Nutty

WIRED is one of the most exciting print magazines out there*
The design is consistently creative and engaging. But what really gets me to buy their magazines is that they are fantastical at packaging their issues.

For instance, take the May issue of the magazine, guest edited by J.J. Abrams. The entire magazine is devoted to the theme mystery; running throughout the pages is a series of puzzles which direct the reader to a secret website.

The NYT reports that Steven Bevacqua, a postproduction supervisor for the TV series Life, was the first reader to solve the puzzle, earning him a prize from Abrams. But other readers that can crack the codes (let alone figure out which ones are the puzzles... some are found in illustrations and photos: "you might ask why are there so many typographical errors in the text of Poe’s short story “The Purloined Letter” that appears on the screen of the Amazon Kindle on Page 46.") might win big as well.

So take that, Internet. Print is alive (and sort of) well.

“Blog posts can effectively summarize a story and give you the takeaway idea,” said Thomas Goetz, the deputy editor of Wired. But print publications, he said, are still better suited to conveying “the nuance and effort of understanding the complexity of an idea and why it matters — what the riddles and wrinkles are within an idea.”

via NYT, "A Magazine With a Puzzle Buried Inside"

* and though I'd like to say that it's ironic, WIRED is about more than the web, it's also about technology in the real world, so it's doesn't really qualify as being completely contrary

Here's another puzzle for you, albeit it works online (click to enlarge):