The trick behind this is fairly obvious, once you figure it out, but watching other people scratch their heads until they get it ought to have its own amusement value.
There’s a strong possibility that this might be my last post until after Origins, so everybody have a good weekend.
(Via Michael Totten)
Since we’re on the subject of geekiness . . . .
I spent ten minutes yesterday puzzling over a bizarre spreadsheet produced by one of my opponents. The case was a patent case, and the drafter of the spreadsheet was an engineer. But nothing on the sheet made any sense. There were columns of letters associated with colmums of numbers, associated with another column of (different) letters. There was no apparent connection between the four. It looked like this:
F. 72 Rem.
AARGH. I screwed up & deleted half my comment.
Anyhoo, three guesses as to what was reflected on the spreadsheet.
OK, von-that was a hard one, but I made my three guesses. So now you can tell me the answer, and I’ll write back and let you know if I got it right!
Here’s the full column:
F 73 Rm
A 74 Rm
S 87 In
E 84 In
R 24 Gd
I 27 Gd
P 86 In
von-
I cheated and took four guesses, but still couldn’t solve it. I thought I had it for a moment, because I’d keyed in on your comment that the drafter was an engineer. So I assumed that the 73 in “F73Rm” was ASCII code, and that yielded “Firm”. My excitement died away when none of the others translated so nicely. At this point, all I can say is,
“Uncle”
Time to go collaborative.
It is interesting to me that numbers in the same range share an abbreviation (80s for In, 70s for Rm, 20s for Gd).
Also, the first column numbers and the numbers don’t seem to repeat, but it’s a small sample.
collaborative is a good idea. We noted the numerical grouping as well. Whether he knows it or not, von has already triggered a small collaboration between 3 engineers here at work (2 of whom are PhDs). One eventually decided that it may just be that the guy is an extremely violent individual who cannot spell “Face Rip” correctly!
Ultimately, von is going to disclose the simple and obvious solution. When that happens, I will smile and then go into hiding.
Ultimately, von is going to disclose the simple and obvious solution. When that happens, I will smile and then go into hiding.
Hopefully, this will make you wince as much as it made me wince. And perhaps embarrass me as a geek beyond a geek too far. (Remember, this is a geekfest open thread.)
So far as I can tell, this spreadsheet is a character sheet from Marvel Super Heroes. If I recall correctly (I was about twelve the last time I played), F 73 Rm translates into “Fighting = 73, Remarkable”; R 24 Gd translates into “Reason = 24, Good” (Marvel had a wierd feature in which it associated a numbered score with an adjective.)
All together now: AAAAARRRRRRGGGHHHHHH!
Wow, that is deeply, deeply geeky. I assume it was an oversight rather than something of relevance to the case.
Of course, had they been Rolemaster stats, the casting cost for a summoning spell, or the armor breakdown for an assault Mech, I would have identified them immediately, so I’m scoffing on the outside but crying on the inside.
Thanks von, for releasing me from my torment. I couldn’t have figured that out with an army of enigma machines. So I’m putting away my periodic tables, coding references, etc. and returning to work.
It was fun, and to the extent that it blew considerable carbon out of little-used portions of my brain, rewarding too!
Cheers.
The trick behind this is fairly obvious, once you figure it out, but watching other people scratch their heads until they get it ought to have its own amusement value.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t actually work, which is a slight drawback. All the more so because, well, the answer has to be a multiple of 9 and the “guesser” was throwing random crap up there like 34 and 21…
[It would be cute once they iron out the bugs, of course.]
And von? That is deeply, deeply, deeply geeky. Kudos!
Anarch, you may want to read the directions again. It has to work, unless everything my algebra teacher taught me was a lie:
10x + y – (x+y) = 9x
So the answer will always be a multiple of 9.
Anarch, you may want to read the directions again. It has to work, unless everything my algebra teacher taught me was a lie:
Trust me — I’m a mathematician, I know how it works 😉 What was throwing me is that they’re using a reduced-symbol alphabet so that the critical symbol, in addition to appearing on the multiples of 9, also appears in other positions (34 and 21, in my examples). Very very… well, irritating.
[Added in proof: oh, I see what you mean. No, I never got 34 or 21 as my end number; that would just be silly!]
The point is to obfuscate the trick. If the final symbol only appeared on multiples of 9, that’d be quite a hint.
Ah, now I see where you were going, Anarch. Didn’t mean to impugn either your direction-reading or mathematical skills.