[PUZZLE][SOLVED] Semiotics 2/22/07

Gidget · Post by **Gidget** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 6:25 am

Oooh well this is exciting! Yay puzzles!

I'm off to read 20 pages of posts and try and catch up with ya'll

Michelle · Post by **Michelle** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 6:28 am

If you take every 3rd number of this set: 7 19 52 10 63

You get 913.

If you take the 11th letter of the titles of the books, going in chronological order, you get

HARHEPFEI

or TTTMFNOHI if you go reverse chronological order AND backwards through the sentences

I tried some anagram servers but all I got was I PEE FAR

theslyestfox · Post by **theslyestfox** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 6:37 am

Michelle wrote:I tried some anagram servers but all I got was I PEE FAR

*laughs*

ok ok ok. i have no suggestions to offer you all but this: i have been told by a firsthand source that very often we read far too into these puzzles and pick them apart and drive ourselves crazy, when really the answer is a lot more straightforward than we think.

that said, it's 3:36 and i suck at these puzzles, and i have no suggestions at the moment of how (else) we should go about cracking this code.
perhaps if someone messages daniel he'll tell us what the books were? i mean, he DID ask for our help cracking the code, and if we write asking for a little more info so we can do that, maybe he would oblige!

Michelle · Post by **Michelle** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 6:39 am

Also if you take the numbers like this

7 10 19 52 63

The differences between them are 3, 9, 33, and 11. 3x3 = 9, 11x3 = 33.

I feel like I'm in an episode of LOST. And I can't believe I'm still up at 3:30am thinking of this crap.

PinkoLady · Post by **PinkoLady** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 6:57 am

theslyestfox wrote:
ok ok ok. i have no suggestions to offer you all but this: i have been told by a firsthand source that very often we read far too into these puzzles and pick them apart and drive ourselves crazy, when really the answer is a lot more straightforward than we think.

Ask that firsthand source what the hell he/she is talking about, specifically.

Gidget · Post by **Gidget** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 6:59 am

I know its cheating but I did some web research on code breaking software and there is a lot of stuff out there that can crack RAR codes. Unfortunately the only free things I could find would only crack codes up to 5 characters long, and I'm guessing we need more then that.

So if anybody feels like laying down some $$$ to crack the LG code, you'd be a hero

QtheC · Post by **QtheC** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 7:02 am

I think this is the correct list of 5 books:

No. 7 "The Clue in the Diary" (certain)
No. 19 “The Quest of the Missing Map” (certain)
No. 10 “Password to Larkspur Lane” (confident)
No. 52 “The Secret of the Forgotton City” (certain)
Based on the cover art, the dark book at 1:11 on the left is:
No. 35 “The Haunted Showboat” (uncertain)

You can read my summary with links on the LG15 Today blogspot article "Nancy Drew, Where Are You?" here:
http://lg15today.blogspot.com/2007/02/n ... e-you.html

As I posted in comments the day "Jonas Sucks" came out, I think the 5th book is No. 35 The Haunted Showboat as seen in the cover art here:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... ryNetND-20

Compare to this screen capture by Gidget:
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b10/H ... yDrew1.jpg

I am assuming the earlier edition has much smaller font for the title as seen in the video. I think the change in font size of the title is what is causing people to miss this match. If you read up on the editions, they kept the same art, while changing the title printing.

The edge of the package paper covers the characters on the left side, and the faint light spots match up with the riverboat and water pretty well. If you look closely, you can see the black haired girl's head.

The only other titles from the list of mysteries with Yellow covers that come close are No. 2 "The Hidden Staircase" and No. 46 "The Invisible Intruder" ... both of these cover art have bright areas that should have been visible in the video but were not.

I am not sure whether No. 63 was available in a Yellow spine edition, but I can see the similarites pointed out in previous posts to the title text and possibly the reflected street lamp in a puddle.

EDIT: I am by no means certain, but after searching on EBAY for copies of "The Haunted Showboat" and "The Twin Dilemma" I am now leaning more toward No. 63. I just could not find any versions of No. 35 with the correct typeface for the title.

Gidget · Post by **Gidget** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 7:14 am

Its 5am here in the states and I'm off to bed. I've been trying lots of different things in hex codes with no luck. Ug! I feel like we're missing something obvious. Hopefully by the time I wake up you people will have this all solved

PinkoLady · Post by **PinkoLady** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 7:31 am

QtheC wrote: I am not sure whether No. 63 was available in a Yellow spine edition, but I can see the similarites pointed out in previous posts to the title text and possibly the reflected street lamp in a puddle.

Nancy Drew books with yellow spines were printed as recently as 2000-- and as it we've found, the Hardcover edition of The Twin Dilemma was printed in 1981. This edition bears the yellow band at the top typical of all yellow spine nancy drew books and not found on other hardcover editions, so I'm fairly positive #63 is available in yellow spine.

The Haunted Showboat, regardless, is definitely not it-- the text, especially, is not even close.

At this point, it seems much more likely that the fifth book is, in fact, The Twin Dilemma.

Ziola · Post by **Ziola** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 8:10 am

Per Nancy Drew Sleuth.com, these are the books that were printed with yellow spines, which is what Daniel has...

1 The Secret of the Old Clock 1959
2 The Hidden Staircase 1959
3 The Bungalow Mystery 1960
4 The Mystery at Lilac Inn 1961
5 The Secret at Shadow Ranch 1931
6 The Secret of Red Gate Farm 1961
7 The Clue in the Diary 1962
8 Nancy's Mysterious Letter 1932
9 The Sign of the Twisted Candles 1933
10 The Password to Larkspur Lane 1933
11 The Clue of the Broken Locket 1934
12 The Message in the Hollow Oak 1935
13 The Mystery of the Ivory Charm 1936
14 The Whispering Statue 1937
15 The Haunted Bridge 1937
16 The Clue of the Tapping Heels 1939
17 The Mystery of the Brass-Bound Trunk 1940
18 The Mystery at the Moss-Covered Mansion 1941
19 The Quest of the Missing Map 1942
20 The Clue in the Jewel Box 1943
21 The Secret in the Old Attic 1944
22 The Clue in the Crumbling Wall 1945
23 The Mystery of the Tolling Bell 1946
24 The Clue in the Old Album 1947
25 The Ghost of Blackwood Hall 1948
26 The Clue of the Leaning Chimney 1949
27 The Secret of the Wooden lady 1950
28 The Clue of the Black Keys 1951
29 The Mystery at the Ski Jump 1952
30 The Clue of the Velvet Mask 1953
31 The Ringmaster's Secret 1953
32 The Scarlet Slipper Mystery 1954

PinkoLady · Post by **PinkoLady** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 8:12 am

QtheC wrote:
EDIT: I am by no means certain, but after searching on EBAY for copies of "The Haunted Showboat" and "The Twin Dilemma" I am now leaning more toward No. 63. I just could not find any versions of No. 35 with the correct typeface for the title.

Yeah, the coloring may be better, but the text is just all wrong. Even though there are numerous editions printed, the cover art for the first 56 books is limited, and I'm pretty sure The Haunted Showboat only has one cover.

PinkoLady · Post by **PinkoLady** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 8:15 am

Ziola wrote:Per Nancy Drew Sleuth.com, these are the books that were printed with yellow spines, which is what Daniel has...

That's actually just the yellow spine for the book club-- Daniel's books are a different yellow spine that was reprinted several times by the various publishers Nancy Drew went through. If you look at the spine of either of the yellow spine book club editions, they're different from the books Daniel has.

It also wouldn't acount for how he has book 52 in the yellow spine addition, which he almost definitely does.

Ziola · Post by **Ziola** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 8:18 am

PinkoLady · Post by **PinkoLady** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 8:25 am

Book club yellow spine, from Nancy Drew Sleuth, printed only to book number 32:

Daniel's yellow spine:

kgurl84 · Post by **kgurl84** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 8:35 am

Okay, well I just woke up and I am not gonna read through all those pages to see if this has been tried but I was thinking that since Tach. said where it began, it probably means to go back to the first drop. Several pages/passages were marked (# and dates from nancydrewsleuth.com):

pg. 24 Secret of the Forgotten City 52 (1975)
pg. 44 Quest of the Missing Map 19 (1942, 1969)
pg. 84 The Clue in the Diary 7 (1932, 1962)
pg. 117 Quest of the Missing Map 19 (1942, 1969)
pg. 140 Secret of the Forgotten City 52 (1975)

What if you put the books in order that they were published with the page numbers and the sections marked earlier first for the same book:

pg. 84 The Clue in the Diary 7 (1932, 1962)
pg. 44 Quest of the Missing Map 19 (1942, 1969)
pg. 117 Quest of the Missing Map 19 (1942, 1969)
pg. 24 Secret of the Forgotten City 52 (1975)
pg. 140 Secret of the Forgotten City 52 (1975)

Line up the numbers: 84 44 117 24 140
Get rid of the zero and you have eleven numbers: 84441172414

Edit: I def. think i just got too over excited because I realized that there are more than these three books (right, there were five in the videos) and I was just going off of the quotes from the first post.....*sad face* time for class though! I expect you all to have this solved by the time I'm back tonight though!!!