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Wrecan
2005-11-18, 07:03 PM
Haley's gibberish is not gibberish at all, but an acrostic in which each letter has been replaced by one consistent letter throughout. It's a puzzle you find in many newspapers by the crossword puzzle.

Here's the whole thing translated. It should be noted that Rich made two errors. First, Rich should have put "p" where he put "b" in treasure. (Or he intended that both "p" and "b" would represent "e".) He also misspelled "freakin'" by transposing the "i" and "k".

Mnbrvcnp!!
Treasure!!

Wiup! Rdd is fm wiup!! F tru’m epdfpjp fm’v rdd wiup!
Gone! All of it gone!! I can’t believe it’s all gone!

F wim prmpu eh r ynrwiu sin mqrm snprfzu’ mnbrvcnp!
I got eaten by a dragon for that freaikn’ treasure!

F wim jiafmpy ck! Eh r yfvwcvmfuw rtfy-enprmqfuw ynrwiu! Ruy uix fm’v WIUP!
I got vomited up! By a disgusting acid-breathing dragon! And now it’s GONE!

Uim MQP diim, AH diim. Afup!
Not THE loot, MY loot. Mine!

Xrfm, xqh yi F vicuy scuuh? Qpddi? Qpddi?
Wait, why do I sound funny? Hello? Hello?

Xqrm? Ui! Yiu’m hic yrnp!
What? No! don’t you dare!

Vuprz rmmrtz eiim mi mqp srtp!
Sneak attack boot to the face!

Yrnu vmnrfwqm.
Damn straight.

Fale
2005-11-18, 07:07 PM
You have way too much free time. I must admit however I tried to decypher it too. Thanks for the translation.

Hamburger
2005-11-18, 07:10 PM
Well, either you got it wrong or Rich fixed it, because "snprzfu" is spelled correctly in the comic.

And yeah, it's a bit odd b and p both stand for e. If Haley had said words with j, q, x, and z in them Rich would've been hard-up for another letter.

Oh, plus it's "darn straight". Edit: Oops, Renloth just pointed that out. Oh well.

"Extra jumpy quizzes..."? Nah.

Edit: In the main strip Rich posted that Wrecan copied it wrong. Sorry, bud.

Big_Jake
2005-11-18, 07:14 PM
At least I know I'm not the only one that translated it! I didn't notice that E was both B and P until I stopped and looked after I had finished.

Renloth
2005-11-18, 07:19 PM
Thanks, I was just about to post and see if anyone else noticed patterns in her speech, or if I was just crazy. :P

Also, two words in your translation contradict themselves.



Xqrm? Ui! Yiu’m hic yrnp!
What? No! don’t you dare!

Yrnu vmnrfwqm.
Damn straight.


In the first, n = r, but in the second n = m.
Also, all other instinces of U=n, so I think the last line is:
"Darn Straight."

More family friendly. :)

NEO|Phyte
2005-11-18, 07:21 PM
if anyone cares, here is the decryption key

a - r
b - e
c - t
d - y
e - p/b
f - s
g - w
h - q
i - f
j -
k - z
l - d
m - a
n - u
o - i
p - k
q -
r - n
s - v
t - m
u - c
v - j
w - x
x -
y - h
z -

Bogardan_Mage
2005-11-18, 07:21 PM
The final line is actually "Darn straight" not "Damn straight". Otherwise it would have to be "Damn stmaight" ;).

EDIT: Bah, I was staring at this post for too long. Other people posted in the mean time.

Renloth
2005-11-18, 07:23 PM
As I just stated. :)

Edit: Just wanted to say that I apoligize if I can off as a jerk, its just sometimes I get excited and well... Anyway... Sorry.

Xenon
2005-11-18, 07:31 PM
the really weird thing? i found this thread before i noticed the new comic was up.

Wally
2005-11-18, 07:40 PM
Argh, I couldn't get through the comic until I deciphered the code. I figured out that it wasn't rot13; also half-attempted some other cracks before my mind told me to read the rest of it.

Solara
2005-11-18, 07:50 PM
Great job! I tried to translate but didn't have the attention span to guess more than a few letters. (Knew it couldn't be gibberish though because certain words were used to consistently.)

Is there any pattern as to what got replaced with what?

Though I guess the real question is, why is she talking this way? I know it's possible for people to short out the language centers in their brain in real life, but that seems a little deep for a comic strip.

Pax
2005-11-18, 08:13 PM
Haley's gibberish is not gibberish at all, but an acrostic in which each letter has been replaced by one consistent letter throughout. It's a puzzle you find in many newspapers by the crossword puzzle.

Darn - scooped by just over an hour, AND it only tookl my g/f and I some five minutes, maybe ten, to break it - the key, for me, was the line "Xqrm? Ui! Yiu'm hic yrnp!" .... now, to me, it seemd obvious from context that when Haley said "Ui! Yui'm [...]" .... those two words were "No! Don't [...]".

From there, it was a matter of replacing all the other U's, I's, Y's, and M's ... and filling in the blanks, figuring out what various words were to figure out OTHER letters (thats the part where my other half came in especially useful!).

Once we started discerning words, which gave us letters to spread through the rest of the sentences - and especially given the sheer amount of stuff to decrypt (rule of thumb, by the by: "the bigger the sample, the weaker the encryption") ... it fell into place extremely rapidly.

The transcript of my own translation is as follows:


Mnbrvcnp!
Treasure!

Wiup! Rdd is fm, wiup!! F tru'm epdfpjp fm'v rdd wiup!
Gone! All of it, gone!! I can't believe it's all gone!

F wim prmpu eh r ynrwiu sin mqrm snprzfu' mnbrvcnp!
I got eaten by a dragon for that freakin' treasure!

F wim jiafmpy ck! Eh r yfvwcvmfuw rtfy-enprmqfuw ynrwiu! Ruy uix fm'v WIUP!
I got vomited up! By a disgusting acid-breathing dragon! And now it's GONE!

Uim MQP diim, AH diim. Afup!
Not THE loot, MY loot. Mine!

Xrfm, xqh yi F vicuy scuuh? Qpddi? Qpddi?
Wait, why do I sound funny? Hello? Hello?

Xqrm? Ui! Yiu'm hic yrnp!
What? No? Don't you dare!

Vuprz rmmrtz eiim mi mqp srtp!
Sneak attack boot to the face!

Yrnu vmnrfwqm.[i]
Darn straight.

:)

Solara
2005-11-18, 08:28 PM
You know, given that the readers figured all this out so quickly, why can't V?

Granted, we have the benefit of seeing the text, but aren't elves supposed to be good at languages anyway?

Soluna
2005-11-18, 08:31 PM
yay i am not crazy for wanting to do this.

I did get inturrupted for dinner but that double e thing got me. i was trying to make it work without doubling up on the letter. :S

*modified*

Haley isnt an elf. or at least i never thought so.

Sucros
2005-11-18, 08:37 PM
Dang, here I was all thinking I was the only one who figured it out and feeling all clever.

Spuddly
2005-11-18, 08:45 PM
You know, given that the readers figured all this out so quickly, why can't V?

Fairly simple.

For us readers it's all symbology. For V, she gets to hear it. Read some of it outloud, then try spelling it. It's about as bad as French.

TarSheva
2005-11-18, 09:27 PM
Yep. That's what you get with gamers. :)

I couldn't finish the comic today until I had solved the code either. Then, of course, I went back and re-read it, adding Haley's "real" text where it belonged. :D

Soluna
2005-11-18, 09:45 PM
me too! then do haley's part for my boyfriend while he was reading the strip.

he was rolling up a character while i was reading this. cracking the code.

*smacks forhead*

BurntOfferings
2005-11-19, 12:13 AM
You know, given that the readers figured all this out so quickly, why can't V?
Maybe because he hasn't heard it yet? V isn't in this comic. ;)

Fanatic-Templar
2005-11-19, 01:20 AM
And I thought I was the only one who translated this. What an arrogant fool I was :D.

Gorbash Kazdar
2005-11-19, 01:20 AM
I actually enjoyed trying to pronounce Haley's parts out loud the first time I read it through. I just wish I'd cracked the cypher first... oh well.

Servoz
2005-11-19, 01:26 AM
I didn't find this thread till after I finished translating it myself. I do gotta ask though. Did anyone else get just a little bit of a rush from translating it? Like maybe you were solving some ancient text?

sailor_charon
2005-11-19, 01:37 AM
if anyone cares, here is the decryption key

a - r
b - e
c - t
d - y
e - p/b
f - s
g - w
h - q
i - f
j -
k - z
l - d
m - a
n - u
o - i
p - k
q -
r - n
s - v
t - m
u - c
v - j
w - x
x -
y - h
z -

Just to nitpick, that's an encryption key, not a decryption key. Essentially the same thing, but an important difference for how to use them.

JessmanCA
2005-11-19, 01:57 AM
I figured that it was letter substitution too, but was hoping someone else would figure it out for me, because I am lazy.

Thanks.

Nikolai_II
2005-11-19, 02:43 AM
[...] acrostic [...]

Here's the whole thing translated. It should be noted that Rich made two errors. First, Rich should have put "p" where he put "b" in treasure. (Or he intended that both "p" and "b" would represent "e".) He also misspelled "freakin'" by transposing the "i" and "k".

[...]

F wim prmpu eh r ynrwiu sin mqrm snprfzu’ mnbrvcnp!
I got eaten by a dragon for that freaikn’ treasure!

[...]

Yrnu vmnrfwqm.
Damn straight.

Being "first" is all right, but it is better to be "right" ;)

snprzfu = freakin' - Rich had it right, and it was right the whole time.

It also is "Darn", as a strange bow towards "clean language" even when encrypted ;)

*Wonders how acrostic would apply here: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=8&q=acrostic *

happyjenn97
2005-11-19, 03:37 AM
I figured that it was letter substitution too, but was hoping someone else would figure it out for me, because I am lazy.

Thanks.

Same here. :)

Dark
2005-11-19, 03:44 AM
Translating what Haley said was great fun. And yes, I knew better than to check the forums before I was done :)

xyzchyx
2005-11-19, 04:20 AM
Just to nitpick here...

Since so many people managed to figure it out so quickly, why didn't Durkon's Comprehend Languages spell work?

It seems to me that the only way CL _wouldn't_ have worked is if she really was just babbling, not actually uttering coherent sentences in what only initially appeared to be incomprensible gibberish.

This is one of those "laws of comedic physics" things, right?

Qutha
2005-11-19, 04:51 AM
I had the whole thing translated and my computer crashes. Luckly I remembered enough to put it back together.

It was fun to translate. Eh, what else is there to do at 2 in the morning.

Kish
2005-11-19, 05:02 AM
Just to nitpick here...

Since so many people managed to figure it out so quickly, why didn't Durkon's Comprehend Languages spell work?
Because it's not a language. A simple code--a mental condition--neither is covered by the Comprehend Languages spell.

Zherog
2005-11-19, 08:55 AM
why didn't Durkon's Comprehend Languages spell work?

Along with what Kish said, there's the fact that it was a heck of a lot funnier if comprehend languages failed - so it did.

fryer1
2005-11-19, 10:42 AM
I just thought Haley was talking gibberish, i was not paying enough attention to notice any patterns. :-[

Sped55
2005-11-19, 11:17 AM
how did you do that? Thats just.............. just amazing! I mean, I didn't even think to translate it I thought it was all gibberish! Jese, that was, ugh! Congrates, thats just plain amazing!

Pax
2005-11-19, 11:58 AM
Since so many people managed to figure it out so quickly, why didn't Durkon's Comprehend Languages spell work?
I would say that Rich, as "The GM", has decided that Comprehend Languages works by checking the actual surface thoughts of all creatures in the vicinity - any that are thinking in a language alien to the caster, have the understanding of the sounds being produced input directlyinto the caster's own surface thoughts.

However, since Haley was thinking in common, and believed herself to be speaking comon, the spell simplyignored her as a sorce of required input.

If you come up with a series of "code words" extensive enough to allow you to carry on a conversation that is, to those "in the know", chock full of information .... but, to "outsiders", is pure gibberish ... such an approach would certainly justify a GM to rule that Comprehend Languages didn't work.

Alternately, and with greater simplicity: The spell is named Comprehend Languages ... not Comprehend Codes. That, of course, would imply that the OotS gets itself a good, heapin' helpin' of old 1E "semi-adversarial" GMing on a regular basis ... :grin:

Qutha
2005-11-19, 01:19 PM
However, since Haley was thinking in common, and believed herself to be speaking comon, the spell simplyignored her as a sorce of required input.


But Haley knew she was talking gibberish, since she asked herself why she sounded funny.

I guess we could ask, if someone was so drunk you couldn't understand anything they said... would the spell work on them? With the holy magic mojo coming from Thor, I would say argue yes... but in general probably not.

Ragnarok
2005-11-19, 01:50 PM
She didn't realize that she was speaking jibberish until after the spell failed, so he would have to cast the spell again to get a translation, if Pax is correct.

xyzchyx
2005-11-19, 01:52 PM
Just to elaborate on my nitpickiness, addressing issues which have been raised to counter my last post...

I seem to recall that Comprehend Languages could make sense out of even the way Xaositects (ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xaositects) talk, which is completely random and unpredictable. I would think it should have no problem at all with Haley's cipherspeech, which follows easily predictable and fixed rules.

Oh, and by the way... according to this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_salad_(mental_health)), the Xaositects speech style is similar to a mental health condition (which is why Haley is babbling right now anyways).

Notwithstanding, I recognize that CL not working the way one would expect adds a significant measure of comedic value to the strip that I would not suggest altering for the world.

Hypersmurf
2005-11-19, 03:16 PM
I seem to recall that Comprehend Languages could make sense out of even the way Xaositects (ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xaositects) talk, which is completely random and unpredictable. I would think it should have no problem at all with Haley's cipherspeech, which follows easily predictable and fixed rules.

The spell text specifically states "It does not decipher codes".

Since Hayley is, unwittingly, speaking in code, the spell cannot decipher what she's saying.

Comprehend Languages would be similarly baffled by Pig Latin. If you know the enemy spellcaster listening in on your conversation doesn't speak elvish, but does have Comprehend Languages running, speak Pig Latin elvish, and his spell will just shrug and tell him "I give up".

-Hyp.

Sebastian
2005-11-19, 03:28 PM
Same here. :)

I salute you, brothers in laziness. :)

xyzchyx
2005-11-19, 03:41 PM
The spell text specifically states "It does not decipher codes".

Since Hayley is, unwittingly, speaking in code, the spell cannot decipher what she's saying.


Reasonable. Conceded. My bad for not having the spell description in front of me.

Of course, a Decipher Codes spell would probably be no higher level than a Comprehend Languages... but does the SRD even allow custom spells?

Dark
2005-11-19, 05:09 PM
Would Comprehend Languages really just give up? Or would it render Pig Elvish as Pig Common?

This could get really intricate for complex codes :)

I don't think Pig Latin would qualify as a code, though. It's more like a weird kind of accent.

NEO|Phyte
2005-11-19, 05:40 PM
Would Comprehend Languages really just give up? Or would it render Pig Elvish as Pig Common?

This could get really intricate for complex codes :)

I don't think Pig Latin would qualify as a code, though. It's more like a weird kind of accent.


otnay eallyray

Kish
2005-11-19, 05:42 PM
Of course, a Decipher Codes spell would probably be no higher level than a Comprehend Languages... but does the SRD even allow custom spells?

OotS has featured two*, Evan's Spiked Tentacles of Forced Intrusion and Comprehend Inconsistent Accents.

*If you only remember one of these, you haven't read On the Origin of PCs.

evileeyore
2005-11-19, 09:58 PM
The spell text specifically states "It does not decipher codes".

Since Hayley is, unwittingly, speaking in code, the spell cannot decipher what she's saying.

Comprehend Languages would be similarly baffled by Pig Latin. If you know the enemy spellcaster listening in on your conversation doesn't speak elvish, but does have Comprehend Languages running, speak Pig Latin elvish, and his spell will just shrug and tell him "I give up".

-Hyp.

And Hyp has spoken. For those not in 'the know' when Hype speaks (on D&D rules anyway) even the Spooky Wizards on the Sand Near the Ocean listen.

In this instance I'd allow Sense Motive oo even a high DC on Decipher Script to help solve the Mystery of Haley's Unspeakable Oaths...

Bil123
2005-11-19, 10:11 PM
So how did you people even figure this out :P seriously?? there isn't even a pattern

FacelessSchmuck
2005-11-19, 10:25 PM
So how did you people even figure this out :P seriously?? there isn't even a pattern
Guesswork.

I just decoded it on my own. I felt all smart and geniusy then I come here to brag and there's already three pages about it. ::le sigh::

I hadn't really thought about it because most of yesterday was spent gaming (two crits in one round, huzzah!) and most of today was spent doing yardwork, but I was looking at it earlier today and noticed that certain things were repeated. If things repeat, then it's not random. The simplest assumption was a replacement code, so you work from there until proven wrong.

I couldn't guess at "Mnbrvcnp" right away, so I moved onto the next phrase.

"Wiup! Rdd is fm, wiup!!"
You make an educated guess based on content and letter order. If it's a replacement code, what could she possibly be saying that fits that pattern?

Gone. Wiup. Four different letters, and it makes sense in both places. "Gone! ___ __ __, gone!!" She's very upset.

You start making a key by writing out an alphabet of correct english and writing the Brokenhaleyish letters above it, below it, to the left, whatever as long as you can read your own key.

Next word. "Rdd". What three letter word fits this pattern? The only ones I can think of is "all" and "egg" and the latter doesn't make sense in context. From there I just guessed that it was "Gone! All of it, gone!" and added those letters to my key.

You continue through the comic. Write out the phrase, translate the letters you know, leave blank the ones you don't, and make educated guesses based on the letters you have and the context, then you add the letters that you think are correct to your key. If you get something that doesn't make sense, then you need to reexamine your key.

Of course you have to be smart about it. "Sneak attack bott to the face." Obviously he meant "boot", but the letters don't fit that pattern, therefore we can assume that the key still works.

This method is the reason you can't translate J, Q, X, or Z; Haley didn't say anything with those letters. If she had, we'd have a complete key.

Rich should change up the pattern every comic until they can fix her. It'll be a race.

mlsq42
2005-11-19, 11:15 PM
For me (I worked it out in 5 minutes, hooray for useless brain power), it was the "Qpddi? Qpddi?" part. The only 5 letter word in that configuration that someone repeats like that is Hello, given that no-one's name works. Plus that it fit the context, and away I went.

Of course, the next one will have her speaking in coded Latin or something just to throw us off.

Kish
2005-11-20, 01:03 AM
Of course you have to be smart about it. "Sneak attack bott to the face." Obviously he meant "boot", but the letters don't fit that pattern, therefore we can assume that the key still works.
"eiim" can't be "bott."

sailor_charon
2005-11-20, 01:22 AM
Basic code dechipering algorithm.

You start with anything you know, and from there you fill in the blanks. I for example started with F. Just 'F' at the start of a sentence gave me the clue that F = I. From there I looked for anything else I could figure out. One letter at a time. Eventually, I knew enough that I could make strong translations based on what I saw. I think I took about 15 - 20 minutes because of the frantic nature of the text and because of the encoding not maintaining vowel / consonant roles of letters.

Same technique can be used on Al Bhed in FFX. I was able to translate Al Bhed in about 10 minutes off of less text (maybe 4-5 sentences), mainly with the clue that vowel = other vowel, consonant = other consonant.

xyzchyx
2005-11-20, 03:34 AM
So how did you people even figure this out :P seriously?? there isn't even a pattern

I guess you've never tried your hand at cryptograms before, huh?

Personally, I noticed the cryptographic nature of the speech by the time I had finished reading the 2nd row of panels (conspicuous letter frequency distribution, contraction usage, occasional single letter words, etc). I hand-decoded it within about 15 minutes or so, and had intended to come here and brag when I saw I was far from the first.

But y'know what? It's funnier not knowing.

Jades
2005-11-20, 04:02 AM
Yeah, its relatively simple to decipher script... I've got a +20 modifier though. (Magical equipment)

Actually, I did it all by hand. Wrote down what she said in a notebook and went through picking out letters. Single letter words need to be I, or A. Start with those.

Two letter words are more numerous; but if you know that one letter is either I or A (cause it was one of the one letter words) things quickly become easier to unravel.

Slibs
2005-11-20, 08:42 AM
I just assumed it was gibberish and we'd never know what she said until the book came out and the translated page was a extra.

Hawkeye
2005-11-20, 08:52 AM
I work part time in an insane asylum so I'm used to people talking gibberish to me. Hell, it's like a second language to me.

I thought I was very clever when I decipherd it, but then I realised from this forum that people had done it long before me. Oh well, at least I exercised my brain doing this, it's something that I rarely do.

Tim_Tylor
2005-11-20, 10:44 AM
"Wiup" was the key for me. It looked like a reoccurring word, suggesting there was probably sense in the gabble. Once I guessed it meant "gone", I could recognise "all" and "it's" from context, and guess "believe" and "can't", and from then on it was just more guessing and filling in the blanks. You can also work out that "f" and "r" are "i" and "a" because they sometimes came as single letter words with "F" in uppercase. (And yes, I did register here just to boast. :D )

Dark
2005-11-20, 11:38 AM
I started off guessing that "wiup" was "gold" so I went off on the wrong track for a while :)

Pax
2005-11-20, 03:55 PM
So how did you people even figure this out :P seriously?? there isn't even a pattern

There is a pattern - just as much of a attern as there is to each and every post in this thread. The pattern of language, even if not recongisable with the ewase and lack of conscious effort that a true, LEARNED language affords us.

As others have now observed, the distribution of letters into words of varying lengths, the incidence of repeated letter combinations ... these were the clues that there was mroe there than random letters. To see "wiup", "mnbrvcnp", and "wim" more than once (for just a few examples) means that there probably is sense to the message.

Then, each of us latched onto various, different parts of the message ... and since we were given a context to the individual parts, we were able to intuit the probable dialog behind the encryption - when we "guessed the right meaning", the entire code began to unravel in front of our eyes.

As I said above, for me it was Haley's seventh speech-bubble, where she says " Xqrm? Ui! Yiu’m hic yrnp!" - to me, it was just OBVIOUS that she was protesting the very notion of Belkar telling Elan how she felt about him.

What four-letter, contracted word does someone generally say when they are trying to stop someone from doing something? Yep, don't - and if "yui'm" was "don't", that would make "ui" ... "no". Well, "No! Don't ..." sounds right, and fits quite well.

That gave me only four letters - one of them a vowel. But, it was enough, given knowing the context of the various sub-parts of the message.

Jades
2005-11-20, 05:03 PM
I decipher code for fun. Its a great mental exercise.

Ragnarok
2005-11-20, 07:10 PM
I was far too lazy to translate it, and by the time I got around to it I found it had been done (by around 50 people, apparently). On the other hand, if I had done it, it would have taken me about 5 minutes. If you're looking for a real code breaking challenge doable with pencil & graph paper, try the vegionaires' code (I think that's how it's spelled).

Gorbash Kazdar
2005-11-20, 09:04 PM
If you're talking about the Vigenčre cipher, then, yes, that can be a very difficult one to attack using hand methods. It really depends on how long the key is and how much sample ciphertext you have.

MNJetter
2005-11-21, 02:08 AM
Not to be nitpicky on my first post ever, but......

On the very first post of this thread, Wrecan said that the code was an acrostic.

Actually, an acrostic is a poetry term for a poem that contains a message in the first letter of each word, or each line.

For instance:

Girls going out to the playground, beware.
In the middle of the night,
A stranger lurks. You have
Never seen such size, never felt such utter
Terror at seeing such a monster.

The acrostic is in the first word of each line, and spells GIANT.

This code, however simple, is still a basic cipher. 8)

theangelJean
2005-11-21, 08:06 AM
Okay, I'm rather late into this discussion ... waited the weekend before deciding it was definitely doable.

Just wondering if the two letters for e was a deliberate thing to throw off anyone starting by looking at letter frequencies? Knowing that the most common letter is expected to be 'e' (even if it isn't in this case) can sometimes get you off to a start, and having two letters for 'e' could foil that.

I'm assuming that's why, in the letter substitution language used for magic where I come from, 'e' and another letter both code to 'z'. Stops you doing a direct letter-frequency translation all that easily.

Or maybe that's just _too_ nerdy. I dunno.

[edit: I should read more forums before I post. Monthly forum already said the same thing.]

Wrecan
2005-11-21, 09:58 AM
Wrecan said that the code was an acrostic.

Actually, an acrostic is a poetry term for a poem that contains a message in the first letter of each word, or each line.

You're right. I should have written "cryptogram".

Fezzik_WithaRock
2005-11-21, 02:32 PM
I figured out the code on my own, because i'm just like that. but is there a pattern to it? I couldn't figure any thing out, and if someone did I must hve missed it in this post - too long to read while at work.

so is there an easy pattern, or do you just mix and match your way through? Not that hard, but still . .

Ragnarok
2005-11-21, 06:15 PM
If you're talking about the Vigenčre cipher, then, yes, that can be a very difficult one to attack using hand methods. *It really depends on how long the key is and how much sample ciphertext you have.

I think I can be forgiven for misspelling Vigenčre. Yes, that is what I meant, and yes, breaking it by hand is quite annoying.

JessmanCA
2005-11-21, 10:55 PM
So how did you people even figure this out :P seriously?? there isn't even a pattern

Just figure out the vowels and the rest becomes a game of Wheel of Fortune.

Gorbash Kazdar
2005-11-22, 12:15 AM
I think I can be forgiven for misspelling Vigenčre. Yes, that is what I meant, and yes, breaking it by hand is quite annoying.
Oops, I didn't mean my post to come out so snarky :P I can only plead distraction and annoyance with an outside factor (I was playing with my Enigma simulator and messed up the settings, thus totally bolloxing a decrypt. Worse, I had accidentally deleted the ciphertext, so I had to start over from scratch on the test I was running).

Halfling
2005-11-22, 01:08 AM
First impressions for me was F=V for Vaarsuvius and Wiup= Fire, Xqrm =Elan and MQP =not. But then after thinking about Haley, I realized the first word had to be TREASURE!, and it fit. I just think she's in shock and just a bit addled at the moment, after losing the money to free her Dad. When I saw the inn blow up, and the coin roll in, I immediately thought, " Oh, no. Poor Haley." :(

somebodyelse
2005-11-22, 02:46 AM
What's she say in todays? It doesn't appear to be the same cipher as the previous.

alphatango
2005-11-22, 02:46 AM
Well, here's my attempt at #248:

Ry dgose du ecggqv rt oii wkssu-emksnrsb.
It means my speech is all funny-sounding.

Qmdg obors?
Come again?


Qos emdghmnu cigoeg bgy zggcu ytoseegfkoi mww dg?
Can somebody please get weepy transsexual off me?

There seem to be a couple of minor typos, either on the friendly Giant's part or due to my poor decoding skills. Probably the latter. :P

triffid
2005-11-22, 02:47 AM
Or to throw you off. ;)

Yeah, that matches with what I worked out.

TheGreatJabu
2005-11-22, 02:59 AM
Aww, man. Only after I posted the new thread did I see that AlphaTango beat me by 2 minutes. I made sure to give you credit for being first in an Edit at the bottom. You lucky rascal! :)

phlip
2005-11-22, 03:00 AM
I got g=e since it's the most frequent letter by far, then got "off me" at the end, but then I guessed "Some" instead of "Come" which threw me off...

xyzchyx
2005-11-22, 03:14 AM
Interesting that you noticed the letter 'g' as being 'e' first. The first thing I really got was 'wkssu-emksnrsb'='funny sounding'. This of course led to 'mww' having to be a three-letter word ending in two f's. The only normal usage english word there is that fits is 'off'. There are other 3-letter possibilities, but they wouldn't be likely to be used in OotS. So with the second last word of that sentence being off, and considering the image in the panel, it followed that the last word could be 'me', and indeed, as you noticed immediately and I only noticed at this point, 'g' was common enough to pass for the letter 'e'. After filling in all those letters, the rest of it was very simple.

Jades
2005-11-22, 03:18 AM
oii had to be either all, see, or off by my guestimation. I don't know many words that follow that structure. Plug in what I can guess. Three lines of decoding.

Ry was either it or is. I was working on six lines, but by then I had either

is mea-- m- --ee

and

it mea-- m-...

I took It mea and took a guess from there.

It all fell into place.

phlip
2005-11-22, 07:05 AM
Well, there's already a Perl decoder (http://www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=comics;action=display;num=1132340412 ;start=45#58) (which would be much simpler if JumpingBean knew about tr///), a VB.net decoder (http://www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=comics;action=display;num=1132340412 ;start=60#66) (might be an encoder too, I haven't looked), a Python decoder (http://www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=comics;action=display;num=1132340412 ;start=60#67), an obfuscated C decoder (http://www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=comics;action=display;num=1132340412 ;start=75#80), a generic Javascript transcoder (http://www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=comics;action=display;num=1132340412 ;start=90#99), a Javascript scriptlet decoder (http://www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=comics;action=display;num=1132340412 ;start=120#123)... what's left?

I've made a PHP version (http://users.insaniquariumguide.com/phlip/haley.php), encoder/decoder for both codes, unknown characters transcode as ? rather than the guesswork used before, and the letters that could encode to two different letters are picked at random.

I'm thinking of doing some more estioic ones... currently making a whitespace version...

Eldhrin
2005-11-22, 07:35 AM
Nobody's done a Haskell decoder yet. Perhaps I'll do that if I get bored.

Sorry, boreder.

(edit: and one day I'll even learn to spell)

edit 2: okay so I really did get bored and wrote the following:


module Main where

import Data.Char
import Data.List
import System (getArgs)

crypt :: String
crypt = "retypswqfbzdauikgnvmcjxlho"

cryptedLetterToIndex :: Char -> Maybe Int
cryptedLetterToIndex c = findIndex (==c) crypt

decryptLetter :: Char -> Char
decryptLetter c = case cryptedLetterToIndex $ toLower c of
Just i -> chr $ i + (ord 'a')
Nothing -> c

decipher :: String -> String
decipher = map decryptLetter

main = do args <- getArgs
print $ decipher $ head args

Nothing brilliant, and it only works on the first variant of the code, although to make it work with the second it's a simple matter of replacing the definition of 'crypt' with a string that contains the letter pattern for the second strip's cipher. It turns everything into lowercase in the process of decryption, but I don't consider that particularly essential. It also can't cope with multiple keys for each letter. It expects the thing to decode as the first command line argument, and gives a nicely unfriendly Prelude error message if there's no argument to be found.

In short, it's moderately lame, but it is nice and concise. The really proper version would define the decrypt pattern as a list of pairs of crypted letter and letter, use that to build a Data.Map and then look things up in there.

But that list would be a lot of typing of awkward punctuation, and I'm not that bored.

Oh, and in the version of this on my computer, there are three more functions which perform encoding, but I left them out of this one for clarity. Tested with GHC 6.4.1, should work with a recent Hugs too.

JumpingBean
2005-11-22, 09:28 AM
Well, there's already a Perl decoder (http://www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=comics;action=display;num=1132340412 ;start=45#58) (which would be much simpler if JumpingBean knew about tr///),

Oh yeah. I forgot about that. Thanks. Its been a while since I coded in Perl and my old decoder got lost in the hard drive crash of '04.

Geech000
2005-11-22, 09:34 AM
I was wondering when people would actually make a decoder/recoder for these. Good work to everyone who actually spent the time to do it. And congrats to The Giant for making such awsome comics.

AtomicKitKat
2005-11-22, 10:55 AM
Here it is, complete with typos.




Ry dgose du ecggqv rt oii wkssu-emksnrsb
It means my speech ir(is) all funny-sounding

Qmdg abors?
Come again?

Qos emdghmnu cigoeg bgy zggcu ytoseegfkoi mww dg?
Can somebody please get(this) weepy transsexual off me?



This is the key:

A=O/A B=H C=Q D=N E=G
F=W G=B H=V I=R J=?
K=? L=I M=D N=S O=M
P=C Q=? R=T S=E T=Y
U=K V=? W=Z X=F Y=U
Z=?

Anything in parantheses in the quote are missing words/correct words.

As you can see, A can be either O or A.

Hydro
2005-11-22, 11:00 AM
That was the funniest news post ever.

phlip
2005-11-22, 01:08 PM
New decoder for the #247 code, written in Whitespace (http://compsoc.dur.ac.uk/whitespace/).

Get it (http://users.insaniquariumguide.com/phlip/haley.ws)
Get my interpreter (written in Python) (http://users.insaniquariumguide.com/phlip/pywhitespace.zip) - it runs fine under the haskell interpreter on the official site, but it plays a little nicer with my one.

Now that that's over, perhaps someone can show me this "life" thing I've heard so much about...

Darkling
2005-11-22, 11:19 PM
Sweet, thanks for doing the translation work for me. I was way to lazy to do it myself. That helps alot!!

Nightfall
2005-11-22, 11:53 PM
Are you guys sure you don't work for the government? ;)

Gorbash Kazdar
2005-11-23, 12:08 AM
I can neither confirm nor deny that statement. 8)

Darkling
2005-11-23, 12:12 AM
I can conferm that my affiliation with the goverment has ended.

rwald
2005-11-23, 01:37 AM
oii had to be either all, see, or off by my guestimation. I don't know many words that follow that structure. Plug in what I can guess. Three lines of decoding.

Ry was either it or is. I was working on six lines, but by then I had either

is mea-- m- --ee

and

it mea-- m-...

I took It mea and took a guess from there.

It all fell into place.
Oddly, I started decoding by seeing that "Qmdg abors?" had to be "Come again?" I then got that the third bubble needed to start with "Can somebody please", and I worked back and forth from there.

ADRegner
2005-11-23, 02:25 AM
If anyone is interested, I have made a new version of my visual basic encoder/decoder that supports both versions of Haley-speak. In it, I also fixed a couple bugs and issues from the older version.

You can download it from my server here. (http://www.aregner.com/redir.php?name=OotS%20Translate%20v2&url=http://public.aregner.com/OotS_Translate_v2.exe) It is programmed in Visual Basic .NET, so you will need to have the Microsoft .NET framework installed to run it. If you don't have that you can download that from Microsoft here. (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=262d25e3-f589-4842-8157-034d1e7cf3a3&displaylang=en)

I'd appreciate any input anyone may have. If any other programmers out there are interested in the source code, let me know and I can send that to you.

Have fun. :)

Ellisthion
2005-11-23, 08:23 AM
Hmm... I bet there's a few others out there trying to solve the #249 cipher... I just can't work out anything that would fit pid'cq ...

Cog05
2005-11-23, 08:31 AM
I don't have any magic computer decoders, but the logical translation for #249 would be "Maybe you're right...". Cursory inspection reveals it fits.

Ellisthion
2005-11-23, 08:36 AM
Well, I just tried a magical computer decoder, which came up with "PLACE YOU'RE RIGHT", which makes NO sense...

It can't be maybe, because then the 3rd letter of the first word would be the same as the 1st of the second... besides, it doesn't match her expression.

However, I can't think of anything else that fits the second word, so it's probably "you're", and "right" makes sense... so what's the first?

EDIT: But there's ZILLIONS of 5 letter words ending with E! Unless it's the same code as one of the previous two comics, we're doomed!

Arhra
2005-11-23, 08:48 AM
Being something of a lurker, I'll just pop out and say I'm guessing it was "Maybe you're right". Although the letters don't match that unfortunately. Probably something along those lines anyway.

Cog05
2005-11-23, 09:11 AM
It can't be maybe, because then the 3rd letter of the first word would be the same as the 1st of the second... besides, it doesn't match her expression.

Didn't one of the other comics have a similar issue with two different letters standing in for one? As far as expression, I'd say it fits.

Sylian
2005-11-23, 09:23 AM
"Maybe you're right" is probably right.
M, A, and B only gets used once, but E and Y twice.
Hmm, Y maybe is both H and P?
Or maybe it is something else...
****e you're right.

Cog05
2005-11-23, 09:42 AM
With only one sentence though, are we even going to be able to know conclusively?

TripleAught
2005-11-23, 10:12 AM
Hey, I figured it out. Maybe I should email Rich...

:P

MasseJoark
2005-11-23, 10:40 AM
Nah. There's too many letters in "Maybe I should Email Rich" for that to be what she says. <smiles>

MJ

sterashu
2005-11-23, 11:29 AM
The Voice of Mod: Sadly, insulting me on my own message board is technically against the Rules of Posting. Imagine that.

Cog05
2005-11-23, 11:47 AM
The Voice of Mod: Edit the original, edit the quote.

I doubt he intended to hurt anyone's feelings, it's kinda understandable to be cranky when you're deluged with that many emails. Just because you held him in high regard doesn't mean he's not human. Anyway, it's hardly something to get so upset about.

rowe
2005-11-23, 12:36 PM
It's one thing to get cranky about receiving emails; it's another thing altogether to insult your fans so blatantly. Is it that hard to nicely acknowledge your fan base with something like this?

'Hey everyone, I'm excited that you're having fun with Haley's cryptic speech but I'm getting a bit overwhelmed with the amount of translation emails coming in. I think it's great that you're figuring out my cryptograms but please stop sending emails about it - thanks and enjoy the comic!'

Asmodeus
2005-11-23, 01:53 PM
I wonder if its supposed to be four words? "I hope you're right"

Edit: No, the 'i' in 'right' doesn't match. nevermind.

Swiftbow
2005-11-23, 02:49 PM
Just had to show this off, since I made it awhile back :)

Decoder Ring! (http://swiftbow.com/Downloads/DecoderRing.zip)

You can load any decoder/encoder data into it, which are held in text files (extension .dec). You can create them or use the one I included (Haley2.dec). It is case-sensitive.

Made in C++ by the way!

rowe
2005-11-23, 04:26 PM
Neat ring, Swiftbow. It didn't seem to want to encode 'K' but I added U=K again and now it works.

VariaVespasa
2005-11-23, 04:55 PM
He *was* a little... terse... in his post. We may be geeky, but it didnt feel good, to be sure. :(

*Hugs*
Varia

TheGreatJabu
2005-11-23, 05:05 PM
It's one thing to get cranky about receiving emails; it's another thing altogether to insult your fans so blatantly.

Although it's true that he could, if he felt like it, have made a more politically correct message, but look at his situation. I doubt he would have made Haley speak in code just to amuse himself. He KNEW that his viewers were intelligent, and he wanted them to have the challenge of figuring out what she says. If he intentionally set up this situation under the assumption that all of his viewers are smart people, it would get a little tiring to have a handful go "the extra mile to show how smart they are" by emailing him. He probably gets tons of emails every day from little fanboys/girls just saying "oMg Ur CoMiC oWnZ1!" I see this code as an interesting way of..trying to have an intelligent conversation hidden in his comics. The people that email him about their accomplishments are just being a little childish. It's like having a conversation about the philosophy of Nietzsche and having someone run up and start yelling "DID YOU KNOW HE WAS FROM GERMANY?"

If we're lucky, this situation hasn't irritated him enough to make him STOP giving us opportunities to decipher Haleyspeak ourselves. On topic, I haven't even tried to figure out today's code, but I think the consensus assumption of "maybe you're right" is probably right. I hope the next comic lends itself to a greater challenge, but we'll have to see.

fryer1
2005-11-23, 05:29 PM
Is anyone going to decode #249?

Ellisthion
2005-11-23, 06:06 PM
Is anyone going to decode #249?


Try reading the bottom of the previous page.
EDIT: Or, rather, page 6, 'cause this went to a new page

On that note, people have said "Maybe you're right" twice, but I think the "maybe" is wrong because:
1. The code isn't 100% right for that.
2. Haley's expression does not match that.

The Giant
2005-11-23, 06:32 PM
Actually, I encourage you guys to solve the cryptograms, that's what they're there for. I have a problem with not being able to access my email account because there is a flood of emails saying the exact same thing over and over--especially when the solution has been on the message board since 37 minutes after the comic went up. Plus, the number of people who demanded a response from me was a little unnerving. A few people have actually written several times asking why I haven't confirmed their translation and asking for credit for being the "first" to decipher it.

So yeah, I was a bit snippy. Sorry about that.

Brax_Grimbold
2005-11-23, 07:41 PM
First things first, much thanks to the Giant for enriching the gaming and online community through his creativity and hard work.

Secondly, everyone else who is steaming over the whole message board thing - chill. It is a comic and the guy (Giant) is a human being who gets just as stressed as the rest of us. Let it go.

Now, as for Haley's messages. The one today is more than likely "maybe you're right".

Thanks for the fun big guy. And Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Brax.

Maelin
2005-11-23, 09:45 PM
Finally made an account to share in all the cryptography fun.

I decoded the first one myself, then hit the forum to see if other people had done it too. I made a perfunctory attempt at the second but couldn't be bothered with it so checked here, and came straight here for the third.

But I'll probably try the next one!

Anyway, if people are all e-mailing our beloved Giant about this stuff, it'd probably be easiest to just pre-write an e-mail (something like, "Thanks for your support, but I have been overwhelmed with e-mail recently about these cryptograms and do not have the time to respond to requests about it. Perhaps you should check out the thread dedicated to this topic on the forums at http://wwww.blahblah.com.com!") and send it off to them all.

Anyway, thanks for the puzzly goodness! They've been fun :)

Maelin

IRSWalker
2005-11-23, 10:03 PM
Given the news post, at least we can easily translate #249 now:

"Crowd typ'ed email..."

I'll get me coat.

Darkling
2005-11-23, 11:34 PM
oh man guys, you gotta stop emailing rich about this I mean seriously. I know what it feels like to be flooded with too many e-mails about the same thing over and over. Feel sorry for you rich man. Maybe I'd suggest doing a mass message to all the e-mails at once saying "ok you got it, please do not e-mail me about this again" or something like that, that's what I did when I got overwhelmed with stuff about my website from all the halo idiots in my halo clan....

Kulatu
2005-11-24, 08:26 AM
That sucks Giant, I feel your pain. :(

I personally am too lazy to decode cryptograms, I'd rather come here and read the 500 decodings posted by 500 other people.

Ellisthion
2005-11-24, 08:31 AM
ANYWAY does anyone have a suggestion that ISN'T "Maybe you're right"? (which I'm sure doesn't match her expression)

Mystery
2005-11-24, 08:45 AM
It clearly says, "While you're roman." OK, maybe not.

Has anyone considered that the middle word might be "you've"? (I doubt that it is, since the next word would almost certainly have to end in '-ed', and there isn't an 'e' in the right position.)

Vargtass
2005-11-24, 09:45 AM
The "you're right"-part can still be valid, but until a suggested spelling mistake is confirmed, we should not accept a solution that assumes one. Therefore, if "you're right" is indeed right, then "maybe" is wrong. So, inspecting the first word, it can for example end with able, aple, ane, ale, NALE (it's a conspiracy!), awle, wale, aze, ace, ase, etc.

Acceptable consonants would then include b, c, d, f, j, k, l, m, n, p, q (but rarely without u), s, v, w, x, z.

Ring any bells? I racked my brain going from Stockholm to Uppsala over this, but perhaps my English glossary is short of words.

Vargtass
2005-11-24, 09:48 AM
On another angle, we may assume that "Maybe" xxx're right" is right, but I'm lost in filling the blanks for that one, as the Y in "you" is disallowed.

Otherwise, I agree with Ellisthion and Mystery. We should be looking for alternatives!

sailor_charon
2005-11-24, 11:36 AM
There seems to be a lot of contention about the reading "maybe you're right". You know, the problem is cryptogram deciphering is a realm of pure negative proofs like science. That means that to say it IS this you need to also say it ISN'T _anything_ else. To prove a translation correct, you must disprove every other translation in existence.

That means that we can never prove these, because we just do not have the time. Remember that encryption schemes can become INCREDIBLY complex, including multiple alternating charts, or previous letter modification, so it's just assumed that the first two Haley speeches were translated correctly. It can't be proven. There are a countably infinite number of encryption schemes that could be used. It can be proven (although I don't know the technique) that this is Turing Machine unsolvable.

Replace 'th' with one letter, and that screws people in the head a whole lot. And that's a simple one. For all we know, the whole texts are backwards when Haley speaks. So, if you want a definitive proof, start bugging Rich, but don't be surprised when he mail bombs you in revenge for harassing him.

Now, we can make some assumptions. One is that this is a 1 letter to 1 letter replacement scheme. We can't assume a lack of repetition. We also know that the middle word is xxx'xx. That is almost certainly you're or you've. Nothing else comes to mind, if someone CAN give me a word there, we can consider that.

Five letter words starting with r or v: right makes a lot of sense. Vampy doesn't. Rigor doesn't. Maybe you're rigor. Maybe you're right makes sense. It fits, it follows the rules, lets get on to accepting it or thinking of another VALID replacement. Don't nay say for the sake of it, because the truth is we haven't proven a single cryptogram yet.

Midnight Son
2005-11-24, 12:21 PM
Yes we have. The Giant stated that someone got the first one in about a half hour. Therefore, It is correct to say that that someone(I could say who if I was willing to take the time to check) has proven the first cryptogram.

Elrohir
2005-11-24, 05:50 PM
Hasn't it occoured(?) to anyone that one letter might have different translations, or am I just being plain stupid now?!?

my english isn't the best

triffid
2005-11-24, 09:04 PM
Isn't a single letter having multiple applications a standard feature of HaleyCypher by now? ;)

Slibs
2005-11-24, 09:24 PM
I wonder if any of Haley's speech's will say "Be Sure to drink your Ovaltine"?

Sorry, just watched Christmas Story.

monster
2005-11-24, 11:46 PM
I'm not sure there's really enough letters in the key to conclusively deduce what Haley says.

Probably something secretly derogatory like "Stop emailing me and get a life you stupid nerdy freaks!"

Only, uh.... shorter and more to the point.

j/k

I'm sure Rich is really nice deep down inside. Hell, who doesn't have a bad hair day now and then? hehe.

Maelin
2005-11-25, 12:24 AM
I can think of these words in the form xxx'xx off the top of my head

you'll (you will)
you've (you have)
you're (you are)
she'll (she will)
had've (had have)
not've (not have - not commonly accepted, but not impossible)
xxx'll (xxx will - any three letter noun, e.g. 'cat' 'Tim')

The only problem with "Maybe you're right" is that we have two cypher symbols to represent Y - H and P - but in a simple substitution cypher this many-to-one is perfectly allowable. What -isn't- allowed is having one cypher symbol representing many message symbols, because this leads to ambiguity. In previous Haley cyphers, I believe, we've had the allowed many-to-one relationships before (on the pretty fair assumption that our translations, which were internally consistent and fitting in context, were correct), so it's reasonable to expect it could have been used here as well.

Of course, as sailor_charon eloquently explained, we can never know for -certain- unless the person who encoded the message (the Giant, in this case) explicitly states the message, explains the cypher system, or says, "Yep, that's right." to our translation, but we can make well-reasoned guesses.

Maelin

sailor_charon
2005-11-25, 01:46 AM
you'll (you will)
you've (you have)
you're (you are)
she'll (she will)
had've (had have)
not've (not have - not commonly accepted, but not impossible)
xxx'll (xxx will - any three letter noun, e.g. 'cat' 'Tim')

Now that's a good list.

The 4th letter is either v, r, or l in any of these. So, I've worked to compile a list of words that I can think of to match those letters.

Labor, Lacks, Laugh, Locks, Lords, Lemon, Lasts.
Rabid, Rigor, Right, Rolls, Roger, Ritzy, Ramen, Retap.
Valid, Voice, Value, Venue, Views.

I'm still not seeing anything. Maybe my list can be expanded (perhaps cutting and pasting the original, with additions would be good to avoid repetition).

If we're going to look for alternatives, we might as well assume a many-to-1 letter map that uses single replacement, and only a single replacement table, to keep it simple. We can at least disprove a large area of the solution space to make it more likely that 'maybe you're right' is correct.

Kruxx06
2005-11-25, 07:33 AM
I'm suprised nobody has mentioned that they would be of the 'nt abbrivation. So it would work out to be something like

_ _ _ _ t _ _ _'nt n _ _ _ _

all sorts of contractions end in nt.

Rawhide
2005-11-25, 07:35 AM
Thats n't as in hadn't, unfortunately.

Vaarsuvius_Prime
2005-11-25, 07:49 AM
'em?

sailor_charon
2005-11-25, 09:13 AM
'em?

can'em? Wil'em? Show'em? Dye'em?

_____m dye'em ember?

I don't think that has much direction. Truth is, most of us have considered different endings, we just haven't found any five letter words that match the pattern besides the ones mentioned. I considered and threw away can't for example.

FlashFire
2005-11-25, 09:50 AM
Perhaps the apostrophe has been used as a letter this time???

gibson
2005-11-25, 10:21 AM
I´m fairly sure the translation in the #249 starts with "Maybe". There are several hints for this in the other parts of the dialogue, for the word "maybe" is used by Roy when it is not needed by the storyline.

Monsoon
2005-11-25, 12:11 PM
Translation is likely to be "Maybe you're right".

Zoena
2005-11-25, 04:30 PM
Wow, so many people with so much time on their hands... :o

I work over 50 hours a week so I was content to not know what she was saying, just like the characters.. But them, I'm a heavy roleplayer ;)

Swordster
2005-11-25, 07:48 PM
I gave it a half-hearted attempt, but I have no patience for such things. However, I must say that I think Haley's expression does correspond to "Maybe you're right..." said in a rather disbelieving way. It's a sort of depressed, introspetive, but not-quite-ready-to-give-up look.

lazysailor
2005-11-25, 11:08 PM
Just to comment on how much of a life you guys have.... almost none lol. you actually spent time figuring out the gibberish... i'm speechless.

Starla
2005-11-25, 11:59 PM
Yes but thanks to this thread Haley isn't (or is it is'nt? ;D)

Wukei
2005-11-26, 12:24 AM
Did you ever think that the reason Haley looks so surprised is that Elan came up with a reasonably good idea?

Grey Watcher
2005-11-26, 01:38 AM
Just to comment on how much of a life you guys have.... almost none lol. you actually spent time figuring out the gibberish... i'm speechless.

Yeah, because 5 minutes to solve a cryptogram clearly leaves us with no time for a life. Of course, we're gamer geeks, so we don't have lives anyway, but that's beside the point. ;D

sailor_charon
2005-11-26, 10:22 AM
Just to comment on how much of a life you guys have.... almost none lol. you actually spent time figuring out the gibberish... i'm speechless.


It's like a puzzle! It's fun and entertaining. It's also way more fun than TV. :-P.

c_olsen73
2005-11-27, 12:16 AM
Ya.. I just posted a new thread about why we spend so much time on other things... It is fun, and I can't wait for haley to not be cured, because puzzles are a good time.

Maelin
2005-11-27, 05:26 AM
Just to comment on how much of a life you guys have.... almost none lol. you actually spent time figuring out the gibberish... i'm speechless.
Here you are, reading a forum for a webcomic about Dungeons and Dragons, and yet you have the audacity to accuse other people of having no life? You absolute spanner.

In other news, with any luck we'll get double the cryptographic fun in the double-length #250!

Maelin

Aidan305
2005-11-27, 08:31 PM
As opposed to, say, a four letter word which is likely an insult?

CharPixie
2005-11-27, 08:41 PM
oh! took me too long to get.

Swordster
2005-11-27, 08:42 PM
As opposed to, say, a four letter word which is likely an insult?

Yea, anyone want to give that one a shot? ;D

I really shouldn't open my mouth. One of the smart people here will probably respond with a logical answer and a well-written explanation for it.

Erathia
2005-11-27, 08:47 PM
Do you have any idea how much speculation that's going to trigger? Now people are going to go back to the previous three cryptograms to try and figure out of there's some sort of progression between letter switching in each comic to determine what she had to say.

For example! In the first comic "A" was represented by the letter "R", followed by "O" and then "T" - a regression of 3 then a progression of 5, so the A in this cryptogram must clearly be a regression of 7 from "T", the letter M! Since M is not in Haley's speech this comic, we know that whatever she's saying can't have an "M" in it.

For anyone making fun of us, this is an example of spending too much time on a cryptogram

McScope
2005-11-27, 09:33 PM
i miss the long cyphers, they were fun. i hope there are more in the future.
it seems haley has realized the futility of talking when no one can understand you.

RBloom0566
2005-11-27, 09:39 PM
As opposed to, say, a four letter word which is likely an insult?

Well, two factors weigh heavily here -
1) Profanity is not prohibited from the strip. (Not a judgement, just an observation pertinent to my conclusion).
2) Miko and Haley's relationship is purely hate-hate, so I can see the worst possible reference being used.

Given those, I conclude that there are two likely four-letter words to use. One rhymes with glut, but the worst rhymes with punt.

Feel free to confirm or deny.

Lucky2
2005-11-27, 09:47 PM
I would have gone with 'jerk'....

Eriol
2005-11-27, 10:10 PM
Given those, I conclude that there are two likely four-letter words to use. One rhymes with glut, but the worst rhymes with punt.

Feel free to confirm or deny.
I'll go with "What is 'worst'?" Alex. The "s" one just doesn't fit for Miko in the least. Sabine probably, but just about the opposite of Miko, and the context doesn't make it a good place for irony.

Gorbash Kazdar
2005-11-27, 10:12 PM
Unfortunately, the ciphertext sample in comic #250 is too small to perform any meaningful cryptanalysis on. :( All we can do is guess which four letter word fits best.

Lilly
2005-11-27, 10:41 PM
Unfortunately, the ciphertext sample in comic #250 is too small to perform any meaningful cryptanalysis on. :( All we can do is guess which four letter word fits best.


I'm gonna bet it's not forum appropiate though.

Kevlimin_Soulaxe
2005-11-27, 11:01 PM
Ugly?

Maelin
2005-11-27, 11:52 PM
*reads the latest strip*

Ohhh, that's just mean, Rich :(

There might be some kind of pattern to the various cyphers, as Erathia mentioned. I haven't the patience to go through that kind of thing, though. Breaking a simple substitution cypher is about as far as I can be bothered to go without something more rewarding than knowing which four-letter insult was used at the end.

It's -probable- that there aren't any repetitions in this one, but by no means guaranteed - previous cyphers have used several distinct symbols in the encoded text to represent the same letter in the decoded text.

But regardless, I think Rich has gotten tired of all the e-mail that he's been getting and put a stop to our cryptographic fun :(

Maelin

OperationTREX
2005-11-28, 12:33 AM
I think Haley says "Star" though It doesn't sound very insulting.

Thats the only mathmaticlly viable soultion I could come up with. Though theres no rules that it's even based on English now is there?

Now I "need" to know what it says or I won't be able to function.

ZacK88
2005-11-28, 12:36 AM
Might be Crap... or the other one

OperationTREX
2005-11-28, 12:43 AM
Might be Crap... or the other one

crap and the other don't work unless I messed up my math. ...hmm it could be "Rats" if I inverted the decode forumla I used.

Edit: I don't think it's based on numbers though. Stab my eyes this vexxes me!

Beelzebub1111
2005-11-28, 02:17 AM
Well, it's a four letter word that is most likely an insult to Miko...
*ponders for a moment*
OH! umm...yeah...I REALY shouldn't say the word that I think she said...

EDIT: If you want to know what it is the clue is "Carlin #4"

Midnight Son
2005-11-28, 02:26 AM
If I were Rich and I wanted to use a word I had stated was not going to be used in the comic(not PG-13), An unsolvable cipher is just the way I'd probably go if the opportunity arose.

thespyder
2005-11-28, 03:57 AM
um, guys, you're over-thinking this. im pretty sure she said "what" the only reason we have any confusion is because rich didn't put a "?" at the end of it because that would probably make it too obvious. it really seems to be a word describing her confusion and outrage at miko's belief in her greed being the downfall of the treasure, since as we know, she isn't gathering wealth for a greedy purpose.

Charity322
2005-11-28, 04:24 AM
I thought there should have been an extra letter in there and that the word should have started with B. :P

Lianae
2005-11-28, 04:42 AM
Yeah, I'm with Charity!
I don't think it's a super-rude word though, "Jerk" sounds about right to me

Mystery
2005-11-28, 05:00 AM
Ahem? Brat?

thecoweyed
2005-11-28, 09:26 AM
Ahem? Brat?

Brat! I like that one :)

Danke, Mystery, for saving my mind from the depths of the gutters. I had totally assumed 'the worst' and was sort of scandalized! Until I realized that the only person scandalizing me was myself. ;)

Brat. It works so well :)

TCE

Entertainer13
2005-11-28, 04:20 PM
I think the point with this one, is we get to fill in whatever word we want.

WiccanWolf
2005-11-28, 06:47 PM
EDIT: If you want to know what it is the clue is "Carlin #4"

Nice clue. :D

^.".^

Krytha
2005-11-28, 08:27 PM
Jerk does seem appropriate for the situation yeah...

Arturius
2005-11-28, 08:58 PM
While I don't know what Haley said in #250, I can make a decent guess of "Slut".

thecoweyed
2005-11-28, 11:00 PM
While I don't know what Haley said in #250, I can make a decent guess of "Slut".

But 'slut' doesn't even really make sense. I mean, sure, as a generic insult against a female... but it REALLY doesn't apply in this situation. It's like saying 'blameless Aegisthus.' Miko has never done anything worthy of being called a slut; nay, rather, 'prude' might be the more appropriate term. But in context, I think we need a word that connotes Miko's hypercredulous nature where divinities and divine retribution are concerned. Failing that, I think something (as others have posted before) like 'jerk' or 'brat' will do.

Let's see... four-letter word for someone susperstitious and hyperreligious... *think*

TCE

MyriadSouls
2005-11-29, 01:04 AM
I vote for the standard four-letter rebuttal to any sort of insulting statement:

"STFU"
;D ;D ;D

Scubasteve0209
2005-11-29, 02:15 AM
Despite my "newbness" I have been following the Crypto thread from the beginning.

Honestly, I don't think theres a cypher for this one. I'll bet Hailey's text was left vague and only Four letters with the knowlege that we would write in our own text and assume the worst.

Personally I prefer the "runt" option (sanitized for viewer discretion.... Stupid FCC)

Arturius
2005-11-29, 03:19 AM
"Slut" makes just as much sense as anything else. She's stressed out about the gold, losing her speech, and Miko's talking. Not just that, but the talking is refering to Haley in a holier-than-thou form. Although "****" would work just as well, or even "Dyke". Those are the only four-letter word insults meant for women that I can think of.

mec
2005-11-29, 03:27 AM
I lean towards "nerd" or "dork".

Haley did call Royetta "slut" in #237, but I can't see her calling Miko that with, well, nothing to hang it on. "nerd", "dork", "geek", and "doofus", "square", "teacher's pet", and "goody-two-shoes" would be more like it.

I don't think Haley has very much of a foul mouth -- she says "darn straight" instead of "damn straight", "witch" instead of "bitch". Belkar and Roy say "bitch" so it's not purely a family- language-in-the-comic thing.

Errr, I am treading on dangerous ground here, thinking about insults that one character might be using against another.

Invariel
2005-11-29, 09:26 AM
I think she said (sarcastically, according to her facial expression), "Cute." That's the term I use when someone decides to overexplain something that has had dire consequences.

Asfrith
2005-11-29, 10:43 AM
I think she said (sarcastically, according to her facial expression), "Cute." That's the term I use when someone decides to overexplain something that has had dire consequences.

Ingenious! I totally agree!

Drerek
2005-11-29, 11:07 AM
I think the Giant is just laughing his butt off at our attempts to figure out what Haley said. :)

mr.bob
2005-11-29, 11:40 AM
So does Roy's bluntness at the end of #250 mean we can speculate more accurately on what Haley said in #250?

Brainded
2005-11-29, 02:04 PM
Has anyone thought of something so simple as a nice sarcastic "Sure."

I think it would fit with Haley's persona, as well as being contextually appropriate. "Crap," "Slut," etc. just don't seem Haley - they would essentially be an admission that what Miko says is correct, and that Haley's greed caused a bunch of trouble. I can't see her making that kind of admission. Just my $.02.

Arturius
2005-11-29, 02:29 PM
Haley's not above resorting to more obscene insults. Check out #53.

Brainded
2005-11-29, 02:46 PM
I agree fully that Haley does not pass her speech through a political correctness filter. But neither does she just blurt anything out - her epithets have always been very contextual. Dropping a random one-word insult here just doesn't seem like her, especially when it's the only word she utters. It doesn't matter what that one-word insult is. I just feel that the sarcastic response is more in character for her. She could just have easily have said, "Whatever."

stilettoblade
2005-11-29, 03:00 PM
upon reading this strip, i imagined all sorts of chaos in the cypher thread... but i see others have already joked about that.

personally, i'm leaning toward either the "jerk" or the "cute/sure/what?" ideas. i agree that an insult beyond jerk seems out of place here, and out of character in general for Haley.

fhthd
2005-11-29, 04:52 PM
Its 'Wlig', I dont know what the heck that is supposed to mean but thats the translation.

fhthd
2005-11-29, 04:56 PM
Its 'Wlig', I dont know what the heck that is supposed to mean but thats the translation.

fhthd
2005-11-29, 05:09 PM
Its 'Wlig', I dont know what the heck that is supposed to mean but thats the translation.

The Glyphstone
2005-11-29, 05:58 PM
1: Hi, and welcome to the boards, fhthd! Remember, triple-posting is Bad!!!111!!

2: The problem with that is that each comic uses a separate cipher, so the four-letter word could be almost anything.

Invariel
2005-11-29, 06:44 PM
"Sure." seems a tad more logical than "Cute.", but just as sarcastic. It'd be really nice to see what Rich intended, though.

hairball
2005-11-30, 12:42 AM
I think she said something longer than four letters, and Rich decided this time to let one letter in the cipher equal two (or more) letters together in the unencrypted text.

I am officially putting in my vote for the word "squirrel".
[X=S, D=Q, F=U and W=IRREL].

But I could be wrong...

omikapsi
2005-11-30, 02:01 AM
Woohoo, first to decode 251!

Oze ktpp ja asf..
You call it the...

Afw xzpd dtod dsf kyjfd!
Ten gols says she cries!

Yfts!
Yeah!

I'm not sure if d can stand for d and s, or if the giant made a mistake, but it's pretty clear that d = s, it just might equal d as well.

-edit:
I sort of cheated, I used the http://www.kirby98.fsnet.co.uk/Decoder-Random.htm to simplify it. It was pretty easy though, since the opening line was such a logical statement for her to make.

-edit2
Dangit, someone on the main comic thread beat me to it by nine minutes.. :) :P

animeranger
2005-11-30, 02:04 AM
For people trying to figure out #251, I think it's:

OZE KTPP JA ASK
YOU CALL IT THE

AFW XZPD DTOD DSF KYJFD
TEN GOLD SAYS SHE CRIES

OFTS
YEAH

I think XZPD is a typo. That D should be something else instead of the D that it's representing.

But then again, I may be wrong.

stilettoblade
2005-11-30, 02:46 AM
Crap. I finally took the time to decipher this one myself, and lo and behold, i'm the 3rd person to post the translation.

I also came up with:

You call it the-
Ten gols says she cries.
Yeah!

I think that the second line, second word should be gold, and the 4th letter just somehow missed being encoded (it appears as a message character, rather than a cipher character.)

xrestassuredx
2005-11-30, 03:30 AM
Darnit .. I would have thought that at 2 in the morning I'd be the first to post it. Crap. Anyway, I got the same as they all did, with 'gols' coming out as a mistake.

I solve these just by copying the encrypted text into notepad, all in lowercase, then doing a case-sensitive replace with the message letters in uppercase. For this one I started with "Yeah!" which seemed a pretty obvious place to start.

Anyone figure out a progression that would help us figure out the infamous four-letter word?

Maelin
2005-11-30, 05:00 AM
Yeah, this one was a bit of a no-brainer :P

But still, at least our beloved Giant hasn't given up on giving us these delightful little cryptographs to puzzle over!

Maelin

thatwolfguy
2005-11-30, 05:25 AM
I think XZPD is a typo. That D should be something else instead of the D that it's representing.

But then again, I may be wrong.

Giant has stated in another thread that there are no rules that he has to follow, he makes the rules because he is the author. every translation so far has had an inconsistant letter, which he undoubtedly puts in there on purpose to make it harder.

Elethiomel
2005-11-30, 07:53 AM
Giant has stated in another thread that there are no rules that he has to follow, he makes the rules because he is the author. every translation so far has had an inconsistant letter, which he undoubtedly puts in there on purpose to make it harder.

I have to agree with this. It is extremely simple to do this right. You just write (or download) a single-letter substitution cipher program with a changeable key, type in the text, proofread the text (and it is easy to avoid spelling errors in texts this short - not to mention that the Giant has until now had an exemplary record when it comes to avoiding typos in the strip), randomise the key, and feed the resulting text into the comic using the clipboard.

That every single ciphertext so far has had a letter or two that seem to be enciphered incorrectly just goes to strengthen this argument. What I assume is that the giant changes a letter of the ciphertext after it has been encoded. On purpose.

cgoat
2005-11-30, 08:35 AM
Or she's starting to get better and she was actually able to pronouce one D

Monsoon
2005-11-30, 08:52 AM
She may not be getting better but Roy sure seems to have understood her! (Or at least her first remark!) ;D

crazyforestgnome
2005-11-30, 09:05 AM
After calling your penis a 'trouser titan' what else is a friend going to say..or at least something along that vein.

Democratus
2005-11-30, 09:38 AM
Perhaps it is another code within the code? What if we took all the typos and checked to see if they were spelling something?

Halfling
2005-11-30, 10:09 AM
Another possible solution for #250 and a favorite of mine:
Yeah.
Add eyerolls for that extra sarcastic effect. ::)

Oh and Rich thanks for all your hard work in making us laugh so hard, so often.

Ken, then honest guy at Gencon

soni
2005-11-30, 07:23 PM
another 250...

Haley could have sid "Miko", like as in "Miko, you bithc, I can't belive you're saying that about me!"

Oneiron
2005-12-01, 03:50 AM
Ok, so far for #251 I've got:

OZE KTPP JA ASF-
YOU CALL IT THE- (Trouser Titan)

AFW XZPD DTOD DSF KYJFD
TEN ?OLS SAYS SHE CRIES

OFTS
YEAH!

Any Idea what that middle letter could be? or have I got it completely wrong?

Oneiron
2005-12-01, 03:56 AM
Ok, so far for #251 I've got:

OZE KTPP JA ASF-
YOU CALL IT THE- (Trouser Titan)

AFW XZPD DTOD DSF KYJFD
TEN ?OLS SAYS SHE CRIES

OFTS
YEAH!

Any Idea what that middle letter could be? or have I got it completely wrong?

I don't know how I missed so many people posting it before me.... Stupid bloody inobservance.

Apologies all

Bogardan_Mage
2005-12-01, 05:59 AM
She may not be getting better but Roy sure seems to have understood her! (Or at least her first remark!) ;D
Maybe it's because Elan said exactly the same thing the last time he used that euphemism.

thatwolfguy
2005-12-01, 12:33 PM
has anyone applied the keys from previous strips (or 251) to the four letter word in strip 250?


(edited/added) never mind, tried it, it doesn't work

ArtyD
2005-12-01, 12:42 PM
Ok, so far for #251 I've got:

OZE KTPP JA ASF-
YOU CALL IT THE- (Trouser Titan)

AFW XZPD DTOD DSF KYJFD
TEN ?OLS SAYS SHE CRIES

OFTS
YEAH!

Any Idea what that middle letter could be? or have I got it completely wrong?

That would be "ten gold says she cries." Use of logic is sometimes necessary. What else would she be talking about but a side bet? And since nobody THERE understands what she's saying she can "claim" her reward.

Electric_Monkey
2005-12-01, 09:34 PM
And hopefully Roy's sympathy for her plight will cause him to ignore alll the bets she convieniently "forgot" right after she'd lost them.

Oh, and if it is a sign that she's getting better, it's only natural that the world "gold" would be the first to get through.

Swordster
2005-12-01, 09:42 PM
Was that a typo on Rich's part? The 'd' at the end of 'xpzd'? Because 'd' translates to 's,' but the line is 'Ten gold says she cries." That threw me for a second, but I figured its either a mistake or 'd' intentionally represents two letters (it doesn't appear anywhere else in the strip).

phlip
2005-12-02, 01:15 AM
I figured its either a mistake or 'd' intentionally represents two letters
In the first strip, 'e' was encoded as both 'b' and 'p'. In the second, 's' encoded as both 'e' and 't', and 't' decoded as both 't' and 'r' (making it impossible to decode even after knowing the code without extra information - like the words are English etc). The third we're not certain about the decryption, but the most plausible "Maybe you're right" has 'y' encoded as both 'h' and 'p'. The fourth? Who knows. The fifth has 'd' decoding as both 's' and 'd'.

For something this common, it's hard to believe it's a mistake.

Rich has said he hasn't broken any rules - there's no rules stated for him to break.

They all resemble simple substitution cyphers, but none of them are (with the possible exception of #4). It doesn't mean Rich has failed in making a simple substitution cypher, it means he's succeeded in making you think it was a simple substitiution cypher.

quixote
2005-12-02, 04:16 AM
my two cents:

maybe the D at the end of "xzpd" is an indicator that the fourth letter of the four letter word she uttered in 250 isn't encrypted.

or maybe that's a 12 pack mike's hard lime talking... who knows.

edit: fixed reply subject (aka: so that's why when I typed the code word it didn't appear. again... probably the mikes.)

Edtharan
2005-12-02, 08:47 AM
Giant has stated in another thread that there are no rules that he has to follow, he makes the rules because he is the author. every translation so far has had an inconsistant letter, which he undoubtedly puts in there on purpose to make it harder.
If this is so, then it may be posiable to translate #250 by finding the misstranslated letter.

Giltharian
2005-12-02, 11:41 AM
Ok, so far for #251 I've got:

OZE KTPP JA ASF-
YOU CALL IT THE- (Trouser Titan)

AFW XZPD DTOD DSF KYJFD
TEN ?OLS SAYS SHE CRIES

OFTS
YEAH!

Any Idea what that middle letter could be? or have I got it completely wrong?

Don't we think it's "Ten gold says she cries" ?

GypsyThorn
2005-12-02, 12:15 PM
I don't think it's "gold" - Rich would never make a mistake in something like this.....

The letter "X" also stands for the lettter "S", so it translates as SOLS - which , if memory serves, is a unit of currency in some science fiction book somewhere. Anyone remember where?

(Mod: I vaguely remember it as either something Jack Vance did or maybe Christopher Stasheff....

And I just googled Sols - it's the Peruvian unit of currency. So Haley is now betting anachronistic amounts as well as being hysterically aphasiac.)

Swordster
2005-12-02, 07:58 PM
I highly doubt she's betting Peruvian currency, especially considering that 'ten gold says...' is common enough in this comic. I also refuse to admit that Rich made a mistake, because such ambiguous letters have appeared before. Finally, I do not believe this is a sign that she is getting better. Rich would probably have better ways of showing it. I stand by the translation being "Ten gold says she cries."

Edit: Just looked again. 'O' is the ambiguous letter, representing both 'l' and 'y.' While it is not inconcievable that Rich would make two such letters, this does shift me slightly more towards the 'sign that she's getting better' theory. Whoever said that 'gold' is the first word she'd get out is probably right in any case.

Electric_Monkey
2005-12-03, 08:53 AM
Edit: Just looked again. 'O' is the ambiguous letter, representing both 'l' and 'y.' While it is not inconcievable that Rich would make two such letters, this does shift me slightly more towards the 'sign that she's getting better' theory. Whoever said that 'gold' is the first word she'd get out is probably right in any case.

I think you made a mistake when you looked again - the o translates as y throughout, unless I'm missing something - "xzpd" stands for "gold", "dtod" stands for "says"

McDeath
2005-12-03, 08:44 PM
People, why do you have to tarnslate it? isn't there more fun in just guessing what she says?

Dark
2005-12-03, 11:48 PM
People, why do you have to tarnslate it? isn't there more fun in just guessing what she says?
Is there a difference? It's advanced guessing :)

Maelin
2005-12-04, 04:36 AM
People, why do you have to tarnslate it? isn't there more fun in just guessing what she says?

Isn't that a bit like saying, "Why do you guys have to play this game of tennis? Isn't it more fun just guessing who will win?"

Elethiomel
2005-12-04, 12:20 PM
People, why do you have to tarnslate it? isn't there more fun in just guessing what she says?

Solving cryptograms is fun.

It's been suggested several times that the translation be kept off the official comic discussion thread, but there seems to always be one more cryptogram fan that doesn't know this for each strip with a cryptogram. Which sort of ruins it for those who want to discuss the comic but don't want to be spoiled as to what Haley says - be it because they want to solve it themselves, or just because they don't want to know.

Anyway, this thread has been dedicated to the solution of cryptograms for quite some time. We solve them because we think it is fun. To provide an alternate simile, your post is kind of like going up to someone solving a crossword puzzle and asking, "why do you have to solve it? Isn't it more fun just guessing at the solution phrase* ?". The solving of the cryptogram is advanced guessing at what she says, just as the solving of a crossword puzzle is advanced guessing at the solution phrase. And it's fun in and of itself.

(*This is provided that the crossword puzzle is of the sort where a word or phrase in the crossword has no clues and it is required that you send in that word or phrase to join in the lottery for a set of wine glasses or whatever)

Swordster
2005-12-04, 08:11 PM
I think you made a mistake when you looked again - the o translates as y throughout, unless I'm missing something - "xzpd" stands for "gold", "dtod" stands for "says"

Yea, I noticed that. Just disregard my Edit.

*sigh* Open mouth, insert foot. ;)

zibeck
2005-12-28, 12:14 PM
So anyone want to take a stab at the latest strip?

Nighthawk4
2005-12-28, 12:17 PM
My guess so far is:

ufxm ft, rwra, fkmt bfe xfxxa..
come on, ----, open for momm-..

I am guessing that the last word is 'Mommy' and the missing one is 'lock'. ;)

jmbeach
2005-12-28, 12:21 PM
Ufxm ft, rwra, fkmt bfe xfxxa =
Come on, baby, open for mommy.

Nighthawk4
2005-12-28, 12:23 PM
Dammit, I didn't think of 'baby' >:(

Well done riyougin :)

Eriol
2005-12-28, 12:29 PM
I echo nighthawk's sentiments. Good job riyougin.

Karellen
2005-12-28, 10:34 PM
I liked this one - the 'xfxxa' was suitably unlikely that it made for an interesting problem. Though, with 'fr' and 'bfe', it was pretty easy to narrow down the possible three- and two-letter words, so I got "for", which made the rest elementary.

stilettoblade
2005-12-29, 03:53 AM
crap. beaten to the punch again. lol
oh well.. if theres another one, i'll try again to be first.

'course, i guess the fact that my comp didnt show the new strip for most of a day didnt help...

sailor_charon
2005-12-29, 09:07 AM
crap. beaten to the punch again. lol
oh well.. if theres another one, i'll try again to be first.

'course, i guess the fact that my comp didnt show the new strip for most of a day didnt help...

You can always just solve it yourself and know that you solved it yourself. Regardless of whether someone else has seen the strip days before you or not.

gooddragon1
2005-12-29, 09:38 AM
if anyone cares, here is the decryption key

a - r
b - e
c - t
d - y
e - p/b
f - s
g - w
h - q
i - f
j -
k - z
l - d
m - a
n - u
o - i
p - k
q -
r - n
s - v
t - m
u - c
v - j
w - x
x -
y - h
z -

thanks for the key, I haven't had time enough to look into that due to my investigation of the gender debate.
Note: If this key truly works then my idea for telepathy or reading haleys thoughts would work.

LtPowers
2006-01-02, 10:47 AM
1/2/06:

Jpz rezncw gpsi! Pnbd! Hxj hpd'e jpz pnbd??
You stupid lock! Open! Why won't you open??

Qpcdq ep icgg jpz...
Going to kill you...

C xfeb Flfvcdq-kzfgcej gpsir!
I hate Amazing-quality locks!

Qbb, exfdir, dp nubrrzub exbub.
Gee, thanks, no pressure there.

Wfld ce! PNBD!!
Damn it! OPEN!!

C fl epefggj cd gpyb hcex jpz.
I am totally in love with you.




It appears that Vaarsuvius has at least some ability to understand Haley, or else hir comment in the last panel was based simply on prior knowledge and supposition.


Powers &8^]

Fale
2006-01-02, 08:48 PM
I'm think I'm getting better at translating Haley's speech. I managed to get the first line within seconds and the others shortly followed.

While translating it, I thought that Haley should managed to cure it by telling her feelings to Elan because she knows that he could never understand her speech anyway, only to find out that her words are normal once they come out. However I don't think that'll happen because it didn't happen in this comic.

Maelin
2006-01-02, 10:51 PM
Yep, same translation as I got :)

This one was actually pretty simple, I thought. The first line was very easy to work out from the context, and then everything else just fell into place.

Here's the translation key if anyone's interested.

CYPHER: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
DECYPHER: _ E I N T A L W K Y Q M _ P _ O G S C _ R Z D H V U
Missing: B, F, J, X

Was Haley talking to Elan in that last panel?

Maelin

Bogardan_Mage
2006-01-03, 02:45 AM
It appears that Vaarsuvius has at least some ability to understand Haley, or else hir comment in the last panel was based simply on prior knowledge and supposition.
It makes perfect sense based only on prior knowledge and supposition. I figured that's why V suggested it in the first place. BTW, nice pronoun.

Gralamin
2006-01-03, 03:55 AM
I learned something today. For some reason cryptograms hate me....

phlip
2006-01-03, 12:13 PM
First one for a while to have enough letters to make a proper transcoder, so I've added it to my PHP dealie (http://users.insaniquariumguide.com/phlip/haley.php)...

Surprisingly, this one is a simple straight-up substitution cypher, no little tricks like the others had...

smike
2006-01-03, 01:43 PM
It's interesting that if you don't know what Haley says, the comic is significantly less good, IMO.

stilettoblade
2006-01-03, 03:57 PM
You can always just solve it yourself and know that you solved it yourself. Regardless of whether someone else has seen the strip days before you or not.


Good point, sailor_charon.

Once again, i was hours late. haha
But i have been, since the second strip, solving the cypher myself before i look at this thread.
maybe one of these days, i'll get here first!

NorthSaber
2006-01-03, 05:54 PM
Darnit .. I would have thought that at 2 in the morning I'd be the first to post it. Crap.

Well you know OotS has fans all around the world...
;)

Vaya
2006-01-03, 07:14 PM
1/2/06:

It appears that Vaarsuvius has at least some ability to understand Haley, or else hir comment in the last panel was based simply on prior knowledge and supposition.


Powers &8^]

Prior knowledge.

Remember back in the bandit camp...


http://www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/GiantITP/ootscript?SK=161

And again later after they had rescued the bitter old couple...

http://www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/GiantITP/ootscript?SK=223

Although admitidly (s)he wasn't talking about them specifically...

But even Belkar knows about it...

http://www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/GiantITP/ootscript?SK=247

Quartermoon
2006-01-04, 12:41 PM
I have to say I love this thread

I worked out the first one, but once I realized it was different each time I: 1) was impressed, 2) knew I couldn't justify spending that much time on each comic (busy Mom here), and 3) resigned myself to picking up the gist of things from the rest of the strip.

Thanks, folks, for helping me out!

:)

Freya
2006-01-04, 08:57 PM
Hi there!
I want to thank you all!
My English is quite awful , so I couldn't even imagine that those gibberishes were a code!
Thank you very much for the translations!
^_________^

Karellen
2006-01-06, 04:31 PM
#264:

Aqmd. Rmtdwx!
Wait. Listen!

Fqgj mx dow qwrrt! Fqgj! FQGJ!!
Back in the cells! Back! BACK!!

Rawhide
2006-01-06, 10:11 PM
This has probably been posted by many before me, but to confirm, this is what I got from Haley's speech.

-------
Wait.
Listen!
-------

------------------------------
Back in the cells! Back! BACK!
------------------------------


a = w
b
c
d = t
e
f = b
g = c
h
i
j = k
k
l
m = i
n
o = h
p
q = a
r = l
s
t = s
u
v
w = e
x = n
y
z


EDIT: I posted this while the server was unreliable and couldn't see what was already posted, I see I was beaten to the punch by a little while, oh well.

Solara
2006-01-06, 10:20 PM
Either the cryptograms are getting easier or I'm just getting better at this. Last couple of comics I was able to figure out pretty much every word in my head...normally I have to pull up Notepad and start plugging in letters before it all makes sense.

GM_West
2006-01-07, 03:04 AM
Just wanted to say thanks to those that do the work of interpreting Haley's words and posting them here for us all to read.

I'm far too lazy to try and do the work necessary. And I've never been very good at word games anyway.

So thanks! :)

Ellisthion
2006-01-07, 08:54 AM
For those who want to translate it themselves, but are sick of using notepad, I found this tool (http://snicker.nebrwesleyan.edu/~mcclung/getCipher.html), which automatically calculates letter frequencies and allows a simple to show known substitutions. You're still doing the work, but without the letter-counting and stuff.

Marrick
2006-01-07, 11:09 AM
#264 translation

Wait.
Listen!

Back in the cells! Back! BACK!!

Key:
a=w
d=t
f=b
g=c
j=k
m=l
o=h
q=a
r=l
t=s
w=e
x=n

Edit: Only a day late, and I couldn't get to the site yesterday. Oh well at least I did it myself. :)

Elthanir
2006-01-07, 07:26 PM
Yeah, same here. Worked out the translations without having to write anything down today.

soni
2006-01-07, 07:53 PM
well, it's obvious she was saying "back in the cells, back BACK"..

the rest was easy to figure out from there

Mas_Sinoda
2006-01-08, 01:32 AM
Edit: Only a day late, and I couldn't get to the site yesterday. Oh well at least I did it myself. :)

Yeah, I've been having the same problem lately. It takes, like 5 minutes just to load the comic, and I have DSL...

delroland
2006-01-08, 06:31 AM
Has anyone thought of something so simple as a nice sarcastic "Sure."

/seconded, as I think Haley's expression supports this, as in, sure, whatever, crazy lady

fedallah
2006-01-10, 02:57 AM
I think it'd be nice if Wrecan edited his post (since it was first) to reflect the translations of subsequent comics. It was a bit of a pain to have to read through this whole thread to get them all.

Marrick
2006-01-11, 11:42 AM
well, it's obvious she was saying "back in the cells, back BACK"..

the rest was easy to figure out from there


Actually I guessed "wait" which got me enough to guess "listen"

All depends on how you think I guess.