3031: Time Capsule Instructions

Time Capsule Instructions

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Title text: Inside is a third box, labeled DO NOT OPEN UNLESS YOU ARE IN THE TIME ZONE WHERE YOU OPENED BOTH PREVIOUS BOXES.

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Explanation

This is one of 52 incomplete explanations: Created by a BOT LOCKED INSIDE THE THIRD BOX - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. Do NOT delete this tag too late either. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

The instructions for opening the first box preclude opening the second... at least without inventing a time machine / changing calendars.

The title text addressed the only way one can open the first two boxes without ignoring the instructions: by crossing time zones. When more eastern locations have become the 1st of January 2025, it will (for a short while) is still be the 31st of December 2024 in more western places, meaning that theoretically someone could open the first box in a time zone where it is 2025 and then travel to one in which it is still 2024 to open the second box. However, the title text implies that if you take advantage of this loophole, you will not be allowed to open the third box as it requires that you have not made any such move.

Depending on interpretation, you could defeat the third box by placing it inside two time zones at once before opening it, as there is no time limit on the third box. This works if the instruction on the box is read as "unless you are in the time zone where you opened the first box, and you are in the time zone where you opened the second box". However, this new loophole could be patched by interpreting the third box as "unless you are in the one time zone where...". Another possible solution would be for both the box and the person opening it to be on the boundary between two time zones, half in each.

Transcript

This is one of 27 incomplete transcripts: Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

[A frame with a Time Capsule sign. Cueball and Megan are clinking wine glasses. Ponytail is digging with a shovel.]

Off-panel sound: Happy New Year!

[A frame showing a worn-out box labeled "DO NOT OPEN UNTIL 2025"]

[A frame where Ponytail opens the box while Cueball and Megan watch.]

Click

[The box is revealed to contain a second box labeled "DO NOT OPEN AFTER 2024"]

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Discussion

Neither date has a calender suffix, which allows the finder to assume it to be a BC date, which would render the issue… moot.172.71.102.192 22:45, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Given that they open it at New Year 2025 and that this was known to be the year to open it, probably standing in the small text on the sign, they are of course years in the normal calendar and when not writing CE og BEC as Randall would do then it is always CE. --Kynde (talk) 13:13, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

The answer is simple! Open the box after 2025 (Vikram Samvat calendar) and before 2024 (gregorian) Nerd1729 (talk) 22:49, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

1: Open first box in a GMT+X tz, where is already 2025; 2: Travel to tz GMT+X-Y, where is still 2024, remove second box from inside first box and open it; 3: Wait for the year to turn 2025, close the first box and open it again; 4: Now both first and second boxes were open in the same tz and you can open the third one. 162.158.49.76 22:50, 30 December 2024 (UTC) auroralimin

you have overthought this so much but it works surprisingly Nerd1729 (talk) 23:16, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Only if you can convince yourself that it was not the first opening that counted as opening in the text on the third. I would not be able to convince my self of that. And although the explanation at this times suggest there is no enforcement method, then maybe Black Hat who obviously made this capsule may have booby trapped the boxes. And only because you managed to move it did it not explode! ;-) The Australian solution in the explanation may work, but only if you did not open the first box until in Australia on New Years Day 2025... --Kynde (talk) 13:13, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Open it standing next to a border between time zones, step across, then stand in both? 162.158.62.154 (talk) 02:36, 31 December 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

The third box can be defeated by being at one of the two geographic poles, which have no time zones (or at least, which can't be said to be in any time zone). Nitpicking (talk) 03:23, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Both poles (indeed, all poles) still have a timezone (and, when I last read the page, I also wanted to point out that east/west travel wasn't consistently later-to-earlier, and even without considering going to a pole, it's not just E-W journeys that can step your timezone across). Even the ISS has a timezone, even if that's just the old backup of UTC. 141.101.98.54 11:03, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Only remember not to open either before on the pole! Oh and you did not know the instructions on box 2 and box 3 until you opened them! --Kynde (talk) 13:13, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

"WHAT'S IN THE BOX?!" (sorry folks) Jaap-Jan (talk)

A fourth box saying do not open this unless on a another planet than the one you opened the first three boxes on. --Kynde (talk) 12:43, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

"You must open this box if (and only if) you haven't opened any of the other boxes"... 172.70.85.5 13:07, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

The best solution I can think of is to use solar time. First, open the first box in time zone X once 2025 has begun according to solar time. Second, cross the year line according to solar time, while remaining in time zone X, to reach 2024. Open the second box. Third, immediately open the third box while remaining in time zone X, which is the same time zone in which the first and second boxes were opened. That said there is almost certainly a fourth box, but, cross that bridge when you come to it. If anyone agrees with this, add it to the explanation? Mrfoogles (talk) 14:02, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

I considered a variation on that, but shall leave that to someone who can word it right/fit it in. I'm edited out, right now (having, amongst other things, added the "imaginary and prematurely celebrated New Year" excuse/solution, assuming the comic is contemporary/reporting past events, rather than somehow portraying slightly into the future from its publication time).

PS, as I write, maybe some editors/lurkers here have started their own 2025s (legitimately!), though I'm personally still 8h35m (plus change) within 2024 (and others will be more so). Hello to the Future, from here in the Past! (Is 2025 any good, yet?) 141.101.98.244 15:25, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Who says you have to follow the instructions. I would say "screw it" and open al the boxes anyway. Or use a circular saw to cut the box open, bypassing the lids. 172.68.71.44 15:18, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with the "Potential solutions" or any subsection really, but the six paragraphs up top should really be three. TL is a leading cause of DR. 172.70.214.186 18:13, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Alternate calendars to the rescue? According to the Greeks, it will be 2024 for another couple weeks. Cwallenpoole (talk) 18:54, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

use islamic calendar for box 2 and you have centuries to open it! 198.41.242.244 21:31, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

And if you successfully open all boxes against all odds, your reward is just a printed picture of a still frame of that one Spongebob episode where the guy says "I couldn't afford a present this year, so I got you this box." 172.70.176.14 07:15, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

After opening the '25 box, take the set to where it's still '24. Open the '24 box, close the '25 box, and wait till it is '25 to open it again. The 3rd box can be opened freely. 198.41.227.114 (talk) 08:57, 1 January 2025 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I believe that's been covered. (Note: extract the '24 box from the '25, before closing it, if you might have to close the '24 before the '25 can be... Or just fully extract unopened box#3, before closing '24-then-'25, if that still satisfies you having had opened all boxes once you re-open '25 in the was-'24 TZ. 172.69.195.201 13:30, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Is anyone aware of any time capsules that were due to be opened in 2025? guess who (if you desire conversing | what i have done) 09:28, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Insert a colon and open the second box somewhen between 12:00 and 20:23. 141.101.76.169 12:05, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Didn't Randall talk about a similar subject in What If? just get the government to change the time.--172.70.222.190 10:26, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

What if to open third box you just put it into two unmarked boxes (and potentially give to another person unaware of initial boxes)? 2A02:C204:2263:5153:0:0:0:1 20:27, 9 November 2025 (UTC)
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