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2005 Google U.S. Puzzle Championship
Fortran IV writes "Registration is open for the 2005 Google U.S. Puzzle Championship, Saturday, June 18. Two winners will join Team USA at the 2005 World Puzzle Championship in Eger, Hungary (tourist info here if you read Hungarian). If you're the type who plays 12 simultaneous chess games in your head while debugging code and memorizing logarithm tables, you might have a chance of teaming up with last year's champ Roger Barkan (previous Slashdot coverage). If you just like puzzles, register here for the most intense (and fastest) 2-1/2 hours of the year. For a faint shadow of the real thing, take the practice test, which Barkan can probably complete in about 8 minutes; for a true challenge, the complete 2004 test is still available."
What the hell is a transhuman, and why don't I have one??
If I understand Dirac correctly, his meaning is this: there is no God, and Dirac is his Prophet. -Pauli
I can't even figure out how to start the test. It reminds me of the joke where you paint on an index card on both sides,"How do you confuse a moron? Flip card."
Password:
The test is a PDF/Acrobat 5 file. You must have at least the Adobe Acrobat 4 reader (v5.1 not recommended). Download the latest Acrobat Reader here.
2. Read Preview Instructions Run Acrobat and decrypt the Preview Instructions file using the password shown above. You should print and read the Preview Instructions well in advance
God spoke to me.
and the answer was 42
The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.
It's not just a PDF! The first PDF is password-protected (but the password is written on the page). The second PDF has a password but it's not written anywhere...
They should invite Kim Peek. You know, the guy who inspired the movie "Rain Man."
http://users.lk.net/~stepanov/mnemo/kimpeeke.html
Or are idiot savants barred from such competitions?
http://augustwestproducts.i8.com
Password: See Below
The test is a PDF/Acrobat 5 file. You must have at least the Adobe Acrobat 4 reader (v5.1 not recommended). Download the latest Acrobat Reader here.
2. Read Preview Instructions Run Acrobat and decrypt the Preview Instructions file using the password shown above. You should print and read the Preview Instructions well in advance
God spoke to me.
To download the files to disk:
On PC's - Right click on the link and save file to disk
I stopped here. How about you guys?
What's the freaking password for the PDF. Give a link and no password? The nerve...
I wonder if any subject or news item could be unrelated to transhumanism.
Transcend Humanity. Please.
That major in Hungarian Literature is paying off!
Ever since I switched from palm to pocketpc I have sorely missed vexed, possibly the best puzzle game I have ever played. On my desktop I play chess. What puzzle games do you guys know for either desktop windows or pocketpc?
Sorry - you fail already.
Did you not read the bit where it said "Password (see notes below)"?
And below there was a link to follow to get the password. Clever password it was too - very apt for a challenging puzzle; a nice reference to those who came before them.
"IAMACompleteMoron" works as a password, I'm serious! I can't figure out why, because that isn't the password they give, but it works, I swear, try it! Make sure to get the caps right or it doesn't work.
So howcome Google doesn't hire the top X contestants? I assumed that was why they made this competition - to find qualified employees? Afaik, none of the participants has been hired.
42133142?
Wild. The problems all fit into the NP-hard category, which makes sense considering what google does.
I think that part of the challenge is to solve the problems without completely solving the problem, e.g. don't do any unnecessary work (like don't fill in the 3rd row for 'Skyscrapers'.
I would also guess that all of them have some kind of algorithmic solution, I just can't see it for 'Corral', yet...
... I am an MBA student (honor student, at that) and I could not get close to any of these questions. I mean, it wasn't even approximately in my reach. F*ck.
This story isn't gonna get alot of posts for at least 2-1/2 hours! :D
No, just kidding. I got stuck on the practice puzzle when it asked for a password. I have my cluster working on that though.
lol your teh funny amirite crackychan!!!!111one
Yeah, in 2312.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
Wu :: Riddles
For those too stupid to find the password, here it is:
3. Start Test On Saturday, June 18 at 1pm EDT/10am PDT (GMT-4), get the password for the test. For the Practice Test, you can do this any time.
And here I thought I was being clever by using as the password.
I think I'll go find some pr0n. Might be a more productive use of my time.
AC's have all the best lines. Very funny.
im trolling,
:)
but anyone who had adhd would have typed thru instead of through.
and, i dont have adhd, so if you never read this, i wont care
Why "Team USA" and not "Team America"?
would somoeone waste anonymity on a comment like that
3 down, 2 to go for me.
Well, I think I got an answer for the 1st one:
A) In the column with 4 buildings (top to bottom): 1 2 3 4
B Column with 3 buildings: 1 3 2 4 (number 2 corresponds to A column)
C Column with 2 buildings(bottom to top) : 1 4 3 2
(3 corresponds to B Column)
Mmm... the other numbers you can put whatever you want.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
...but way too slowly. I have no idea how the champions can churn through 25 of these in two and a half hours--that's one every six minutes. Yikes!
(Just to demonstrate that I have finished--the diagonal sums to 12 for the first one, and to 18 in the second, no hints on the third, the first three blocks sum to the size of the fourth block for number 4, and the diagonal on the last ends with "YES". You can probably get all these answers by pretending to have finished and looking at the answer key, but I haven't bothered trying that again, so I'm not really sure.)
I get the feeling that the "find the image that..." puzzles would be a lot easier if you printed out the document and cut them up. I wonder if that's within the rules?
Spatial cognition?
i.e. Maze, shape correlation,
Characteristics correlation?
Jim had two eggs for breakfast. A cat and a half ate a rat and a half in a day and a half. What do the two have in common?
More specific pattern recognition like.
Jigsaw?
???
I am so sick of people calling themselves "transhumans" there are *no* transhumans, there are only people who advocate it, aka. transhumanists. (yeah and before you say it some dude with a pacermaker is "transhuman".... right...).
To be a transhumanist you have to advocate the marriage of machines, technology (nanotech, biotech) with humans. But on the whole the people who advocate such a theory haven't considered the moral, philosophical and even technical implications of transhumanism and tend to be incredibly ignorant apes.
For example. when I use a computer, am I not augmenting myself? A hammer? Am I not a cyborg, am I not transhuman when I get inside a car or ride a bike? How are these different from being able to replace legs with wheels? How is google different from having an auto-memory?
Oh that's right, you like to make a big deal out of your little "futurist" theory because the future is "cool" and you haven't the capacity to see the wonders and operations of technology in our present day and age. There are no end of these people preying on the "coolness" of the "future" like the college professor who claims a chip in his arm makes him the first cyborg, forgetting the first pacemaker, or hearing aid. Forgeting the sword and the bow.
Transhumanists and futurists etc. are without deviation snake oil salesmen and dreamers. I am not saying thinking about the future is bad, but thinking in such utterly *stupid* terms is worthy of contempt.
Without fail, these people are from the sciences, who may gave a better grasp of the potential technologies, but in their ignorance of history forget how radical the changes that have already occured have been.
Go to any "transhumanist" website or description and it will be *dripping* in buzzwords and bullshit. The problems, questions and answers to the singularity, skynet, and other AI fantasies or to transhumanism and the "posthuman" condition won't be found in some over-cooked science drop-outs rantings, they will be found in a proper philosophical and cultural analysis.
I will stress again, I am not saying these questions aren't interesting. But transhumanism is a proto-cult about the promise of the future dreamed up by those who do not fit into the present (not a bad thing) and fail to see why (stupid).
http://www.egeronline.com/guide/guide.php?show=sig htseeing&lang=en is in fact much better a website than www.eger.hu.
(is Quicktime evil?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eger
sorry, it is rather http://www.egeronline.com/index.php?lang=en that takes you to the English language section. direct linking didn't work...dunno why.
Could you use Photoshop and just overlay the images? That would make it infinitely easier.
If they can get "Google Puzzle Championship" stuck in all our heads, it helps preserve their image as the place where all the smartest geeks hang out. That's the kind of advertising money can't buy, at least directly.
Plus, it's fun and they felt like it. That's how the whole Google thing started in the first place, right?
Educators and psychologists often categorize people by the method of learning/analyzing that is most effective for each person. [visual, kinesthetic, and aural are the three common options] And unlike the vast majority of people, visual cues are not my primary method. In fact, visual reasoning is dead last for me. A few examples: word searches are incredibly challenging for me, if I drop anything in tall grass I have a difficult time finding it, I'm terrible at visually estimating volume, etc.
However, in most regards I would be considered to have above-average intelligence. Fantastic memory, strong lateral thinking, keen reasoning, etc. So I am continually aware that puzzles, IQ tests, and brain teasers always have a strong visual bias. Perhaps it is just a matter of convenience that visual puzzles are easier to represent on paper. But I wish that puzzles like this could incorporate more aural, kinesthetic, or narrative reasoning skills.
For the question that asks you to find the picture that's the same as the mirror image, just cross or blur your eyes to create a stereogram of any two images.
Look for the spot in the two images makes your eyes hurt, and that's what's different about that image.
Repeat until you can match up each of those differences to the main image, and there's your solution.
Unfortunately, this tecnique has the slight side effect of leaving you unable to focus on anything on your monitor, so I cannot be held respponsible if this message has any typos.
Oh and I was able to load the PDF in my browser, not saving it to disk first. They should give me extra points for that!
consider for a moment that the founders of Google did not have to solve any such puzzles to start their company.
The really bright people will walk around the hoop rather than figure out how to dive through it better.
And I am a person who takes GREs, MATs and so on just for fun. But the big picture is vastly more important than mere "how to solve it" skills. Both of course are best, but in my experience (for example as a senior engineer for Apple), people who excel in the details are exploited by those who excel in the big picture.
For the first problem, the sum of each row and column is 10.
For the second problem, the sum of each row, column, white region, and gray region is 28.
A lot of good points.
Transcend Humanity. Please.
First of all, thank you for writing this. I'd also like to thank the one who modded it up.
I am so sick of people calling themselves "transhumans" there are *no* transhumans, there are only people who advocate it, aka. transhumanists. (yeah and before you say it some dude with a pacermaker is "transhuman".... right...).
I am not a full transhuman. I would like to be one.
To be a transhumanist you have to advocate the marriage of machines, technology (nanotech, biotech) with humans. But on the whole the people who advocate such a theory haven't considered the moral, philosophical and even technical implications of transhumanism and tend to be incredibly ignorant apes.
No, to be a transhuman...you have to be transhuman.
For example. when I use a computer, am I not augmenting myself? A hammer? Am I not a cyborg, am I not transhuman when I get inside a car or ride a bike? How are these different from being able to replace legs with wheels? How is google different from having an auto-memory?
The line is usually given as the skin. Having had a castration done, I am technically posthuman in a nonsuperficial way.
Oh that's right, you like to make a big deal out of your little "futurist" theory because the future is "cool" and you haven't the capacity to see the wonders and operations of technology in our present day and age. There are no end of these people preying on the "coolness" of the "future" like the college professor who claims a chip in his arm makes him the first cyborg, forgetting the first pacemaker, or hearing aid. Forgeting the sword and the bow.
It will be interesting. "Cool" is not a technical term, and has little meaning.
Transhumanists and futurists etc. are without deviation snake oil salesmen and dreamers. I am not saying thinking about the future is bad, but thinking in such utterly *stupid* terms is worthy of contempt.
Sure you can make money off it. A good amount really are dreamers (not a bad thing) and not out to make money.
Without fail, these people are from the sciences, who may gave a better grasp of the potential technologies, but in their ignorance of history forget how radical the changes that have already occured have been.
Is this worse than the inevitable ethicists, philosophers, and theologians that crop up in any article on contraversial science?
Go to any "transhumanist" website or description and it will be *dripping* in buzzwords and bullshit. The problems, questions and answers to the singularity, skynet, and other AI fantasies or to transhumanism and the "posthuman" condition won't be found in some over-cooked science drop-outs rantings, they will be found in a proper philosophical and cultural analysis.
They will be found in both.
I will stress again, I am not saying these questions aren't interesting. But transhumanism is a proto-cult about the promise of the future dreamed up by those who do not fit into the present (not a bad thing) and fail to see why (stupid).
I don't fit into the present.
Transcend Humanity. Please.
For #4 Corral, can the border corners touch each other? (i.e. in their example, look at the 7, then extend the border just for this example, adding only the block below 7, making its corner touch the corner of 2...) If you can have them touch like that, then I don't really even know how to approch this :(
Got 1 - 3 though
To download the files to disk: On PC's - Right click on the link and save file to disk
On MAC's - Click and hold on the link and save file to disk
I'm already confused. Who is PC? And on PC's what? Right- Click on what?
For that matter, Mac's what? Who is Mac?
Clearly a case of misplaced apostrophes here.
But that's another puzzle, I assume...
.
- aqk
F U
This seems like a tough competition. Or maybe I'm just stupid?
Admin RuneScape Community Board
You're correct at first, but you can't put the other numbers whereever you want, as you can't repeat them.
So the block will look like:
a nice reference to those who came before them
Yup! Incredibles!
I thought you need to be able to see 3 buildings in the second row. Wouldn't 1324 mean you can only see the first 2 buildings because the 3 would block the 2?