Lost ARG 2008 - Part 12

So you hang around waiting for items of interest in a Lost ARG to happen, and then two come along at once. Firstly, Test 4 was announced via this e-mail.

ATTENTION ALL RECRUITS
RE: TANGENTIAL JUDGMENT ANALYSIS IS NOW LIVE

Namaste.

I am pleased to announce the release of the fourth assessment in the Dharma Initiative's Volunteer Recruitment Program is now available at www.dharmawantsyou.com.

This new test will assess your ability to formulate imaginative solutions to a range of conundrums.

Many of you have already demonstrated your ability to think "outside the octagon", so to speak. I am sure you will find this activity suitably stimulating.

I am also happy to report that a great number of you have enthusiastically embraced the recently released "Recruit Created Assessments" (RCA). Industrious recruits are devising for their colleagues a dizzying array of examination topics that will, no doubt, significantly expand the knowledge base of the Dharma Initiative.

These talented recruits not only stand to significantly increase their Dharma Points but will also be eligible for promotion to the position of "Instructor" in the Volunteer Recruitment Program.
On behalf of the Dharma Initiative I would like to thank these conscientious recruits for their efforts.

Keep up the good work.

Namaste.

Hans Van Eeghen

Head of Recruiting

As standard I went and checked the e-mail website address, to look at the Source Code to see if there were any hidden messages. (Funny how such a weird sentence has now become so commonplace!) Anyway, there wasn’t any, which left me to go and see what was what with Test 4.

Test 4 – Tangential Judgement Analysis



Fundamentally this was a ten-question, multiple choice quiz. The questions were supposed to be logical, mathematical puzzles. Some of them were simpler than others (like working out the speed of travel when given a distance and the time it had taken to get there), but I have come to doubt that actual performance in the test matters much to the final outcome. As such, I just answered the ones I could answer and guessed at the ones I couldn’t and saw what was what.

The end question was the trick, where the cheat would come into play. Alas I didn’t know about the cheat when I started so I had to take a complete guess. Basically the last question asked which of the four options was the correct answer, despite all four answers being a, b, c or d.

Had I typed the word ‘Mittelwerk’ at this point the correct answer would have flickered a little for me and I would have known what it was. But since I didn’t know that I just guessed. Oh well.

When I checked my progress I discovered that I had been categorised in a group called Helios.

I could have found myself in one of the five following criteria: Oceanus, Helios, Crius, Cronus or Atlas. All of these are the names of Greek mythological titans, but I’m not that inclined to care about whatever, if any, deeper meaning lies to all of that.

So, you may be wondering, how was anyone supposed to know to type ‘Mittelwerk’ into the test to enable to the cheat? Well, the answer to that lies in this video.



You may have noticed the brief flash during the film. That brief flash showed a black and white matrix:



Apparently this is, and I quote, a “Data Matrix 2D barcode encoding “reiwtletmk”, which is an anagram of Mittelwerk. I’ll be honest, I struggle to see it but I’ll take the word of people that have worked it out and say it is so. Mostly I don’t care.

Anyway, to finish, I took heed of the advice in the video about being able to design my own test. It was nothing fancy, I just had to come up with ten questions and multiple choice answers. Given free reign over what I could do, I decided to pose the questions around some of the mysteries of Lost. As far as I am aware there are not, as yet, any correct answers to my questions – so the answers I designated as correct are the ones that I think are correct.

If you want, you can have a go of my Lost Mystery Test here:


It’s the best kind of fun you can have without taking your underwear off!





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