(no subject)
Apr. 29th, 2007 03:05 pmSo I haven't been around much lately, mostly because I've been obsessing over the exquisite puzzles ![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rhvdohsetcd (the username is the first letter of every track on My Chemical Romance's first album, in order) has created. They're logic-games, like playing hide-and-go-seek with the whole internet and its vast resources as your playground.
Absolutely amazing things in terms of the effort involved in both creating and solving them; clickable links hidden in patchwork-puzzle pictures, some of them only a couple of pixels wide, passwords that are truly obscure bits of trivia (one asked for the demo name of the first song they ever played, something I only found through logical guessing), links hidden in source codes, text files containing links in code. Decoy sendspace files containing massive amounts of what is apparantly porn, zip files containing gibberish text files and mp3s of static that are nonetheless necessary for solving later puzzles. Not just happening to be online, these puzzles are a completely unique and new form of entertainment, symbiotic with the internet. All of these things following each other in dizzying strings, but it was worth it, because each one rewarded you with a live recording taken only a couple of months after the release of My Chem's first album.
Overall there were six puzzles, ranging from absurdly simple (clicking on the right part of the picture takes you straight to a sendspace file of "Honey") to REALLY FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE. The last one contained multiple blank, black webpages with text that could only be seen if you set your internet options to ignore the colors designated by the website, one password that could only be found by following google to a thread on an obscure foreign-language forum, and a few DOZEN sendspace links in the end, one of which contained the song in a deceptively named zip file.
What really appealed to me about these puzzles is the logic behind them. There were themes to each puzzle, whether it was the patchwork-picture or the link hidden in source code, the Caesar cipher code or the text hidden by the website itself. Very difficult logical steps, but it was a progression, and solving it by yourself made you feel like an absolute genius. Granted, there were tiny hints available in comment threads for things that you simply couldn't find, but they were just hints, and you had to solve the problem for yourself.
And now, after six of the bloody difficult things, I have the songs! Very good live tracks, recorded in late 2002, of "Honey", "Vampires", "This Is The Best Day Ever", "Headfirst for Halos", "Our Lady of Sorrows", and, interestingly enough, a cover of "Jack the Ripper" by Morrissey. In short, SO MUCH LOVE. I knew there would be six songs, and I admit to rather hoping, when it came down to the last, that "Skylines and Turnstiles" would be one of them, but I am still ineffably happy with what I got.
These absolutely brightened up my dreary, dull week and weekend, and many thanks to whoever created them (I believeninevoltheart is the suspected culprit, but I never assume).
Another thing that cheered me up? Babylon 5. I love that show. I have enough homework to choke a horse and only the prospect of more in the future, the very thought of my AP Calc test sends chills down my spine, but I'm still reasonably happy right now. The miracle of modern media.
rhvdohsetcd (the username is the first letter of every track on My Chemical Romance's first album, in order) has created. They're logic-games, like playing hide-and-go-seek with the whole internet and its vast resources as your playground.Absolutely amazing things in terms of the effort involved in both creating and solving them; clickable links hidden in patchwork-puzzle pictures, some of them only a couple of pixels wide, passwords that are truly obscure bits of trivia (one asked for the demo name of the first song they ever played, something I only found through logical guessing), links hidden in source codes, text files containing links in code. Decoy sendspace files containing massive amounts of what is apparantly porn, zip files containing gibberish text files and mp3s of static that are nonetheless necessary for solving later puzzles. Not just happening to be online, these puzzles are a completely unique and new form of entertainment, symbiotic with the internet. All of these things following each other in dizzying strings, but it was worth it, because each one rewarded you with a live recording taken only a couple of months after the release of My Chem's first album.
Overall there were six puzzles, ranging from absurdly simple (clicking on the right part of the picture takes you straight to a sendspace file of "Honey") to REALLY FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE. The last one contained multiple blank, black webpages with text that could only be seen if you set your internet options to ignore the colors designated by the website, one password that could only be found by following google to a thread on an obscure foreign-language forum, and a few DOZEN sendspace links in the end, one of which contained the song in a deceptively named zip file.
What really appealed to me about these puzzles is the logic behind them. There were themes to each puzzle, whether it was the patchwork-picture or the link hidden in source code, the Caesar cipher code or the text hidden by the website itself. Very difficult logical steps, but it was a progression, and solving it by yourself made you feel like an absolute genius. Granted, there were tiny hints available in comment threads for things that you simply couldn't find, but they were just hints, and you had to solve the problem for yourself.
And now, after six of the bloody difficult things, I have the songs! Very good live tracks, recorded in late 2002, of "Honey", "Vampires", "This Is The Best Day Ever", "Headfirst for Halos", "Our Lady of Sorrows", and, interestingly enough, a cover of "Jack the Ripper" by Morrissey. In short, SO MUCH LOVE. I knew there would be six songs, and I admit to rather hoping, when it came down to the last, that "Skylines and Turnstiles" would be one of them, but I am still ineffably happy with what I got.
These absolutely brightened up my dreary, dull week and weekend, and many thanks to whoever created them (I believe
ninevoltheart is the suspected culprit, but I never assume).Another thing that cheered me up? Babylon 5. I love that show. I have enough homework to choke a horse and only the prospect of more in the future, the very thought of my AP Calc test sends chills down my spine, but I'm still reasonably happy right now. The miracle of modern media.
