Solution to 4: Notes on Hacking Machine

    The first thing to do is figure out how the gears should be arranged. A couple of things hint at the method to use: "dot" and "dash" are found in the text and there are some gear teeth marked with a black line.

    The black lines are signalling Morse code. Three consecutive lines represents a dash, and one consecutive line represents a dot, with dots and dashes being separated by a single space. If read counterclockwise, there is only one logical position on each gear to start reading, and the gears, when placed in order, spell out the word MAIN. Now that we have the ordering of the gears, we can start using the letters on them. Reading the first letters as marked by the start of the Morse code letter, then rotating the first gear counterclockwise (resulting in the second gear rotating clockwise, and so on), we get the phrase

    NON MOTION OR COUNTRY OF MALE DEER

    This is a (lame) hint to the answer, stagnation.


STAGNATION