This song was an awesome little puzzle. CD is so full of win. Can't wait to see Front at PAX East :D

The word problem was quite tricky! If you want to take a stab at it, stop reading now, as this is a spoiler. It took me a couple hours to puzzle out.

FIRST VERSE:

(no math here, just the intro)

SECOND VERSE:

80 (Eighty women went to the podiatrist.)

80 - 9 = 71 (Nine just leave)

71 + 1 = 72 (by one Sally Gorey)

72 / 18 = 3 (All but an eighteenth of the women in the room
had to vrooooom.)

SECOND VERSE:

There's 2 feet per woman! So we start with 6 pictures.

She was on vacation from Friday afternoon until she came in three weeks later on Tuesday morning. This means there were 25 nightly "8x" backups, and 24 full backups of that since they happen at noon daily.

So each night we add 48 images (the 8x backup) to the reception box, and then each day the backup box gets double the running total of images. This is way easier to calculate in code.

In Perl code (sorry if this displays weird):

Code:

$num_reception_images = 6; $num_backup_box_images = 0; for($nights = 1; $nights <= 25; $nights++){     $num_reception_images += 48;     if($nights != 25){         #at noon, back up everything to a backup box.         #happens every time except noon on the final Tuesday Sally comes back.         $num_backup_box_images += $num_reception_images;     } } $total_images = $num_reception_images + $num_backup_box_images;

$total_images comes out to be 15750.

FOURTH VERSE:

15750 * 5 = 78750 (5 toes in each image)

78750 + 1337 = 80087 (Now add my eliteness.)

80087 - 2 = 80085 (subtract two for a pair of things Sally has that I lack.)


80085. Hot :D

Nicely Done! I can only hope someone is working as diligently on decoding the secret track! We've tossed around a few ideas here but no luck, so far.

Thanks!

So I just listened to the secret track.

Amplify it up in Audacity (or whatever sound program you like) and it sounds like an analog signal, such as might be made by a 56K modem. (Remember that "modem connecting" sound?)

Note that the album is available in FLAC, MP3, and on CD so that probably rules out any "change the bit offset at the beginning of the file" types of decoding methods. It's gotta be something that processes an analog signal.

Heh, maybe you could connect your sound output to the input of a 56k modem? I have no idea where to go from here, so I'll leave it in more capable hands :D

On the topic of 80085...

AND THIS IS EQUAL TO IF NOT EVEN MORE SPOILERY THAN THE ABOVE
so: alert.

Full solution w/ auto charting from Iskandar Najmuddin.
http://iskandar.co.uk/80085/

Well hopefully the secret track is the one mentioned in the last line of the second verse of the title track >=)

Whoa, that's a pretty way to do it.
Over the course of the solution I played with variables some (like is "eliteness" 1337 or 31337? Both would be valid but only one gives the result!)
Having a visualization like that to work with would've been a neat way to crawl the variable space too. Hat tip to Iskandar.

Yeah, there's a couple ways one might try to apply my eliteness, and a couple ways the backup systems might work, but since the final answer is in the title of the song I figured you could guess and check a bit until you found the correct puzzle pieces.

I too have just listened to the Secret Track...Yes, I maxxed out the sound equipment just to be able to hear it.

Sadly, I don't have much to offer...BUT, it doesn't sound like a modem handshake as others have proposed.

I DO agree that it sounds like a Data File played on a Tape Drive ( like my old C=64 ).

Unfortunately, I'm using new enough technology that Data on Tape won't work for me anymore...( let alone any C=64 code )

Homie-Todd.

I'll wait for someone more motivated (and lots smarter) to figure this out and share it.

By the way, [rapper name redacted], my wife quite enjoys 80085. She thinks it is awesome and clever.

Cracked by Psycho
Packed by Technotyrant/RPG


This will have meaning to people who have seen the decoding. I offer it as proof that I have managed to do the decoding.

tryed a lazy wav to tap conversion both regular and inverted waveforms, no dice on both, no time to keep messing around with it.

From the way this conversation is heading, it seems like the decoding of the secret track requires equipment I do not possess :(
Someone help a brotha out.

By 2025 a children’s Speak & Spell could crack it.

Patience is a virtue?

I have tried a few different tricks, but mostly based on my recollections of ARGs in the past, and not on clues from anything in the "material." I feel dumb!

My hunch is it can be done all in software, albeit some of it is probably emulating hardware.

I'm terrified. If someone figures it out, covertly PM me.
We never had this conversation :P

So, yep. Converted the wav (boosted and limited to -1.6dB) to a tap but still can't get it to load. Running VICE. Any datasette settings I need to know? I've tried loads of combos with the wav and the datasette. still no luck. Ideas?

This is worse than Marilyn Manson's Kabbalah codes on his old website.

As a mono wav, it looks like a frequency-modulated square wave. So I decided to print the hex of it out. I 'spose I could scan that into a TIFF ...

In the hex editor, it's ... well ... it starts off with a long run of 9 on 8 off, then after a while it gets into 15 on 15 off, then 4 on 4 off. It's rather mind-numbing to look at. But at least it seems to be a pretty straightforward digital encoding. Now if only I knew what decoder to send it through!

No PMing you'd need to email.