Spiral Bits

m!nus · Post by **m!nus** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 7:56 pm

Is there a nice way to go along the path? I thought doding it with the mouse would be the easiest/fastest, but actually it's pretty hard to stay on the trail. Hints?

therethinker · Post by **therethinker** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 9:52 pm

First I GIMPed it so that there were only 3 colors: from there I did it all programatically.

Using the mouse to trace the path sounds pretty interesting. Good luck with that.

Another idea I just came up with (more importantly for lazy bits) would be to have the kind people at mechanical turk do it for you

tog · Post by **tog** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 10:09 pm

Don't bother tracing it with the mouse. It will be hard work (actually harder than to code it). <deleted spoiler>

efe · Post by **efe** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 11:40 pm

<deleted spoiler/>

Where can I find this challenge on the map?

tails · Post by **tails** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 12:25 am

Efe, don't worry, you'll find it soon.

By the way, I think we *** ****** **** *** *** ******, ** ***** *** **** *** ****** **** ******, because ** *** ****** *** ** ***** **.

EDIT: Deleted spoiler.

tog · Post by **tog** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 7:08 am

Oh, sorry ... of course you're right, tails! Just deleted that spoiler.

efe · Post by **efe** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 1:31 pm

You deleted the spoiler too late

I already guessed the image URL's.

snibril · Post by **snibril** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 6:50 pm

Whats the problem with writing the names of the challenges? You can easily get them, when you are logged in.

Marcellus · Post by **Marcellus** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 2:52 pm

Would any of the solvers be so kind to reveal the exact numbers of bits in this spiral?

I don't think that this would spoil the challenge too much but my solver program is quite close to the right number I think and I want to know how close I am.

Thanks in advance!

therethinker · Post by **therethinker** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 2:20 am

I had my solver leave breadcrumbs of where it had been on the image, which it would then save so I could see how it was doing.

Marcellus · Post by **Marcellus** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 5:48 pm

Thank you for the answer, but I see already where exactly my program goes...
And I went once through the whole marked spiral (and I went very fast through it and it took me half a day already and I missed many mistakes).

So my initial question stays the same - could anyone tell me the exact number of bits in this spiral?

Zeta · Post by **Zeta** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 7:31 pm

Allosentient · Post by **Allosentient** » Tue Jun 30, 2009 6:02 pm

therethinker wrote:I had my solver leave breadcrumbs of where it had been on the image, which it would then save so I could see how it was doing.

haha, that's what I did

Wed Sep 14, 2011 4:55 pm

I'm a bit surprised by the long streaks of pixels of the same (green-ish) color. No matter whether you interpret them as ones or as zeros, that doesn't make for good ASCII code

It does not *have* to be ASCII, of course - but seeing how the challenge here is getting the data at all rather than decoding it, that would have been my first assumption.

DaymItzJack · Post by **DaymItzJack** » Wed Sep 14, 2011 4:58 pm

I found the encoding easily by doing the first 3-4 bytes by hand.