Day 24 of 24 in Da Vinci Quest: ends with an anagram |
Day 24 has finally arrived fellow intrepid puzzlers. Time to watch a video and answer some questions in the final Observation Challenge of the Da Vinci Quest.
And what does it all end with? Three questions, the last of which is an anagram. There was no information about whether or not I was one of the first 10,000 to complete the puzzle.
A message congratulating me for completing the puzzle and telling me that “time is of the essence so complete the form as quickly as you can.”
The form requests name, address (no PO Boxes), email address, phone number and then has a half dozen or so mail offers, all of which are default unchecked (thank you, Google) and then submit and you’ll see this:
10,000 will receive cryptex my mail with instructions for where to go online to solve the final puzzle. Now we just wait and watch the email and hope to be one of those lucky 10,000. Good luck to all.
It took me 14 minutes to complete the final completion of the puzzle (1:14pm EST), I was stuck on the final question much too long, which I’m not sure was fast enough to qualify. How long did it take you and did you get stuck on any of the questions?
Did this post make you go hmm?
(Hmm, no ratings yet)
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Eh… I completed it in 7 minutes for 1:07 pm but rather than a congratulations screen I was sent to one that said “Sorry, this contest has ended.” What??
Comment by Illy — May 10, 2006 @ 12:54 pm PST
i got stuck on the first one. i’m not sure of the exact time, i think about 1:20 EST.
Comment by golionsgirl — May 10, 2006 @ 12:58 pm PST
I didn’t get stuck anywhere. Since the anagram is a plot point of the book/movie, I figured it would be all over the web and just googled it. I didn’t really check, but I think I took about 3 or 4 minutes total.
Comment by Ian — May 10, 2006 @ 1:02 pm PST
I spent FAR too long on the last question. I’m not quite sure how long it took though.
Maybe closer to 20min.
Comment by Justin — May 10, 2006 @ 1:08 pm PST
I too was stuck on the last question, but I had the form submitted by 9 minutes. I could have had it 3 minutes sooner, but I was using an English word when I should have used Latin. I’m not sure I made the cut either.
Comment by Dean in Des Moines — May 10, 2006 @ 1:12 pm PST
9 minutes including form submission here too. And I thought they were going to try and stump us on this one.
Comment by ^Lestat — May 10, 2006 @ 1:20 pm PST
I am curious how long it will take before I know if I got a cryptex. I was done by 1:45 EST.
Comment by Brett — May 10, 2006 @ 1:23 pm PST
Damned americans get better prizes than us UK folk. Note I didn’t get the same page shown as you after completing the puzzle.
Comment by Dean Clatworthy — May 10, 2006 @ 1:31 pm PST
I submitted at 10:08. I also Yahoo searched the anagram, but I ended up finding [answer], so after two minutes I checked the anagram by hand and found the missing letter.
The rules imply that you fill out two forms.
There really doesn’t seem to be anyway to guess what time you need to submit by, unless you think you have a really good sense of how many people have completed all 23 puzzles and would have made sure to log in. Guess we’ll see later.
Comment by TomW — May 10, 2006 @ 1:35 pm PST
Co-worker came over at the wrong time I didn’t even get started until two minutes after then it took me four minutes to complete. The last question I substituted on instead of - of. Finished everything including info page at 8 after. A friend finished at 3 minutes after. I want to know when winners are announced.
Comment by McKinsey — May 10, 2006 @ 1:44 pm PST
I was done at 1:05 PM … hopefully made the cut but I doubt it.
Comment by Ben — May 10, 2006 @ 1:57 pm PST
The sad thing of course is if any of us is “lucky” enough to win the final round, we’ll end up with a 16 day trip that costs us $35,000 in taxes.
The whole travel contests always seem useless because the government forces the APR to be a maximum, explaining how you would end up paying taxes on the assumption that a flight to Italy is $7,250 ($29,000 / 4).
While I wouldn’t call this “shady”, it does seem like a company like Google who tries to be so user friendly wouldn’t have accepted giving out prizes to such a long contest when almost any winner would have to turn it down (you could probably put together almost the exact same trip for less than the cost of taxes).
Comment by TomW — May 10, 2006 @ 1:58 pm PST
am I completely stupid or just watching the wrong trailer? I’m trying to listen quietly at work and I don’t hear Langdon asking Sophie about the words and I don’t see any flashbacks. I only know the last one because it’s very obvious. Help! Can someone send me a link to the trailer they watched for the answer? Thanks!
Comment by Jennifer — May 10, 2006 @ 2:02 pm PST
A hint Jenn, it’s not about anything said out loud in the clip. It helps to know the book.
Comment by Brett — May 10, 2006 @ 2:51 pm PST
So, what is that anagram anyway?
Comment by thetoon — May 10, 2006 @ 2:57 pm PST
i finished within two minutes of it being posted, but when i registered i got a, “Sorry, Google cannot process your request at this time” message. So i tried sending it in again and again…until it changed and i got a, “Sorry, the Da Vinci Quest has finished” message. Screw technology, I’m going back to books.
Comment by paul — May 10, 2006 @ 2:59 pm PST
It looks like I tied - 12:14 CST. Also stuck on the final question. I’m wondering when we’ll find out if we made the top 10,000.
Comment by Legacy — May 10, 2006 @ 3:13 pm PST
Mule muffins! It’s clearly spoken in the video.
Have you ever heard those words before?
Comment by Dean in Des Moines — May 10, 2006 @ 3:18 pm PST
I thought the last puzzle was one of the easiest and completed in within 5 minutes. I submitted at 1:06 est. But I am sure 10,000 others completed it in record time as well. Still, I am still hoping that I made it! I want that cryptex! To a comment above…..I never thought about the taxes. What the hell? They should pay them for you….an average person doesn’t have that much cash just hanging around.
Comment by Rebecca — May 10, 2006 @ 3:27 pm PST
I just don’t know…I have the answers for 1 and 3 easily, but I have nothing for 2. I know I’m not going to win any prizes, but I still want to finish
Comment by Jennifer — May 10, 2006 @ 3:35 pm PST
Given how high profile this is and how high profile Google’s mountain of free cash flow is, I think it would be in their PR interest to pay the taxes. It wouldn’t look good if the first few winners of this contest were all forced to turn down the prize.
But reading the rules, it doesn’t sound like this is going to happen.
Comment by TomW — May 10, 2006 @ 3:44 pm PST
I finished it in under 2 minutes, so I’m pretty sure I’m in the top 10k.
How did I do it?
The video clip has been online since March when the others were posted, so I watched it ahead of time… the first 2 questions were extremely simple, and a quick google search for ” da vinci louvre ” gave me the answer for the 3rd. The painting has 2 names, the anagram clue was so that you knew which one they were looking for. I thinking searching for anagram would take you on the wrong path ( atleast at puzzle time, by now there are probably some pretty relevant results
Comment by Jon W — May 10, 2006 @ 3:53 pm PST
Ok, I am dumb…should have gone with the obvious answer in the first place, but I have it now
Comment by Jennifer — May 10, 2006 @ 4:12 pm PST
I would venture to guess that we will find out if we made it or not tomorrow since the Quest game ends (this phase) at 1am tomorrow morning. I believe that is what the rules said.
Comment by Rebecca — May 10, 2006 @ 4:16 pm PST
I solved it in apx. 7 minutes…snuck away from work. I really want a codex that will decrypt the IRC to figure out how to avoid the tax hit!!
Comment by mary — May 10, 2006 @ 6:57 pm PST
Brett, not sure what you’re talking about. The words refered to in the question were spoken aloud in the clip I watched.
Anyhow, filling in the form was the longest part for me and, not sure if it was the same in all regions, coming up with the “tell us in 50 words.. ” portion of the form (I hate those type of questions).
Comment by Evan — May 10, 2006 @ 7:16 pm PST
can anyone of u tell me what is the answer of the anagram as i did 2 correct?
Comment by Sieman — May 10, 2006 @ 7:36 pm PST
I did two easily and tried for the third one. The hints of the two are there in the movie clips and anyone can find that but regarding the anagram i have no idea where to observe as i watched the movie more than 10 times no.
If anyone can tell me the answer that will be great.
Comment by Sieman — May 10, 2006 @ 7:39 pm PST
Sorry, I had the volume off, but was still able to find the words. I didn’t even notice they were said out loud.
Comment by Brett — May 10, 2006 @ 8:08 pm PST
Oh man, this was hilarious for me.
First question, I brute forced and nailed in 2 seconds. Second question, well, duh. Another 2 seconds. Final question, friend spits the answer out from behind me since he read the book. Bam, total time on the puzzle was 11 seconds.
Unfortunately, I started (and ended) at 10:14am PST, 14 minutes after the initial launch. Guess I’m not getting a cryptex..
Comment by TornadoTK — May 10, 2006 @ 10:31 pm PST
Also, what the hell did the Google Video have to do with this one.. I made a script of what happens in it one day before the launch of the puzzle, and all I get is that first lousy, easily-forced question? I mean come on, I solved it on my 2nd try (wonder why?).
Comment by TornadoTK — May 10, 2006 @ 10:32 pm PST
I solved it in 7 minutes, but after submitting it went to that error page, so redid it and finished by (what i think is) 1:12. but, im in australia, and that’s 3 am, so im hoping im relatively high up enough to get something (lowest prize is a ps2 da vinci code game).
Comment by renny — May 11, 2006 @ 1:10 am PST
I also tried to register after finishing the puzzle, only to be told that the puzzle had ended. That was at 1:03 EST. I perservered and kept trying to register and finally at 1:17, I had luck with it letting me register. If we already had registered in the beginning to have it show up in our google pages, then i’m not sure why they had to have us to it again, and couldnt have just recorded our times when we hit submit. It seems that it easily recognized that I submitted and published that fact to my google page, so it obviously knew it was complete.
As for the taxes, I also feel that the contest is not much of contest in that respect. You could easily purchase the items for the cost of taxes alone. If I were lucky enough to win, maybe they’d let me keep the Bravia and give back the rest, which again, the APR is way too high, but less than the taxes, but at least I’d have won something.
I think that between google and sony, there should have been a cash prize attached so that the winners could have used it to pay the bulk of the taxes with. They could have provided it under the guise of spending money for the trip.
On the subject of the puzzles, I’m still curious how they felt that any of them were challenging or difficult. They were an extreme disappointment, although something fun to do. Great idea, great advertisement for google and the movie, but poor execution!
Comment by AnnMarie — May 11, 2006 @ 9:37 am PST
I think aside from one or two of the geography puzzles, they were definitely underachieving with the difficulty level.
Comment by Brett — May 11, 2006 @ 10:14 am PST
Yes, I was very disappointed and hoped that when Wei-Hwa Huang said the puzzles were challenging he really meant it, as he’s a world wide puzzle champion. I guess they had to appeal to the masses, but then again, it is a contest, probably with hoards of entrants, and what better way to decide the winners, then to actually have them challenged, and not turn into who can get the server to register them quicker after taking 1 minute to solve the puzzle. At most one puzzle engaged me for 5 minutes, and that is very sad in a contest that reached so many puzzle enthusiasts.
Comment by AnnMarie — May 11, 2006 @ 10:33 am PST
At least it was fun to look forward to, if not look back on…
Comment by Brett — May 11, 2006 @ 11:10 am PST
Got a confirmation email today that I had sucessfully register. But it says I won’t know if I am one of the 10,000 finalist until monday. Funny the email I recieve reads as if they radomly draw the 10,000 finalist instead of getting the first 10,000 that completed it.
Comment by Stephen — May 11, 2006 @ 10:25 pm PST
Me too. But I received two emails…one from Sony and one from Google. After I successfully registered, I hit my back button because I became suddenly afraid that I typed my email address wrong. Hope it didn’t go through twice, then I would be disqualified for sure. Did everyone else receive two emails?
Comment by Rebecca — May 11, 2006 @ 10:35 pm PST
I got two as well. I think it’s just a bad server setup.
Comment by Brett — May 11, 2006 @ 10:39 pm PST
I got two emails also. I suspect the second one was sent out because the first one was sent from the wrong address — not the davincicodequest@sonypictures.com address we were told to watch for.
Comment by Ian — May 11, 2006 @ 10:41 pm PST
[…] Reports of emails being received are starting to come in for the Da Vinci Quest. Stephen writes: … Funny the email I recieve reads as if they randomly draw the 10,000 finalist instead of getting the first 10,000 that completed it. […]
Pingback by Make You Go Hmm: » Find out if you are one of the 10,000 in Da Vinci Quest Monday — May 11, 2006 @ 10:47 pm PST
I too received the double e-mails, and today in the mail received my Cryptex. I was very surprised at how fast I received it, but it’s very nice.
Comment by Dave Montgomery — May 15, 2006 @ 3:51 pm PST
[…] Dean completed the puzzle in the first 9 minutes. I’m heading up to the post office now to see if my time made the cut (took me 14 minutes). Will update this post after lunch. […]
Pingback by Make You Go Hmm: » Dean receive his Da Vinci Quest cryptex in the mail — May 15, 2006 @ 4:53 pm PST
Got my cryptex in the mail today. Pretty neat, but the combination to open it didn’t spell anything cool. So I took it apart and changed it to open on the word ‘vinci’. The other disappointing thing is that the last two letters are all that is necessary to open it. =( I may screw some extra studs into the inner cylinder to make the whole thing work as it should.
Comment by John R — May 15, 2006 @ 5:02 pm PST
Also, If you are curious as to what it looks like, it is the one made by noblecollection.com and you can see one at the [link in my signature]
Comment by John R — May 15, 2006 @ 5:23 pm PST
So has anyone gotten the promised email of today?
I got the originial two. I had finished at 1:07pm.
But have received nothing today.
Comment by Sharon — May 15, 2006 @ 5:33 pm PST
Sharon, see the trackback link in #43: http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20060515/3312/
Comment by TDavid — May 15, 2006 @ 5:45 pm PST
hmm. that is odd, it said we were to recieve emails today, not the actual cryptex.
plus I finished before him, at 1:07 and received neither the cryptex or the promised email.
So we have some reports of cryptex, but did anyone receive the email promised by the first two emails?
Comment by Sharon — May 15, 2006 @ 5:55 pm PST
I got the two emails, but no cryptex or 3rd email. I did finish later, around 1:45, but since Sharon didn’t get the cryptex, maybe there is hope for me yet, some may be delayed.
Comment by Brett — May 15, 2006 @ 6:01 pm PST
I finished around 1:07 also, but I didn’t receive a cryptex, or get an email today either. I’m not sure what that means, except that I was too late.
Comment by tgrkss — May 15, 2006 @ 6:06 pm PST
yes I am wondering on what area of the country recieved theirs.
I am in the northeast and did not receive yet.
Comment by Sharon — May 15, 2006 @ 6:08 pm PST
I got the first two emails, but not the one promised today (15th), and as mentioned, I did get a cryptex. The mail may be a day late or whatever. It was delivered via USPS and appears to have been sent directly from the factory, as the outer box has noblecollection.com printed on it. Postage was a hand-affixed US $4.05 stamp depicting an X-plane.
Comment by John R — May 15, 2006 @ 6:08 pm PST
I haven’t seen anybody report receiving a third email yet, Sharon. I would think if someone finished two minutes later and received one, yours should be coming, assuming everybody was synced up with the atomic clocks. The time was to complete the puzzle *and* the registration form, BTW. If someone didn’t fill out the registration form quickly, they could have missed out.
Comment by TDavid — May 15, 2006 @ 6:13 pm PST
TDavid, are you sure about that? When I read it, I thought that it included the time to complete the first form (enter your username) but not the longer second form, which seems to have varied by region.
Comment by Ian — May 15, 2006 @ 6:14 pm PST
Ian - not positive, no. Sorry for the caps, I’m not shouting below it’s a direct quote from the official rules (emphasis mine):
Sounds to me like there were two timestamps involved here. One for the Google Account and one for getting entered into the final contest. Typical lawyer written form that’s more cryptic then any of the puzzles in the contest.
Comment by TDavid — May 15, 2006 @ 6:30 pm PST
Too my suprise (and joy) I got my cryptex in the mail today. Of course, I couldn’t wait to solve it and open it up and checked out the clue. I also just got the email notifying me that I was finalist. It was time stamped 7:14pm PST.
Comment by ann — May 15, 2006 @ 10:18 pm PST
I finished at around 1:20 and I wasn’t a finalist -
did anyone who finished later succeed?
Comment by adam — May 15, 2006 @ 10:22 pm PST
I just got one that said in big letters NOT A FINALIST. Yay, I feel like I wasted a few hours of my life.
I hated the book anyway, and had no plans to see the movie.
[/sore loser]
Comment by Brett — May 15, 2006 @ 10:36 pm PST
Adam - not that I’ve seen. 9 minutes was the longest time I’ve seen from somebody who says they received one. I figured if it wasn’t done in the first 10 minutes there was a very small chance.
Congratulations to the winners
There will be other fun challenges like this, I bet. Seems like the promotion has gone over pretty well overall.
Comment by TDavid — May 15, 2006 @ 11:20 pm PST
I just received my email which says “finalist”. I was reading all of the other emails but I was anxious to get home. Since I am away until tomorrow I could not check my mailbox! I finished in about 4 minutes time. I am excited to get home and check out my cryptex!!
Comment by Rebecca — May 16, 2006 @ 1:11 am PST
Did anyone else feel like Ralphie from “A Christmas Story” when they got home yesterday and opened up the cryptex to see the “congratulatory” message? I was hoping for something a little more.
Be sure to drink your ovaltine!
Comment by Ralphie — May 16, 2006 @ 8:19 am PST
At least you got one. After following the contest faithfully for days, an overloaded server kept me from registering. I was done with the puzzle in very little time, but no matter what I did, I wasn’t able to register without getting a bunch of server errors. So enjoy your congratulatory message, and good luck with the rest of the contest.
Comment by AnnMarie — May 16, 2006 @ 8:35 am PST
well if anyone was interested in buying a cyptex just go to noblecollection.com
Comment by mark — May 16, 2006 @ 10:51 am PST
I got a cryptex in the mail yesterday. Oddly enough my friend who finished the PUZZLE before me didn’t. Makes me believe there were 2 times to do it, because i did register before him. He had the same problem many others did “Contest has ended”
Anyways, good luck to all who got a cryptex
Comment by Bryan — May 16, 2006 @ 12:14 pm PST
[…] The first phase of the quest ended a week ago Wednesday and has become one of the top 10 most commented on threads ever at Hmm. The Da Vinci movie is in theaters everywhere this Friday May 19. share/bookmark: MyWeb | del.icio.us | digg it! […]
Pingback by Make You Go Hmm: » First Da Vinci Quest cryptex on eBay auction yields $202.50 — May 16, 2006 @ 2:33 pm PST
Ah, finally got home and discovered my cryptex in the mail. Smaller than I thought. But still so satisfying. Regarding the email we received Friday, it said the non-finalists would still receive a “surprise” in their inbox. Was there?
Comment by Rebecca — May 16, 2006 @ 3:49 pm PST
the surprise for the non finalists was a peek at some behind the scenes talk with ron howard..hahaha…..nothing exciting at all…..
as for times, i too finished it quickly, but was shut out when i went to register and that was at a little after 3 minutes….so it was all a chance at that point….I didn’t make it to the finalists, even though i thought i was in very early….
Comment by AnnMarie — May 16, 2006 @ 4:18 pm PST
The final puzzle took me WAY longer than it should. I kept on typing in “Virgin of the Rocks”… duh. There’s no “v” in “so dark the con of man”. Anyway, the final puzzle took me about 10 minutes and I had completely forgotten about it as my wife and I had our first anniversary trip this past weekend. The weekend was capped off quite nicely by the cryptex waiting in my mailbox. As for feeling like Ralphie, after opening the cryptex and reading the message, I actually said “Be sure to drink your Ovaltine” out loud to my wife. We laughed. Anyway, looking forward to the final challenge. Good luck to all you finalists out there!!
Comment by Matt — May 16, 2006 @ 10:23 pm PST
[…] Following the Da Vinci Quest these past few weeks has been fun, so I thought it would be cool to play another game online. Time to put your stock expertise to the test and without any financial risk to you. […]
Pingback by Make You Go Hmm: » Play virtual $100,000 stocks game and win $100 USD from Hmm — May 17, 2006 @ 11:16 am PST