No Purchase Necessary
Update (19th May 2006): The competition is now closed, and Max Dymond was the winner
I'm bored, so I did this:
Wd thmj gt npd gmpmptamt tgat pdmpjd pgmtjd gdt dmjmwmdmt mu md tgdgp datmtpgtd dmpm md dwdpagpd; pmwgmg, ptngmg, jtmpgmg, mp – gm Pamtjamd – tgpmwgmg gdatw thmgp bmu gm tgd waw tgat njw Pamtpmdm bm tmeqtamd
And while it may look like meaningless garbage, it is in fact perfectly meaningful coded garbage. It's also a quotation, so the views expressed in it are not necessarily my own; it just amuses me…
Anyway, whoever decodes this first, and posts the answer either in a comment or a trackback, wins a J2O next term (as such, this is only open to people at Warwick).
No Purchase Necessary, Terms & Conditions Apply.
SMALL PRINT
1. This competition is open to all current members of the University of Warwick aged minus infinity to plus infinity, inclusive, excluding all employees of richardwinskill.co.uk, their family, pets, infectious diseases, and tandem bicycles.
2. No bees
3. No purchase necessary; post solution in a comment or a trackback.
4. The first correct answer received will win the prize.
5. If a J2O cannot be found, we reserve the right to substitute something else.
6. mmmmm! pie
7. This competition is not affiliated with anyone it's not affiliated with.
8. Prepositions are words you should not end sentences with.
9. Any other terms and conditions I think of later also apply
02 Apr 2006 00:28
| 
Tags: Code Competition J20 Prize Puzzle Randomness Win Winner
| 
Comments (15)
| 
Report a problem
15 comments by 1 or more people
[Skip to the latest comment]It doesn't help that there are misspellings in it.. wtf is "runing"? :p
17 May 2006, 14:13
A partial translation, with untranslated bits in bold, and suspected misspellings in italics:
We thnk it npd important that people pgmtjd get enjoyment mu of their favourite form of exercise; rowing, runing, jumping, or - in Scotland - throwing heavy thngs bmu in the way that oly Scotsmen do unequald
Am i close?
17 May 2006, 14:31
Yes, but I'm supprised that if you can translate some of it you can't translate all of it; it all follows the same rule, you obviously haven't quite got it, although you must be on the right track.
"Scotsmen do" is wrong, though…
And I've checked, and the 'misspelled' words are right…if you decode them properly
Well done, though, I didn't think anyone would get it, although I suppose the pattern is potentially easy to see where it came from…
17 May 2006, 15:14
I must be missing the trick. I saw that "gmpmptamt" looked like "important". If you add 200220010 0100 012021 to the ascii values of "gmpmptamt tgat pdmpjd" you get "important that people". "Pamtjamd" threw me slightly, as it adds 3 onto P to get S.
For the other bits, i stared at the text until I saw a rejigging that was English
So in conclusion, I don't quite know how you've encoded it :p
17 May 2006, 15:53
That's obviously why you thought some of them were misspelt; it's not the letters themeselves that are important, but what you might come up with on the way…
The fact that a 'complex' message is encoded with relatively few letters may help. I mean look at all the Ms…
17 May 2006, 19:14
Now you're just being cryptic :D
17 May 2006, 21:56
Well, I don't want to give too much away now, do I?
18 May 2006, 00:01
We think it more important that people simply get enjoyment out of their favourite form of exercise; rowing, running, jumping, or – in Scotland – throwing heavy things about in the way that only Scotsmen can unequalled.
closer??
18 May 2006, 01:19
Closer, but still not quite right.
Since there've been close solutions posted, I think the winner will have to provide both the proper passage and the method used to encrypt/decrypt to stop lucky people guessing from the current suggestions…
18 May 2006, 01:40
We think it more important that people should get enjoyment out of their favourite form of exercise; rowing, running, jumping, or – in Scotland – throwing heavy things about in the way that only Scotsmen can understand.
I think it's a simple surjective function:
a –> a
b –> a
c –> a
ab –> b
ca –> b
d –> d
e –> d
f –> d
de –> e
g –> g
h –> g
i –> g
hi –> h
j –> j
k –> j
l –> j
m –> m
n –> m
o –> m
nn –> n
on –> n
mo –> n
p –> p
q –> p
r –> p
s –> p
rs –> q
t –> t
u –> t
v –> t
ut –> u
w –> w
x –> w
y –> w
z –> w
However, this is how I think it works: as we can see, there are intervals of 3 letters. If 2 letters are next to each other and in the same interval, it's replaced by the next letter up. So, nn–>n rather than mm. I presume that 3 letters in the same interval would be mapped as the 3rd letter in the interval. For example, knight –> jmit.
About right?
18 May 2006, 16:44
Well you got the message correct; it's a quotation from The Lion Has Wings, a hilarious propaganda film from WWII.
Your method makes mine look somewhat boring; since yours works (you encoded "knight" as I would have done) it's obviously the effect I achieved, but what I actually did was use my mobile with predictive text off but typed as if it were on (hence why most of the letters are a, d, g, j, m, p, t, and w, and also why they're in groups of three…).
I guess that makes you the winner. Well done.
19 May 2006, 12:59
Doh, of course. There's me trying to overcomplicate things :)
Plus woo! for winnage
19 May 2006, 23:01
You'll be wanting the prize of some description then, I take it…
20 May 2006, 16:35
Lol! No it doesn't matter, I donate the prize to you for making the quiz.
20 May 2006, 20:02
Oh, gosh, I don't know what to say. I'd like to thank my family for all their support over the years, and my pet cat for always being there for me, and…
20 May 2006, 20:36
Add a comment
You are not allowed to comment on this entry as it has restricted commenting permissions.