(Solution)

Document 6.6: Time's A-Wastin'

The librarian looks quite upset when he hands you a sheet of paper. "This," he says, "was tucked into an issue of Time, so I assume it has to do with the way he tampered with the clocks. At least they keep the right time! I don't know what he was getting at, but it certainly wasn't a bright idea."

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Sometimes it's the tick that is important, sometimes it's the direction, and sometimes it's the size of the jump.

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                  *
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              *
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          *
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                *

Note from the archivists of Beginner's Luck: The original version of this puzzle used a Java VNC applet to connect to a display on a remote server where programs were running to display the clocks. This server only ran during the Hunt and perhaps shortly afterward. Since it is impractical to expect a special server program to stay running forever just to run this one puzzle, this substitute version using animated GIF images was installed in 2010. The original clocks had hour and minute hands and displayed correct time within +/- 30 seconds. In this version, only the second hand is shown. All jumps of all second hands, forward or backward, are less than 30 seconds. The original version of this page (with its non-working clocks) is archived here. Thanks to C. Scott Ananian for assistance in restoring this puzzle.


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