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[Silverkun]

[carlwebb]

Batch 3 results

I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine. It takes place in an impalpable greyness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamour, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat, in a sickly atmosphere of tepid scepticism, without much belief in your own right, and still less in that of your adversary.

6 and 10 are the answers for "poison" and "parasites" respectively.

thelsdj - 7 & 18
0/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
tjray - 9 & 16
0/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
Kythen - 3 & 10
0/3 & 1/3 Observations Correct
firexity - 7 & 0
0/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
logicphyber - 8 & 3
0/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
krispy - 3 & 3
0/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
magus - 6 & 1
1/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
dizzave - 8 & 3
0/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
rkm333 - 4 & 1
0/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
tallerbird - 3 & 10
0/3 & 1/3 Observations Correct
gandalf112 - 6 & 6
1/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
mnemo - 8 & 5
0/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
kinsey - 1 & 67
0/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
Tesseract - 0 & 0
0/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
v_roomy - 129 & 213
0/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
Chattonne - 1 & 3
0/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
carlwebb - 1 & 1
0/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
jkaufman - 3 & 3
0/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
sgresso - 2 & 2
0/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
brad7924 - 4 & 4
0/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
Lola66 - 6 & 1
1/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
macwebby - 9 & 9
0/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
Svengoolie - 5 & 5
0/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
Silverkun - 8 & 8
0/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
Aukbar - 12 & 0
0/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
cjknight06 - 11 & 11
0/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
Randall_Jhen - 1 & 8
0/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
safari180 - 10 & 1
0/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
dreddy1999 - 1 & 2
0/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
confoundo - 20 & 20
0/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
Idorusan - 1 & 8
0/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
gaj90027 - 13 & 13
0/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
Synchronicity - 1 & 7
0/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
ilikepucks - 14 & 14
0/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct
artlogic - 1 & 7
0/3 & 0/3 Observations Correct

[carlwebb]

Batch 4

[again, it seems, from Heart of Darkness]

No, they did not bury me, though there is a period of time which I remember mistily, with a shuddering wonder, like a passage through some inconceivable world that had no hope in it and no desire. I found myself back in the sepulchral city resenting the sight of people hurrying through the streets to filch a little money from each other, to devour their infamous cookery, to gulp their unwholesome beer, to dream their insignificant and silly dreams. They trespassed upon my thoughts.

[thelsdj]

cross posted from the cyphers forum

Theory:

'How much poison?' referes to the number of plurals in the text:

[cjknight06]

I'm thinking that this could be like binary. In programming, the computer returns 1 if true and 0 if false. In the poisons category, 1&6 seem to be the only answers. In parasites one of the numbers is 10, we dont know the other. We just hafta find out the query and which number represents false. does this make sense to anyone?

[Svengoolie]

[tallerbird]

I got the parasites right so i suppose i should explain my theory. I noticed that in all the texts a lot of prefixes used (unexciting,impalpable) so i used that for poison. I must have done something slightly different thought because now i can only see 2 in yesterdays text but i guessed 4. This theory did look like it worked for the previous texts.

I also noticed that in all the text there are a lot of words put together to make new words (underfoot,without,nothing). I counted 10 in total so i used that for parasites.

[Svengoolie]

I guessed 1 and 15 for today. I'll probably be wrong on the 15, but everyone should guess a number around that point. 11-16 are fair game from what it seems.

I think everyone is looking way too far into this, and I've come up with a theory that works. Poison is something that hurts you itself... it's inorganic and would appear negative on you... such as the oft used "haggard." Everyone with 6 has had something like this, while the answer with 1 did not.

Parasites are external living things that will harm you. Batch 3 did not have anything like this, so it was 10. We need to find what the value is for it being present, which it is in today's text. Actually, looking back to batch 1, the answer can't be 15, but I'm sure it's something around that.

Do what you will.

[edit]Come to think of it, it's most likely 14 based on the pattern of increase.

1->6 = 5
6->10 = 4

The next logical thing would be 3 up.

[Lucy]

[carlwebb]

Thanks, Lucy, for the summary table of possible right answers. That's a more useful form than what I was using. Please note that there was an (incorrect) guess of 2 for "parasites" for batch 2, though, so that's not a possible answer.

[Edit: Thanks for the correction!]

[carlwebb]

There was a post by Kevin:

Some of you cats asked me if there was anything near the batch processor that might give a hint to what it's looking for. Some of the phrases in the recent batches jogged my memory and I remembered a scrap of paper I found underneath the processor when I was clearing all the junk away from it. I can't be sure it's connected, but something about the phrasing makes me think that it is.

Here's what I could make out: "The map is not the territory; the word is not the thing defined. It seems to me that the people who name themselves Cyphers do not understand how to correctly view the world they name 'the Weird.' The words they use betray a misunderstanding of the correct way to view the world. A is A but the people who name themselves Cyphers do not speak as if they realize that A is A. The people who name themselves Cyphers speak in non-absolutes. The people who are named 'asleep' speak in non-absolutes. I feel ill when I think of the situation."

[Svengoolie]

[carlwebb]

The point of view of the document Kevin remembered suggests that it was written by an enemy of the Cyphers, and one who believes in absolutes. I don't know if that bears directly on our decoding, but it does make me wonder if the Batch Processor is a captured (or planted) enemy computer. Certainly the sample texts it's using are unpleasant and dystopian, without the sort of hopefulness I've seen in Cypher materials.

For more information on some of the Cyphers' enemies, try completing the ASCII section of the Cyphers training:

http://www.studiocypher.com/cyphers/training

You don't have to be a Wakeful Agent to get to that.

[Lucy]

I didn't mean to imply anything or offend you, and nor do I now.

I don't see ant major difference in the negativity implied by someone wrestling with death or facing a grisly phantom of starvation. Basically, I think the parameters you have defined are a little too abstract to be able to formally link the text to number output. But hey, I could be totally wrong. Knock yourself out...just don't knock me out...I certainly don't think you are an idiot.

[Silverkun]

You know... I'm looking at this thing now...

Could Poison refer to inorganics, and Parasites refer to organics?

Time to go plumb through the batch processor logs....

Breaking Out Wordpad,
-R

[edit] Looks like this might have been suggested before. Trout me if necessary. I'm going to go plumbing, anyways...