Treasure hunt with "$21,000-worth" of prizes hidden in San Francisco

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Updates. A write-up.

A write up of MIT's Mystery Hunt 2024 with links to puzzles

Links and spoilers. If nothing else, click through to see what famous image this is supposed to depict.

A puzzle that tricks you into writing the name of god

The story behind the warning that Orthodox Jews should not work on this puzzle is fascinating, and I am very glad I heard it today.https://t.co/gkOXB9YRkM pic.twitter.com/9fzP0Kiplk

— john stuart thrill 🕶 (@js_thrill) August 8, 2020

I believe (I haven’t worked the puzzle myself) that the puzzle involves manipulating letters of other alphabets as symbols, including the Hebrew alphabet, and at some point in doing the manipulations you would produce the Tetragrammaton (one of the Jewish names for god)

— john stuart thrill 🕶 (@js_thrill) August 8, 2020

It was unclear to the makers of the puzzle how big of a deal that would be for people solving the puzzle, but here’s wikipedia giving a summary:https://t.co/bls8YzxDKn pic.twitter.com/ybqgauMihh

— john stuart thrill 🕶 (@js_thrill) August 8, 2020

So if someone were working on the solving the puzzle on scrap paper, and stumbled onto the right track for the solution, unaware of what was going to happen, they might wind up with a piece of scrap paper that they then had to protect/treat as especially sanctified in perpetuity

— john stuart thrill 🕶 (@js_thrill) August 8, 2020

Katie Notopoulos scored an interview with the guy locked out of his WeWork office by an umbrella

Buzzfeed:

Over the weekend, an umbrella left leaning against a wall had fallen over and blocked the sliding door of their WeWork space. It was impossible to get inside.

Mike, one of the employees who was locked out, agreed to speak to BuzzFeed News on the condition that we not use his last name or the name of his company to avoid the embarrassment of being known as the company foiled by an umbrella.

...

“The umbrella has turned our office into, essentially, an unmanned panic room with no way in.”

It would be three days before Mike and his colleagues were able to enter their WeWork again.

...

Sure, just jiggle the handle, you say. Nope, didn’t work. What about a wire coat hanger? Nope.

“Two of my coat hangers went down in the fight,” Mike said. “It was a ‘does not compute’ moment, because the situation had absolutely no apparent solution. It wasn’t like there was an answer — ‘Go outside and crawl in the window.’ The windows to the outside don’t open, there are no gaps in the walls or other doors, and no wiggle room in the door panels. There was no crack to slide a coat hanger, like a car thief in a movie. The whole room is, essentially, a geometric cube of glass with an umbrella tucked in an impossibly perfect position. I really appreciate everyone’s ideas on Twitter, but we tried everything.”

Finally, on Tuesday night a WeWork engineer

Let’s address some common suggestions:

Take the door off: it comes off from the inside

Go through the drop ceiling: there is no drop ceiling

Slip something through the crack: there is no crack

Use a magnet: the umbrella is non-ferrous. I just tested it with a magnet

— Neeraj K. Agrawal (@NeerajKA) September 18, 2019