Level 27

Examine your tables and look for a pattern....and some places where the pattern fails...and what those places can mean...

Examine your tables and look for a pattern....and some places where the pattern fails...and what those places can mean...

Thanks It was staring me in the face all this time, but last night I finally realised how the magic bytes I'd spotted relate to the patten I saw. I now see exactly what you mean. Now to write some Python code to extract the data...

Edit: Spoke too soon. It's obvious the repitition has something to do with the data I want to extract, but the method I tried gave me an invalid file. Perhaps I have to use the other table somehow?

Edit 2 (17th September): Got it - took me long enough, Now to figure out what the list of keywords means...

Edit 3: On to level 28 - thanks, ajohnson.

Hi, can someone PM me a hint to get me started? I've got the gif, and that's about it. I thought I had a table, but now I'm not sure. Cheers.

[edit]And done. With many thanks to _pbm_ on irc for the tip.

I've found 5 piles of bytes but I don't see a pattern in any of them. I think I know what a table might be but it doesn't seem to help me. I have no idea what the taunts or keywords are. And haven't found anything about being busy.

I've found 5 piles of bytes but I don't see a pattern in any of them.

Then on what basis did you classify them into 5 distinct piles?

I think I know what a table might be but it doesn't seem to help me. I have no idea what the taunts or keywords are. And haven't found anything about being busy.

FWIW, I don't think anyone else found 5 piles of bytes .

Actually I had tried it, but didn't zigzag right. In fact, I'm still not convinced I did it right because it looked messy, but I was told to get busy. I have 5 piles of stuff I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be busy with or if I'm done with them and need to look elsewhere, but I'll keep looking.

At least I'm not alone on this. I'm guessing from what Tim is saying that I am way off track Perfect.

I classified them as 5 piles because they are separated in the image.

Finally got it. I'm still not quite sure why the "piles" I found even exist. They have absolutely nothing to do with the solution. Anyways, big thanks to Timmy for being patient with me.

I'm stuck on this one for quite some time now... I have extracted two "tables" from the gif, one smaller than the other.. i found some repeating patterns in the big one and split the whole thing according to that pattern, which shows some repetition and some exceptions.. well but i don't know if thats even the right direction. If it is, I don't see it yet. I don't know what to do with the first table at all...tried to use it as key, but no usable results..
No idea how to zigzag..
I also found the 3 magic bytes in the second one, but have no clue how this could help me.. any further hints?
I'm really desperate
(PM me if you think it's a spoiler)

edit:
After having a long time off and some pm's i got the zigzag part..
although it was similar to things i tried before, i still can't see how the hints should point to this way of processing the data.. the second part was then solved in a few minutes, much more pythonic than the first. As someone said before: quite unsatisfying, but well.. on to 28

Okay, I give up. Serious help needed here. All hints desperately needed & gratefully received.

Hints received - thanks.

I find zigzag and get key image.
But I can't find the unkeywords. Waht's busy?
Please PM me a hint!

I found the key of 2nd stage! Why I didn't try be busy?
Oh this is 28.

I'm at the exact position of Matumoto.
Any help appriciated

I''ve also hit a complete dead end here. I've tried removing all the repitions from the main bit, but that doesn't leave much and what little there is is not helpful. Any advice would be appreciated

I can't 'pierce the static'. I can see some discontinuities, and I can notice patterns within them, but I can't see what to do with those patterns, nor how tables fit in. It seems to be at this stage that people are using the 'tables' and 'zigzag' hints, but I'm not sure...

IRC doesn't seem as busy nowadays as it used to be... I haven't gotten a reply when I've asked.

I can't seem to make any progress on this challenge. I found the gif, but here are the things that didn't work for me:

[potential spoilers removed]

After a few PMs, I finally got unstuck, but for those who come after me, and are mathematically-inclined, here's a hint:

To me, a zigzag would be a pair of functions f, g between domains X and Y such that:
f(X) => Y and g(Y) = X

This is where I was stuck...I could think of several good candidates for f(), but I couldn't figure out any reasonable g() functions. Well, in this puzzle, there's no g(), so don't let that throw you.

(Perhaps this is why an earlier post suggested that this puzzle is more zigzig than zigzag.)

However, f() has an interesting pattern as you iterate through x in X. There are also points of discontinuity in f()'s pattern...and those points are especially interesting.

I've been working on this thing on and off for about 10 months now... don't worry not every day. I still have no clue how to start/solve this thing. I've found three useful characters in the mess, but that's about it. Could someone please PM or message me on IRC ( I'm in #pythonchallenge ).


Thanks!!!