This point is exhausting just recalling it. So ... I'm not going to dwell on it, or include every tweet involved ... just getting down to brass tacks.
No points today, but the next three tweets are of a piece. #thegintercode
— Ginter Code (@TheGinterCode) November 13, 2014When I'm down, a nice hot fire tugs, hearth at ease. The fat, pent cow is a testament to our taste. #thegintercode
— Ginter Code (@TheGinterCode) November 13, 2014I under the yellow bib shirt, the twelve men chatter in time, tattling. Clem then exits, agog, dim coin stunted. #thegintercode
— Ginter Code (@TheGinterCode) November 13, 2014If you want grace, put the hen in the basket. Droopily, he takes five; our plot is fresh. Last is his. #thegintercode
— Ginter Code (@TheGinterCode) November 13, 2014We knew right away that these were anagrams. Which is, how do I say it ... INSANE! I whined about this one, because ... come on, anagrams. The CM response:
@ParanoidAndrew It is solvable. There is literally nothing keeping anyone from putting those letters in the correct order. #thegintercode
— Ginter Code (@TheGinterCode) November 26, 2014Some days later, the CM started breaking down the structures of the anagrammed tweets. One day I will share some screenshots of the robust spreadsheet I built for this point ... because without some automation, I don't see how anyone would have solved this point.
Breaking down the first two tweets in my spreadsheet, I spelled out:
-- THERE'S A TWITTER ACCOUNT TO FIND. IT HAS ONE TWEET. USE THE SAME HASHTAG AT ME FOR A POINT.
-- MY NEXT TWEET WILL HAVE THE ACCOUNT NAME. IT IS THE EIGHT LETTERS IN THE MIDDLE. DON'T BOTHER UNSCRAMBLING IT.
Thus, the third tweet contained a Twitter handle. The "eight letters in the middle" are "Droopily".
https://twitter.com/Droopily
— Gramma Antares (@Droopily) November 13, 2014
@TheGinterCode #GrammaAntaresIsAnagramMaster
— ParanoidAndrew (@ParanoidAndrew) December 1, 2014Point scored.
- Grant
Here's what confused me.
ReplyDeletea) the entire premise of the 2010 code was that you'd be unable to anagram chunks smaller than these and thus would need to figure out the keys to properly sort the message into order
b) the tinier example anagram for this point had several plausible solutions
Okay, I'm done now. Anagrams aren't codes :). Anagrams can be hints though. Short ones. With unique solutions.
This was one that we were kinda bummed about. It ended up coming down to the CM needing to essentially give it away with hints on the structure of the anagrams. I think we saw the last set of hints shortly after you guys did, because when you tweeted the answer, we had the second tweet about half-decoded.
ReplyDeleteThen we saw that you had posted a hashtag, and we had a collective sigh that we hadn't been glued to twitter all the time. Of course, this wasn't the only point that was so close.
Adam, did you guys have a spreadsheet built for this point, or were you piecing things together by hand?
ReplyDeleteI agree, the nature of this point required spoon-feeding. I also have to agree with Jim ... anagrams aren't codes. As much as the CM wanted to make this one work, de-anagramming requires no real skill IMO.
Yeah, we had a spreadsheet, but not much automation. I used it more as a way to drag letters around.
ReplyDeleteAfter we realized the answer it became very clear why no help was provided for tweet three. Clever at the end but frustrating along the way. This one definitely made me tote cringe.
ReplyDelete