Level 27

[mjpieters]

I am working on the kw's but have not found the taunt. I thought they may tie into a kw list but apparently not. Can someone please give me a hint?

You only visualised the information you found. The visualisation is the image you see. The keywords don't come into play until after you actually looked at the information itself.

Whoa, just found something of use inside the gif. Now to tease it out.

I'm glad I took two weeks off from this one. The fresh mind definitely helps.

j.

Whoa, just found something of use inside the gif. Now to tease it out.

Yea, I teased it out. Now what the heck is this? If it's supposed to be the Python moral equivalent of Perl Poetry, it sure ain't very poetic.

Is this the "keywords" you guys have been talking about?

Oh well, at least it's progress...

Haven't found any taunts yet...

Haven't found any taunts yet...

Okay, I got it. But, um, I still don't see anything I'd consider a taunt. I don't consider "between the tables" much of a hint, and I think it was a big accident I solved this level at all. Maybe I just got lucky.

I'll go read the wiki now though to see what I should've done.

Edit: okay, the hint I was supposed to get to tell me what to do with the keywords. I never got that hint. I figured out what to do with the keywords anyway. I'm not sure what was supposed to guide me to that hint -- I would've never thought to do what you need to do to get the hint.

Onto 28. A very unsatisfying end to 27.

j.

I'm stuck again.

I found a big pile of bytes, but couldn't do anything with them. Then I realised that I actually had two piles, and could obtain a third. The third looked familiar, and a closer look gave me something that couldn't have been there by accident. I guess that's the first part done.

Now I have a file full of words. My suspicion is raised by the number of unique words, and by the total number in the file. Some very basic statistical tests give results that suggest the type of thing that I should be getting out of it, but nothing I try will give me anything that looks useful.

I think I know what the tables are, what's between them, and why something matters. But I don't understand the significance of the zigzag. I don't see why it's so impressed by me. And what's this taunt?

I think I know what the tables are, what's between them, and why something matters. But I don't understand the significance of the zigzag. I don't see why it's so impressed by me. And what's this taunt?

When you've found the keywords, you don't need the tables and zigzag hint anymore. The taunt can be found by using another bit of information during processing than you used. It helps you with the keyword list

However, the KEYWORD list is __extremely__ easy when your brain clicks.

Ah, there it is. This is another one where the non-python programmers are at a slight disadvantage. Have I said too much?

Ah, there it is. This is another one where the non-python programmers are at a slight disadvantage. Have I said too much?

I don't think so. But in general, spending some time in /usr/lib/python2.3 or wherever your python modules are stored and just looking at what's there is not a bad idea. You never know when one will help.

I've found some sort of pattern -- not so much a zigzag as a zigzig-- and some places where that pattern doesn't apply. I can't see any patterns in the pattern though; am I on the right track?

[mjpieters]

and some places where that pattern doesn't apply.

You are so damn close I am surprised your nose hasn't hit the glass yet.

/sigh stuck again. All I see is static, no patterns. I've tried every image & sound thing I can think of, sometimes in combination with what I think zigzag could mean, but all I get is snow & white noise.

/sigh stuck again. All I see is static, no patterns. I've tried every image & sound thing I can think of, sometimes in combination with what I think zigzag could mean, but all I get is snow & white noise.

in fact, there is a pattern you probably not tried. look at your tables.

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.

Well, I was doing everything I was supposed to, but it turns out my code was needlessly complicated. I had at least 3 times as many lines as I actually needed and my data streams wern't coming out quite right. I guess the idea here is K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid!)

Maybe leo was right...

Okay, this just seems to be plain evil

I got the image and extracted a table and a blob of data from it fairly easily, but I can't make any sense of either of them. The table appears to be totally random, and although the data obviously some pattern to it (and a very familiar magic 3 bytes part of the way in) I can't think of anything useful to do with it.

I've been stuck here for days. Any hints please?