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Post by Deleted on Feb 25, 2019 16:45:47 GMT -5
Hi Ralph, I would like to tell you how I counted the pixels on page 47 and 19. I count only what I can see. I am counting each pixel group as 5. I did NOT count the corners. I see #76 colored pixels along the top and #87 colored pixels at the bottom. I have counted #120 on each side (240). The total of colored pixels showing is #403. Again, this does NOT include 16 for the corners. On page 19, I did the same. Across the top I get #87 colored pixels, and the bottom has #82. [you will notice that they are the same length, but the pixel count is different]. I can see #88 colored pixels on each of the sides (176). The total of colored pixels showing is #345. Again, I did NOT include 16 for the corners. Please show me how you are counting them to get the numbers you are coming up with. I might add that several years ago I was able to decode a message in the border on page 47 that is a specific place, but I have not been able to use the same technique on page 19. But, because I was able to decode page 47, I feel that 19 can be also, I just haven’t figured it out yet. Hi rarbowen- I'll do my best to go over how I dealt with the two borders. I proceeded on the assumption that, with the exception of the corners, the colors themselves were not relevant, just the number of squares in each border. In the first place we must decide what to do about the obscured squares. Both side panels on page 19 are partly obscured, and the top panel on page 47 is as well. If we assume that all four top and bottom panels have the same number of squares, and that the same goes for the four side panels, it's pretty straightforward. We only need to count one of each. Regarding the actual counting, put aside the colors of the squares, and consider them all equivalent, including the white ones. Also, the border is two squares thick. If the inner and outer squares happen to be the same color, it is of no consequence. They represent two squares. Now you just have to count. Including the corner squares, the borders are 73 squares from side-to-side and 100 squares from top to bottom. The total is 346. Subtracting the 16 squares comprising the corners, for reasons I gave earlier, brings us to 330. I hope this helps! Ralph |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 25, 2019 16:48:40 GMT -5
Good question stiparest. Fortunately, the answer is yes. The Stockwells had to find a way to specify for us which variant to use without giving away the fact that we will need to use a Polybius square in the first place. They cleverly did so on pages 14 and 15. On page 14, the title starts with "I Don't Q..."and hidden in the border letters is "NO Q..." or "NO QU IC..." which when sounded out gives us "No Qu I see..." (since q and u are ordinarily linked). That's all there is to it. Rather than doubling up, for which it would be hard to provide a clue, they just deleted Q, which appears relatively rarely in ordinary language. Ralph Thanks. There are other instances of 'No' and a letter... Just in the borders, there is also 'No S' (Nose), 'No W' (Now), & 'No R' (North). Another instance of a Q is not associated with a negative - Rise in A Quest (using the sound-out method, it could read 'A Q west' or 'A queue west'). It seems to require some guesswork to decide which letter to leave out. Why not the S, W, or R? I would expect if they wanted you to leave out the Q, all instances of it would be associated with a negative so there would be no doubt. But I haven't looked over the rest of your notes yet, so it might become clearer. Thanks for posting...it has a lot of people pulling out their book again! Hi stiparest- I think that what makes the Q different is that the word NO is separated from the following letter only in that instance. Saying the same thing a different way, the word NO appears nowhere else in the border words. Ralph |
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Post by stiparest on Feb 25, 2019 17:11:36 GMT -5
[/quote]Hi stiparest-
I think that what makes the Q different is that the word NO is separated from the following letter only in that instance. Saying the same thing a different way, the word NO appears nowhere else in the border words.
Ralph
[/quote]
Good point. I'll look at the rest later tonight...a lot of ideas here!
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Post by catherwood on Feb 27, 2019 18:18:30 GMT -5
I am going back to the book to start a new transcription of the colored blocks along pages 19 and 47, as I now realize my spreadsheet was based on an assumption to ignore the pairs which come between the U-shaped clusters. I assume others were making the same assumption, to take them in units and treat them as a 5-bit data element which would map onto a cipher alphabet. Different approaches will yield different data counts.
Starting at any corner, the 2x2 squares could be an indication to split the border into two rows, taking inner and outer paths. The transcription is a painful process which will take some time. I'll share what I end up with, if I can avoid distractions today.
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Post by balloonsrfun on Feb 27, 2019 21:04:30 GMT -5
stiparest,
Nearly all treasure hunt makers create hunts based on other hunts they have either participated in or read about. They also pay homage to the other makers of the past, like Kitt Williams, David Blaine, and Michael Stadther, of A Treasure's Trove, which first incorporated a polybuis square without the letter Q, although, Stadther hinted at this method by writing his book without the letter Q as well as other confirmers in the book. This is most likely what the Stockwells did, because around the time they made Fandango, A Treasure's Trove and Secrets of The Alchemist Dar was a hot commodity and it makes sense that they would use a few "tricks" from that hunt, and add their own little twists! I hope this answers your question at least a little bit, as to why have a polybuis square puzzle without the letter Q and not some of letters. That is what most, not all, treasure hunt makers do, they study and sometimes emulate their hunts, but adds a twist or turn here and there.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 27, 2019 21:57:00 GMT -5
stiparest, Nearly all treasure hunt makers create hunts based on other hunts they have either participated in or read about. They also pay homage to the other makers of the past, like Kitt Williams, David Blaine, and Michael Stadther, of A Treasure's Trove, which first incorporated a polybuis square without the letter Q, although, Stadther hinted at this method by writing his book without the letter Q as well as other confirmers in the book. This is most likely what the Stockwells did, because around the time they made Fandango, A Treasure's Trove and Secrets of The Alchemist Dar was a hot commodity and it makes sense that they would use a few "tricks" from that hunt, and add their own little twists! I hope this answers your question at least a little bit, as to why have a polybuis square puzzle without the letter Q and not some of letters. That is what most, not all, treasure hunt makers do, they study and sometimes emulate their hunts, but adds a twist or turn here and there. Hi balloonsrfun- Thanks for pointing this out. I was aware at the time that Stadther had employed a Polybius square in the solves of A treasure's Trove, but I never spent much time on the book and had forgotten that he chose to delete the Q as well. To the extent that the Stockwells were paying homage to puzzle designers of the past, doing the same in Fandango would make perfect sense. If the five colors of the star points are to serve as inputs, we would obviously be expected to be limited to blue, pink, orange, yellow, and red. Because the borders on pages 19 and 47 contain several other colors, they do not look like straightforward candidates as additional sources for such an input. I still believe that what matters is the number of squares in the borders and not the particular colors, but I can certainly understand the temptation to try and decode them! Ralph |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 28, 2019 8:59:15 GMT -5
There are two more clues that I omitted from my original list supporting the use of a Polybius square in the solution. That list included several references to the number five.
Look at the border words on page 19. The right hand border instructs us to count to three.
Do it.
One, two, three.
Now look at the first word on the top border: FOREVER. Do a little bit of surgery on it to yield:
FORE V ER.
FORE is pronounced 4, and V is the Roman numeral for V.
So the border gives us 1 through 5.
Also, on page 47, exactly five feathers reach over the border like a hand.
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Post by catherwood on Mar 1, 2019 16:04:21 GMT -5
Including the corner squares, the borders are 73 squares from side-to-side and 100 squares from top to bottom. The total is 346. Subtracting the 16 squares comprising the corners, brings us to 330. I counted the 4 sides on page 47 from corner to corner without including those 2x2 squares (since you subtract them anyway). The length/width for each border edge is a count of PAIRS of squares, but we both agree on a total of 330 (meaning 660 squares of color data). 69 + 69 = 138 pairs across 96 + 96 = 192 rows tall total = 330 units. On page 47, it is helpful that the inner border has alternating yellow squares. They carry behind the area between the feathers at the top and the grid can be extrapolated. However, as I was transcribing page 19, the althernating orange squares shift behind the lens on the side borders. Without needing a ruler or template, just try numbering them and consider whether the orange should be odd or even from top to bottom. On page 47 the yellows match; on page 19 the oranges on the sides don't stick to a single odd/even pattern. It's not a problem for your approach to a solution, if all you need is an overall grid size. For me, I need a reason for the painter to choose how to portray this concept, and this is either a mistake or a clue. I am still compiling data to make my own judgment. |
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Post by stiparest on Mar 1, 2019 16:14:05 GMT -5
Catherwood and rarbowen- I appreciate your both taking the time to go through all of this painful counting! Particularly at my age, you seem to get a different answer every time you count, but after a while you can pin the numbers down. Let's start with page 47, where no portions of the borders are hidden except for a bit of the top. If you count the bottom, including the corners, and you assume that the top and bottom are equal, you get 73 each. The sides each give you 100, for a grand total of 346. Now for a detail I did not elaborate on earlier because my post was getting too long. The four corners (each composed of four squares), look, well, different. They are all the same and look a bit pale. I think this is a hint to look at them as something special, or different. This is precisely the hint one might need when it comes to the step requiring the Polybius code, in which the corner colors are different from the side colors (the latter generating the former). If you exclude the corners from the count, you subtract 16 from 346 you get 330. I'm not sure exactly how the two of you did your counting, but assuming the squares always come in pairs (the border is two squares thick), you would have to come up with an even number no matter what. Now let's go back to page 19. If we would like it to fit with the scheme I describe above, we have two issues with which to deal. 1) we can't see all the squares on either side 2) the corners are somewhat different than on page 47 In the first place, the top and bottom are not obscured by the camera, and if you count them, you get the same number as in page 47. From this I thought it was fair to infer that the totals for the borders would be the same on the two pages. Regarding the corners on page 19, I think the Stockwells were very careful here. If they colored them exactly the same way as on page 47, the color clue described above might be too obvious, but they didn't want to bury the clue either. So they chose, in a compromise, to make the four corners identical once again, but colored a little differently (orange instead of yellow). The format for both pages is identical however. Two white squares and two colored squares all in an identical orientation. One very important clue to my mind that tells us that we are not going to be decoding these borders in any detail: they include green squares, which cannot serve as inputs to the five-color Polybius squares. Also, don't forget that some inputs may be comprised of the same color. In short, I think that these two pages, taken together, provide helpful confirmers for other elements of the puzzle, but are not to be decoded in any detailed way. Finally, the particular pages selected for these borders was probably not random. 19 + 47 = 66 Again, I very much appreciate this kind of scrutiny and look forward to answering any other questions you have with the solve, as best I can. Ralph I agree that counting these squares over and over, you get different numbers, and that after a while you can pin them down. I think I've counted them all a thousand times! Putting aside for the moment the assumption that there are the exact number of squares hidden under the lens and wing that are missing from the count, and just counting what can be seen, I discovered a while back that the top and bottom borders of the camera page (19) do not line up or match in number.
Not counting the checkerboard corners, there are 69 individual 'bars' or paired squares - along the top border and only 65 along the bottom. I have virtually destroyed one book drawing lines and folding pages. When I line up the bottom border to the top, the bottom bars are all slightly thicker than the ones on the other borders and I have to keep moving the top border over to keep the bars lined up. By the time I get to the end of the line, the top border has 4 more bars past the bottom checkerboard corner. So I have two methods that give me 65 on that lower border - one by simple counting, the other by lining it up with the top border.
The bottom border on page 47 also has 69 (your 73 minus 4 for the corners), and when paired with the top border, they seem to match, so it's a fair assumption the top border also has 69. I count 96 (your 100 minus 4 for the corners) on each side border on page 47. The page 19 borders seem to line up with the ones on page 47, so again, it's a fair assumption there are 96 on each side of page 19 as well.
In order to get the number 330, you have 73 minus 4 for the corners = 69 to each top and bottom border on both pages, and 100 minus 4 for the corners =96 to each side border, which adds up to 330. I can only get to 326, because of that bottom border on page 19 only has 69 minus 4 for the corners = 65. I've counted that bottom border a thousand times and, not counting the corners, I have 65, not 69 on page 19. I hope our books are not different - that would really throw a wrench in things!
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Post by catherwood on Mar 1, 2019 16:23:05 GMT -5
... I discovered a while back that the top and bottom borders of the camera page (19) do not line up or match in number. ...Not counting the checkerboard corners, there are 69 individual 'bars' or paired squares - along the top border and only 65 along the bottom... wow, okay then! I had stopped my transcription work yesterday when i ran into the problem of odd/even delimiters (and I ran out of daylight), but was just about to take it up again on that bottom border. Good to know I won't be crazy when my counts are off. Thank you! |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 1, 2019 18:18:30 GMT -5
stiparest and catherwood-
I recounted the borders one more time and stiparest is correct. The bottom border on page 19 is indeed 69 squares in length only with the corners, but not without. Other than that one deviation though, the two pages seem to be the identical with respect to the number of squares.
I'm not sure what to make of this, but will give it more thought. There might be some simple explanation along the lines that one panel has four less letters than the other, but I doubt it. (I'd like to think that Pel was just tired and forgot that 69 squares meant no corners when he laid out the bottom border on page 19....)
Again, in the context of my solve, the borders on these two pages were designed only to reassure one after the fact that the 66 x 5 format for two separate panels was correct. As I pointed out earlier, other clues point to the 5 being an important number (it also is the number of lines in the riddle) and, of course, 19 + 47 = 66.
At some point, when the two of you get tired of looking at those tiny squares, I hope you spend some time on the riddle!
Ralph
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Post by stiparest on Mar 1, 2019 19:19:08 GMT -5
... I discovered a while back that the top and bottom borders of the camera page (19) do not line up or match in number. ...Not counting the checkerboard corners, there are 69 individual 'bars' or paired squares - along the top border and only 65 along the bottom... wow, okay then! I had stopped my transcription work yesterday when i ran into the problem of odd/even delimiters (and I ran out of daylight), but was just about to take it up again on that bottom border. Good to know I won't be crazy when my counts are off. Thank you! I thought that pairing borders might spell something in colors that match from one to the other, so folded the page so the borders were next to each other, but couldn't get the top & bottom on pg 19 to line up. That's when I realized they had a different number of squares.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 2, 2019 7:02:08 GMT -5
After sleeping on this, one last couple of thoughts.
We now all agree on the corner-free counts:
Page 19
Top: 69
Bottom: 65
Left side: unknown exactly but about 96
Right side: unknown exactly but about 96
Page 47
Top: unknown exactly but about 69
Bottom: 69
Left side: 96
Right side: 96
There are two ways we can think about the counts, assuming that the counts per se do matter. (Remember that I am proposing that the riddle is read off of two separate panels, each composed of 330 letters of the alphabet, each of which, in turn, is derived from two color inputs.)
The relaxed way: there are about 330 or so color pairs in each border, leaving out the corners.
The rigid way: we can no longer assume that all four tops and bottoms, as well as all four sides, have the same number of squares because of the top-bottom discrepancy on page 19. Consequently, because some squares are obscured, we can't be absolutely certain about the total count on either page. Nevertheless, the totals on the two pages are very similar (within 1%) and possibly identical.
Finally, I noticed that 69 and 96 are reflections of each other, and that 9 is an inverted 6. Perhaps a second-level confirmer that these are the numbers to use?
Have a peaceful weekend!
Ralph
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Post by morpheus221 on Mar 2, 2019 10:25:00 GMT -5
I am going back to the book to start a new transcription of the colored blocks along pages 19 and 47, as I now realize my spreadsheet was based on an assumption to ignore the pairs which come between the U-shaped clusters. I assume others were making the same assumption, to take them in units and treat them as a 5-bit data element which would map onto a cipher alphabet. Different approaches will yield different data counts. Starting at any corner, the 2x2 squares could be an indication to split the border into two rows, taking inner and outer paths. The transcription is a painful process which will take some time. I'll share what I end up with, if I can avoid distractions today. Glad to see so much discussion on this hunt. I tried (unsuccessfully) to decode the U shaped blocks many times which I firmly believe represent the ‘hidden treasure riddle.’ A few observations/thoughts: -each U block likely represents a letter -a pixel count of five for most blocks would make sense. Noting some blocks are all comprised of one color, these would decode to some of the most common letters in the alphabet using simple substitution (E=5, O= 15, T=20) -simple substitution implied by “ACADIA” on license plate -EACH COLOR MUST BE ASSIGNED A NUMBER (numbers open the riddle) -the total number of u blocks has a similar count of letters to the riddle in Masquerade -the code location in the border definitely qualifies as “hidden”; pages 19 and 47 -“1947” year of the fire on the island given in painting -the pixel colors (roughly 24?) are each seen as different blocks of color throughout important pages of the book (books, sign posts) -colored piano keys implies colors are the “key”, Harlequin definition is multicolored Never have been able to correctly assign a color with a number. Important numbers seem to exist throughout the entire puzzle, most notably the ISBN number on the orange book, the mileage on the signs, and numbers on the grid (?puzzle). |
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Post by morpheus221 on Mar 2, 2019 11:04:21 GMT -5
One last observation:
The numbers assignments to the colors in the grid puzzle match the order of the message from the star puzzle:
1= purple = Numbers
2= pink = Ope
3= orange = hidfen
4= yellow = Treasure
5 = red = riddle
I might also add the green could = 0 since there are no matching letters for what appear to be green star points in the star puzzle.
This matching (from two different puzzles) could be a confirmer that these number assignments are correct (now only 19 more to go).
Going one step further, the u blocks with all five pixels that are yellow would be the letter T, reds would Y, purple would be the letter A. Following this method, a single letter could be represented by various pixel/block combinations. This type of homophonic substitution would make the cipher text virtually impossible to crack without the key.
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