I remember a long while back was a puzzel going around the Internet with a list and you had to figure out the order of the states, rather what the order of the states meant.
If you look at the links at the bottom of the above Wikipedia article you can see a link to a SD thread but that is from 2002 so I didn’t just want to bump that one up.
Anyway, what do you think? I think it was a deliberate hoax. Any other thoughts many years later
I had never heard of the puzzle until seeing this thread.
I read through the old SD thread. I noticed that even after it was made clear that the list related to the order in which something happened, there was a lot of talk on notions that plainly did not fit that criterion. I found that to be strange.
I have a notion that might fit (yeah, I know it’s quite unlikely, but I’m humoring myself). I don’t care to mention it yet, but here’s the thing: in theory, it could fit; and it’s of a nature that none of the guesses in the SD thread even hinted at. So I’m thinking there could well be an answer to this thing that has been missed because people got their minds fixed on apples while the solution is among the oranges.
I realize I goofed when I said “it’s of a nature that none of the guesses in the SD thread even hinted at.” There were some other notions of the same nature, though they were clearly in the minority.
I only read the first and last pages of the of the original SDMB thread, but I liked the Sports Illustrated angle - my thought was that it was the home states of cover stars, but it appears the first SI cover featured Eddie Matthew, a Texan - so that’s out.
Like “14 k of g in a f p d” and that ridiculous “blind, deaf, mute” thread currently going on, I don’t think we should waste any more time on a puzzle that clearly has no answer - particularly one that is 6 years old.
Did you know “14 k of g in a f p d” was nearly 2 years ago? Seems like yesterday!
I was thinking of something related to the naming of avenues in Washington, D.C. While the city is laid out on a grid of numbered streets and alphabetical streets (one group north/south, the other east/west), the avenues go diagonally across the grid and are named after states. As far as the 48/50 states thing, Alaska and Hawaii would almost certainly be the last two built or named; alternatively, it’s California Road and Ohio Drive, so they aren’t technically avenues.
It just seemed to me that too many guesses in the thread were about things that did not fit the “order in which something happened” criterion, or about things that would not work into a list that included all the states (e.g. something related to sports figures or presidents - there’d be a jillion from some states and none from others), or the order in which the states themselves did something. While that last one is possible, I thought that not enough ideas were proffered about things where the states were identified but not directly involved, e.g. the naming of battleships or my notion of D.C.'s avenues. If it’s not a hoax, I’m inclined to think the answer is of that nature.
The order they were named? If that’s what you meant, that theory doesn’t work. All the original 13 states (and possibly more; there were 16 by 1796) had their streets in DC pretty much from day one. On the magic List though, many of those early states come after #13.
Nope, not even close. Trust me, if it were that easy, someone would have gotten it by now.
For the people trying to figure it out, don’t bother. The universe of possible solutions includes sports, commerce, entertainment, politics, law, geography, education, art, technology, military history, science, literature, and many, many other fields of human endeavor. When the universe of possible solutions is that broad, the puzzle is a waste. It’s as absurd as me posting the number 20.2872 and asking people to guess the significance.
The order of states Microsoft will activate its mind control rays in, it’s on the internet (behind an impossible-to-decrypt password protected page) and was once in a colorful magazine (“Lolcats and Evil Quarterly”) and it could be 48 or 50 because they’re still debating whether to release the mutagens that will turn us into mindless Microsoft obeying burly zombie soldiers into the water in the states (instead of MC rays) or use it somewhere like Panama.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
You know, I suspect that both this and the *14 k of g in a f p d *‘puzzles’ were foisted upon the unsuspecting masses by some bozo who had admiration, but not the intelligence to emulate the perpetrator of the May Day Mystery (1981-present).
This puzzle seems like it should have an answer. I got sucked into thinking about possibilities.
I’m reading through a Google answers thread that came up when I searched.
I’ve been thinking about answers that have something to do with Microsoft itself (like total Microsoft sales volume per capita, but I would think that West Coast would be much higher on most Microsoft related lists.)
Exactly that’s why I (re)started a thread about it. I think it is some kind of a hoax. Either that or the answer is so obscure or personal that no one can get it
Based on some of the speculation on the google discussion about the actual puzzle creator, I found one of the suspects on LinkedIn and shot him a note. I’ll report back whether or not I hear something.
When I read the quiz thread and the clues it says to my intuition that the answer will also have something to do with charity. Go back and read it again.
Does anyone else get that vibe?
Also, Arizona is not too far down the list but it was the 48th state in 1912. So we are not looking for an issue much older than that.