Category — Puzzles

There is speculation that JK Rowling’s new web site for all things Harry Potter called Pottermore is not only a way to purchase digital editions of the wildly-popular book series, but is also an online treasure hunt.

According to British newspaper The Guardian:

It is thought Rowling’s new project, due to be officially launched on Thursday, will be a Potter-based treasure hunt entitled Pottermore, after an apparently secret memo emerged.

The new project is reportedly an online game that gives users clues which will lead them to prizes hidden in the real world. Aspiring wizards the world over can hope to find an undisclosed number of magic wands stashed throughout the UK and US, and possibly other countries. It is not yet clear if the treasure hunt is Pottermore itself or a marketing drive for another product, and details about the game remain hazy.

Recently, a few lucky geocachers honestly and accidentally stumbled across the containers of some of my more difficult puzzle caches without solving their respective puzzles. The cachers signed the logs, and they submitted Found It logs online.

Some other geocachers posted notes on the log and sent me personal emails questioning the validity of those finds. For everyone who questions the validity of such a find, I refer you to the Groundspeak guidelines:

Physical geocaches can be logged online as “Found” once the physical log has been signed.

For physical caches, all logging requirements beyond finding the geocache and signing the log are considered additional logging requirements (ALRs) and must be optional. Cache finders can choose whether or not to attempt or accomplish such tasks.

Groundspeak Listing Requirements/Guidelines, Section 3.1

By these rules, solving the puzzle is an additional logging requirement and is therefore optional.

So, if you’ve signed the log, you found it. Log it online, and feel free to congratulate yourself on your good fortune. End of story.

And, please, everyone: enough with the questioning the validity of accidental finds! This is a game and games are supposed to be fun. Policing and being policed isn’t fun – let the moderators and the cache owners take care of that responsibility.

Cache on!

Surfer, I surfed the Internet, I knew the Internet, the Internet was a friend of mine. Surfer, you’re no Internet.

But if you start using A Google A Day, you might be.

Yes, you really can integrate crossword puzzle construction into a sleight-of-hand magic trick! Check out this video, starting at about the 3:00 mark.

DOES LANGLEY KNOW ABOUT THIS ? THEY SHOULD ITS BURIED OUT THERE SOMEWHERE X WHO KNOWS THE EXACT LOCATION ? ONLY WW THIS WAS HIS LAST MESSAGE X THIRTY EIGHT DEGREES FIFTY SEVEN MINUTES SIX POINT FIVE SECONDS NORTH SEVENTY SEVEN DEGREES EIGHT MINUTES FORTY FOUR SECONDS WEST

Fellow Puzzlehead Child of Atom sent this note to me the other day …

One of the great unsolved mysteries of the 20th century (and now the 21st century) is Kryptos. This sculpture – in the courtyard of CIA headquarters – contains a cipher, 3/4ths of which has been cracked. The story of its

On November 20, 2010, the artist released a clue to the remaining unsolved section – that six letters in the ciphertext translate to the word “BERLIN”. For a far better write-up than I can provide, check out the New York Times article.

Happy Halloween, everyone! Celebrate by solving a Halloween puzzle!

I’ve written here before about a really fun BBC quiz show called Only Connect.  Well, there’s a new online version called Puzz Grid.

The rules are the same as the BBC ones – given 16 different words or phrases, sort them into four groups, then define what relates each group. Do so before the clock runs out and you win!

If you finish (or tire of) all of the groups, you can create your own and share with the rest of the internet.

Enjoy!

Q: Think of a word that means “To reconcile or help settle”. Add a “T” somewhere to that word to get another word that means “To reflect, ponder, or contemplate”.

Show Answer ▼

That was the only answer I couldn’t find in today’s Sporcle quiz. I coulda been a contenda!

What is Sporcle? Don’t bother clicking – if you do, you’ll be sucked into one of the most compelling time-sinks the internet has ever cooked up.

Simply put, Sporcle is an online trivia quiz site – new quizzes are posted every day. There is seemingly no topic that Sporcle doesn’t touch: at random, I found these:

• Things in the song “If I Had a Million Dollars” (Barenaked Ladies)
• Songs with “Of” in the Title
• One-Word Hitchcock Movie Titles
• Mythological Punishments
• Name All of the Schools in the Major NCAA Conferences
• Batman Villains
• Florida Cities by Population
• Retired Hurricane Names Per Letter
• Things Meat Loaf Won’t Do for Love
• And, of course, Methods of Execution

The cool part of all of this is that not only are there fun quizzes and leaderboards and the usual social networking features, but you can also create your own quizzes. Just in case there isn’t already a quiz on your particular area of expertise.

There’s a new type of puzzle in town: the gryptic crossword!

Imagine a (usually) 6×6 grid with no black cells – sometimes cells are filled in, other times not so much. There are no clues, but you’re given either the beginnings or ends of the various across and down words. Your job is to fill in the grid to form complete words.

For more information about gryptics and where to find them, check out Amy Reynaldo’s post on her blog.

So, how fast can you type the alphabet?