Hey, at least you're not the only one having to deal with stuff like that.
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What I think:
Ghosts are but a figment of our wild imagination.
The simple action of thinking about ghosts can give you the illusion of being haunted, due to your enhanced perception of anything slightly unusual compared to your usual self. For example, if you suspect that there is a ghost in your home, the first thing you'll think when you hear a sound is "it's a ghost", rather than realizing the most obvious answer to the situation.
The more you believe in ghosts, the more you'll notice things which could be considered haunting and that you will assume as well. The more things you notice of which can be explained by the fact that you are experiencing the presence of a spectral being, the more you'll believe in ghosts. In fewer words, if you believe in ghosts, you'll see ghosts... and if you see ghosts, you'll believe in ghosts.
As for the dog, it is very likely that she was scared of being in a new place - it's no mystery that pets (especially dogs due to their instinctive territorial behavior) will experience anxiousness when brought to a new location. You also claim that when the dog scratched at the door, you "freaked out". Your dog is surely trusting you entirely, and follows your lead, so to speak. Therefore, when she sensed your anxiousness, she felt that there should be a reason to be scared. If the home is old, cracking boards, termites or mice can also be causing noises which scares the dog (and anyone living in the house as well!).
This link can also explain the "ghost toilet" occurrence.
Sorry for the wall of text, just felt like writing my thoughts on the topic. Just to clarify, I'm not trying to convince you that ghosts don't exist, since this is something that cannot be proven. I'm just reflecting on the idea and attempting to come up with logical and possible explanations. :D
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+9000 but "since this is something that cannot be proven" .. well no one cant prove invisible magical unicorns does not exists. And this is called Argument from ignorance ..... I dont know from where that sound comes from IT MUST BE FROM GHOSTS . See ?
reasaurus i suggest you to do some research about ghosts, paranormal and stuff .
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I like your thoughts on it! I don't really think there's a ghost in the house, mostly I needed a story to hide my puzzle, so I outlined recent events. The dog has adjusted very well, and we are stumped as to why she's suddenly doing this. It happened again last night. Other than this, she seems to love the house.
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You have a hobo hiding in the basement, he already befriended your dog so he can grab a snack and do the numbers while you sleep.
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Basement dude does love my dog, better keep an eye out.
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She is adorable! ... But how can you think she would cheat herself into your bed ... she would never do that!
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And how can you say she is not smart ...
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... when she can do anything!
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Oh my gosh she's adorable! And all of those pictures are Stella poses too. She likes to make up new shapes with her body.
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... But actually, everything you wrote fits our dog just perfectly. Well, everything but being spooked on the cemetery -- she loves the cemetery, there's rabbits.
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No hint appeared for Q6, and the one for Q2 seems a bit too generic to me, sorry.
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Yes, they are fractions. For Q2 it can be extrapolated from the story above.
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Still can't get them right.
I thought that was the case with Q2 but i think (fear) that nor my english skills nor my geographical knowledge are advanced enough.
For Q6 I tried fractions with different denominators and numbers, both with and without u.m. ..I'm pretty sure I did my exercise well so the only thing I can think of is I did not try all of the above combinations.. am I missing something?
I mean, it would be embarassing if I've miscalculated the result. =P
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Ok, I'm definitely making a mistake somewhere then.. to think I was good in math once >_<
If it's not a problem for you, I'd like to come back (here or on steam) and hear you solution, passages included, when the GAs end :)
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They are still open until Friday if you want to come back for another chance later!
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just found this page still open in my browser.. totally forgot to check the solutions!
So, for #2 I assumed you were American.. tried with various format of Washington and all the nearby states' capital (looked at your steam profile, noticed some groups that made me think about this possibility).. don't remember if I put only DC as answer.
About Q6, reading the text: Ariana run 25/3=5/6 and Harriet run 6/6.
Why 25/3+1/6 is wrong?
I admit I did a bit of bruteforcing for these two in the end, but I was using a crappy connection those days and it's possible that some values I thought I tried weren't succesfully sent to the site instead..
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Just realized there was an error with the location one, should work now. Sorry about that!
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You can say anything you want
And you can do anything you wanna do
If you have ghosts, you have everything
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I'm really scared of ghosts.
SPECIFICALLY I'm afraid ghosts are watching me consuming pornography and when I die and join their ranks they're gonna make fun of me. :(
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You're dog is really cute.
I had some stuff I was gonna say but Jbond covered it. I lived in a house where the toilet would randomly flush, and a dog being freaked out don't necessarily mean ghosts. I haven't experienced what you are, so i'm not saying you're wrong, but when you believe in ghosts, you're more likely to see them. When I was a kid I saw aliens and ghosts all the time. They more often came out after I would watch a tv show about them, and I didn't realized until later it was all my imagination. Since I thought, okay, what I saw wasn't true, so maybe ghosts and aliens aren't, I haven't seen them. If a person who believes in ghost found their stuff in a different place then where they saw it, they may think it was ghosts. Someone who doesn't, on the other hand, may come to the conclusion that they misplaced it and just don't remember.
We need to analyze why that is. Is it because when you believe in ghosts you subconsciously avoid facts to confirm you own superstitions, or it because when you don't believe in ghosts, you dismiss the evidence that points to them to confirm you own beliefs? I don't really know, my opinion on this has changed over time, but right now it leans towards the first theory. Sorry for going off on that tangent and good luck with the new house!
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I actually love thinking about this type of thing. I go back and forth on whether I believe in ghosts or not. My girlfriend seems to believe they exist, because she's the one who keeps saying that Stella "saw a ghost" whenever she acts weird, and she at least seems serious when she says it.
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Ok I will wait for the hints. I am starting feeling weird :S (and was not useful at all)
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Scenarios where "unexplainable" things happen (though they indeed have a very rational explanation) aren't really to be dismissed in my opinion. Ghosts, demons, whatever, they all have the potential to become very real things in one's microcosm (I prefer the term endocosm) even though reason suggest that they don't exist at all on a macrocosmic scale. This doesn't make them any less potentially dangerous.
Since the very same thing applies to every form of belief, I'd strongly recommend the most insightful book on the matter, which whilst hard to digest for most people, it's... well bear with my redundancy, the most insightful book on the matter.
I'm speaking of Eco's Foucault's Pendulum.
I'll leave just one quote from the book here for you to decide whether it's worth a read (mark my words, it is): "Incredulity doesn't kill curiosity; it encourages it. Though distrustful of logical chains of ideas, I loved the polyphony of ideas. As long as you don't believe in them, the collision of two ideas — both false — can create a pleasing interval, a kind of diabolus in musica. I had no respect for some ideas people were willing to stake their lives on, but two or three ideas that I did not respect might still make a nice melody. Or have a good beat, and if it was jazz, all the better."
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When you correct your answers you should warning people to try again, just saying...
Q2 and Q6 work now
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I didn't want to be too obvious. ;) I haven't done a puzzle in at least a year, I guess etiquette may have changed. Anyway, it's fixed now, I hope everyone enjoys it!
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It's not like giving hints :/ It is just saying 'hey, there were some mistakes, try again'
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I still can't find the puzzle. I'm starting to feel really useless today ... perhaps I'll just go to bed.
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It's one of the tricks found in our holy grail of puzzle solving.
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Yep found it, thanks ... should have found it before, must have been blind.
Still missing Q2 and Q4, will return later for those. (... I was sure I'd know the "location" before I even found the puzzle ... and I think my answer for 4 is correct, but in the wrong form? ... well, hints will help.)
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2 has many different formats listed as correct. Answer can be deciphered from story above. 4 has two possible answers, and some different formats.
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Yeah I'm sure I'll get them later when I'm home again... But thanks for the reasaurance :)
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"I left the bedroom and went to lay with her in the guest bedroom, since we don't want her thinking that whining gets her a spot on our bed"
Doesn't matter, she already got your special attention anyway.
Dog 1, Human 0.
:-P
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She did win. Dang dog. Last night we locked her in the other room alone.
EDIT: because she was being a jerk, not to be mean to her! She is our best baby and we love her.
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The answer is a whole number, and typing the number with or without the word miles will both count as correct. The number is in arabic numerals, though, not written out as a word. My response to you earlier was to confirm five sixths and twenty-five thirds.
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solved everything except Q2. i don't get it^^
edit: solved >.<
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I'm the only one who can't find the puzzle? Really?!? I've checked all the usual places (and a few unusal ones, too) so I must be missing something obvious...
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Only 13 people have found it. I guess I hid it a little too well, though I thought it was going to be in plain sight.
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Shall I keep checking back for hints or won't there be any?
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I'm going to put more, but I'm going to try to wait until tomorrow or wednesday. The GAs go through Friday. I'll update the topic title when I add them!
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I got stuck at Q2 until it popped into my head.
Bump for solved. :)
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Are you serious? I do that every day, I don't see how it's disrespectful.
As long as you don't let the dog chase rabbits across graves ... or take a dump on them ... now that would be disrespectful.
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I agree, I would never let her go on the graves. However, there was a path through the cemetery - it was quite a large one - where people always jog, walk, take their dogs, etc.
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Was not aware of that logic. Had ferrets when I was young, and rats a few years ago. Thinking of getting more rats soon, I loved them.
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I don't know about Stella, but ... I've seen Luisa's reaction to rabbits and squirrels, and ... if I had rats I'd be afraid she would obliterate them. (Girlfriend says she wouldn't. I'm really not so sure.)
Perhaps I should get a cat. She's scared of cats.
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STELLA IS AFRAID OF CATS TOO! I have one that I had to leave with my family when I moved in with my girlfriend (and Stella, mostly Stella, don't forget this is Stella's house not yours). My kitty is 15 and kept hissing at Stella, provoking her, and of course if Stella decided to bite.....well, Jade would be dead. I don't think she would attack the rats, we took her by the small animal section of the pet store recently and she was thoroughly disinterested.
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I updated some of the ITH hints. For those of you who can't find the ITH, hang tight, I'll add something later.
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We moved to a new townhouse a couple weeks ago. Everything is going well, except for the ghosts.
We have a 3 year old American Pit Bull Terrier, and like most pitbulls, she's loving, loyal, and not very smart. She would gladly welcome any robber or murderer who broke into our home - she loves people. So when a few nights ago she started crying, whining, and relentlessly banging into our bedroom door, we were pretty freaked out. I left the bedroom and went to lay with her in the guest bedroom, since we don't want her thinking that whining gets her a spot on our bed, but I was somewhat spooked the rest of the night. She stood at the top of the stairs for five extra minutes just shaking before she finally came to lay with me.
Since then, we've heard many strange sounds in the house. There is another tenant in the basement, but he has his own kitchen and bathroom, and we haven't heard anything other than his loud TV before. Toilets seem to be flushing themselves, things in the fridge are falling over, and there are a few other sounds we just can't place.
Before this, we lived in an apartment. The apartment was across the road from a cemetery, and when we took her on walks through the cemetery she would get spooked at the smallest sounds, jumping for seemingly no reason. What's interesting is that she was never spooked at that apartment, only in the actual cemetery. Here, with no cemetery nearby, she seems spooked much more often.
She's really the best dog, and while she would never protect us from burglars, I'm glad she's at least watching out for the ethereal beings who obviously want nothing more than to haunt a random townhouse in our nation's capital.
Hint: The puzzle link can be found using one of the simple methods in the holy grail of puzzle solving. Use your eyes. Look at everything. Additionally, added a few more formats for Q2.
ADDITIONALLY, one of my GAs never made it into the train, oops! Thanks Domazo for pointing it out. So even if you can't find the puzzle (I swear it's right in front of you) or can't solve the puzzle, everyone can enter this GA right here.
Well, I meant to add another hint before it ended, but my girlfriend is sick and I've been taking care of her. Anyway, the puzzle link was hidden in the third image below, in the dark area above Stella.
Q1: The answer was in the title of the puzzle, and could also be found in some of the comments below.
Q2: The hint was in the last sentence of the story. You had to do a bit of detective work to figure out the country, but that wasn't hard, and the answer was various formats of DC.
Q3: Quick logic puzzle. Don't want to give this away in case I want to use similar ones in the future.
Q4: Same as above, though there were two possible answers - first or last. Some people tried "first and last" or some variation of that, so later I added a hint saying that you only needed one.
Q5: Same as Q3.
Q6: Fractions! Everyone's favorite. If the distance ran by Harriet is represented as D, then 25/3 = D(5/6). Multiply both sides by 6 and get 50 = 5D. Simplify.
Q8: The answer is listed in the story.
Q9: The only acceptable format was American Pit Bull Terrier, which is the format I used in the story above.
Q10: At 3:00 the hands make a 90 degree angle. From there you can easily determine the angle made at 2:00.
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