The San Francisco Connection: Difference between revisions

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{{Season1}}
[[Image:Sanfran large.jpg]]
[[Image:Sanfran large.jpg]]


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*In most literal terms, this is a new link which is to connect [[Perplex City]] to Earth;  specifically, the link will connect to San Francisco, California, USA.
*In most literal terms, this is a new link which is to connect [[Perplex City]] to Earth;  specifically, the link will connect to San Francisco, California, USA.
*In a more pragmatic sense, this will be a live event in San Francisco, and will be similar to the [[London PCAG event]].
*In a more pragmatic sense, this will be a live event in San Francisco, and will be similar to the [[London PCAG event]].
*The event took place August 12th, 2006.
*The event was to be a time of celebration for people on both worlds, historically establishing broader relations between Earth and Perplex City.
*The purpose of the link was to expand bandwidth of the link, effectively doubling capacity, while also providing redundancy for security purposes.
*A short time before the event, [[Von]] started telling us about himself on his new temporary blog, at 1UP: http://von.1up.com
**He gave us a set of riddles, each one giving a single letter, which cassandra determined to be the jumbled up movie title: '''DIRTY HARRY'''
*For other information available pre-event, see: [[SFCon:pre-event]]
==The Blackout==
Observed on http://www.boingboing.net/ was the following advertisement:
[[Image:SF 125x125.gif]]
Seems pretty nice.  However, as animated gifs go, this one's no laughing matter.  For less than one second, this cel is seen:
[[Image:SF-braille.jpg]]
It is braille, and reads: '''Say goodbye to Perplex City.'''
The meaning went undetermined, until 10-AUG-06, when all Perplex City related websites were shutdown, and replaced with the following:
[[Image:say goodbye.jpg]]
It suddenly became deadly apparent what had happened.  [[The Third Power]] had hijacked the link between our two worlds.  Careful inspection showed all third power websites (including those on [[the Receda Trail]]) remained up and active.  [[Mind Candy]] immediately went into a state of urgency.  What had been planned as a time of celebration was suddenly a dark moment of panic and emergency.  An emergency website was established with information to distribute to all cube hunters who were going to be helping establish the connection.
==Website Information==
*http://emergency.perplexcity.com/
**Became available after a mass mailing/plea on Friday.


*The event will take place August 12th, 2006.
*http://emergency.perplexcity.com/main/main.php
**Became available on Saturday, around 10:45 PDT


*'''This page will serve as a source for all pre-event information available, until the day of the event.  Then, the current existing page at that time will be archived and this page will be entirely used to focus on what took place at the event proper.'''
*Some early information has already been moved to: [[SFCon:pre-event]]


==Meetups==
==Meetups==
As a game, Perplex City has but one rule: Any occassion with more than 2 cube hunters must involve alcohol.  In this vein, a number of meet-ups and organized gathering of masses have been planned, both pre- and post- event.  As follows:
As a game, Perplex City has but one rule: '''''Any occassion with more than two cube hunters must involve alcohol.''''' With this is mind, a number of meet-ups and organized gathering of masses were planned, both pre- and post- event.  As follows:


*A clearinghouse of event coordination is [http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=16241 at the unForums.]
*A clearinghouse of event coordination is [http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=16241 at the unForums.]


*[[Mind Candy]] is having a "post-event thingie down near the Palace."
*[[Mind Candy]] arranged a post-event social near the Palace.
**''Anyone know more info on this?''
** From [http://perplexcity.com/liveevents/index.qbuild the event page]:
<blockquote>Q: Will there be any social activities afterwards?<br />
A: We are currently considering organising something afterwards. We're well aware that players will want to get a drink or meet up somewhere, and so at the closing presentation we will at least let all players know about possible places to go.</blockquote>


*'''Endgame'''
*'''Endgame''' - [http://www.google.com/maps?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&client=firefox-a&q=endgame&near=Oakland,+CA&cid=0,0,8043359466123259478&ie=UTF8&ll=37.80203,-122.275054&spn=0.019565,0.024934&om=1 map] - [http://www.endgameoakland.com/ link]
**Friday, August 11th 2-9
**Gatherings were organized on Friday, pre-event, and on Sunday, Post-event
**Sunday, August 13th, 10-5
**Located right around the corner from the 12th Street/City Center BART station (red/yellow lines).
**Right around the corner from the 12th Street/City Center BART station (red/yellow lines).


*'''Pacific Coast Brewing Company'''
**Food, etc., to be had after hanging out at Endgame, on Friday evening.
**Located across the street from Endgame
**They have food, drinks, and free wifi (according to the sign outside).


[[Image:SF 125x125.gif|right]]
[[Image:SF 125x125.gif|right]]
==On the Ground==
After a debriefing, puzzle sheets were assigned to all teams of players.  They consisted of between 3 and 6 puzzles per page.  Sample questions might be on the order of:
:Puzzle 481
:Which Western Asian monarch is immortalised somewhere near the Main Library?
:Puzzle 59300
:Movie time: Dirty Harry, 23.53. What kind of shark?
A number of questions are known to have involved watching a movie.  Often the movie was Dirty Harry, as suggested by [[Von]]'s pre-game hint.  See [http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=266920 the unforum page of collected puzzle sheets] for more questions.


==What is Known==
===Running around the city===
Many of the players ran off to all points in the city, to solve sundry puzzles and riddles, such the one sampled above.


As described in the Perplex City Newsletter:
===Meanwhile, back at the ranch...===
Back at home-base, a number of people had settled in for a few puzzles.
*A very large multi-page maze had been presented.
*A set of questions about movies (particularly Dirty Harry) were given, which required people to watch the movie and answer specific questions about exact scenes.
*An RFID tag game was presented.  Reportedly, this did not work quite according to plan, but the concept sounds exceptionally cool.
*Other puzzles which required pen & paper were given, which set people to working in teams, churning out answers.


{| border="0" cellpadding="10" width="70%" style="border: 2px solid #ddddff; background: #f3f3ff"
===Video===
|
[[User:BrianEnigma|BrianEnigma]] posted two videos of the event in progress:
:** SAN FRANCISCO LIVE EVENT: NEW DETAILS! **
 
*[http://perplexcitywiki.com/w/images/link_back-crowd_exits.mov Sente's debriefing at the conclusion of the day, phone calls, and everyone exiting quickly]
*[http://perplexcitywiki.com/w/images/PXC_SF_Connection.mov A nicely made shaky-cam from after the phone call, discovering the helicopters]
 
==On-Line==
[[Image:Sfcon-header.jpg]]
 
===In IRC===
"To aid your progress, it would be wise to collaborate with your fellow helpers. In order to do this, you should join the chat room called #pxcsflive on irc.chat-solutions.org. If you don't have an IRC program, you can connect online here by typing "pxcsflive" into the channel box."
 
That was largely an in-game channel.  Meta and spec was intended to take place in #pxcsflivespec also on irc.chat-solutions.org.  The intention of these channels were to have a semi-coordinated effort at utilizing existing, centralized resources.  Some people complained at the lack of moderation, however the fact is it simply took all participants some time to adjust to the order of the day.
 
===Hits===
The page http://emergency.perplexcity.com/main/main.php required a large number (250?) of unique website hits before another batch of 'clues' will go active.  Seven sets of clues were revealed; and eventually only UNSOLVED clues were shown.
 
To rapidly generate a greater number of hits to the page, users posted journal entries, blog posts, and (probably most usefully) Diggs and other meta-news locales.  By the end of the game, roughly 1,700 unique hits had been generated.
 
===Clues===
Once the page went active, we were given, on-line, a number of qestions and numbers.  Questions were in the fForm of:
 
:674303 - Real life web slinger entangles Manhattan with what?
:676817 - When is Scarlett Kiteway's birthday? (ddmm)
:688743 - How many millions did ROgers Communications Inc pay for a comma?
 
Clues were given, and answers were to be typed in on the same page (http://emergency.perplexcity.com/main/clues.html)
 
===Unsolved questions===
Early on (though not early enough, probably), we on IRC adopted a page to keep track of what clues were left:
 
:'''[[The_San_Francisco_Connection:_Unsolved_Questions]]'''
 
As anyone solved any question, they were to be REMOVED it from the list.
 
Then, as we were approaching completion on this list, with just 90% left, the source page changed to a list of remaining clues.
 
===Results===
When a correct answer is submitted for the first time, the message given is:
:'''Congratulations! The answer you entered was correct.'''
:Your contribution has been added to the group's progress. Keep at it, you are important in reactivating the link.
 
When a correct answer is submitted the second time onward, the following is given:
:'''Congratulations! The answer you entered was correct.'''
:Someone else has managed to solve this before you, but keep going and you should get a first solve soon.


As announced, there's going to be a massive live event in San Francisco on Saturday,
When any incorrect answer is given, this is the result:
August 12th! With room for around 500 players and 500 spectators, a host of exciting challenges
:'''Sorry, your answer was incorrect.'''
and an official Academy presence, it's the most ambitious Perplex City event yet. It's being held at
:Please try again, the connection won't open without you!
The Palace Of Fine Arts Theatre, from 10.30am to 5pm, and it's absolutely free to take part in this
exciting event - you can even join in the fun online! Read more:


http://www.perplexcitysentinel.com/archives/2006/07/iona_interviews_17.html
== Endgame ==
[[Image:100percent.jpg]]


And register:
At the end of the day's events, the link was restored (just in the nick of time, too!), and all Perplex City pages began working properly.


http://www.perplexcity.com/liveevents/index.qbuild
A video of the link being re-established was shown: http://emergency.perplexcity.com/main/announcement.mov (With a copy [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbX3jHkd_0E mirrored on youtube]).
|}


According to Adrian Hon of [[Mind Candy]]:
And a [http://emergency.perplexcity.com/main/summary.html Summary] page was posted.


===Sente's Message to us on Earth===
{| border="0" cellpadding="10" width="70%" style="border: 2px solid #ddddff; background: #f3f3ff"
{| border="0" cellpadding="10" width="70%" style="border: 2px solid #ddddff; background: #f3f3ff"
|
|
"There are a few reasons," Hon explains. "At the moment, we only have one data link to Perplex City, and that's based in London. It can only handle a limited amount of traffic, and with the number of people using the link in both Perplex City and Earth increasing rapidly, we need another connection for the extra capacity."
People of Earth: Hello.


Beyond that, though, is a firm belief in the prudence of redundancy: "Another principal reason for the new San Francisco connection is simply that it's always smarter to have two links rather than one. It took an awful lot of time and effort to set up that first link, and while I'm no physicist, I do know that the favorable conditions that were required to make the connection do not come around often."
My name is [[Sente Kiteway]], and I'm the Master of the [[Perplex City Academy]]. Congratulations on your achievement in establishing the data link. Once again, your intelligence and sharpness has surpassed all expectations. Well done.


In order to celebrate the occasion, Mind Candy is putting on a celebration of some sort. What light can Hon shed on this event and what will happen there?
As you may have noticed, the link between our worlds has been disrupted for the past few days. This was immediately a cause of grave concern. But our fears have deepened since discovering the cause of the interference.


"The event is a big thank-you from the Perplex City Academy and Mind Candy to everyone who's searching for the Cube," Hon says. "It's also a celebration of the activation of the new link, and in typical Perplex City-style, it'll involve an awful lot of puzzles and games."
Two days ago, an energy surge occurred here in Perplex City, blacking out many city blocks. When power was restored, we found that the surge had briefly created a wormhole, originating here and terminating somewhere in North America.


As for specifics, Hon spills the first concrete details regarding the day: "It'll all start on the morning of Saturday August 12th with a presentation at the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, where everything will be explained. I can tell you now that it's basically a huge high-tech treasure hunt, but with a twist -- unlike the PCAG tournament in London, this treasure hunt will be collaborative, not competitive." Even through the medium of email, one can feel the pride Hon has in this undertaking. "There'll be hundreds of puzzles scattered across San Francisco, involving traveling to landmarks, looking for hidden objects, cracking codes and translating languages. Players will work together to figure out the answers. The answers serve as activation codes for special RFID tags back at the Palace of Fine Arts."
That surge of power broke the original data link between us. We have no idea who caused it, but in the absence of a culprit, we can only assume that their intentions are hostile.
 
The game has changed. From this point on, I advise you all to stay alert. There is a new player on the board.
 
[Interference begins, the signal deteriorating to nothing throughout the next paragraph]
 
I will endeavour to keep you up to date with developments and discoveries here. For your part, I hope you will redouble your efforts to find the Cube. I sense that time is running short, but I continue to have every confidence in your abilities...
|}
|}


==The doomsday message==
observed on http://www.boingboing.net/ was the following advertisement:


[[Image:SF 125x125.gif]]
'''The game has changed. The hunt for the Cube is now a race. Be vigilant, and be quick.'''


Seems pretty nice.  However, as animated gifs tho, this one's no laughing matter.  For less than one second, this cel is seen:


[[Image:SF-braille.jpg]]
===Everyone's Phone Rings, and Helicopters Make an Impression===
As this transmission was playing in San Francisco, everyone's phones started to ring, and everyone was rushed outside.  At that moment, a [[Third Power]] agent called the mobile phones of the Cube Hunters and gave them a warning.  Stay away from the Cube, or else.


It is braille, and reads: '''Say goodbye to Perplex City.'''
To emphasize the seriousness of the threat, the agent (and his accomplices) swooped over the crowd of Cube Hunters in a pair of helicopters.


===Plot Sickens===
The phone messages have been recorded, and are listenable here:
The meaning of this message began to unfold on 10-AUG-06, when all sites coming out the city were hacked, and replaced with a static image:


*http://emergency.perplexcity.com/main/phonemessage1.mp3 - 1st phone message
*http://emergency.perplexcity.com/main/phonemessage2.mp3 - 2nd phone message
It is not known who is doing the speaking.  The accent and voice is very unfamiliar.


[[Image:say goodbye.jpg]]


==Fallout==
*After the Blackout of 10-AUG-06, [[Sente Kiteway]] and the [[Academy]] as a whole were accused of mis-using resources, maligning the city, and wreaking havoc on the citizenry.
*This caused Kiteway to pen an explanation of points, which explicitly mention, among other things, [[The Third Power]].
*Read the explanation: http://pxcacademy.com/office3.html
*This explanation was met with a reaction by [[City Council]] member [[Nathan Earlywine]], who is always willing to take a cheap shot, which essentially pins blame directly back on Kiteway. [http://www.perplexcitysentinel.com/archives/2006/08/academy_issues.html]




Line 90: Line 187:
*'''The Perplex City Sentinel'''
*'''The Perplex City Sentinel'''
**news in brief, 22-JUN-06 "Academy Mum on New Link"
**news in brief, 22-JUN-06 "Academy Mum on New Link"
**article, 13-JUL-06 "[[Iona Rodie|Iona]] Interviews... [[Mind Candy|Adrian Hon]]" ([http://www.perplexcitysentinel.com/archives/2006/07/iona_interviews_17.html link])
**article, 13-JUL-06 "[[Iona Rodie|Iona]] Interviews... [[Mind Candy|Adrian Hon]]" {{WaybackS1|www.perplexcitysentinel.com/archives/2006/07/iona_interviews_17.html}}
**article, 14-AUG-06 "[[SFCon|City Loses Power, Data Connection to Earth Lost for 2 Days]]" {{WaybackS1|www.perplexcitysentinel.com/archives/2006/08/city_loses_powe.html}}
**article, 21-AUG-06 "[[Academy]] Secrecy Harms City, [[Council]] Must Intervene Now" {{WaybackS1|www.perplexcitysentinel.com/archives/2006/08/academy_irrespo.html}}
**article, 28-AUG-06 "[[Academy]] Issues Denial of Involvement with [[The San Francisco Connection|Portal, Blackout]]" {{WaybackS1|www.perplexcitysentinel.com/archives/2006/08/academy_issues.html}}

Latest revision as of 19:44, 14 May 2007

PERPLEX CITY, SEASON ONE
The search for the Receda Cube on Earth


Sanfran large.jpg

Shortcut
SFCon


General

  • In most literal terms, this is a new link which is to connect Perplex City to Earth; specifically, the link will connect to San Francisco, California, USA.
  • In a more pragmatic sense, this will be a live event in San Francisco, and will be similar to the London PCAG event.
  • The event took place August 12th, 2006.
  • The event was to be a time of celebration for people on both worlds, historically establishing broader relations between Earth and Perplex City.
  • The purpose of the link was to expand bandwidth of the link, effectively doubling capacity, while also providing redundancy for security purposes.
  • A short time before the event, Von started telling us about himself on his new temporary blog, at 1UP: http://von.1up.com
    • He gave us a set of riddles, each one giving a single letter, which cassandra determined to be the jumbled up movie title: DIRTY HARRY


The Blackout

Observed on http://www.boingboing.net/ was the following advertisement:

SF 125x125.gif

Seems pretty nice. However, as animated gifs go, this one's no laughing matter. For less than one second, this cel is seen:

SF-braille.jpg

It is braille, and reads: Say goodbye to Perplex City.

The meaning went undetermined, until 10-AUG-06, when all Perplex City related websites were shutdown, and replaced with the following:

Say goodbye.jpg

It suddenly became deadly apparent what had happened. The Third Power had hijacked the link between our two worlds. Careful inspection showed all third power websites (including those on the Receda Trail) remained up and active. Mind Candy immediately went into a state of urgency. What had been planned as a time of celebration was suddenly a dark moment of panic and emergency. An emergency website was established with information to distribute to all cube hunters who were going to be helping establish the connection.


Website Information


Meetups

As a game, Perplex City has but one rule: Any occassion with more than two cube hunters must involve alcohol. With this is mind, a number of meet-ups and organized gathering of masses were planned, both pre- and post- event. As follows:

Q: Will there be any social activities afterwards?
A: We are currently considering organising something afterwards. We're well aware that players will want to get a drink or meet up somewhere, and so at the closing presentation we will at least let all players know about possible places to go.

  • Endgame - map - link
    • Gatherings were organized on Friday, pre-event, and on Sunday, Post-event
    • Located right around the corner from the 12th Street/City Center BART station (red/yellow lines).


SF 125x125.gif

On the Ground

After a debriefing, puzzle sheets were assigned to all teams of players. They consisted of between 3 and 6 puzzles per page. Sample questions might be on the order of:

Puzzle 481
Which Western Asian monarch is immortalised somewhere near the Main Library?
Puzzle 59300
Movie time: Dirty Harry, 23.53. What kind of shark?

A number of questions are known to have involved watching a movie. Often the movie was Dirty Harry, as suggested by Von's pre-game hint. See the unforum page of collected puzzle sheets for more questions.


Running around the city

Many of the players ran off to all points in the city, to solve sundry puzzles and riddles, such the one sampled above.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Back at home-base, a number of people had settled in for a few puzzles.

  • A very large multi-page maze had been presented.
  • A set of questions about movies (particularly Dirty Harry) were given, which required people to watch the movie and answer specific questions about exact scenes.
  • An RFID tag game was presented. Reportedly, this did not work quite according to plan, but the concept sounds exceptionally cool.
  • Other puzzles which required pen & paper were given, which set people to working in teams, churning out answers.

Video

BrianEnigma posted two videos of the event in progress:

On-Line

Sfcon-header.jpg

In IRC

"To aid your progress, it would be wise to collaborate with your fellow helpers. In order to do this, you should join the chat room called #pxcsflive on irc.chat-solutions.org. If you don't have an IRC program, you can connect online here by typing "pxcsflive" into the channel box."

That was largely an in-game channel. Meta and spec was intended to take place in #pxcsflivespec also on irc.chat-solutions.org. The intention of these channels were to have a semi-coordinated effort at utilizing existing, centralized resources. Some people complained at the lack of moderation, however the fact is it simply took all participants some time to adjust to the order of the day.

Hits

The page http://emergency.perplexcity.com/main/main.php required a large number (250?) of unique website hits before another batch of 'clues' will go active. Seven sets of clues were revealed; and eventually only UNSOLVED clues were shown.

To rapidly generate a greater number of hits to the page, users posted journal entries, blog posts, and (probably most usefully) Diggs and other meta-news locales. By the end of the game, roughly 1,700 unique hits had been generated.

Clues

Once the page went active, we were given, on-line, a number of qestions and numbers. Questions were in the fForm of:

674303 - Real life web slinger entangles Manhattan with what?
676817 - When is Scarlett Kiteway's birthday? (ddmm)
688743 - How many millions did ROgers Communications Inc pay for a comma?

Clues were given, and answers were to be typed in on the same page (http://emergency.perplexcity.com/main/clues.html)

Unsolved questions

Early on (though not early enough, probably), we on IRC adopted a page to keep track of what clues were left:

The_San_Francisco_Connection:_Unsolved_Questions

As anyone solved any question, they were to be REMOVED it from the list.

Then, as we were approaching completion on this list, with just 90% left, the source page changed to a list of remaining clues.

Results

When a correct answer is submitted for the first time, the message given is:

Congratulations! The answer you entered was correct.
Your contribution has been added to the group's progress. Keep at it, you are important in reactivating the link.

When a correct answer is submitted the second time onward, the following is given:

Congratulations! The answer you entered was correct.
Someone else has managed to solve this before you, but keep going and you should get a first solve soon.

When any incorrect answer is given, this is the result:

Sorry, your answer was incorrect.
Please try again, the connection won't open without you!

Endgame

100percent.jpg

At the end of the day's events, the link was restored (just in the nick of time, too!), and all Perplex City pages began working properly.

A video of the link being re-established was shown: http://emergency.perplexcity.com/main/announcement.mov (With a copy mirrored on youtube).

And a Summary page was posted.

Sente's Message to us on Earth

People of Earth: Hello.

My name is Sente Kiteway, and I'm the Master of the Perplex City Academy. Congratulations on your achievement in establishing the data link. Once again, your intelligence and sharpness has surpassed all expectations. Well done.

As you may have noticed, the link between our worlds has been disrupted for the past few days. This was immediately a cause of grave concern. But our fears have deepened since discovering the cause of the interference.

Two days ago, an energy surge occurred here in Perplex City, blacking out many city blocks. When power was restored, we found that the surge had briefly created a wormhole, originating here and terminating somewhere in North America.

That surge of power broke the original data link between us. We have no idea who caused it, but in the absence of a culprit, we can only assume that their intentions are hostile.

The game has changed. From this point on, I advise you all to stay alert. There is a new player on the board.

[Interference begins, the signal deteriorating to nothing throughout the next paragraph]

I will endeavour to keep you up to date with developments and discoveries here. For your part, I hope you will redouble your efforts to find the Cube. I sense that time is running short, but I continue to have every confidence in your abilities...


The game has changed. The hunt for the Cube is now a race. Be vigilant, and be quick.


Everyone's Phone Rings, and Helicopters Make an Impression

As this transmission was playing in San Francisco, everyone's phones started to ring, and everyone was rushed outside. At that moment, a Third Power agent called the mobile phones of the Cube Hunters and gave them a warning. Stay away from the Cube, or else.

To emphasize the seriousness of the threat, the agent (and his accomplices) swooped over the crowd of Cube Hunters in a pair of helicopters.

The phone messages have been recorded, and are listenable here:

It is not known who is doing the speaking. The accent and voice is very unfamiliar.


Fallout

  • After the Blackout of 10-AUG-06, Sente Kiteway and the Academy as a whole were accused of mis-using resources, maligning the city, and wreaking havoc on the citizenry.
  • This caused Kiteway to pen an explanation of points, which explicitly mention, among other things, The Third Power.
  • Read the explanation: http://pxcacademy.com/office3.html
  • This explanation was met with a reaction by City Council member Nathan Earlywine, who is always willing to take a cheap shot, which essentially pins blame directly back on Kiteway. [1]


References

Retrieved from "https://perplexcitywiki.com/w/index.php?title=The_San_Francisco_Connection&oldid=19501"