svkrq bssfrg. Na bssrg bs guvegrra vf bsgra hfrq ba-yvar. Jung vf gjragl cyhf gjryir?

Puzzle #4:

QmFzZTY0IGlzIGEgZ3JvdXAgb2Ygc2ltaWxhciBiaW5hcnktdG8tdGV4dCBlbmNvZGluZyBzY2hl bWVzIHRoYXQgcmVwcmVzZW50IGJpbmFyeSBkYXRhIGluIGFuIEFTQ0lJIHN0cmluZyBmb3JtYXQg YnkgdHJhbnNsYXRpbmcgaXQgaW50byBhIHJhZGl4LTY0IHJlcHJlc2VudGF0aW9uLiBUaGUgdGVy bSBCYXNlNjQgb3JpZ2luYXRlcyBmcm9tIGEgc3BlY2lmaWMgTUlNRSBjb250ZW50IHRyYW5zZmVy IGVuY29kaW5nLiAgV2hhdCBpcyB0aGUgcmFkaXggZm9yIEJhc2U2ND8NCg==

Puzzle #5:

%üÖô¿@âûöùñúàÖó@ñóàä@ùñòâê@âüÖäó@åûÖ@ôûüäëòç@ùÖûçÖüöó@üòä@äüúüK@@╚ûª@öüò¿@âûôñöòó@üÖà@ûò@ü@óúüòäüÖä@ùñòâê@âüÖäo

Puzzle #6:

44_69_65_20_63_6f_64_69 65_72_74_65_6e_20_54_65
78_74_20_6d_75_73_73_20 6e_69_63_68_74_20_64_69
65_20_67_6c_65_69_63_68 65_20_53_70_72_61_63_68
65_20_77_69_65_20_64_69 65_20_51_75_65_6c_6c_65
2e_20_48_69_65_72_20_67 69_62_74_20_65_73_20_65
69_6e_65_20_55_6d_73_74 65_6c_6c_75_6e_67_20_61
75_66_20_44_65_75_74_73 63_68_2e_20_57_61_73_20
73_69_6e_64_20_64_69_65 20_6c_65_74_7a_74_65_6e
20_62_65_69_64_65_6e_20 5a_69_66_66_65_72_6e_20
64_65_73_20_4a_61_68_72 65_73_2c_20_77_65_6e_6e
20_6d_61_6e_20_7a_75_65 72_73_74_20_61_75_66_20
64_65_6d_20_4d_6f_6e_64 20_67_65_6c_61_6e_64_65
74_3f_0d_0a

Puzzle #7:

146 204 194 232 204 210 228 230 232 242 222 234 200 222 220 232 64 230 234 198 198 202 202 200 88 64 208 222 238 64 218 194 220 242 64 232 210 218 202 230 64 198 222 234 216 200 64 242 222 234 64 230 214 242 64 200 210 236 202 64 210 204 64 242 222 234 64 238 202 228 202 64 194 64 198 194 232 126

Puzzle #8

3Q1D1P 3Q2D2P 4Q1D4P 4Q1N 4Q1D1P 4Q1D1N2P 4Q1D1N 1Q1N2P 4Q 4Q1P 4Q1D 4Q1D1P 4Q1N4P 4Q1N 4Q1D 3Q2D2P 4Q1D1N1P 4Q1N 4Q1D1P 4Q1D 4Q1D1N 1Q1N2P 4Q1D1P 4Q2P 1Q1N2P 3Q2D4P 4Q1D1P 4Q1N 4Q1D 4Q1D1N 1Q1N2P 4Q4P 3Q2D2P 4Q1D1N3P 4Q1P 1Q1N2P 3Q2D3P 4Q1P 4Q1P 4Q1D 1Q1N2P 3Q2D4P 4Q1D4P 4Q1P 3Q2D2P 4Q1D1N1P 4Q1P 4Q 1Q1N2P 4Q1D1P 4Q1D1N3P 4Q1P 4Q1D4P 1Q1N2P 4Q1D1N1P 4Q4P 4Q1P 1Q1N2P 4Q2D1P 4Q1P 3Q2D2P 4Q1D4P 4Q1D1N 1Q2D1P 1Q1N2P 1Q1N2P 2Q2D2P 4Q1D1P 4Q1D1N4P 1Q1N2P 4Q1N4P 3Q2D2P 4Q1D 4Q2D1P 1Q1N2P 4Q 4Q1N 4Q2P 4Q2P 4Q1P 4Q1D4P 4Q1P 4Q1D 4Q1D1N1P 1Q1N2P 3Q2D4P 4Q1D1P 4Q1N 4Q1D 1Q1N2P 4Q 4Q1P 4Q1D 4Q1D1P 4Q1N4P 4Q1N 4Q1D 3Q2D2P 4Q1D1N1P 4Q1N 4Q1D1P 4Q1D 4Q1D1N 1Q1N2P 4Q1D1N4P 4Q1P 4Q1D4P 4Q1P 1Q1N2P 4Q1D1N2P 4Q1D1N 4Q1P 4Q 1Q1N2P 4Q1N 4Q1D 1Q1N2P 4Q1D1N1P 4Q4P 4Q1N 4Q1D1N 1Q1N2P 4Q1D2P 4Q1D1N2P 4Q2D2P 4Q2D2P 4Q1N3P 4Q1P 2Q1D3P

Puzzle #9

102 160 147 156 171 040 152 156 146 040 142 163 147 162 141 040 150 146 162 161 040 142 141 040 121 166 164 166 147 156 171 040 122 144 150 166 143 172 162 141 147 040 120 142 145 143 142 145 156 147 166 142 141 047 146 040 103 121 103 055 070 040 172 166 141 166 160 142 172 143 150 147 162 145 056 040 040 125 142 152 040 172 156 141 154 040 157 166 147 146 040 161 166 161 040 142 141 162 040 152 142 145 161 040 142 163 040 172 162 172 142 145 154 040 142 141 040 156 040 103 121 103 055 070 040 160 142 141 147 156 166 141 077


Note: Spoilers to the puzzles in the comments below.

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  • (Score: 2) by SuperCharlie on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:08AM

    by SuperCharlie (2939) on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:08AM (#165206)

    SIMPLE/ENCODING/SCHEMES/SUBSTITUTE/ONE/SYMBOL/WITH/ANOTHER./HOW/MANY/LETTERS/ARE/IN/THE/ENGLISH/ALPHABET?

  • (Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:11AM

    by wantkitteh (3362) on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:11AM (#165211) Homepage Journal

    Rot 13

    • (Score: 3, Touché) by Covalent on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:15AM

      by Covalent (43) on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:15AM (#165214) Journal

      N Pnrfne plcure zncf bar punenpgre va na nycunorg gb nabgure yrggre hfvat n svkrq bssfrg. Na bssrg bs guvegrra vf bsgra hfrq ba-yvar. Jung vf gjragl cyhf gjryir?

      A Caesar cypher maps one character in an alphabet to another letter using a fixed offset. An offet of thirteen is often used on-line. What is twenty plus twelve?

      --
      You can't rationally argue somebody out of a position they didn't rationally get into.
  • (Score: 2) by Covalent on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:13AM

    by Covalent (43) on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:13AM (#165212) Journal

    ΩΝΕ ΚΑΝ ΥΣΕ Α ΛΕΣΣ ΣΤΡΙΚΤ ΜΑΠΠΙΝΓ ΦΡΩΜ ΠΛΑΙΝ ΤΕΞΤ ΤΩ ΤΗΕ ΕΝΚΩΔΕΔ ΦΩΡΜ * ΒΩ ΔΕΡΕΚ ΣΤΑΡΡΕΔ ΙΝ?

    One Can Use a Less Strict Mapping From Plain Text To The Encoded Form * Bo Derek Stopped In?

    --
    You can't rationally argue somebody out of a position they didn't rationally get into.
    • (Score: 2) by Covalent on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:17AM

      by Covalent (43) on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:17AM (#165216) Journal

      OK, I'm self replying here, but the first three puzzles ask for numerical answers:

      #1 Number of letters in the English Language: 26
      #2 Bo Derek Stopped In: 10
      #3 What is twenty plus twelve: 32

      Can't wait to see how this ends up playing out. Nice job SN! Very interesting stuff for April Fools.

      --
      You can't rationally argue somebody out of a position they didn't rationally get into.
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by aristarchus on Wednesday April 01 2015, @03:08AM

      by aristarchus (2645) on Wednesday April 01 2015, @03:08AM (#165253) Journal

      "Starred in?" Answer is "10"

      • (Score: 2) by istartedi on Wednesday April 01 2015, @08:22PM

        by istartedi (123) on Wednesday April 01 2015, @08:22PM (#165561) Journal

        Beat me to it. I was like, "finally, a use for my half-assed knowledge of the Greek alphabet and popular culture". Also, it's the only one I had a chance of solving just by looking. I'm sure some people here can do Morse easily. Somebody said there was a rot-13 in there. That seems doable in your head for mere mortals if you take your time. At some point you're getting into Sheldon territory. I'm sure there are some people who can base-64 decode in their head; but that's a much rarer beast than knowing Morse.

        --
        Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
  • (Score: 1) by wantkitteh on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:19AM

    by wantkitteh (3362) on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:19AM (#165218) Homepage Journal

    Hex-encoded ASCII. And I don't speak German. And I'm going to bed before I ruin this for everyone else ;)

    • (Score: 2) by Zinho on Wednesday April 01 2015, @04:28AM

      by Zinho (759) on Wednesday April 01 2015, @04:28AM (#165277)

      I have no shame; Google translate takes care of it nicely:

      The encoded text does not have the same language as the source. There is a switch to German. What are the last two digits of the year when we first landed on the moon?

      Not sure if the riddle answer is 59 (first unmanned Russian landing on the moon) or 69 (first manned landing on the moon); assuming the latter.

      --
      "Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:29AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:29AM (#165225) Journal
    64.
    SPOILER ALERT
    ........
    .......
    ......
    .....
    ...
    ..
    .
    (! [base64decode.org]. Immediate giveaway: the two ending == and line length)
    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 2) by Covalent on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:31AM

      by Covalent (43) on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:31AM (#165228) Journal

      Base64 is a group of similar binary-to-text encoding schemes that represent binary data in an ASCII string format by translating it into a radix-64 representation. The term Base64 originates from a specific MIME content transfer encoding. What is the radix for Base64?

      --
      You can't rationally argue somebody out of a position they didn't rationally get into.
    • (Score: 2) by SuperCharlie on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:34AM

      by SuperCharlie (2939) on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:34AM (#165233)

      I thought you had to count zero so it was 65.. maybe not.. but I did recognize it.. ehh well.

      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday April 01 2015, @03:27AM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 01 2015, @03:27AM (#165256) Journal

        I thought you had to count zero so it was 65.. maybe not..

        base N has radix N, has N symbols and (traditionally) starts with 0. Add 1 to the N-1 and it wraps around to 0 with carry.

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 2, Disagree) by SuperCharlie on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:31AM

    by SuperCharlie (2939) on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:31AM (#165229)

    Is 65

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday April 01 2015, @03:30AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 01 2015, @03:30AM (#165258) Journal

      65

      Maybe you are 65, but base64 is younger by one.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 1) by wantkitteh on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:35AM

    by wantkitteh (3362) on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:35AM (#165234) Homepage Journal

    Seems "answer" wasn't properly restricted to answering the encoded question. I think changing the summary so it says "Don't look in the comments if you don't want spoilers because impatient morons" (I include myself in the slur, btw)

  • (Score: 1) by wirelessduck on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:35AM

    by wirelessduck (3407) on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:35AM (#165235)

    No one thought to use the Standard Galactic Alphabet [shikadi.net] for this?

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by mrcoolbp on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:39AM

      by mrcoolbp (68) <mrcoolbp@soylentnews.org> on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:39AM (#165238) Homepage

      Submit that for next year = )

      --
      (Score:1^½, Radical)
    • (Score: 2) by NCommander on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:44AM

      by NCommander (2) Subscriber Badge <michael@casadevall.pro> on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:44AM (#165242) Homepage Journal

      Can you even type in that with unicode? Minecraft (which uses it for the enchanting table) has to include each glyph as an image.

      --
      Still always moving
      • (Score: 1) by wirelessduck on Wednesday April 01 2015, @03:03AM

        by wirelessduck (3407) on Wednesday April 01 2015, @03:03AM (#165250)

        The page I linked has a few TrueType fonts available. No idea how you would go about converting them into WOFF [wikipedia.org] for use in a webpage.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:37AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:37AM (#165236)

    #1 -> 26 (thx wikipedia)
    #2 -> missing
    #3 -> 32 (too easy)
    #4 -> 64 (thx perl MIME::xxxx)
    #5 -> missing
    #6 -> 69 (thx google translate, wikipedia)

    • (Score: 2) by Covalent on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:59AM

      by Covalent (43) on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:59AM (#165248) Journal

      Puzzle #2: 10

      --
      You can't rationally argue somebody out of a position they didn't rationally get into.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2015, @06:22PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2015, @06:22PM (#165510)

      #7 -> 8 or more.
      #8 -> 4 (cheat . . .)
      #9 -> 12 (thx wikipedia)

  • (Score: 3, Funny) by arslan on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:53AM

    by arslan (3462) on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:53AM (#165245)

    1. ಠ_ಠ
    2. ー_ー
    3. 〇_o
    4.  ̄ヮ ̄
    5. ╯▽╰
    6. ・ ■ ・

  • (Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:58AM

    by TheGratefulNet (659) on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:58AM (#165247)

    love the vt100 theme. or, is that vt52?

    GOML

    --
    "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:59AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2015, @02:59AM (#165249)

      Unfortunately it doesn't present us with borders or anything that makes it easier to read. Makes it quite hard to read. I'm sure they're still working on it though and will eventually add borders and whatnot.

      • (Score: 2) by paulej72 on Wednesday April 01 2015, @03:06AM

        by paulej72 (58) on Wednesday April 01 2015, @03:06AM (#165251) Journal
        There are borders. Try a force reload.
        --
        Team Leader for SN Development
  • (Score: 3, Informative) by gman003 on Wednesday April 01 2015, @03:19AM

    by gman003 (4155) on Wednesday April 01 2015, @03:19AM (#165254)

    The answer to #1 is 26
    The answer to #2 is 10
    The answer to #3 is 32
    The answer to #4 is 64
    The answer to #6 is 69

    I could not decode #5. I can tell it's something to do with the pattern of diacritics, but I can't figure it out. Or maybe it's just a character encoding issue.

    Now to read the other comments and see how #5 worked.

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday April 01 2015, @03:33AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 01 2015, @03:33AM (#165259) Journal
      I gave up on 5 after fooling around for a hour with substitution cypher using English.
      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday April 01 2015, @09:16AM

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday April 01 2015, @09:16AM (#165320) Homepage
      Just woke up so 5 evades me too but - concur with your answers above and suggest:
      #7: 9
      Which is mostly connecting a single 3-letter word in the plaintext to a number. I'm not sure d***h is compulsory when you s*****e.
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
  • (Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Wednesday April 01 2015, @08:50AM

    by aristarchus (2645) on Wednesday April 01 2015, @08:50AM (#165312) Journal

    Nope, didn't crack it, but when I pasted the long string of diacriticals, Google Translate said "Swedish detected"! I think Google meant to say, Swedish Chef detected.

  • (Score: 2) by sudo rm -rf on Wednesday April 01 2015, @09:44AM

    by sudo rm -rf (2357) on Wednesday April 01 2015, @09:44AM (#165326) Journal

    The answer is: 9. Maybe. I'm not sure I understand the question.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2015, @10:22AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2015, @10:22AM (#165336)

      #7: 8. A proverbial skydiving cat can survive 8 failed attempts.

  • (Score: 1) by Rich on Wednesday April 01 2015, @11:25AM

    by Rich (945) on Wednesday April 01 2015, @11:25AM (#165341) Journal

    The others were quick (26 10 32 64 ?? 69 8/9), and a reminder how useful map() can be in python :)

    5 is entirely obscure to me so far. It looks like it is a character substitution of some kind, with @ = 40 apparently being space. Frequency distribution hints at character replacement. The leading "%" could indicate some encoding type, but it's not punycode. Quick mappings to DOS and MacRoman to see if there's some hi-bit mapping involved failed, as did attempts to shift (40 >> 20) or mask out the high bit. It probably can be broken with a bit of frequency based permutation, but all the online tools don't like the upper bits.

    Guessing that character replacement will work, my urge to break it somewhat waned and I'll wait for the solution instead ;)

    • (Score: 1) by Rich on Wednesday April 01 2015, @01:01PM

      by Rich (945) on Wednesday April 01 2015, @01:01PM (#165368) Journal

      *sigh* The 25 40 4B 6F map as LF, Space, '.', '?'. (I mean, why should it ever be anything else, get off my lawn...). Unfortunately the remainder somehow lost its encoding between the author and our machines. I get 25 fc d6 f4 bf 40... and guess that fc was supposed to be 81 ('a') with a good likelihood.

      • (Score: 2, Funny) by Rich on Wednesday April 01 2015, @01:40PM

        by Rich (945) on Wednesday April 01 2015, @01:40PM (#165379) Journal

        80. And you did this, dragging us through the depths of DOS as well, only to upset peaceful unexpecting Mac people.

    • (Score: 1) by Rich on Wednesday April 01 2015, @04:52PM

      by Rich (945) on Wednesday April 01 2015, @04:52PM (#165465) Journal

      8: 4 Denominations, 9: 12 bits

      • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday April 01 2015, @05:17PM

        by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday April 01 2015, @05:17PM (#165476) Homepage
        I can confirm #9, but I'm young enough that I needed to look the answer up.
        Not making headway on 5 or 8 yet. However, I'm busy at work, so might have to just give up.
        --
        Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
        • (Score: 1) by Rich on Wednesday April 01 2015, @07:19PM

          by Rich (945) on Wednesday April 01 2015, @07:19PM (#165536) Journal

          5 is for the elderly, 8 is for USAians :)

          • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday April 01 2015, @07:40PM

            by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday April 01 2015, @07:40PM (#165541) Homepage
            40 being "obviously" the space character, and everything being in the top half of the 8-bit range, I immediately thought of ebcdic, and your comment about age reinforces such a idea, but recode ebcdic-cp-us..ascii gave me nothing of sense.
            --
            Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
            • (Score: 1) by Rich on Wednesday April 01 2015, @11:42PM

              by Rich (945) on Wednesday April 01 2015, @11:42PM (#165613) Journal

              Well, coming from an IBM mainframe, the data would probably have lived on a PC-DOS machine in the 80s, wouldn't it? :)

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2015, @11:30AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2015, @11:30AM (#165343)

    Answer: I'm not familiar with this technology, but 80 seems common.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by CoolHand on Wednesday April 01 2015, @12:33PM

    by CoolHand (438) on Wednesday April 01 2015, @12:33PM (#165361) Journal

    So that as many as possible may participate, please provide only your answers in the comments. Moderation may be useful.

    Does that mean we should mod down those who gave the translation instead of the answer ?

    --
    Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by kramulous on Wednesday April 01 2015, @12:59PM

    by kramulous (255) on Wednesday April 01 2015, @12:59PM (#165367)

    Yes. Very clever.

    But can we keep the green on black? I kinda dig it.