Hi puzzle people! I had a puzzling weekend, at home and (mostly) alone, which was great.

I spent Friday evening and Saturday on Patrick Blindauer’s Summer Puzzlefest. It was tricky, and only had 14 solvers (of 180 purchasers) by its original deadline of Feb 1.  Given that low number, I was quite happy to get it solved without the recently-added hint puzzle.  It was fun to do more crossword+meta puzzles like MGWCC, and the final meta was a good one. 

Perhaps due to the engrossing puzzlefest, I am sad to say that Saturday’s GC Summit 2011 totally slipped my mind. (To see a hint of what I missed, info about 2009 and 2010 is here and here.) I hope the 2011 videos go up soon!

In even more exciting Bay area puzzle news, I’m playing in Iron Puzzler on Feb 26th&27th, and even before that DASH signups-to-be-in-line-to-register are this Thursday evening.  Hooray puzzles!

Oh, speaking of puzzles.  I only got through two of Dan’s puzzles on Sunday. I was having kind of a “dumb” day.  I feel like I was pretty slow on Amazon, at just under one hour.  Worse than that, eBay had me totally stumped until I got (welcome) outside help from my very smart girlfriend.  She got the last two steps in the eBay puzzle, so I have no idea what my solo solve time would have been…I was feeling pretty dumb. What actually happened was that with my grunt work and her swooping in at the end and figuring everything out, total clock time was 77 minutes. 

The puzzles are at http://web.mit.edu/thedan/www/the-internet-strikes-back/ (where there is an answer checker, so I won’t bother making the one here work.) My solving logs WITH SPOILERS (don’t read without solving first!) are after the cut.

“Amazon” Log:

0:00:00

Opening puzzle

0:00:37

18 numbers (with one digit highlighted)… 18 people with different middle initials and facts about them.

0:01:02

Do the numbers mean something on amazon.com? (maybe after varying the red numbers) let’s see.

0:01:59

Nope, nothing there or google.  [Searches on amazon and google didn’t return anything… I guess I didn’t try enough variations of the red numbers.]

0:02:15

Looking at the descriptions for hints/inspirations. (and the flavortext)

0:03:59

They kind of seem like intentionally-misinterpreted versions of actual things? Hmm. going back to “what are those 10 digit numbers?”

0:05:27

can’t turn them over and make letters…

0:06:50

They must be products, but the web tells me UPC codes are 8 or 12 digits

0:09:54

ok, but ISBNs are 10 digits, and this is amazon… are they ISBNs?

0:11:12

The first one shows up as books with a 0, 5, or 9.  [using isbn.nu, not amazon.com… remember earlier searches on amazon.com never came up with anything.]

0:11:33

9=Great House, 5=The Emperor’s Body, 0=Requiem for Steam, Railroad photos.

0:12:19

Checking the list for matches

0:13:34

Don’t see any. trying second one. (searching at isbn.nu)

0:15:05

3-Co-pipeline 7=The Red Baron,

0:16:35

Cornell is red.. checking for baron-ish things…

0:17:31

Nope. Let’s try the third one…

0:17:47

I’ve been skipping the ones that isbn.nu doesn’t find a title for. will check all this time, just in case.

0:18:22

0=Shape of Mercy, None of the others showed up at all.

0:20:01

Gah. nothing. Could this be wrong? It feels right. I’ll spot check a random one.

0:20:56

0143116827 is The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes by Bryan Burrough

0:21:21

And no others match at amazon.

0:21:58

Maybe another book by the same author matches?  [Still haven’t picked up on the typo thing]

0:24:07

None that I see. Will try that though with some others…

0:24:49

1586487892 Robert Bryce

0:27:27

Nope, nothing. Well, let me find all the off-by-one books. searching at amazon.com may only give one per, so that would be nice. opening spreadsheet.

0:31:40

Maybe the title has a typo too? checking that (“Striper Strategies” made me think of it)

0:32:09

Aha, yes. STRIKER STRATEGIES matches the Y person.  [The feeling of relief here was huge.]

0:34:34

POWER HUNGRY to TOWER HUNGRY (Rapunzel) … spreadsheet has orig order / old isbn / new isbn/ title / author/ index of red # / old red # / new red # / MI matching / old letter in title / new letter in title

0:35:27

Those probably won’t all matter, but why not keep them all?

0:37:12

ART OF GIVING = ART OF DIVING.

0:39:23

DIAMOND WILLOW -> PILLOW … NLVY to end the Middle initials… now maybe we shift by the amount the numbers shifted (or the letters in the words?)

0:41:22

Shifting by the amount the title letter shifted makes … REST… looks great. will do the other 14 now.  [The intuitive shift was the correct one. Very satisfying when that happens, *and* I get to feel smart for intuiting it.]

0:43:03

CARING -> CAVING

0:43:43

Now we end ..OREST. skipping up one.

0:44:26

LAKER GIRL -> LAZER GIRL … U?OREST. the one above now.  [LAZER doesn’t have a Z!]

0:46:12

RADIO DAZE -> RADIO DAVE .. IU?OREST? ugh. the one above that..

0:48:09

BIG RICH -> BIG RICE .. AIU?OREST … even worse. double checking that U. I’d prefer RAINFOREST in an “Amazon” puzzle

0:49:00

oh, duh, LASER with an S (how’d that happen?) .

0:49:27

Ok, assuming RAINFOREST, jumping up to 1416596597 

0:50:32

MOST WANTED MAN -> MOST WASTED MAN (G) …LrAINfOREST

0:52:38

LEAN MEAN THIRTEEN? The diet for more the 4 days? LEAN MEAT? maybe… LEAN MEAL? L gives me back to from C to A… I’ll take …AL for the first word. jumping to top.

0:54:53

GREAT HOUSE -> GREAT HORSE…So we start with TxxxxxAL

0:56:32

MAID AS MUSE -> MUTE … TxxPxxAL… TROPICAL RAINFOREST. Correct!

“eBay” Log:

0:00:00

Opening puzzle

0:00:28

56 pictures. 40 with dots and dashes, 16 blank. looks like they go together into a puzzle?

0:01:06

Think I’ll try to solve in the computer, with GIMP.  [I hate my crappy printer]

0:04:01

Ok, puzzled 4 grover pieces. out. 4 high, blank, dot, dot, dash going down (but they may read across. we’ll see. pulling out another.

0:05:43

Buzz is also 1x4high, blank,dash,dot,dot

0:07:25

Jeeves over, 1x4, blank, dot dot dot.

0:09:07

Scooby 4 dashes. No clue on positions between the characters yet.

0:13:40

Moving more over. Going to put them in alpha order by char name. Arthur, Buzz first, I think.

0:15:04

The bee is also named Buzz.

0:17:35

So, Arther, Buzz, Buzz Lightyear. so far. let me order the rest real quick before I cut and paste more.

0:18:55

Oh crap Babe is in there.

0:21:14

will try: Arthur, Babe, Buzz, Buzz Lightyear, Curious George, Energizer Bunny, Grover, Hello Kitty, Jeeves, Mr Monopoly, Po, Poppin Fresh, Scooby, Spongebob

0:29:25

Got the full chars I had in the right places, now just doing top row to see if it looks good. SI so far.

0:32:00

Definitely something wrong. got 5 symbols in a row on the top. will build the chars fully before I reshuffle.

0:35:48

Ok, all reassembled.

0:45:47

Ok, all on layers. moving them around.

0:46:38

So, the only top row blanks are Buzz Lightyear, Jeeves, and Grover? that’s not enough. Maybe it reads down? Then why does the energizer bunny have 3 blank squares? And mr Monopoly 2? No, that doesn’t seem to be right.

0:49:32

Even if that’s supergrover (he’s a blank, that just moves him last, which is worse if anything. hmmm

0:51:09

That string of Mr Monopoly, Po, Poppin Fresh, Scooby Doo, Spongebob is hard to break up.

0:52:15

ugh, Hello Kitty is Kitty White, moving her into that set too. So now we have 6 in a row.

0:53:14

Buzz Lightyear, Jeeves, and (Super)Grover can’t break that up. hmm. taking a break.

1:05:52

Back from break. taking a fresh look.  [12 minute break. I was grumpy. Maybe I needed food, I don’t know.]

1:09:06

Laura (helpful girlfriend!) points out they’re probably all in the macy’s parade. that should solve it.

1:13:32

Can’t find the running order anywhere… going with years introduced (also Laura’s idea), which is findable.  [I was sure it was running an order. I am dumb.]

1:15:17

Good, one per year 1997-2010. [according to wikipedia]

1:17:53

SALARY REDUCTION…