Telecran

[tog]

It's funny, but this was one of the hardest challenges for me. Since first approaching the challenge and finally solving it, I solved like 150 other challenges. (I thought it had something to do with Luxembourg and its media or its connection to the other 3 countries. I also thought about some encoding where Lu=1 and the others =0.)

The main problem was that the german google.de only returned links to Luxembourg and the TV-magazine. Only when I tried the english version, I found the etch-a-sketch clip, which gave me the right hint. So I guess this is harder for non-english google users.

[papa]

I had the same problem. Took me some time until I finally tried the english google.

[adum]

odd -- 'telecran' is a french word.

[guxx]

Oh yes, the evil thing is the Luxembourg flag which made me think that it got something to do with the telecran magazine. There is an article called "Secret Project Dolphin - revealed" ...
I found the etch-a-sketch connection by wikipedia but the Luxembourg flag led me to further investigate in the magazine direction.

[Belriel]

I had the same problems, google only returned me links to Luxembourg and the telecran magazine, even though I have my firefox configured to request pages in English and I use google.com configured do talk to me in English and to display results in all languages. But seems Google still brings localized search results . Only when my wife searched on her Spanish windows the first hit indicated me what "Telecran" means in this challenge and then it was easy. Why is this toy such a dangerous thing that google censors it in Germany?

[megabreit]

Finally made it... huh, this was hard in general. It's not hard to find out, that the numbers are directions... but which ones?
I assumed, that the flags would be hint for the orientation... Denmark is North, Luxembourg West, Ukraine East and Romania South like on the map. I wasted one sheet of paper and then tried other approaches.
Just using the first letters seemed to easy and too obvious.

[cutter]

i thought about how often every direction must occur and came to the conclusion that the most steps are to the right and that up- and down steps are almost equal
after counting the flags (77,44,41,20) i knew what was right and left
finally you need luck or a mirror

[homeas]

@Belriel just use www.google.com/ncr and you get no country redirection

[klavierspieler21]

omg the luxemburg flag looks almost the same as netherlands

[fdmartin]

Luxembourg = (L)eft
Romania = (R)ight
Denmark = (D)own
Ukraine = (U)p

To solve this, I took the source code, parsed every <img> tag and converted them into an array of chars, containing '>', '<', '^' or 'v' depending on the direction, and then used this Python code to create the answer (btw it uses a non-standard module PIL).

Code: Select all

directions = ['>', '>', '<', 'v', 'v', '>', '>', '^', '^', 'v', '>', 'v', '>', '>', '^', '<', 'v', 'v', '>', '>', '>', '^', '^', '^', '>', '>', 'v', '<', '<', '>', '>', 'v', 'v', '>', '^', '^', '^', '>', 'v', '>', 'v', '>', 'v', '>', '^', '^', '^', 'v', 'v', 'v', '>', '>', '>', '^', '<', '<', '^', '^', '>', '>', '>', 'v', '>', 'v', '>', 'v', '>', '^', '>', '^', '>', '^', '>', 'v', '>', 'v', '>', 'v', '>', '^', '>', '^', '>', '^', '>', '>', '>', '<', '<', 'v', 'v', '>', '<', 'v', '>', '>', '>', '^', '^', '^', '>', '>', 'v', 'v', '<', '<', '>', 'v', '>', '>', '>', '>', '^', '^', 'v', 'v', '>', '>', '^', '<', '^', '>', '<', 'v', '>', 'v', '>', '>', '>', '^', '^', '^', '>', '>', '<', '<', 'v', 'v', '>', '<', 'v', '>', '>', '>', '>', '^', '^', '^', '<', '>', '>', '<', 'v', 'v', 'v', '>', '>', '>', '^', '^', '^', '>', '>', '<', '<', 'v', 'v', 'v', '>', '>', '>', '^', '^', '^', 'v', '>', '>', '^', 'v', 'v', 'v', '>']
from PIL import Image
im = Image.open('telecran.png')
x,y = 10,10
colour = (0,0,0)
for i in directions:
    for j in xrange(6):
        im.putpixel((x,y),colour)
        if i == '>': x+=1
        if i == '<': x-=1
        if i == 'v': y+=1
        if i == '^': y-=1
im.show()
im.close()

It uses a blank 100x100 px png file and writes the answer on it.
Here's the program output:

This was the neatest challenge so far.

[Allosentient]

haha, interesting! I actually guessed this one without drawing those lines

[xulfer]

I had a lot of fun with this one. I decided to implement mine using gd. When ran this will output the answer in a jpeg file (white on black). The string given is in the format "udlr".

compilation: gcc -o telecran telecran.c -lgd -ljpeg

Code: Select all

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <ctype.h>
#include <gd.h>

#define BY_PIXELS 4

struct coord {
    int x;
    int y;
};

void
usage(char *name) {
    fprintf(stderr, "%s output-file <direction string>\n", name);
}

int
main(int argc, char **argv) {
    gdImagePtr im;
    FILE *jpegout;
    int black, white, chr;
    char *sp;
    struct coord xy;

    if (argc < 3) {
        fprintf(stderr, "Didn't provide sufficient arguments.\n");
        usage(argv[0]);
        exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
    }

    im = gdImageCreate(256, 256);

    black = gdImageColorAllocate(im, 0,0,0);
    white = gdImageColorAllocate(im, 255,255,255);
    xy.x = 10;
    xy.y = 128;

    sp = argv[2];

    while (*sp != '\0') {
        chr = tolower((int)*sp);

        switch (chr) {
            case 'u':
               gdImageLine(im, xy.x, xy.y, xy.x, xy.y - BY_PIXELS, white);
               xy.y -= BY_PIXELS;
               break;
            case 'd':
               gdImageLine(im, xy.x, xy.y, xy.x, xy.y + BY_PIXELS, white);
               xy.y += BY_PIXELS;
               break;
            case 'l':
               gdImageLine(im, xy.x, xy.y, xy.x - BY_PIXELS, xy.y, white);
               xy.x -= BY_PIXELS;
               break;
            case 'r':
               gdImageLine(im, xy.x, xy.y, xy.x + BY_PIXELS, xy.y, white);
               xy.x += BY_PIXELS;
               break;
            default:
               fprintf(stderr, "Bad character given.\n");
               gdImageDestroy(im);
               exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
        }
        sp++;
    }

    if ((jpegout = fopen(argv[1], "wb")) == NULL) {
        perror(argv[1]);
        gdImageDestroy(im);
        exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
    }

    gdImageJpeg(im, jpegout, -1);
    gdImageDestroy(im);

    fclose(jpegout);

    return 0;
}

[/code]

[DaymItzJack]

For some reason as soon as I Googled telecran I knew what to do. I didn't hesitate or double check anything I went right along and started a python app for it.

[nighthalk]

i took things a little more off the wall, after identifying the countries the flags belonged to i then looked at the map thinking the north most would be up ect... well 2 of the countries are (relativly) to the right and 2 are (relativly) to the left and so i thought about the knobs and guessed "left 2 are one set, right 2 are other set" but it didnt work.... so i scrapped that idea and just brute forced the directions (yay c# graphics draw lines!) and kept hitting go till it wasnt giberish ^_^

[Axxaran]

wehaa, just solved it. Funny idea, even though there were a lot of wrong ways to go. I'm german and yes, i first jumped on the flagtrain and tried to get some binary pattern out of it. Bad clue was the "dirty translation", best clue was to use google.xx not google.de. I gave my daughter (4y) a pen and just told her to paint nice lines on a squared paper sheet, so pure pen and paperwork