Author
Message
^BonoVox^
Guest
Well, I can't speak English in an excellent way but I'll do my best since ARGs are great! So... Count me in!
Did anyone tried looking for embedded data in the video screenshot posted on the page where you can actually download the video? I looked roughly at the html but it seems there's nothing interesting.
Also, I notice that in the header of the mail Sente sent us there is a sort of linkage with unfiction but I suppose it's only functional to the game and not really meaningful.
Guys, I'll do my best, maybe I could only give you some advice (have you tried this and that...) but I hope to be helpful
Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 5:13 am
brat-sampson
Decorated
Joined: 25 Jul 2004 Posts: 289 Location: Stark
Can't believe I was away the day this started. Typical.
Anyway, looks like a japanese video and irritatingly brief ad taken out on the USA Today should be enough to keep us pondering and theorising for about another 3 months. (Just look at how long the postcard lasted!)
Just thinking, should we be working on trying to use the info they give us in the papers to decifer the blank spaces in the video?
I'll be sure to pick up copys of the UK papers as and when they come out.
Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 5:20 am
^BonoVox^
Guest
Also... Why does the words "the cube" have a great space between them in the last shot? Wouldn't anyone write them closer to each other?
Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 5:22 am
tanner
Entrenched
Joined: 21 May 2003 Posts: 875 Location: (x,y,z,t,i, ...)+
in total cities mentioned or inferred on all sites and pics and vids --- melbourne - singapore -- istanbul (ataturk airport) -- london -- tokyo
anywhere else?
_________________tanner³ -- Join the PXC team on SETI@home
"And the princess and the prince discuss what's real and what is not,
But it doesn't matter inside the Gates of Eden" - BD
Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 5:34 am
Mikeyj
Unfictologist
Joined: 18 Oct 2004 Posts: 1842 Location: London
Some wild spec Connected up to my hi-fi to make it very loud and it's definitely definitely curtain. My complete transcript is below.
There is a theme that has risen again and again in our studies across all relevant disciplines. The similarities between our peoples are truly profound and consequently serve to make the differences all the more shocking. It is as though our modern day societies took on collective cultural experiences, all of our shared history, and learned from it completely different lessons. One could expect then a feeling of alienation from the subjects of our studies. This is not so. Our researchers have instead come to identify very strongly with their counterparts on the other side of the curtain. The rhythm we occupy seems to be a long period of comfortable familiarity with a counterpoint of sudden and often sharp cultureshock.
Questions:
1 What are the relevant disciplines?
2 what are the differences between Sente's people and our's ?
3 Our history is shared. Which suggests to me that there was a significant event in both our history's that lead to the current differences between the two peoples. What was this?
4 What lessons did they learn and what did we learn?
5 The researchers have "counterparts on the other side of the curtain". Presumably that means there is counterpart for everyone (why just the researchers). We already know there is a London. Is there a counterpart for the Academy here or is this one of the differences? There is no Old Town, Taversen Square here. Perhaps it was founded as a result of the event (which is why they're studying us and not the other way round)?
6 Why do they identify strongly with us? Despite the differences that have occurred?
just my tuppence
Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 5:42 am
Seej
Unfettered
Joined: 30 Nov 2004 Posts: 614
OK, here's what I've got from this so far - the Japanese of the signs seems to be pretty much innocent as far as the few bits I can translate go. I don't actually think it's got any more relevant information than a drive through Picadilly Circus or Times Square would have (though I admit my skills are rusty).
I tried running the video through stegdetect before remembering that stegdetect only works on jpegs. Did the same on the still image from the video download page but got a negative. I then opened the video and the jpeg in a hex editor to look for anything interesting. Again, I couldn't see anything, though since there's a heck of a lot of data to scroll though it's possible that I missed something.
Lastly, if we take the blackouts on the video to be a 1 if there's a newspaper reference and 0 if it's blank we get the binary number 11100100001 which is 1825 in decimal. Means nothing to me ATM, but maybe it'll come in useful in future.
My personal feeling is that this is the start of the game for the people who haven't been massively over-analysing the few scraps of data we already have - just an intro/trailhead for them without any more data than what we've already established, though I would dearly love to be wrong
EDIT: more info on stegdetect results here
Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 5:42 am
Last edited by Seej on Thu Feb 17, 2005 4:54 pm; edited 1 time in total
Mikeyj
Unfictologist
Joined: 18 Oct 2004 Posts: 1842 Location: London
I'm not so sure...We get extra snippets each time and I think we haven't synthesised these properly yet. There are bits we don't understand about everything even without the over analysis that has definitely been occurring
Mikey
Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 5:45 am
g_rott
Boot
Joined: 11 Mar 2004 Posts: 25 Location: Cambry
11 black screens some with text, also 11 messages in http://www.perplexcity.com/tmp/httpd/errorlog/ there may be nothing in it but should we miss it we'll be kicking ourselves. i have a day in the lab but thankfully have a connection. So whilst my little guinea pigs tap buttons and squeak with joy i can stare blankly at the possiblitly of a possible puzzle, that may infact not be there. Yet still i'll stare.
g_
_________________Not stopping for anything but breath
Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 5:54 am
Mikeyj
Unfictologist
Joined: 18 Oct 2004 Posts: 1842 Location: London
see e-mail thread with
one year one month one day.
Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 5:58 am
firefox
Unfettered
Joined: 28 Jul 2004 Posts: 333
okay, just noticed. the gap at the end of the video between 'the' and 'cube' is explained because theres a word blanked out- or purposely not written, its debatable see how its whiter than the rest of the paper.
the soup thickens.
guess you guys already knew, just answering someone elses question on a separate? thread.
edit: added screen cap for those who cant view video
Description
Filesize
40.81KB
Viewed
459 Time(s)
Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 6:00 am
Black Cat
Boot
Joined: 09 Oct 2004 Posts: 29 Location: UK
Re: USA Today
Mornington wrote:
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
This is the text found in the posts above on the USA Today Webpage.
Notice the "perlplexcity" url again.
Perlplexcity.com
LOST. The Cube. Reward Offered. not only an object of great significance to the city but also a technological wonder www.perplexcity.com
If this is what will be in all the papers, expect me to be kinda pissed off. I was getting so excited for some juicy bit of clueage!
BC
_________________There are many types of ships. There are wooden ships, plastic ships, and metal ships. But the best and most important types of ships are friendships.
Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 6:12 am
Mikeyj
Unfictologist
Joined: 18 Oct 2004 Posts: 1842 Location: London
With the voice-over being a girl and this Sente's communication does this lend credence to the suggestion that Sente is a female lady?
Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 6:23 am
firefox
Unfettered
Joined: 28 Jul 2004 Posts: 333
it doth say master, and not mistress on the recent email. but then again, who knows. maybe shes a modern-business-woman-type.
Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 6:26 am
KSG
Decorated
Joined: 12 Jan 2005 Posts: 186 Location: WA, USA
Or they worked together on whatever the text is from, or it's just supposed to sound cool, or someone discovered what Sente had written and we're hearing them...I don't see any solution to this short of being given more information.
Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 6:31 am
I.Diogenes
Greenhorn
Joined: 04 Feb 2005 Posts: 5
probaly out of game, but wtf.... Found this site looking for "perlplex"
http://www.mjau-mjau.com/perplex/
I think I have squares and cubes on the brain.
Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 6:42 am
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