It still makes me laugh that your proposed solution landed just south of my childhood Naval housing. Crazy. But I don’t dwell on it too much, some things truly are just a coincidence, even if improbable.
I see it was also pretty close to Alcatraz, which is a spot Oliv was very interested in as well. So much so, they liked it more than LHR.
I suppose when we evaluate proposed solutions we ought really to make sure we stick just to the method of each one, else we’re at risk of getting things conflated and mixed up. As a good example, what differs between yours and DMWs – as to method – comes down essentially to your inclusion of a step involving projection (is that the right word?). Likewise with mine, as with DMWs. We just used the map, so it points where it points on the map. Would you think that is fair to say?
That said, I get the humour for you here.
“This isn’t right! It’s not even wrong!”—Wolfgang Pauli (1900–1958)
Anyway, that’s me done as I’m on a totally different timezone and need some sleep. You’ll need some sleep too, and then I guess it will be back to spamming again tomorrow?
“This isn’t right! It’s not even wrong!”—Wolfgang Pauli (1900–1958)
It still makes me laugh that your proposed solution landed just south of my childhood Naval housing. Crazy. But I don’t dwell on it too much, some things truly are just a coincidence, even if improbable.
I see it was also pretty close to Alcatraz, which is a spot Oliv was very interested in as well. So much so, they liked it more than LHR.
I suppose when we evaluate proposed solutions we ought really to make sure we stick just to the method of each one, else we’re at risk of getting things conflated and mixed up. As a good example, what differs between yours and DMWs – as to method – comes down essentially to your inclusion of a step involving projection (is that the right word?). Likewise with mine, as with DMWs. We just used the map, so it points where it points on the map. Would you think that is fair to say?
That said, I get the humour for you here.
Well, DMW worked backwards with ALA in mind. I tested 2 million alternative phrases and was able to derive a unique solution due to the ranking step.
The homophonic locks are quite restrictive. And so these were important in the proposed solution. They eliminate most valid phrases, leaving a small set from the original 2 million possibilities. Version 3 is actually up to 8 million by adding some plausible, short middle connectors.
Oliv92 used basically the same method (because it is the right approach). They were just missing the ranking step. I am surprised they didn’t check the satellite imagery for their second candidate.
And yeah I became aware of the history of these forums after I came here. I see it is past it’s prime but used to be the place to go for this.
I am pretty sure the experts don’t like me at this point. It was their work that actually brought me here, as Youtube suggested the Z340 videos since it aligns with my personal interests. I was already familiar with the case but not deeply, but I only saw the movie. I live in California and grew up in the Bay, that is why I know but it.
I always felt Z32 was interesting because it came with the map.
As we’ve calmed down it seems we get along more than I realized. It is too bad I was in such a frustrated state of mind. But that kind of thing tends to pass, focus returns, and I just calm down again. It is much better.
Still not a big fan of the situation but I will have to adapt and overcome….if I can.
Where are you from btw? I will guess, the UK? Watch me be wrong.
Also I did use AI as a co-pilot but that is standard in 2026. Programmers have the highest adoption rate of any profession on using LLM’s, and so they are in the toolkit and did play a helpful role. But there are no rules against this, and at the end of the day the method is solid and works, which is what matters.
I put a lot of personal time and effort into this regardless. Even with the co-pilot at my disposal. We all have access to the same tools, and it says something that I was the first to maybe do it right this way. It was because of the way I used it. I was using AI models before LLM’s.
Prompt engineering is a real discipline that measurably improves output quality. I knew how to best utilize the tool that I had, and we all have. It is a level playing field, no special advantage.
I encourage others to use the tools at their disposal to solve hard problems. Solving this one was a public service.
It’s actually a really incredible story all around, but currently slept on. There are many fascinating things about this cipher that were entirely unexpected.
