This is the quintessential sort of clue you hear on the TV game show “Jeopardy!” It’s witty (the clue’s category is “Postcards From the Edge”), demands a large store of trivia and requires contestants to make confident, split-second decisions. This particular clue appeared in a mock version of the game in December, held in Hawthorne, N.Y. at one of I.B.M.’s research labs. Two contestants — Dorothy Gilmartin, a health teacher with her hair tied back in a ponytail, and Alison Kolani, a copy editor — furrowed their brows in concentration. Who would be the first to answer?

Neither, as it turned out. Both were beaten to the buzzer by the third combatant: Watson, a supercomputer … read the rest of the story by clicking on this link.

Are you smarter than a supercomputer? Find out by taking IBM’s Watson Trivia Challenge!

After regaining your bearings, you head back to the midway and notice perhaps a halfdozen attractions running at full tilt. Your natural curiosity to see what’s going on struggles with your desire to not be that character in a bad horror movie, and loses. As you turn toward the hole in the fence that got you into this madhouse, you discover that the fence is now complete. Moving closer, you discover that the fence is also very sharp, and now very electrified.

While lying dazed on the ground, you hear the loudspeakers sputter into life: “You have entered my limbo, my temporary place of abode which is becoming distressingly permanent. The price for your freedom is my freedom. Work, and work hard, and work without fail. Set me free, and you may get a good night’s sleep.”

As the silence descends, you decide that even if you are in a bad horror movie, your only choice is to obey. You begin to explore. . . .

This is the introduction to the new puzzle suite by Andrew Feist called Ghost in the Machine.

These puzzles are free, and you can confirm answers (to individual puzzles and the final answer) by email to tabstopva+acs@gmail.com. If you want hints, or answers, that’s a dicerent story. To receive the hint file for this suite, send Andrew a copy of a receipt for a $5 donation to the American Cancer Society; for the hints and answers, make it a $10 donation. Don’t send him the money; just send him (at tabstopva+acs@gmail.com) a copy of the receipt.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Andrew sends his thanks to his playtesters Brian Cimmet and Charlie Reams. Also thanks to the puzzle community, especially the ones from whom he has subconsciously,  unconsciously, and unknowingly stolen puzzle ideas.

Ghost in the Machine home page • Direct download

Confused and disoriented, you stagger through doors marked “Two Second Cruises” and find yourself in a travel agency. Surveying the office, you find yourself with a choice of different travel agents. Of the four, only one looks friendly. Ignoring a woman in an spotted animal print, a man with a fierce mane of hair, and a woman hungrily devouring a Subway combo meal, you opt for the man wearing a Virgin Airlines button.

He somehow knows exactly what’s on your mind. “Puzzles you want, puzzles you’ll get!” With quick keystrokes, he reserves you a spot on a cruise to a tropical island. When you stand up to thank him, you lose consciousness.

Waking up, you find yourself on the deck of the cruise ship. There’s noise coming from behind you and the island itself. The travel agent has left a note for you however.

Enjoy the island as long as you want. If you want to know where to go, try looking for some helpful individuals. Flag them down, and they’ll not only show you the hottest spots on the island, but help you decide what to do next.

What is the Puzzle Boat?

The Puzzle Boat is an online puzzle extravaganza, similar to the MIT Mystery Hunt or Microsoft Puzzle Hunts. It can be solved entirely online.

Puzzles (red links on the map) are in PDF format (with one exception). Puzzle types include cryptograms, crosswords, and visual puzzles. Some puzzles are traditional, others are unconventional, others defy categorization. The use of outside references are acceptable, and absolutely necessary in some cases.

As you solve puzzles, new puzzles will become available. Some puzzles require solutions to other puzzles. Solving these meta-puzzles will give you the names of several individuals on the island. Finding all of these individuals will allow you to complete the extravaganza.

You can solve the Puzzle Boat with others. To register a team, click Register above and enter a team name, password, and team members. Others on your team can use this name and password to access puzzles, and see how far the team has progressed. You can also solve on your own, but it’s not as much fun…for most.

If you have questions regarding the Puzzle Boat, write to Foggy Brume at editor@pandamagazine.com.

Blueprint for the "Onyx" level Dastardly Pathtag

I haven’t met many puzzle constructors who don’t want their puzzles to be solved.  Yes, there may be a few sadistic souls out there who revel in creating impossibly obscure puzzles.  But most of us are like authors or directors – we’ve poured our creative energies into something, and once it’s finished we want people to enjoy it.

I have a number of geocaches published in New York City, some of them traditional (coordinates posted on the geocaching.com site) and some of them puzzles (to be solved before the location is revealed).  It’s not hard to notice how much less attention the geo-puzzles receive.  In 2007 I published two caches in Central Park, less than half a mile apart.  One is a puzzle that has been found 4 times in the last six months.  The other is a traditional that has been found 316 times in the same time frame.

I talked about it with another local constructor in the area, childofatom.  How can we change this?  What could we as puzzle creators do to interest more people in solving puzzles?

We talked about borrowing the Puzzle Solving 101 concept.  We talked about hosting an educational seminar for new solvers.  Finally we took a cue from the growing popularity of Pathtags and batted around the idea of creating a special solver tag, available only to cachers who solve a number of the area’s geo-puzzles.  Pathtags are custom metal coins that can be collected and traded, and tracked online.  They’re similar to geocoins, but smaller (about the size of a quarter) and (importantly) much cheaper to produce.

We collected some of the best geo-puzzles in New York into a bookmark list of “Dastardly Puzzle Caches”.  We hashed out a “Dastardly” design and minted it in two finishes.  There were just over 30 puzzles, so we decided that one tag would be earned for solving 15, and another tag for hitting 30.  We picked out a pub and a date two weeks in the future.  We generated a list of people who had solved at least a handful of them and sent out an email telling folks when and where we’d be, and that we’d be handing out tags to any qualified solvers.

Then we sat back.

And watched the “Great Puzzle Solving Flood of 2010” start to roll in.

In the two weeks before we sent out our email, the Dastardly puzzles on our list collected a grand total of 16 finds between them.  In the two weeks afterward?  Over 100!  When we showed up to the pub it was crowded with eager geo-puzzle solvers happily introducing themselves to each other and swapping hints.  We quickly handed out tags and joined in the conversation.  One geocacher had published a puzzle that morning in honor of the gathering, using the pub’s coordinates as a starting point; another resolved to start writing his first NYC puzzle cache as soon as he got home.  We all promised to have another gathering soon where we could hand out more tags to people who had leveled up in that time.

The tags have created a spark in our community, and we’re building on it.  Interested in seeing if it might build interest in puzzles in your area?  Feel free to contact me through my geocaching.com profile and let us know if you’d like to adapt the tag design – there could easily be a whole series of “Dastardly” pathtags representing different puzzle communities all around the country (or around the world).

The Boston Crossword Puzzle Tournament was held this past April 11 (which was a Sunday in April), hosted by Joon Pakh. The contest included 150 registered participants as well as 500 Oreo cookies. Contestants solved four soon-to-be-published puzzles from the New York Times using American Crossword Puzzle Tournament scoring rules.

The winner was Eric Maddy, who not only won the Boston tournament but (as I am led to believe) also won the Brown University tournament the day before. And he’s not even from New England, but hails from California. Impressive!

Trip has a bunch of free puzzles on his web site – check them out here.

1. Are you really a puzzlehead?

2. Do you have £200?

3. Do you want to win £10,000?

If you answered “yes” to all of these questions, then the ISIS Platinum Pyramid Challenge is for you!

What is ISIS?

The ISIS puzzle was first made available to the public on July 7, 2006. ISIS is a spherical puzzle box made of precision-engineered anodized aluminum. The individual components of the puzzle box can be rotated or pressed.

The ISIS is not only beautiful (comes in many colors, even a custom patriotic USA theme) but also maddening – the solution to each one is unique (although the mechanism for obtaining the solution is common to all).

Unlocking the box reveals unique codes that can be redeemed for prizes (such as gold or silver coins) or to reveal further clues.

In 2008, the RAMISIS (or ISIS 2) puzzle was released. Instead of a sphere, RAMISIS is a pyramid with rotating layers – but the goal is similar. Find the right sequence for manipulating the device in order to access the codes inside.

What is the Platinum Pyramid Challenge?

On September 25, 2006, the Platinum Pyramid Challenge was announced. Solve all five ISIS puzzles, find the Platinum Pyramid, and win £10,000.

Good luck with this one, fellow puzzleheads!