Explanation of Civil War Message, Decoded 147 Years Later

In the news today, I read about a Civil War message that was found in a bottle and decoded just recently. However the news article wasn't very clear on the how the message was encoded.

With a little trial and error, I too was able to decode the message. The message uses a Vigenère cipher and a key of length 15. After struggling with some transcription and encoding errors in the message, I was able to determine what was the intended coded message:

SEAN WIEUIIUZH DTG CNP LBHXGK OZ BJQB FEQT XZBW JJOY TK FHR TPZWK PVU RYSQ VOUPZXGG OEPH CK UASFKIPW PLVO JIZ HMN NVAEUD XYF DURJ BOVPA SF MLV FYYRDE LVPL MFYSIN XY FQEO NPK M OBPC FYXJFHOHT AS ETOV B OCAJDSVQU M ZTZV TPHY DAU FQTI UTTJ J DOGOAIA FLWHTXTI QLTR SEA LVLFLXFO.

If you repeatedly write the key phrase "Manchester Bluff" above the letters it tells you the offset from the actual letter. A is an offset of zero (the same letter in the plain text). B is an offset of 1, C is 2, etc. The decoded message is:

Gen'l Pemberton, You can expect no help from this side of the river. Let Gen'l Johnston know, if possible, when you can attack the same point on the enemy's line. Inform me also and I will endeavour to make a diversion. I have sent you some caps. I subjoin despatch from Gen Johnston.

After I figured out the key phrase I noticed in the Wikipedia article that the Confederate leadership primarily relied upon three key phrases, "Manchester Bluff", "Complete Victory" and, as the war came to a close, "Come Retribution".

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Dec 19, 2010): City, State, Zip

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Dec 19, 2010): City, State, Zip:

Q: Name a city in the United States that ends in the letter S. The city is one of the largest cities in its state. Change the S to a different letter and rearrange the result to get the state the city is in. What are the city and state?

This will be simple enough to figure out if you check Wikipedia or Google, but let's see you do this with no list.

Edit: My hint was "no list" which is an anagram of "Lost in...".

A: Yonkers, New York

Hack the Video Password, by Solving our Christmas Puzzle

This year we've hidden a secret video message as the solution to our puzzle. Only those that can spot the 8 differences in our annual Christmas Puzzle will be able to figure out the password. Are you up to the challenge?

Note: If you need some help here are some hints:
1. What order are the colors in the rainbow? 2. Shed some light on the subject. 3. Two for the price of one. 4. Is this a dagger I see before me? 5. Check out that wall 6. Gold is more impressive 7. Whoops, who hung that picture? 8. Every brick counts.
You can also get the complete solution here, but try solving it without help first... it's more fun that way.

When you solve it, please don't give away the answer but feel free to add a comment to let us know that you successfully figured it out. And we are always looking for new ideas for next year's Christmas puzzle, so submit those too.

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Dec 12, 2010): Mixed-up Companies

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Dec 12, 2010): Mixed-up Companies:

Q: Rearrange the letters of 'Wayne Manor' to name two well-known American corporations, past or present. What corporations are they?

Anyone remember that the two companies had a deal in the works in the late 90s? Everyone does remember what happened after that though.

Edit: Hint, the first sentence in my comments started with "A", the second with "E".

A: Wayne Manor --> Amway + Enron

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Dec 5, 2010): Triangles Abound

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Dec 5, 2010): Triangles Abound:

Q: From Sam Loyd, a puzzle-maker from a century ago: Draw a 4x4 square. Divide it into 16 individual boxes. Next, draw a diagonal line from the middle of each side of the square to the middle of the adjoining side, forming a diamond. And, finally draw a long diagonal line from each corner of the square to the opposite corner, forming an X.

How many triangles can you find in this figure?

Getting the answer is really easy; the key is to think of geometry. Let's see, if you start with a square and cut it along the diagonal, you get a triangle. Similarly, if you take a circle and cut a chord through the center, you get a semicircle. Take the measure in radians extended by the measure in degrees and you should have the answer, assuming you haven't made an error. Well, at least that is how I got my answer.

P.S. The NPR website currently has a couple typos in their posted puzzle (e.g. It should be Sam Loyd not Sam Lloyd. And a 4x4 square forms 16 smaller squares instead of 6. I'm pretty sure I have the intended question but be prepared for changes if the on-air puzzle is stated differently.

P.P.S. I've added a diagram now that I've confirmed the wording of the on-air puzzle.

Edit: Okay, I deliberately added a few "faux" clues to my original post in case some people undercounted. A couple common undercounts were 84 and 88. For 84, the misleading hint was "error. Well" hinting at 1984. For 88, there were a couple hints to "key" and "chord" that should make one think of a piano. But the real answer is 96 which was hinted to by this clue: "...get a semicircle. Take the measure in radians (which is pi) extended by the measure in degrees (which is 180°) and you should have the answer..." Now if you take pi and write out the digits 3.141592653589793238... you'll find '96' starting at position 180. You can confirm this by typing '96' into the Pi Search page

A: 96 triangles as enumurated in the following Count the Triangles Solution (PDF)

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 28, 2010): Name the Places

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 28, 2010): Name the Places:

Q: Name the setting for an old television show that was also a series of popular movies. The answer consists of two words, with five letters in each word. The last three letters of the last word plus the first three letters of the first word, in that order, name a country. What country is it?

As long as I'm up and not sleeping, I might as well post the puzzle. The puzzle is so easy that I'm providing no hints; you are on your own.

Edit: Okay, so I really did hide some hints. First, "up and not sleeping" was a reference to the movie Insomnia. The original Insomnia (1997) was a Norwegian movie. The remake Insomnia (2002) was directed by Christopher Nolan who also directed Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. The second hint was the phrase "you are on your own". This both alludes to Batman's parents being killed, and to the word solo, which anagrams to Oslo (Norway). The final clue was the word name in the title. Those are the letters in the setting that remain after forming the country.

A: Wayne Manor --> Norway

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 21, 2010): Mixed-up Serial Number

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 21, 2010): Mixed-up Serial Number:

Q: What two world capitals can be found by rearranging the letters in the phrase 'serial number.'

Since the NPR puzzle is rather easy, here's related puzzle for you. Take the oxymoronic phrase "A kinetic zen". Rearrange the letters to form the title of a well-known movie. Now figure out how it is related to this week's puzzle.

Edit: The answer to my puzzle was the movie "Citizen Kane" where it is revealed that "Rosebud" was the name of a sled. Sled written backwards is DELS which contains the Internet country codes for Germany(DE) and Lesotho(LS) respectively.

A: BERLIN (Germany) and MASERU (Lesotho)

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 14, 2010) : Tune into TNT

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 14, 2010) : Tune into TNT :

Q : What is the longest familiar phrase, title, or name in which the only consonants are N and T, repeated as often as necessary? The other letters are vowels.

On the air, Will mentioned he had an answer with 18 letters. I've matched 18 letters but have a feeling we can do better than that.

Edit : Did you notice that I placed an extra space in front of each colon in this post? The hint was the sci-fi series "Space: 1999".

A : The song "Nineteen ninety nine" by Prince.
Will also accepted the 1947 French film Antoine et Antoinette.

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 7, 2010): Alphabet Soup?

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 7, 2010): Alphabet Soup?:

Q: Write out the 26 letters of the alphabet. Take a sequence of seven letters, change one letter in that sequence to a U, and rearrange the result to name something you might find in your refrigerator. Hint: The answer is a two-word phrase.

Don't forget to set your clocks back an hour. But don't set your clocks back too far or you won't be able to get the answer at all... say 1963?

Edit: According to a couple sources, plastic milk jugs were introduced in 1964.

A: Take GHIJKLM, swap H for a U, rearrange to get MILK JUG

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Oct 31, 2010): Creature Double Feature

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Oct 31, 2010): Creature Double Feature:

Q: Name a creature in six letters. Move the first three letters to the end and read the result backward to name another creature. Clue: If you break either six-letter word in half, each pair of three letters will themselves spell a word.

No, I'm not late in posting the puzzle. I'm just stunned anyone would think so. Incidentally one of the 3-letter words is more common in crosswords, but it is found in the dictionary. Speaking of a double-feature, I'm thinking of watching a comedy and then a sci-fi thriller. Horror on Halloween is so overrated.

Edit: My hints were "not late" and "just stunned" which allude to various lines in the Monty Python Dead Parrot Sketch. The double-feature references were to this comedic sketch and the velociraptors in Jurassic Park. The last comment was a hint to the fact that the creatures aren't directly related to Halloween (e.g. not goblins, zombies, spirits, etc.)

A: PARROT <--> ROTPAR <--> RAPTOR