Monday, July 17, 2006
9 hours later...
I just took part in my first Intern Puzzleday.
Puzzleday is a themed competition where interns form teams of 10-12 people and attempt to solve 34 puzzles. The answers to these 34 puzzles are the keys to a 35th puzzle which leads you to the grand solution - for this year, it was King Solvs Afew's missing crown and sword. Our team was one of the 12 (out of a total of 43) teams to complete the whole solution in the 7 hours allotted. It was a blast - and probably the tipping point for me in viewing Microsoft as a cool place to work.
Which is kinda weird. You'd think having the keys to the kingdom of Watson would be enough, but it turns out it's the crazy people dressed up in robes and tights that did it for me.
It was total fun - I'll try to blog the highlights of it later, but for the moment, here's an open challenge to anyone who's nerdy enough to solve it:
Colin's Version of Holland Berkley's Announcement
Apologies for the quick mockup in VIM. I'm not much of a painter.
Tip for new puzzlers: Extract a description of the picture. Then anagram it to something that relates to the title of the puzzle.
Puzzleday is a themed competition where interns form teams of 10-12 people and attempt to solve 34 puzzles. The answers to these 34 puzzles are the keys to a 35th puzzle which leads you to the grand solution - for this year, it was King Solvs Afew's missing crown and sword. Our team was one of the 12 (out of a total of 43) teams to complete the whole solution in the 7 hours allotted. It was a blast - and probably the tipping point for me in viewing Microsoft as a cool place to work.
Which is kinda weird. You'd think having the keys to the kingdom of Watson would be enough, but it turns out it's the crazy people dressed up in robes and tights that did it for me.
It was total fun - I'll try to blog the highlights of it later, but for the moment, here's an open challenge to anyone who's nerdy enough to solve it:
Colin's Version of Holland Berkley's Announcement
Apologies for the quick mockup in VIM. I'm not much of a painter.
Tip for new puzzlers: Extract a description of the picture. Then anagram it to something that relates to the title of the puzzle.
