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Post by rahrah on Apr 21, 2018 14:11:17 GMT -5
I can get where I am going totally with just the poem, The Thrill of the Chase gave some very good hints to help with the clues - and Fenn SAID to read the book, the poem, the book again, lather, rinse, repeat. I've had my location since October 2016, so that was well before his Once Upon a While was released....it confirmed something important in my solve, and there are some hints in it, but I didn't rely on those, they're just confirmation to me at this point. So who is reading the hints correctly in the book? You? Zap? OH!? Three different searchers, three different states, and all believing that the book(s) have provided confirmation. My approach is to use the book to learn how Fenn hid the clues in the poem - he actually does 'teach' you in the book how to read the poem by providing examples of how he uses words and how to take those examples to understand the concept in the poem. I didn't use the book for confirmation, I used TTOTC to learn how to read the poem....then the poem opened up and revealed what Fenn meant with the words he chose......that's different than having ideas and preconceived notions and looking for something that matches. Fenn repeats himself, in a variety of ways, again and again and again; and I believe it is in an attempt to get us to understand HOW to read the poem so that we can understand what he is saying! |
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Post by voxpops on Apr 21, 2018 14:35:13 GMT -5
I think that makes the most sense - trying to understand how to read the poem.
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Post by zaphod73491 on May 3, 2018 20:53:43 GMT -5
Voxpops: I can respect the decision to not purchase the books for fear of rabbit-hole syndrome. That was certainly my position for the first 3 or 4 months following my Chase introduction in 2015. But in retrospect, I think it was a bad decision.
In my opinion, a searcher who hasn't read (and looked at the pictures and illustrations in) TTOTC has no chance of solving the clues in a timely fashion with confidence. I would even extend that a bit: if you don't have TFTW, you are also at a huge disadvantage compared to those searchers who do. This isn't about critical information contained within these books; it's about confidence. If you don't have the books, you rob yourself of a lot of confirmation data Fenn has provided, without which I doubt many would have the confidence to travel hundreds or even thousands of miles to test their solutions.
My conclusion? The one who retrieves Indulgence will own all three memoirs, and will have spent no less than 2 years and/or 2000+ hours working on Forrest's puzzle.
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Post by deeepthkr on May 21, 2018 16:04:33 GMT -5
So who is reading the hints correctly in the book? You? Zap? OH!? Three different searchers, three different states, and all believing that the book(s) have provided confirmation. My approach is to use the book to learn how Fenn hid the clues in the poem - he actually does 'teach' you in the book how to read the poem by providing examples of how he uses words and how to take those examples to understand the concept in the poem. I didn't use the book for confirmation, I used TTOTC to learn how to read the poem....then the poem opened up and revealed what Fenn meant with the words he chose......that's different than having ideas and preconceived notions and looking for something that matches. Fenn repeats himself, in a variety of ways, again and again and again; and I believe it is in an attempt to get us to understand HOW to read the poem so that we can understand what he is saying! I be saying for a long time the book is the manual and the poem is the test. The book has visual aids though that many ignore. The poem has letter, word, sound, definition, count and conceptual play. Oar I'm just wiggling my butt as I paddle in a figure 8 looking for a snack. You guys ever wonder where Fenn got the 7% from for his interview? Why 7%? Idk if anybody has, maybe a couple, I know Will has recently shown some curiosity about it. Rah posted the link for someoney |
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Post by zaphod73491 on Jun 14, 2018 20:48:17 GMT -5
Once Upon a While interestingly gets the least amount of attention relative to the two earlier memoirs. Maybe that's a corollary to poem purity: Forrest has said you don't *need* the books: that all the information you need from him is in the poem, and that it's then just an exercise in making the right connections between the poem and the real world via maps.
But if I was going to design a puzzle that I wanted to last a long while, I'd float a trial balloon with slightly insufficient information and then monitor progress. After a few years of foundering, I could then risk some hints to see if that helped. Closest analogy I can come up with is from the Manhattan Project: "tickling the dragon's tail". Tiny incremental changes to the system, being very careful not to cause a runaway tipping point.
Forrest was surely aware that he could not accurately gauge the difficulty level for others tackling his poem, so a sage strategy would be to start by making it too hard, and then tweak the difficulty based on real-time feedback.
TTOTC has plenty of hints in my opinion, but mostly for figuring out the earliest clues. Some searchers figured out those first two clues rather early on, probably in no small part due to TTOTC. But what happened then? They got stuck. If we are to believe Forrest, a stasis of roughly 5 years followed: new numbers being added to the ranks who solved the starting point, but no further than clue 2.
Then TFTW comes out. More hints, including even one unintended one (not the exclusion of Canada). Before too long, someone "may" have solved 4 clues, but Forrest isn't certain. Interesting coincidence, eh?
Finally, Once Upon a While is published, and less than a year later Forrest is saying he has a gut feeling the treasure will be found this summer. Maybe the 4 or 5 fatalities in the first 7 years had an influence. I've certainly found what I think are rather brazen hints in OUAW, and so I wondered "What has changed? Does he want this to end?"
I do take issue with one thing Forrest wrote a long time ago: that the clues get progressively easier once you've solved the first clue (WWWH). That is factually untrue. People solved the first 2 clues very early on: maybe as early as 2012. Then no progress for 5 years, followed by a limp "may have solved 4 clues" but not sure. So no, the clues clearly do not get easier, or the whole Chase would have fallen like dominoes years ago.
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Post by zaphod73491 on Mar 8, 2019 3:09:19 GMT -5
Fallingrock: thanks -- wow, I didn't realize anyone was going back to read these old posts. ;-)
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Post by heidini on Mar 25, 2019 20:33:27 GMT -5
Fallingrock: thanks -- wow, I didn't realize anyone was going back to read these old posts. ;-) I just reread this thread. Lol |
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Post by zaphod73491 on Mar 25, 2019 20:52:30 GMT -5
Thanks, Heidini, for resurrecting it anew. I put some effort into that post, and was a little disappointed by the "crickets" response at the time. My takeaway over the years is that most blog-watchers ignore anything that doesn't specifically address their own hard-researched ideas. In aerospace we have a humorous visual for that: a self-licking ice cream cone.
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Post by goldwatch on Mar 25, 2019 23:03:20 GMT -5
One thing to remember is that just because it's easier, that doesn't make it easy.
The first 2 clues must have been pretty hard if only a few figured them out. That was what? Less than 1/100th of a percent?
So the next 2 clues, even being easier, are really unlikely to be solved. Maybe a 0.1 % chance, from just a few searchers.
But in my opinion, as a searcher does succeed at that point of the first 4 clues, they are starting to catch on to how to solve the clues. And with each successive solve, I'm sure it would get easier. But easier is still not easy. FF is a tricky Master of Ceremonies.
As far as OUAW, I did find some good stuff in there. And some very curious stuff.
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