The Da Vinci Code - Quest Solution (24 of 24)
Well thats it for me guys. I didn't make it thanks to my puzzle freezing half way 3 times during loading. The answers were
2
so dark the con of man
madonna of the rocks
Congrats to all who made it. Sorry for those who didn't, but hey it's just a game. If you are a finalist congrats. Email me if you want me to post something. (Oh and as a consolation price for me, help a brother out and click on a link)
Update: Based off of the findings from this post, I am going to assume the questions and answers are:
1. Cryptography is all about noticing numbers and patterns. Here's a simple one to start with: how many glass panes are visible on each of the doors to Sir Teabing's mansion? 9
2. Although it refers to words not spoken, we hear it spoken three times. What is that word? secret
3. This final question will really test your powers of observation. What is the name of the character shown holding a votive candle holder? Silas
If the questions are not the above (which is very possible). I will repost the actual answers as I discover or get word of them. If however those are the correct answers, type fast.
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Here it is guys, the 24th consecutive and final post for The Da Vinci Code Quest Challenge. I know that a few of the GoogleFact readers think that provided the last answer isn't fair, and that's O.K. I am hoping that Google and Sony are smart enough to make the last question completely random, which is the only way to make the challenge completely "fair", but if they don't, as Mr. Reichard always said, "Soooo Sorry". Don't worry about the other blogs doing the same thing, I check them everyday and they are always 30 minutes or more behind this blog. Enough about that though and we’re moving on to the next topics.
Procedure: Find Solution, Fill out completion form, Post Solution on GoogleFact (For more on that read my previous post)
Hint: We are thinking that this video will be the video used for today's final challenge. For those of you who are trying to be honest and fair, don't click on that link until after 1 P.M.
Comment: There is also a big hubbabaloo going around about the Christianity / Da Vinci Code theory. Even Tom Hanks has had to formally address this issue. While you are waiting for the final puzzle to release, have a look at this GoogleFact reader's thoughts on the subject. It's a quick read and worth the time.
Advice: Good Luck and Refresh this page repeatedly at 1 PM
Afterword: Visit again later today or tomorrow to find out who has qualified as a finalist and read my post detailing this blogs unique visits/page views statistics during the challenge.
Final Thought: Post your solution to the 24th challenge in the comments to this post. Get all of the MSN Conspiracy Game Answers here
posted by G00GLEFACT @ 5/10/2006 05:53:00 AM
97 comments
97 Comments:
Well, maybe I have the answers already, but have to check if they're true at the challenge. If they are, I'll immediately post them here.
You mean these?
1. Cryptography is all about noticing numbers and patterns. Here's a
simple one to start with: how many glass panes are visible on each of
the doors to Sir Teabing's mansion?
9
2. Although it refers to words not spoken, we hear it spoken three
times. What is that word?
secret
3. This final question will really test your powers of observation.
What is the name of the character shown holding a votive candle holder?
Silas
I doubt they are correct
When this clock says 1 PM
http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/time-zone/usa/eastern-time/eastern-daylight-time.htm
1:00 pm EST has been the pattern
Hmm, I don't even SEE the votive candle holder. Or is that what Silas is throwing in the water at the end (right after Langdon tosses up the cryptex)? I've been trying to figure out what that is.
Cool. That will REALLY help.
You're right. I really think of these answers - we must get info from the same source *giggle*
It's a Sophie Neveu video, and...
1-st answer: 9 (those damn glass panels)
2-nd answer: secret (well, it's obvious, like in the first or second obs. challenge - there was almost the same question)
3-rd answer: Silas (yes, it's just ol' good Silas holding a candle, um, holder...)
waiting with butterflies in my stomach...
I just read that article about the swf decompiled. That is just funny. Way to compile the answers into the source. That would be like writing the serial code to an application in the source code.
Dumb.
Q1 25 Seconds in is 9 panes
Q2 mentioned at 11 seconds, 16 seconds and by Sophie 29 Seconds in the
word secret
Q3 31 seconds in is Silas with a votive candle holder
Post solutions in these comments please.
one minute! excitiing!
load already mine is hung half way
2
so dark the con of man
madonna of the rocks
2
so dark the con of man
Madonna of the Rocks
2
so dark the con of man
madonna of the rocks
google username is our email address, right?
done 2, so dark the con of man, madonna of the rocks
still loading....
I am unable to register??? why??? it says sorry the quest has ended..
Damnit - Sorry, the DaVinci code challenge has ended...missed it by a hair!
DID IT!
Q1: How many books were there in flashback when Sophie reads with her Gradpa?
A1: 2
Q2: What are the words Langdon is asking Sophie about?
A2: So Dark The Con of Man
Q3: It was an anagram in last q. What does it mean?
A3: Madonna Of the Rocks
I'm a damn russian (so I live in Russia, of course), but I hope I'll find a way to deal with UK/US things
This is a scam!!!!
When I tried to register,
it said that can not process your request at this time. and the next second the contest had ended!!!
The anwers are
1. 2
2. so dark the con of man
3. Madonna on the Rocks
I won!
thanks dan and ggggeo for the super-fast answers! You guys rock. I made it into the finals!
does it say if you've part of the 10,000 finalists? I just get "
Congratulations on successfully completing all 24 puzzles. If you haven't already, be sure to register to see if you've won a limited edition cryptex replica, and the chance to compete in the Final Challenge". I registered, but I don't know if I'm part of the first 10K
i got in just in time.
has anyone got an email yet?
Since some people got the contest has ended message when they were done, I'm guessing that those of us who did get to enter our info are in the finals.
I doubt they'll send the emails right away. I had my form submitted in under 4 minutes, so we'll see who made it soon :p. Good luck to all!
Congratulations on successfully completing all 24 puzzles. If you haven't already, be sure to register for the chance to win prizes.
I don't know, they wouldn't need to bother time-stamping if that were the case... they would just block anyone after 10,000 from submitting. I'm guessing they'll just wait to send the emails.
mine was
3
so dark the con of man
Madonna of the rocks
there were 2 pages, 1 asked for your id... and the next had you fill in info (address, phone, etc.)
if you messed up... i guess register again from where you select the puzzles.
For Aussies we got a 50 words or less question. What adventure would you like to see Robert Langdon in next?
I answered the three questions , filled in the personal details, but no hint that I won the cryptex ? I thought after submission the system would tell me if I won the cryptex ?
The answers were very simple. Was hoping it was tougher than this.
Anyone get this???
*In 50 words or less, tell us what adventure you would like to see Robert Langdon involved in next?
No I didn't get that classicstrings...
Sagron I am in Australia, so thats probably why....I want a Cryptex!!!!
how do you find out of you made it. i'm so pissed at myself. i cut and pasteed and answer from googl - the spelling of which was madanna of the rocks and it said it was wrong so I moved on. that was at 10:05 - i didn't type it in again until 10:15 and then I solved it.
*Please enter the telephone number (including area code) where you can be reached between 2:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. EDT on Friday, May 26, 2006.*
This is probably for the grand prize winner isn't it?
did you get that??
I think the puzzle completion form might be the 2, so dark the con of man, and madonna of the rocks, then the contest entry form is where you put in your address, phone #, ect
I am assuming that the google id is the email address you log in to google with?
it was part of the registration form
Wow! If that is the case, then I barely made "finalist" status by the skin of my teeth. I had a _MAJOR_ problem with Google saying I was "spyware"/"virus" infected just two minutes before 1 p.m. Inside of 10 minutes, I shutdown all my running applications, rebooted my computer, switched to Firefox, discovered I needed to install Macromedia Flash 8 Player, downloaded Flash 8 Player, shut down Firefox, installed Flash, fired up Firefox _again_, logged into Google home, and then solved the challenge. If other people experienced problems using Internet Explorer just moments before the challenge because Google was messing with internal servers, they might discover a few lawsuits up their alley. I happen to be a software developer and can scramble to think up alternate strategies like that in a time crunch, but those with IE might have been out of luck for this last puzzle (especially since their "restore your status as 'okay' by filling in this form" thing doesn't work at all in IE).
(Crosses fingers and hopes for finalist status! Especially after all that "hoop jumping"!)
so sometime between now and the 18 we'll find out :p
I got that error a few minutes before 1:00 but luckily it was before 1:00 so it was ok for me
Guuys.. In the rules:
9: Winners drawn randomly and under independent supervision, from all entrants who have correctly completed all 24 puzzles, and notified within 28 days of the closing date.
Why it's 10000 first?
It said stuff about watching your email and that they would be contacting me soon. Does that mean I won?
Well, luckily I'm pretty sure I'm a finalist, although google is having lots of problems at the moment. I think all the traffic they are recivieving is what is giving people the your request looks like spyware message.
We probably won't get emails right away, they have until May 18th.
artemiy - depends on the country, us is first 10,000
how do you know if you made it in time? Will there be a screen that says so? I filled in my info, but I don't know.
i was refreshing 30 seconds before 10am repeatedly
Brianna - check on ebay in a couple of weeks there's bound to be many on there, i want one too - as I am in austrlia and can't get one
Now that the challenge seems to be over for everyone (minus finalists), it would be nice if Google left the "challenge" in place. That is, in case anyone wants to go back and play the puzzles just for fun, we should be able to. Sort of a nostalgia thing.
hahaha - G00GLEFACT did you get in? You wrote you had comp. problems...
I think it is crap that people with half a brain didn't have to answer any of the questions. Then the final answers are immediately posted for everyone to see. Makes no sense.
The Reason I say this was a scam (well talk about loosing dishonorably) is cause When I try of fill the form it said "Quest has ended" and then I walked over to my coworkers’ cube, told him the answers and then he filled it 7-8minutes later and he was able to register :((.
That is my only problem.
Monks
Well...it was fairly easy anyway, but i got to say i never would have done it so quick without the posted answers
I did it myself and had the form submitted at 4 minutes after :p
is there a "hit meter" we can look at to see how many hits google is getting???
Doubt I made it. I had computer issues with the spyware problem. And by the time I entered it was 10:15 and then I logged on here and saw that people had posted by 10:05. I guess I should've of cheated as well.
wow, kate is so nice... :p
hmmm, someone should delete that blatantly advertising post :p
If anyone else that made it doesn't want the cryptex, that's really all I wanted - I didn't think I had a realistic shot at the grand prize anyway. Anyone else not want theirs?
i concur
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Kate,
Thank you so much! But you won it, and so it's yours. Keep it and enjoy it. I did this for fun and for you all who visited the blog everyday. It is a sincerely kind gesture for you to offer that, but I must refuse.
If you want, you could just click on an ad link that would be a sufficient consolation prize(woops I could get in trouble for saying that... ooh well)
Thanks again Kate, for the extreamly generous and unselfish offer. Rare these dsys.
as per the rules there were supposed to be 2 forms -
1. Puzzle completion form where one enters the google userid and the second form was the "Contest Form" with details.
Strangely enough I got only one form and this had both the google userid used for completion and the personal info. My entry got accepted and asked be to sabe the davinciquest email address to my address book.
Did others have the same experience of received two separate form ? For me I only had to click "SUBMIT" once. Strange .. Strange ..
Also anyone got a message saying you were a finalist ? I did not see that. Only said you have registered successfully
IF YOU GET "SORRY, THE CONTEST IS OVER" MESSAGE - KEEP TRYING!!
I'VE BEEN HITTING THE GOING BACK AND HITTING THE "SUBMIT" BUTTON FOR 20 MINS - and it JUST NOW (at 10:53 Pacific time) said I SUCCESSFULLY REGISTERED! YAYY! :-)
THIS MEANS YOU GOOGLEFACT!!
are you kidding stacey?
Applesleeves - I suspect people who finished in under 10 minutes will get finalist status (i.e. before 1:10 p.m. EST). I finished at 1:11 (due to technical difficulties), so if I got in, then it was by the skin of my teeth. So, if you were done at 1:04 p.m. EST as you say, you probably are a finalist.
Then again, we won't know for certain for a few days. Meanwhile Google servers are getting hammered by people who don't realize that it is too late to be a finalist in the U.S.
Agreed,
I just got the registered screen also
Hi this is strange. When I tried to register at 12:04 i got sorry contest ended. Now at 12 53 i tried again just out of fun.. and i got successfully registered.. Did it happen like this to anyone else..? Thos of you who have missed before.. try again. You make suceed this time.
JIM
The same thing happened for me. Don't give up yet folks!
All I want is the cryptex, I don't think I could win the grand prize anyway.
Good luck everyone, esp. Googlefact.
IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS REGISTERING:
well, I guess this might be late for you guys, however, I'm suggesting a way you can try to REGISTER if you have solved all the puzzles early enough and got computer problems: do Back on your browser, to the flash.sonypictures.... page, even if your computer freezes before, it would allow you to register if you got all the puzzles and haven't registered.
An hour ago, I had a problem with cache, the congratulations page never appeared. I stopped it, refreshed, went back and forth a couple of times, and it worked! So try!!!
The register link in your personal Google page usually doesn't work, don't waste your time on it.
Thanks Farragoulash
You might be right. BTW, I finished my puzzle by 10:03 so would have thought I made it. But isn't a big deal since the puzzles were not really challenging, missing out on the cryptex is nothing major.
Sorry WRfly10 I didn't mean to miss it trying to do work, monitor spam links and read everyone's comments. I will address all of this later tonight. Sorry again, I will point you Kate out in that post.
I just got my e-mail.
do we even know if more than 10,000 pepole in the us are even doing the quest
Thanks Jim,
Yup after getting quest ended 20 times, I booted my m/c and 11:04pacific time i got, "you are registered".
Although I am sure, 10000 people would have already made it by now.
All for good times.
monks
Hey g00glefact, would you add a post on this? To get to any previous puzzles you can go to:
http://www.google.com/ig/davinci/puzzle.html?puzzle=
(add 1-24 to the end)
I got the form and the message saying to add davincicodequest@sonypictures.com.
Now as to why some got messages that it was closed. Could it be geographical? I mean, only so many of the 10k comes from each country?
I got the spyware message too, but I just typed the word in and it went through. I am using Firefox, I don't even open EI unless I absolutely have too.
For the conspiracy nuts. Does anyone else find it ironic that this quest about a conspiracy, spawned a conspiracy. Go figure.
The way i see it is that their might not be 10,000 competing and here is my reasoning:
1)The 10,000 only referes to the US market of this game, UK and AU have completley different regulations.
2)Googlefact said he had a spike of only 7500 people on this site looking at answers.
Now the way I see it is that anyone doing this quest is going to be somewhat computer savvy to have even found oiut about and wanted to do this quest in the first place.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
so giving that i think anyone doing this quest(since they have to know how to search and recover information anyways)would have searched for a loop hole in the quest or an easier way to do it, thus leading them to this site. so i think that the 7500 peak hits on this site show the majority of the contestants by far, and then you have to figure how many hits on this site were from the US. you guys do the math
makes sense to me
not so dark, I agree with some of that, but most rich people are born that way. There are very few self made rich people. All rich people have one thing in common, they got a break. Some when they were born, some won it or sued for it and some inherited it.
Please don't look down on others because sometimes, things happen to people that keep them poor that are totally out of their control. Natural disasters or manmade disasters are some examples of how some people lose everything. It happened to me, and I have yet to recover.
Also, not everyone has internet access from work and there are places were people are not "wired", and hot spots are rare, so there again, what you feel is normal, may be to you. There is nothing normal globally. Everyone is different.
You need to tighten up and stop judging.
Yes, you will have to pay taxes. Not all to the IRS though. Only the taxes that stay in the US. You will most likely pay for hotel taxes at the hotel. Same with the other prizes. It said in the Eula that we are responcible for taxes. I already looked. I don't know how much that would be. Hard to say considering the different tax rates at all the places.
You are aware that the middle class is disappearing and that the gap between the rich and the poor is growing right? Generally those who start with a good amount of money (not necessarily extremely large amounts) are generally the ones who are able to fairly easily make more. Therefore "self-made" is not entirely accurate. As for your percentage... I think you're missing the fact that a lot of the richest people aren't well known as such. And generally actors and actresses are born into families with "connections".
I got two entries in because i was afraid that i had entered the wrond email. i didnt, and now im afraid ill be disqualified for entering twice. should i be?
And on wealth distribution I quote "The wealthiest 1 percent of households owns roughly 33.4% of the nation's net worth, the top 10% of households owns over 71%, and the bottom 40% of households owns less than 1%."
Google should pay for the tax on the main prize. How could anyone afford it?
Not So Dark - I wasn't saying rich people are evil, and I agree that it is possible for anyone to become rich (although it may be much more difficult) and if I were extremely wealthy I would not give up all possessions, etc. I was just making the point that while it's not a requirement to come from money to get money it definitely helps significantly. Also, while you say the rich are pulling the poor along - I think the fact that there is such an overwhelming wealth distribution it is unfair in ways to blame it on them for being poor. I am in Alabama right now, so I know some of it (even though I'm in a better part of it). I think that our country as a whole needs to find a new way to drive ourselves that is more oriented on the whole instead of the individual (but I am by no means saying we should go communism :p).
By the way, that's my last comment on the subject one way or the other. Just thought I'd let you know where I was coming from.
Hey peoples!
Um, I know this happened for others as well, but I did the puzzle about 3 hours after it was available (Darn finals!) and it still told me I was registered and all.
So... what happened with the people who got "Contest closed" TEN MINUTES after the puzzle was available?
Maybe google keeps track of your total puzzle completion times?
Who knows. Anyway, it would be a dirty trick for me to have registered and not become a finalist.
That would make me a very sad quester indeed.
Yes it is normal, it says If you haven't already.
Is it just me, or...
ONE
With the fantabulously brilliant Google programming minds working on this thing...
We login to Google Home page everyday and see the map of what puzzles our login has completed.
However, here after the completion of the 24 puzzles, the Google Home Page Da Vinci code notification says
"Congratulations on successfully completing all 24 puzzles. If you haven't already, be sure to register to see if you've won a limited edition cryptex replica, and the chance to compete in the Final Challenge."
Now, I realize that the registration for the end of Phase I happened at sony.com, not at Google.com, but wouldn't the same mechanism that was aware which puzzles you'd completed be aware as to whether or not you'd successfully registered (not if you're one of the 10,000)?
Me thinks it should be simple.
TWO
On another note, with ARV of Grand Prize at $128,000 and most of that in hardware, not cold, hard, easy-to-spend cash, it means that you've got to come up with money out of your pocket to pay for your winnings. Since you participated in obtaining the winnings (a contest rather than selection by chance), you get the 1099 and you get to pay in your tax bracket.
So more than likely, that will put you in the $150-325K bracket, which has:
$36,548.50 plus 33% of the amount over 150,150
Meaning you're gonna have to cough up about $44,000 JUST to keep your Google prizes. Half the trip tickets (2 people instead of 4) is "worth" in ARV terms $60K, so you could probably unload that for your $44K in taxes and have a nice trip for two.
Wouldn't it be nice if when they created contests, the taxes on the winnings could be factored in, so that you'd get to actually keep all your prizes?
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