Countdown to PDC2008: Rick Rashid, a Researcher’s Researcher

Posted By: Charles | Oct 18th, 2008 @ 2:18 PM | 46,064 Views | 17 Comments
17 years in the same job?  Yep, Senior Vice President of Microsoft Research, Rick Rashid has been doing the same thing since the first day he joined the firm, and he’s still loving it.  Listen to Rick talk about all of the cool innovation coming out of MSR, and he foreshadows his PDC keynote warning audience members to be thoughtful about where they sit during his speech. Hmmm.  Whatever in the world could that possibly mean?  Who cares!  Mike’s got apple pie in this, his final PDC Hard Hat Challenge.  Bonne chance!
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#Oct 23rd, 2008 @ 8:39 AM
mswanson
mswanson
"Good thing I'm single."

DaleRoss...you have me laughing out loud at that comment. Smiley

The other tip I'll give is that you don't have to be very good at math (at all) to figure this one out. You don't even need to own a computer. I'll be quiet now and let the brains work on it.
#Oct 23rd, 2008 @ 12:38 PM
DECramlet
DECramlet

What's really throwing me at the moment is the idea that phase-shift keying is on the right track, but the puzzle does not require being good at math or having a computer.

Representing digital information using sinusoidal waveforms seems to beg for math skills or a computer. Then again, we appear to have binary, so unless the answer is a waveform...

Or, what we have is a digital sampling of a waveform...but that's still math.

Clearly I've derailed somewhere.

#Oct 23rd, 2008 @ 8:33 PM
Decorum
Decorum
Well... thanks Mike, but those two hints were fairly obvious in the video. Wink

I'd already done all kinds of bit-shifting and bit-rotating operations I can think of (shift vs rotate, per octate vs. per the whole stream, right vs. left, 1-7 positions, etc), but nothing comprehensible comes out. However, the meaning of the pie I have not been able to figure out...

Next clue please. Wink

@DaleRoss - you won't be single for long - I hear that hard hat t-shirt is a real chick magnet... (maybe not).
#Oct 23rd, 2008 @ 8:35 PM
Decorum
Decorum
Oh... you posted while I was typing. I'll contemplate...
#Oct 24th, 2008 @ 8:30 AM
mswanson
mswanson

Here's my next set of tips:

  • I said that Captain JiNX seemed to know what he's doing. But, you can easily solve this challenge without knowing anything mentioned in the article he linked to.
  • My wife Elizabeth, who is a computer user, but certainly not a developer, could probably solve this on paper, if she only looked up a single item.

Hope tht helps!

#Oct 25th, 2008 @ 10:54 AM
DaleRoss
DaleRoss
recursion
"@DaleRoss - you won't be single for long - I hear that hard hat t-shirt is a real chick magnet... (maybe not)"


Decorum,

That's assuming I'm able to crack the code and win the chick magnet. I got a chance to practise my newly obtained perl skills. I even generated a 20 X 6  bitmap in C# using the decimal values of each octet as the red component for each pixel. It was fun and who knows. Maybe on that long flight to LA tomorrow the answer will just pop into my head.

Rotate one with an apple pie
You don't need a PC, Just use your eye.
If the bits are aligned, the answer you'll see.
Somebody's gonna get it. I hope it's me.

#Nov 1st, 2008 @ 6:50 PM
DaleRoss
DaleRoss
recursion
For a challenge that appears to be so simple a Vice President could do it Smiley, I'm amazed it's still unsolved. I saw some braille symbols on an elevator that resembled some of what I saw when messing around but right now my brain needs rest.
#Nov 6th, 2008 @ 8:29 PM
Richard.Hein
Richard.Hein
... my guitar gently weeps ...
I think it's time for another clue!
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