Untamed with the Lester Tang Conjecture: Howling at the Man

Half a mile away from the nearest houses, separated from those houses by hills, you might think that Chicken Coop Hill would be a place free of the Man. (This image is based on data copyright 2004 AirPhoto USA, further tweaked and copyright 2004 by Keyhole, scribbled on by me.)

When we arrived at the base of Chicken Coop Hill, there were many empty team vehicles parked along the road. The WOLF had been skipping slow teams over some clues so that plenty of teams could converge here for this puzzle. I guess that was intentional--having a crowd would make it easier to solve this puzzle. However, a crowd was also more likely to draw the attention of the Man.

The puzzle was on top of the hill. It was a bank of LEDs hooked up to some audio sensors. If people made noise, some of the LEDs lit up. If people made more noise, those LEDs stayed on and some more lit up. If people made yet more noise, yet more LEDs would turn on. Thus, getting lots of people to howl at the top of their lungs was the right way to gather data for this puzzle. However, it was also the way to draw the attention of the Man.

We stood and howled for a while. Actually, I didn't howl much--I took notes on which LEDs lit up when people howled. It looked like Braille. We wandered away to start figuring out: given that we'd probably only seen most of which LEDs constituted the message, could we figure out what word we were looking at in Braille? Speaking of Braille, one group which was not turning a blind eye to these proceedings was the Man.

The Man came and shut down the clue. I never got the details--by the time the Man showed up, our group was no longer next to the LED/howling station, which is where the Man parked. The Man told people to disperse. Someone called up Game Control to explain the situation. Game Control told players to go Battery Spencer in the Marin Headlands. And so folks dispersed. Our team learned this when lots of other teams started walking past us on the way to their respective cars.

I have no reason to think that the people who shut us down were being mean or oppressive, yet I would like to continue referring to them as "the Man." Hey, give me a break. These puzzle hunts are pretty nerdy. But now I can talk about getting hassled by the Man and I sound like a cool Rock 'n' Roll rebel.

Should I point out that this puzzle was a lot of fun, that it was amusing to be surrounded by a bunch of people howling at the top of their lungs? Probably not--that would just encourage America's youth to get into more trouble. Stay quiet, kids.

| comment? | | home |