Jan 03, 2007 One Word Wonder Puzzle

HEY! I recognize that puzzle! I made it!

(please don't hate it).

I hate it.

all I got is acoeacro and it doesn't anagram or sift into anything....

CURSES! I'm a failure.

Indeed

You have already solved this puzzle.
It took you 2 minutes and 0 seconds.
You are the 2nd fastest Tanga member to solve this puzzle.
You were the 2nd Tanga member to solve this puzzle.

This is the first time I've solved quick enough to post about it!

I liked this one.

Yeah Bagherra, I also tried another method of that. I might have to consult my next door neighbor, Mr McNally.

does the fact that all the state names have O's in them help?

It took you 5 minutes and 47 seconds.
You are the 6th fastest Tanga member to solve this puzzle.
You were the 6th Tanga member to solve this puzzle.

Nice one! And already 6 folks have it done. Amazing.

FLILCACAMICA???

i think I know how you got those letters, but that's not the solving method. The clue does give you hints on how to get different letters to work with (I hope).

[8] where is detroit located?

"does the fact that all the state names have O's in them help?"

It may help, but I don't know how it would. :)

randomcyn: I beat your time by, like, 1:56. :)

Mark (JoeyHemlock) - don't salt your own puzzle too much. Folks are getting it...give them time.

You have already solved this puzzle.
It took you 7 minutes and 5 seconds.
You are the 7th fastest Tanga member to solve this puzzle.
You were the 7th Tanga member to solve this puzzle.

It helps to have traveled a bit. Careful, some answers are ambiguous and you'll have to choose the right one.

#16 is pretty salty, gave it to me immediately where I was otherwise stuck.

Good advice, [15]. I'll let it be. I'm just a bit excited, is all.

olno ciao laes safr cico dtot trno

You have already solved this puzzle.
It took you 1 minute and 5 seconds.
You are the 1st fastest Tanga member to solve this puzzle.
You were the 1st Tanga member to solve this puzzle.

................

Second time 1 and 1. Looking forward to the commentary (and solve times) if/when one of my two puzzles makes it to the big board.

16 is about as salty as unsalted plastic.

You have already solved this puzzle.
It took you 13 minutes and 17 seconds.
You are the 13th fastest Tanga member to solve this puzzle.
You were the 13th Tanga member to solve this puzzle.

Yup, that did it. Even though I've traveled a lot, I only knew three off the top of my head, so some Googling will be necessary for most.

So, do the points earned have anything to do with how long it takes you to solve?

does it help to know that all the citys are pretty much on the borders of the states they're in.

Should this puzzle be tagged?

It took you 14 minutes and 20 seconds.
You are the 17th fastest Tanga member to solve this puzzle.
You were the 17th Tanga member to solve this puzzle.

Right idea early on. Wrong choices.

dfharrin and CApples...no and no.

Woot!
My time sucked, but I did it! Nice one, even with the kiss of ambiguities.

Yay! got it. True, there are multiple choices on most, if not all of them. But it's the most logical choice on each one, so I was able to get them each on the first try.

fun puzzle, i liked it.

Heh. Very clever, that (shame about the small ambiguities, but pretty clear all the same).

I'm not sure which ones to choose.
The distractors on this puzzle are too numerous for those "not in the know"

Yes you are, sir. Yes you are.

bagherra:

MUCH CLOSER! Double-google-check some of those.

Too much salt here. My blood pressure is getting high.

so you expect me to do all 32 permutations???

bagherra, main or major.

bagherra - although only people in the united states can buy the tanga items, the puzzles are international in scope.

Fun -- and I got it in under 10 minutes with no hints. That's great for me. Last time it was 17 hours plus...

bagherra, in each case, it is the most obvious

God flying from one place to anohter would sure be a B****

There are enough clues posted to solve the puzzle easily. The actual given should be helpful enough, especially after reading through the discussion.

most obvious if you've been there, maybe.
I'm well travelled, but not to the northern us.

#22 was the hint I needed

bagherra, the more guesses you throw out, the more likely you'll give the answer away... if you're on BGG, I'll send you a note there to help if you like

You have already solved this puzzle.
It took you 25 minutes and 11 seconds.
You are the 57th fastest Tanga member to solve this puzzle.
You were the 56th Tanga member to solve this puzzle.

We were slower than ourselves? 57 of 56?

The creator is a sly dog.

does it have to do with things you might see in these places?

Good clues and decent wiggle room on the decisions make for a nice puzzle!

It took you 14 minutes and 16 seconds.
You were the 16th Tanga member to solve this puzzle.

fractaloon
by the time you got back to the statistics, someone else solved it with a lower time than yours...

Got it. A lot simpler than I was making it out to be.
Low or no sodium diet for this one.

[47] - I had that happen once. I guess that between solving it and going back to view the results, someone else solved it in a quicker time than me.

Ok I did it the hard way. Here's a ton of salt:

figure out from angramming the entire text what major airline they're referring to. Then on that airline's website, order a ticket (first class), to travel through each of the cities, beginning in orlando and ending in toronto. Took me a couple tries to figure out which date to use for the flights, but it's the 1-year anniversary of the date Tanga.com premiered. Add up the costs of all the tickets (excluding taxes), then convert that dollar amount to Roman Numerals. Take every third numeral, and that forms the word that's the answer.

That was a cool puzzle.

I realized I was screwing up Orlando, and it all made sense

Yeesh. I had the right idea, but I ended up catching the wrong connection in Detroit. I guess I didn't want "international" going to Toronto after all.

Wow, GaryL, are you gonna pay the $800 I just charged on my credit card to find the answer using your clues? Oh, wait, nevermind... I got 3 tanga points - that makes up for it. Thanks, buddy!

Gary L,

YOU ARE A GENIUS!!!

Reminds me of a Beastie Boys song...

joeyhemlock, did they tell you your puzzle was going to be tonight?

[53] I KNEW I was doing something wrong.
Thanks

[58] Ranked: No, I had no warning. I really wish they'd post a schedule.

Fastest time I ever worked one of these. Thanks to the salt that mentioned it helps if you fly often. If you do, there is another way to refer to those cities.

Nice way to add pepper, GaryL. :)

Hey - how come gamerchick got 3 points? I only got 2. Does it matter how fast you solve the puzzle????

You have already solved this puzzle.
It took you 6 minutes and 17 seconds.
You are the 22nd fastest Tanga member to solve this puzzle.
You were the 100th Tanga member to solve this puzzle.

Yeah, [16] made it real obvious. --Jeff

Wow, my first no salt puzzle!

It took you 7 minutes and 12 seconds.
You are the 29th fastest Tanga member to solve this puzzle.
You were the 116th Tanga member to solve this puzzle.

You have already solved this puzzle.
It took you 52 minutes and 23 seconds.
You are the 129th fastest Tanga member to solve this puzzle.
You were the 125th Tanga member to solve this puzzle.

YEAH i LIKED IT I SOLVED WITH A LITTLE SALT ABOUT THE MIDDLE SEAT THANKS

Thanks GaryL that was a fun clue. It directed us on the right path. I think that there is enough salt here now. Good puzzle.

This was a good puzzle but too much salt early on.

[63]Debb -

I only got 2 TP's also, and I was the 6th to solve. Think Gamerchick is having a bit of fun with the post and mistated the points.

[16] was a total, total, high sodium giveaway, for me.

Took me almost 42 minutes ... pretty lousy for a Rush fan like me.

Good puzzle though!

It took you 19 minutes and 49 seconds.
You are the 141st fastest Tanga member to solve this puzzle.
You were the 204th Tanga member to solve this puzzle.

Ugh. I was doing the right thing from the very start but when my initial answer was gibberish I thought I was on the wrong track. It helps to go to choose a good website for research purposes....just googling can result in a lot of frustration.

neat - I had the right idea all along, just wasn't making the right choices...

"It helps to have traveled a bit" -- I've been to 48 states in the U.S. and all but two provinces in Canada, and I have NO idea how to solve this puzzle. Just in case I'm getting warm, there are FOURTEEN airports in or around Toronto alone, and since I am familiar with NONE of them, how am I supposed to know which one is the "major" one? And most of them have 4-letter codes anyway.

Okay, gee... I call shenanigans.

I made the puzzle. I instantly recognized it and answered it in four seconds, which I think you'll agree that it would be impossible to actually solve the puzzle any quicker than that. But now I'm THIRTEENTH FASTEST. So which is it: Someone with plenty of multiple accounts or a mailing list receiving the right answer?

dlp, your first clue will be that the "major" airport is always going to be an "international" airport.

I think there are a lot of people who log out, solve the puzzle, and then log in and zip the answer home. I'm not sure why, but...

I enjoyed this puzzle and didnt even need salt (or at least the salt above didnt help me solve it). When I pulled up the puzzle I wasnt logged in so my solve time was a total cheat (14 seconds). Even then I was the 31st fastest so 30 of you guys cheated too :-P

Re #74: Joey, I guess at least 12 people are just smarter than you. Orrrrrr, they have some bizarre and pathetic need to get an unrealistically fast solving time by looking at the puzzle without logging in, checking out all available hints, and then entering as fast as possible. I can't imagine why that's an ego boast, but then, I'm not bizarre and pathetic (well...not pathetic). Kidding aside, I think it's a shame that people do that, and I wish that the site was set up to make it impossible. I REALLY wish that. It's not a competition, after all, there's nothing at stake by getting a fast score except bragging rights...and how lame do you have to be to consider, well, cheating, something to brag about? I'd like to be able to realistically assess how my solving stacks up against actual solving times, and it's too bad that that's impossible.

re: shenanigans:
As a newbie, I was logging out each evening.
If you go to the site without logging in, you can see the puzzle. I would solve it, and then to enter the answer I had to log in. It turns out that the timer starts when you first look at the puzzle when you are logged in. So I was getting inaccurate and impossible solve times.

I don't think logging out stops the timer, and closing the browser doesn't log you out.
As of 12/31 I don't logout, so the first time I look at the puzzle, my timer starts, and that way I get accurate solve time data. A much better metric for my own information.

For a while they weren't letting non-members even see the current day's puzzle. Why did that stop?

I was thinking the same. If not logged-in, you should only see the previous day's puzzle and earlier.

Missed TangaJoe's magic post....Thanks!

I think handing out a few points to top solvers is a nice idea. However, I do think it's more fair to judge that by speed of solving, not chronological order. I personally have no problem accessing the new puzzle when it arrives at my local time (10:00 pm), but for those in other time zones, it may be much less convenient. Basing solving status on start-to-finish time levels the playing field. However, that would mean that it should be impossible to look at the puzzle without starting your clock.
Another side-effect of making top speeds, rather than top times, the basis of awarding extra points would be that it would possibly lower the sodium content of the blogs.
That's my $.02 anyhow. All intended in the spirit of fun and friendly competition :-)

Agree - it is the first solvers who don't have the benefit of the salt here (or the outright solution paths at the Geek).

1 bonus point on a 2 point puzzle is a hefty bump for being fast on an "easier" puzzle though. Might have to have fractional points?

0.5 bonus on 2 pointers?
1 bonus on 3 pointers?
1.5 bonus on 4 pointers?

And how do you stop? Would it be the first 50? Or would be be 2 bonus points for anyone who does it in 1 minute? 1 bonus point for less than 5 minutes? 0 bonus points for everyone else?

Goood idea, but alas, I think some would still try to beat this by creating multiple accounts and logging in with one to look, the second to solve. I don't know why people would fee the need to do that, but it would not surprise me if they did.

That's why it should be first to solve...not fastest time.

And we just have to realize that we can't all log on at the same time to get those points. Just as we can't all be the first to buy an item and get those bonus points either.

Considering that of the 5 auctions announced - I had interest in only 1 item....I'm not to worried about a Tanga Point here or there...at least not until there are more options to spend those points on.

****Hey we can edit our own comments now!!!***
Now if we could delete our own comments also.....

Arrrgh. I sat there staring at the letters, certain it was something to do with the "o"! Since it was already salted, I don't feel guilty in saying that's a red herring if intentional at all.

I did work in the cruise industry about 13 years ago, so I was then able to get the right answer in about 2 minutes once I got my mind in the right place. I like the idea, it was definitely fun for me. However, something tells me there is a way to narrow down the options a bit more when choosing locales.

This is too hard for me. :(

I was interested in deleting my comments 82/83 which were rendered irrelevant by your comment 81.

Folks might drop a hint, then decide it is too salty so wish to delete instead of editing.

But agree - with folks referring to prior posts - deleting will just mess that up.

Unless clues are banned everywhere, here and on BGG, I wouldn't hand out ANY bonus points to anyone.

Being the first to solve it is weighe in favor of those who can be right here when the puzzle is revealed. A bonus for getting here first is bogus.

As for fastest time, well if you wait until this column or BGG is chock full of hints, well it's not hard to be the fastest solver.

Just hand everyone the same points for the puzzle.

I get the bonus for being the first to buy, that's fine, you guys are trying to make a buck.

But the puzzles? Nah.

I'm just posting to test new edit feature.

Very nice.

As far as a multithreaded whatchamacallit... I would prefer it remain simple.

As far as deleting posts goes, if the post could be replaced by a comment that says it was deleted, then it won't mess up the order or referencing.

[84] Re: awarding points to the first several solvers

This seems like a good idea on the surface, but what about those of us on the east coast (or worse, across the pond) who don't get to see the puzzle until 10pm? I typically go to bed between 9:30 and 10:00, unless there's something somewhat important going on or I have insomnia.

West Coasters are getting the puzzle at 7pm, which is a much more reasonable time to start solving this thing, and gives them a decided advantage.

So, I'm against extra points for anyone. I'm also against people having multiple logins (as I've mentioned elsewhere, this can affect the auctions adversely as well).

Why not just edit your post and replace it with

<deleted>

Strongbad would approve.

TR

Hey, Tanga guys! Any ETA on when solutions will be available on earlier puzzles? There are a few in October I never figured out and am curious about.

I like the edit feature!!
Now when I wince reading my mistakes in a post I can fix them!!
Thanks

Please don't give points to early solvers, or quick solvers, it's an unbalanced approach. The 24 hour rule works fine.