The Old New Thing

Answers to yesterday’s holiday fun puzzles

Puzzle 1: This was a word search consisting of the names of the twelve streets of central downtown Seattle. The unused letters spell out the message "Issaquah year's supply hair conditioner", which takes you to the Issaquah Costco. (In the real puzzle, the secret message was much odder but relied on an inside joke.) Puzzle 2: The ...

Using script to query information from Internet Explorer windows

Some time ago, we used C++ to query information from the ShellWindows object and found it straightforward but cumbersome. This is rather clumsy from C++ because the ShellWindows object was designed for use by a scripting language like JScript or Visual Basic. Let's use one of the languages the ShellWindows object was designed for to ...

Some holiday fun: Puzzle supplementary material

(Note: This makes sense only after you've gone through the other puzzles.) In case my friend got stuck, she could call me and ask for a hint. The original plan was that I would charge her a dare in order to get a hint, but it turns out I was too nice a guy to make her do any of the following things, but here's the list anyway...

Some holiday fun: Puzzle #5

(Note: Read the puzzles in order from 1 to 6 for them to make sense.) Number five is an old-style riddle. My first is an avatar, you are guardian of its soul. My second you must vanquish if you wish to reach your goal. My third you may injure if you slide too hard to third. My whole is a place where dead people can be heard. My friend ...

Some holiday fun: Puzzle #4

(Note: Read the puzzles in order from 1 to 6 for them to make sense.) A pretty straightforward puzzle. Answers to all puzzles will be posted tomorrow. Please do not post spoilers. Onward to Puzzle #5...

Some holiday fun: Puzzle #3

(Note: Read the puzzles in order from 1 to 6 for them to make sense.) This was by far the hardest puzzle to make. It's also going to be the hardest to solve because a lot of the clues were originally inside jokes, and rewriting them for a general audience makes the answers much less obvious. Hint: Quotation is by Nancy Pearl...

Some holiday fun: Puzzle #2

(Note: Read the puzzles in order from 1 to 6 for them to make sense.) Upon arrival at the first puzzle location, she was handed the second puzzle: "Opghg'i xk ialp opfxw zi z ioaufy jagiofkx." Wk ok opg fxqkhvzofkx ygib fx Lgxogh Pkaig zxy zib fq opge pzmg zxe oflbgoi zmzfnzdng qkh opg Vzhfxghi wzvg. The following clues are not ...

Some holiday fun: Puzzle #1

Today is a holiday in the United States, so I thought I'd go entirely non-technical. But that doesn't mean you get to rest your brain. One of my friends was accepted to the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. We are of course very happy for her, but also sad that she will be ...