There is no doubt that the ‘end’ of the recruitment is just the beginning of the next phase.  the question is, what’s next?  Will it be a Dharma ‘work’ simulator over-flowing with opportunities to cheat your way onto the leader boards?   Or is a true narrative about to be unleashed that we can really sink our teeth into?

Will Dan Bronson return?  Or will we see a familiar face?  Shouldn’t the Lost gang revisit Rachel Blake one last time before the season ends?  What are your thought?

1) There are always two pieces that do not belong.
2) The two extras are seldom corner pieces, so…
3) start in the corners then the wall pieces.

I played about six times and only saw one false corner piece.  For entertainment purposes, here is a video of me fumbling through one of the videos and scoring a very weak 72.

And here’s the site link for the email.

Hmm as far as I can tell, I don’t see anything in the source code, but maybe someone can see something I can’t see? Let me know in the comments below!

The pesky “Security Update” has been swapped with a whole lot of blank space.  Could this mean the tests are coming soon, or have they decided to flip that old saying around into “nothing is better than something.”

Updates as they come along.

Before we get too excited about the seemingly nonsensical nature of the letter arrangements (they are not anagrams as far as anyone can tell), think about the ’static’ like distortion in some of the pics.  An indication that a video clip maybe trying to break through?

A commenter on DarkUFO named Matthew snooped in the source code and found the following snippet:

_loc_2 = ["I", "A", "M", "O", "N", "T", "H", "E", "I", "N", "S", "I", "D", "E"];

Shades of the good old Persephone days, right?   Could this be Dan Bronson breaking on through?  Is Dan even the primary protagonist of the story?  More info as it comes along.

Update: Here is the logo with all of the static images and unscrambled text!

Consider this:  LOST, according to most of us in the LOST fan-verse, is the best show on television.  The best acting.  The best writing.  The best everything.  A production oozing with competency and creativity.  Now, however, that competency and creativity is in the hands of those developers behind the ARG.  So I ask you, what would Darlton do?

Darlton would surely say: “Oh sh*t.  We have dead air.  Can’t have dead air.  QUICK!  Think something up.”  That’s right.  If Darlton and crew were ARG programmers, they’d improvise.  Come up with their own tangential diversion in hopes that we wouldn’t even notice that there was a problem.   Because that is what creative genius does.  It covers it’s own tracks.

Instead, we get dead air.

The problem here is that right now, the ARG does represent LOST for many of us, and it does symbolize the competency and creativity of the show.  As the fan base goes from sarcastic to downright caustic, so the swell of LOST hatred builds.  Lindelof calls the fan scene ‘Toxic’ for a reason.  We are an unforgiving bunch.

With the second week quickly approaching, the question isn’t so much ‘when will it get fixed’ anymore… but “Why?”  Why hasn’t the game been fixed.  Why haven’t the developers behind it at least shown some quick thinking to fill the dead air with something that would interest us?  Why is the assumption – apparently – that we don’t even need an explanation, let alone acknowledgment?

With the accomplished history of LOST, and the sensitivity the creators have shown to the ebb and flow of the fan-scene, it’s a strange feeling to think that no-one is acting on these signals of impatience with a witty and creative segue to get us through until things are fixed.  I’m just saying…

The email is from Hans Van Eeghen and details the “security breach” at Comic-Con, saying that “Dan Bronson has been expelled from the volunteer program and had his Dharma membership permanently revoked… [and the] Dharma Initiative has withdrawn their sponsorship of ‘LOST’.” 

Could this mean that we will not be seeing anymore of Mr. Bronson or is he going to take up some kind of Rachel Blake vigilante approach to the game?

Also, “The Dharma Initiative… has ordered a security audit of all departments.  As a part of this audit the DharmaWantsYou recruiting website will be undergoing a security upgrade in the next few days”

Seeing as this email was already leaked they are off to a poor start.

“Upon completion of this upgrade a date will be announced for the official commencement of Volunteer Assesments.”

Finally, we will be getting some kind of time frame!  Although this will most likely lead to major site downtime at the launch of the assesments.

The part that I find the most interesting is the last bolded paragraph:

“All recruits are reminded that the unauthrorized release of confidential information pertaining to the details of your activities within the Dharma Initiative will result in instant dismissal from the volunteer program”

This may just be an idle threat only pertaining to the Dan Bronson Breach, but I think its a warning to the folks picking apart the site (aka all of the game blogs).

All in all this email has providied some interesting insight into what to expect in the months ahead.

It’s been over a week and there has been no change on the DharmaWantsYou.com site.  I’m a bit miffed about it.  Not because it seems like we’re not getting something we were promised, but maybe – just maybe – this means that our expectations of weekly updates was far too optimistic.

Hopefully this is some kind of a technical glitch and not a sign that the game will progress, initially at least, in ten day intervals or something.  If nothing else, the fact that we are conditioned to enjoy the show on a weekly basis would make anything other than weekly updates incompatible with our clockwork.

HO appeared a few times in the first episode of season four “The Beginning of the End.”  The letters were shown when Charlie appeared to Hurley in the gas station (he was standing next to a rack of Ho Hos), H and O was all that Jack and Hurley went to in their game of Horse, and the elemental symbol for Ho was a sculpture at the mental institution.

From Doc’s article a few months back:

“Originally dubbed “Element X” by Jacques Soret and Marc Delafonatine,
who discovered it, Holmium (chemical symbal HO) is said to possess “the
highest magnetic moment (10.6µB) of any naturally-occurring element and possesses other unusual magnetic properties.”

…H is the 8th letter in the alphabet and – you guessed it - O is 15!  HO=815!“

Is this all just pointing to something grand or is it just a coincidence?