Mystery Hunt 2012 Recast: COMPLETE!!!

[Suspence]

[gftt]

When I log in and try to post something, I usually have to log in twice. Anyone else having this problem?

Rick Mirer, pick 2 in '93 -> Jack London (The Road)
Dick Bielski, pick 9 in '55 -> Mark Twain (The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County)
John David Crow, pick 2 in '58 -> Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness)
Simeon Rice, pick 3 in '96 -> A A Milne (Winnie the Pooh)
Dewayne Robertson, pick 4 in '03 -> Robert Frost (The Road Not Taken)
Billy Sims, pick 1 in '80 -> Martin Luther (?)
Bert Jones, pick 2 in '73 -> Karl Marx (The Communist Manifesto)
Jim Houston, pick 8 in '60 -> William Butler Yeats (The Second Coming)
Michael Clayton, pick 15 in '04 -> F Scott Fitzgerald (Tender is the Night)
Bob Whitfield, pick 8 in '92 -> Alexander Pope (The Dunciad)
Jim Everett, pick 3 in '86 -> Charles Darwin (The Origin of Species)
Russell Okung, pick 6 in '10 -> Franz Kafka (The Trial)
Marshall Faulk, pick 2 in '94 -> Eugene O'Neill (The Iceman cometh)
Kelly Stouffer, pick 6 in '87 -> William Shakespeare (As You Like It)


If you use the picks to index into full names you get "anomemableakua" which seems strangely coherent, even though it's not. Indexing into titles doesn't seem to get anything. It does seem, though, that thinking about draft order is good, since it would be a strange coincidence that all of these players were high round 1 picks.

[Suspence]

[jadesmar]

[gftt]

[Scurra]

[gftt*]

One notes that all of the players were drafted in different years. Do we have to reorder by draft year? That would raise the question of how the players were originally ordered, however...

[Suspence]

I can't see any connection, but I thought this was interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare_%28American_football%29
_________________
I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[gftt*]

[Suspence]

There is a Mike Kafka. He's a quarterback, I think he plays for the Eagles.

Hmm...

Russell Okung, pick 6 in '10 -> Franz Kafka (The Trial)
Mike Kafka - drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles in the 4th round (122nd overall) of the 2010 NFL Draft.

Kelly Stouffer, pick 6 in '87 -> William Shakespeare (As You Like It)
Stanley Shakespeare played one season in the NFL, 1987, but was undrafted.
_________________
I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[Suspence]

Rick Mirer, pick 2 in '93 -> Jack London (The Road)
93 Draft, pick 62 was Antonio London

Dick Bielski, pick 9 in '55 -> Mark Twain (The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County)
95 Draft, no Twains, but pick 77 was Bob Clemens.

John David Crow, pick 2 in '58 -> Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness)
58 Draft, pick 58, Bobby Joe Conrad

Simeon Rice, pick 3 in '96 -> A A Milne (Winnie the Pooh)
96 Draft, pick 115, Brian Milne

Dewayne Robertson, pick 4 in '03 -> Robert Frost (The Road Not Taken)
03 Draft, no Frost's drafted, but Derrick Frost went undrafted/

Billy Sims, pick 1 in '80 -> Martin Luther (?)
80 Draft, pick 101, Ed Luther

Bert Jones, pick 2 in '73 -> Karl Marx (The Communist Manifesto)
73 Draft, pick 39, Greg Marx

Jim Houston, pick 8 in '60 -> William Butler Yeats (The Second Coming)
60 Draft, no Yeats drafted, but James Yeats went undrafted.

Michael Clayton, pick 15 in '04 -> F Scott Fitzgerald (Tender is the Night)
04 Draft, pick 3, Larry Fitzgerald

Bob Whitfield, pick 8 in '92 -> Alexander Pope (The Dunciad)
92 Draft, pick 33, Marquez Pope

Jim Everett, pick 3 in '86 -> Charles Darwin (The Origin of Species)
86 Draft, pick 106, Matt Darwin

Russell Okung, pick 6 in '10 -> Franz Kafka (The Trial)
10 Draft, pick 122, Mike Kafka

Marshall Faulk, pick 2 in '94 -> Eugene O'Neill (The Iceman cometh)
94 Draft, pick 135, Pat O'Neill

Kelly Stouffer, pick 6 in '87 -> William Shakespeare (As You Like It)
87 Draft, no Shakespeare drafted, but Stanley Shakespeare went undrafted.
_________________
I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[novice]

Derrick Frost, undrafted in 2003.
Ed Luther, 101st pick in 1980

[Suspence]

And James Yeats, undrafted in 1960.

That completes the list. I've edited these back into my post above. I tried using the pick number of the high draft pick as an extraction method on the name of the new player, but that didn't seem to work.
_________________
I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[novice]

The list is sorted by the misquoted player's name.

[Suspence]

The same extraction doesn't yield anything when sorted by draft year.
_________________
I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[SuperSlug]

[Suspence]

Just the meta remains. Here is the completed information, and the flavortext:

Fresh off their triumph on Jeopardy!, the team at IBM realized it was time to implement their long-secret primary goal for Watson: reviewing Broadway plays. With a little new code, Watson 2.0 could now identify the perfect recipe for a smash hit. However, the programmers knew that if Watson’s hidden algorithms were discovered, they would be humiliated and Watson would be dismantled for good…

1. This best-selling book flew off the rack. (Scrabble values)
HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX = 65
VELVET ELVIS = 20
VALLEY = 12
TERMINAL = 10

2. This word might appear in a letter to a valued friend. (Sum of letter values)
ESTEEMED = 76
EBOOK = 48
ADOBO = 37
RACED = 31

3. This food often fails to meet international standards. (Convert LSB from Hex to Dec)
HAMBURGER = 84
MERCURY = 63
COLON = 58
UNION = 42

4. This is part of a lengthy and miserable experience. (Letter count times 5)
I DREAMED A DREAM = 70
CLINTON = 35
CHERRY = 30
DEPOT =25

5. Even the ancient Romans may have had to pay this burden. (Sum of Roman numerals)
LUXURY TAX = 70
BUSINESS TRAVELERS = 56
SOUTHWEST AIRLINES = 52
OKAPI =1

6. You might use the phrase “robbed blind” while talking about this. (Braille dots)
BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID = 79
FORGET PARIS = 34
BATED BREATH = 28
YOKEL =15

7. This man was born to run. (Birth year)
ADRIAN PETERSON = 85
TERRY GENE BOLLEA = 53
JOHN ADAMS = 35
JERRY WEXLER = 17

8. Even a two-bit company must follow these rules. (Binary using I's and O's)
ARTICLES OF INCORPORATION = 82
CAPITOL HILL = 5
FIRESTONE = 2
SLITS = 1
_________________
I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[Suspence]

[SuperSlug]

[LordKinbote]

ADRIAN PETERSON is correct.

And then there was one.

[SuperSlug]

[Suspence]

You're correct on that one, and it wouldn't hurt to recheck all of my calculations.
_________________
I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[SuperSlug]

[Suspence]

LOL. I have ALTFFOUR sitting on my spreadsheet, and it didn't mean anything to me. I didn't use ASCII, I was just calculating the amount above the threshold that each answer scored, which ends up being the same.

ALT+F4 would certainly make Watson unhappy.
_________________
I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[LordKinbote]

ALT F-FOUR is correct.

Annnddd....that's it. I guess I could find a way to do the runaround, but it's not really worth it. And we finished just in time for next year's Mystery Hunt! Yay!

If you guys want to actually participate this year, and are not on another team, Codex is always open to new people.

[Suspence]

LK, sincere thanks for hosting this. It was awesome.

As for next year, the whole hunt happens in a weekend?
_________________
I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[LordKinbote]

[jadesmar]

Thank you for the puzzles.

I kind of hopped in near the end, and no one complained so I tried to keep going with what I could.

I am interested in helping with Jan 18, or doing this type of year long puzzle hunt next year.

[gftt*]

Thanks LK!

How many is "lots"?

[LordKinbote]

[LordKinbote]

[gftt*]

[LordKinbote]

[kaihuang]

*Applause* Good job, and thanks for solving our puzzles!

Miscellaneous FYIs:
+ In response to gftt's question about Coming to a Location Near You: Here are the self-reported team sizes of the 21 teams that made submissions for this puzzle: 17, 20, 25, 25, 28, 29, 29, 30, 30, 35, 39, 40, 40, 53, 75, 75, 75, 95, 104, 180, 182+ (this last team didn't bother to figure out the number since they would fall in the puzzle's last bucket anyhow). Also, I'm pretty sure at least a few of these teams under-reported.
+ I feel LordKinbote is under-reporting Codex's team size (both on-site and remote contingents), assuming his "a couple" means 2 and not "a few". If you asked me, I would multiply those numbers by 1.5 or more.
+ Just to set the expectations for those of you who are considering joining Codex -- we are *not* trying to win the hunt next year.

[jadesmar]

[kaihuang]

[Zag]

I stopped participating a while ago, but I've been following this thread all along. I just wanted to say how impressed I am with both the puzzles and those of you who solved them. Some of the leaps made me say "huh?" and the sheer doggedness left me awed. Well done, all!

[gftt*]

[L'lanmal]

Some more solving stats, now that you've seen them all:

Total batting average:
Including backsolves and bupkis purchases, we received 3,118 answer attempts. 1,672 were correct, or 54% of them.

Highest batting average:
No incorrect answers were submitted for these puzzles, which is a testament to writing or testing or something.
Any Old Puzzle
Argh
Cookin'

Lowest batting average:
My Summer Vacation
1/29 correct answer attempts (3%)
1/18 forward-solves (6%)
(1 team attempted to backsolve 11 times unsuccessfully, then bought the answer)
In this thread there were a couple wrong submissions on this one, but mostly as an effort to guess the answer from having most of the letters.

Most often attempted backsolves:
B.J. Blazkowicz in 'Wintertime for Hitler' - 26
Potlines - 26
The Undiscovered Underground - 25

Most frequently submitted wrong answers:
Arigato or Domo Arigato - submitted for "Sounds Good to Me" 33 times
Chromatic - 15 times on "Of Course"
Pathway - 11 times on 5 different puzzles
Love - 11 times on "Eek!"
Privates - 9 times on "Blinkenlights"

On "Sounds Good to Me", many teams missed the answer length given in the bottom corner. On "Of Course", an intermediate message was "It's Chromatic!" which some took as the answer. Pathway was just a popular backsolve attempt. Love was the first half of the answer on "Eek!". I'm not sure what the deal with Privates was.

First solved:
Star Search (1/13/2012 1:18:52 PM by Setec Astronomy)

Last correct answer submitted:
Phantom of the Operator meta (1/15/2012 3:05:54 PM, by Immoral, Illegal, and Fattening, just before server close)

[MNOWAX]

A quick question the " how hard can it be?" puzzle, how many people actually solved that one? I don't know too many people that have the entire library of top gear at their fingertips ( I mean, how many have one on here? ) (yes that was a thinly veiled brag)
_________________
The Man The Myth The Legend
MNOWAX