So it's a hoax, let's get over it and WORK ON THE SECOND TEST!!

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Originally Posted by VALVe
Three men checked into a hotel room for which they paid $30. The next day, the manager realized that the men had been overcharged. She gave the bellhop $5 to return to the three men. On the way to their room the bellhop decided to keep $2 for himself, and give each of the three men one dollar. The three men had now paid $9 each, or a total of $27. This plus the $2 the bellhop kept makes a total of $29.
What happened U to R the L other dollar?
Click to expand...

happened U to R the L other dollar
Click to expand...

Notcie URL ?
 
I'll spell it out for you now. Thinking about where the actual money is...
1) $3 are with the men,
2) $2 are with the bellhop, and
3) $27 are with the hotel manager.

This riddle only works because of the DIRECTION in which the listener is steered into thinking about the money. The key mis-direction is the sequential jump from this statement "The three men had now paid $9 each, or a total of $27." to this statement "This plus the $2 the bellhop kept makes a total of $29." Although it SOUNDS logical when being told, this leap is the logical fallacy that allows the riddle to appear as a paradox
Click to expand...

What the hell does it mean ?
 
There is a Sticky talking about this
As well as an IRC channel
#SecondTest
on quakenet

*Closed*
 
I'd like to keep this open, not everyone has access to the IRC channel and a lot can be (and has been) accomplished in these forum threads.
 
1. Thanks a lot Abom!
2. Guys, Nova Prospekt was mentioned in the previous white boards (from the first test). Anyone looked at them already?
 
FFS Icarus you starting to piss me off.


As we said, Valve gave us a riddle to solve, and I found the answer, alas, I do not uderstand.

I'll spell it out for you now. Thinking about where the actual money is...
1) $3 are with the men,
2) $2 are with the bellhop, and
3) $27 are with the hotel manager.

This riddle only works because of the DIRECTION in which the listener is steered into thinking about the money. The key mis-direction is the sequential jump from this statement "The three men had now paid $9 each, or a total of $27." to this statement "This plus the $2 the bellhop kept makes a total of $29." Although it SOUNDS logical when being told, this leap is the logical fallacy that allows the riddle to appear as a paradox
Click to expand...
 
ManiacB said:
1. Thanks a lot Abom!
2. Guys, Nova Prospekt was mentioned in the previous white boards (from the first test). Anyone looked at them already?
Click to expand...

Yes, and before working on the riddle, is there any way to determine whether it was valve or not.
 
Results of some investigating...

I wrote a couple of quick programs to search through the cache. I basically found nothing.

The first screen shot is a search using the keywords "user", "pass", "nova", "prospekt", "www." I looked at each file it found and they had nothing (except for gman.jpg).

The second screen shot is a search for anything that isn't a material file. I guess those files could be more aggresively targeted, but nothing popped out.

--Mr. Bildo
 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by ManiacB
1. Thanks a lot Abom!
2. Guys, Nova Prospekt was mentioned in the previous white boards (from the first test). Anyone looked at them already?



Yes, and before working on the riddle, is there any way to determine whether it was valve or not.



it's not, it came from an email from valvefans.com, which i have from a reliable source is BS. try it yourself, send an email (anything) to [email protected]
 
Yes, you can send an e-mail , asking them directly...

Guys, another suggestion:
If the riddle is correct and from Valve,
I think they're saying that we should LOOK on this whole thing in a different way (this is how we understand the paradox...).

Maybe a first test website address combination?
 
Mr. Bildo said:
Results of some investigating...

I wrote a couple of quick programs to search through the cache. I basically found nothing.

The first screen shot is a search using the keywords "user", "pass", "nova", "prospekt", "www." I looked at each file it found and they had nothing (except for gman.jpg).

The second screen shot is a search for anything that isn't a material file. I guess those files could be more aggresively targeted, but nothing popped out.

--Mr. Bildo
Click to expand...


Yay, you are a proramer ?

If this is not legit, we just hit botom again.
 
he shouted stfu! many times, VALVe was not real
also we tried stegnography hackergonepostal
 
Adrien C said:
Yay, you are a proramer ?

If this is not legit, we just hit botom again.
Click to expand...


Yes..

And also, I did a search to check for JPEG file headers in all the files, just to make sure something wasn't really an image but named something else. Came up empty.

--Mr. Bildo
 
I am lost, haven't been on the forums in a while, because I am moving into my dorm. Can anyone fill me in on first test and second test thing? I am out of the loop and can't seem to read enough to get back in.
 
I'll spell it out for you now. Thinking about where the actual money is...
1) $3 are with the men,
2) $2 are with the bellhop, and
3) $27 are with the hotel manager.

This riddle only works because of the DIRECTION in which the listener is steered into thinking about the money. The key mis-direction is the sequential jump from this statement "The three men had now paid $9 each, or a total of $27." to this statement "This plus the $2 the bellhop kept makes a total of $29." Although it SOUNDS logical when being told, this leap is the logical fallacy that allows the riddle to appear as a paradox
Click to expand...

the riddle doesn't appear as a paradox unless you're a moron...

manager has $25, the guys got refunded $3 as a group, the bellboy got $2....that = $30 :O

whoever said the manager has 27 is pretty smart...i think a trophy is in order..
 
Alright, well let's keep it on topic yeah?
 
A little note about the gman.jpg.
Note that the previous picture included the g-man himself.
This second test picture includes the g-man, and behind a pic (of nova prospekt I guess).

If we do a XOR between them, what do we get?
 
Ok I guess I am forced to do this.

THE RIDDLE IS FAKE! IT IS JUST MADE BY D_TUNISIA TO GET HITS ON HIS SITE!

Ok, now that you read that read my explanation. In the past D_Tunisia tried to get hits on his site by saying that it was VALVe's own fan website, when in reality it was his own site trying to get hits and registers. I repeat

THE RIDDLE IS FAKE! STOP TRYING TO FIGURE THE RIDDLE OUT!!

If anyone wants solid evidence just PM me.

Now back to the test, I keep saying this, I believe more clues and hints will be revealed in the next portions of preloads.
 
Well, we get the g-man everywhere...
I don't think there is a meaning to it when it is in ASCII....
 
Ok....now we have to figure out the G-Man...:eek:
 
Well,
In everything we had till now, G-Man was the star:
First test pic, Second Test, and that gcf file...

If you look at the second test pic, there is a diagonal line to the upper right of g-man's head.
It might be a clue for something.

Such as - a result of a binary XOR with some other pic would give us the answer.


Is there some tool for JPEGs for that matter?
 
ManiacB said:
Well,
In everything we had till now, G-Man was the star:
First test pic, Second Test, and that gcf file...

If you look at the second test pic, there is a diagonal line to the upper right of g-man's head.
It might be a clue for something.

Such as - a result of a binary XOR with some other pic would give us the answer.


Is there some tool for JPEGs for that matter?
Click to expand...

how would you do that? :p
 
maybe there are some hidden numbers somewhere that are the ip no. for the website with the nova/prospekt login.
 
I tried running all kinds of filters on the gman.jpg. The only thing I found was an artifact on the left side in the black. (Not the diagonal line on the right).

--Mr. Bildo
 
I don't know, take gman-firsttestpic.jpg XOR gman-secondtestpic.jpg ?


Besides,
Is anybody here familiar with the JPEG format,
What do these lines mean:
456789:CDEFGHIJSTUVWXYZcdefghijstuvwxyz
(Open the gman.jpg, it's right in the beginning).

Maybe it's another code definition?
As if - replace CDEF....yz by 456789 somehow?
 
For some reason I think it might be something to do with the ASCII Bird thats popping up in the source of more hl2 pages.

Code: 
                      .--.
                    ."  o \__
                 _.-"    ,(  `
             _.-"      ,;;|
        _.-=" _,"    ,,;;;'
    .-"`_.-"``-..,,;;;;:'
    `"'`          `\`\
        jgs        /^\\\
Valve didnt make it themselves, they got it from an ASCII artist called Joan Stark (probably copied rather than asked for)
take a look at http://skye4birds.com/ascii.htm (not the actual artist website because its geocities and maxes out bandwidth too easy)
 
It's nothing to do with the birds or the first test IMO
 
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