Post making contest 6.0

This is update #287.

Day two-ish of the Cambridge Puzzle Hunt: there was a glorious period of like three hours where we were actually in the lead

and then Puzzle 4.9 happened

• [12:01 PM] Sruixan: oh god the hints are separate pdfs what
  _
  
• [12:10 PM] Sruixan: wow we are managing to work in two different sheets
  [12:10 PM] Sruixan: you went by sheet number I went by sheet order welp
  [12:10 PM] qwerx3: i'm moving to your sheet
  [12:11 PM] Sruixan: but I'm moving to your she- okay fine my sheet
  _
  
• there's a bit where I try and google something for a puzzle and bulk of the results are for a Supernatural fanfic author who was somewhat obscuring what I was looking for thanks google (oh but it gets worse later)
  _
  
• [12:37 PM] Sruixan: you realise that makes us the first team to solve a D2 puzzle
  [12:37 PM] qwerx3: woohoo!
  [12:37 PM] Sruixan: I got a screenshot
  (...)
  [12:41 PM] Sruixan: turns out yesterday I was accidentally trying to solve one of today's puzzles instead ho hum
  _
  
• AND THEN
  [3:32 PM] qwerx3: so....
  [3:33 PM] qwerx3: we managed to predict [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] a day early
  [3:33 PM] Sruixan: well there you go then
  [3:34 PM] qwerx3: first to 25!
  [3:34 PM] Sruixan: we're now the only team to have solved two puzzles from today (he says, taking a screenshot)
  (there was a typo in the puzzle admittedly so that probably wasn't helping folks)
  _
  
• [4:07 PM] Sruixan: I am pretty sure I just got some funny looks for rocking my laptop back and forth trying to make out shapes in the characters
  _
  
• [5:45 PM] Sruixan: I asked google for the original MS Paint colour palette and it kindly told me the colours of Ms. Paint
  [5:45 PM] Sruixan: which, uh, thanks, I guess
  (IT WAS THE THIRD RESULT)
  _
  
• (the a-ha for Puzzle 4.9 clicks with me)
  [6:40 PM] Sruixan: holy fuck if I'm right I want to both kiss and murder the puzzle constructor
  (currently: sorry, it's the latter)
  _
  
• (qwerx does a good job actually doing what I was thinking of while I sit and moan on the sidelines)
  [11:36 PM] Sruixan: ...does [REDACTED] not have [THING IT TOTALLY SHOULD HAVE GODDAMMIT]?
  [11:36 PM] qwerx3: yep
  [11:37 PM] qwerx3: you know, just to make things harder
  [11:37 PM] Sruixan: urgh
  [11:37 PM] Sruixan: why
  (this is my idea of "contributing")
  _
  
• Fogel very neatly spots the message we're extracting before qwerx is done extracting it. Unfortunately, it is not the answer, despite being incredibly plausible and so we're just kinda sat around feeling miffed.
  

End of message.