alert”:
Last year, Wired reporter Evan Ratliff disappeared. We created a new style of manhunt, called the “non-alternate reality game,” where we challenged all of America to find Evan.

Then, earlier this year, we did it again in conjunction with Universal Pictures’ film Repo Men, challenging America to find four people who’d disappeared.

Now, the “Vanish”-style social media approach is being used to try to find someone who is not playing a game. In late November, Seattle native Joe Sjoberg went missing somewhere in Madison, Wisconsin. On Dec. 2, Sjoberg’s brothers Patrick and Robert blasted the internet with virtual flyers, Twitter posts, a Facebook group and the like. The internet responded with thousands of posts, with social network users contacting hundreds of hotels and airports, breaking into and searching a couple hundred of airport parking lots.

Sjoberg has not yet been found, and his brothers continue to seek help on the internet to find him. Read more about the hunt for Sjoberg, and what you can do to help, in this story by The Atlantic associate editor Jared Keller.

Things that roasted my chestnuts this week:

• On Monday, an actor playing the title character in the upcoming Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Out the Dark fell at least 20 feet and was taken to the hospital in a neck brace. This is the latest in a slew of web-slinging injuries for a production that includes such Bono/Edge songs as “Love Me or Kill Me,” “Bouncing Off the Walls” and — ahem — “The Boy Falls From the Sky.” If I were Green Goblin portrayer Patrick Page, I would not be welcoming the opening song titled “Splash Page” right now.
• On Thursday Night Football, commentator Matt Millen uttered one of Decoder Ring’s favorite aphorisms. Describing a gutty play by a Chargers runner, Millen said, “Attitude, not aptitude, determines altitude.” It’s rare to find a quote that includes three eight-letter words that differ by only one letter.
• Quite a hullaballoo was made of Nat Strand and Kat Chang becoming the first all-female team to win The Amazing Race. More interesting, to Decoder Ring anyway, is that they’re the first team to do so having only one unique vowel in their names.
• It really must be Christmastime. Back-to-back-to-back in front of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I saw festively colored trailers for Green Lantern, Red Riding Hood and The Green Hornet.

This week’s Noodler:
Last time I asked what all of these have in common: the Web, DRM, design, Bionicle, missile defense, the album, the TV, the TiVo box, the Viper, the Police Interceptor, Wi-Fi, eDonkey, and Devo. New Decoder Ring of Honor member Eric Yount discovered the answer: All of these have been declared “dead” by Wired, using the Charles VII-inspired pattern “(X) Is Dead, Long Live (X, or maybe Y).” This week, I want to know what phrase in the news has the cryptogrammatic pattern “123 1243567839.” If you’re the first to send that to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , you’ll be a Ringer too.

Where the geeks are this week:
Across the world, celebrating the 97th birthday of the crossword puzzle. On December 21, 1913, Arthur Wynne published a “wordcross” in New York World, starting a craze that swept the nation. Wynne’s invention long outlived the World, something not many of man’s creations can boast.

Mike Selinker is a game and puzzle designer who heads the Seattle-area studio Lone Shark Games. He also writes a blog about non-puzzly stuff called The Most Beautiful Things.

Authors: Mike Selinker

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