#What is an encoder and a decoder

[jnthn2rris]

https://www.futureelectronics.com/p/semiconductors--analog--multiplexer-demultiplexer/dg406dn-t1-e3-vishay-3148293

What is an encoder and a decoder, digital data converter, communication network

Single 16 Channel 5 to 20 V 50 Ω CMOS Analog Multiplexer - PLCC-28

[muted5ilence]

Me when Eddie Dear Update

But fren pointed out the low low prices for Poppy merch and such things

So Eddie is being actively haunted

And Poppy is just a very very worried character

/lh

But someone saying Eddie might get removed — he died /hj

Poppy is being quietly removed /j

My main notice is that the project actively reflects what we as a fandom (sorta, maybe) have been thinking of

We got characterization actively via the 14 clips and such

And it was “Eddie is being bullied </3” and “Poppy deserves more love” (bc most ppl favor the rest of the cast). Plus we get Sally and Frank fighting, which is funny as a Sally hater (I have mad respect for Frank for that lmao)

So reflecting those things in the COMMUNITY, we get a mostly Eddie-centric update. Confirming that he is in fact left out a LOT, that he is in fact an isolated lil guy (the isolation stuff). Poppy is *quietly* left out of stuff (me when fren said it could be like the birds migrating thing but instead she stays indoors—which tbh she already isolates herself in her home anyways). And Sally is actively being fought (a massive DUB for the Sally haters 😂)

Also I miss my boyyyy, I miss Wally 🥺 They really said “No sir” and locked him up and shit, not allowed to chat on main anymore 😔 Tbf, he did make a mess. But like c’mon, let pookie SPEAK!! Punished for being autistic /j

Anyways I think about the person who made those notebook entries “my name doesn’t matter”

ALSO OML SO MANY Ws ARE USED ACTUALLY (in reference to different things)

Wally, WaLLy, Welcome Home, WHRP, (thats it actually that I can think of)

So when the sign off is •W, I’m gonna think of what little we get

Also note, remember those questions startin’ w/ W, fellas

Who what when where why

And AAAAAAA my brain is making minor connections to things that don’t matter bc ITS SILLYYYY!!! SIlly Silly <3

Anyways yeah I miss pookie and I hope he and/or others will make codes with the new cryptography stuff we gettin’ (cipher)

I always loved those pages in activity books anyways, because looking at a key for reference and translating letters is so fun (despite the tedious back and forth if you dont have it memorized)

[strangelittlestories]

After the occupation, the princess was confined to the palace.

Once a month she'd be taken on a walk around the city, heavily guarded of course, to show the people that she still lived. It also served, of course, as a reminder of what they stood to lose if they made trouble. The princess did her best go wave and smile and give the people what encouragement she could.

The rest of the time, her life was spent in musty rooms and dusty towers. She filled most of her time scouring the castle for materials which she would sew into more and more elaborate outfits, which she would show off on the days when she was allowed outside.

Indeed, the public loved their princess and her dresses so much they'd often sketch or paint them along the route and pass the images on so that all could see the princess at least was well.

This pleased the occupiers for two reasons. First: it kept the princess out of trouble. Second: it gave them a reason to sneer and they did love a good sneer.

"What a vain creature she is!" They would remark.

"Doesn't even care we murdered her brothers so long as she gets enough satin to make her little dresses!" They squawked.

This was unfair, of course, for to call her creations "little dresses" was to call Queen Murderfun the Needlessly Genocidal "a tad piquey". Her dresses were gravity-defying wonders lace and pearl. They were thunderstorms captured in velvet and waterfalls summoned in silk. She was a wizard with silk.

Still, she bore their mockery with a tight smile and careful deference.

"Please, good sirs, my home, my people and my city now belong to you. Let me keep, at least, this one last joy."

And they sneered and they crowed most unpleasantly, but they let her keep her sewing room.

Of course, they would have known their mockery to be doubly unfair had they realised the true purpose of the princess's elaborate designs. For hidden in the intricate embroiderings across her gowns, jackets and fans, the princess had encoded secret (and very detailed) messages. When she would go on her monthly walk, the city's loyalists would line the route, sketching down the patterns to decode later.

Thus did the princess transmit all the occupiers' secrets (unearthed while supposedly 'searching the castle for old fabrics') to the city and thus did she build her resistance.

On the day the revolution finally came, she girded herself in armour of thick spider silk and whale bone. She cut a fine figure with a lacy handkerchief in her top pocket and a razor sharp knitting needle keeping her hair up.

As she waltzed through the castle to open the door for her army, the Usurper King tried to stop her and she simply unfolded her handkerchief and showed it to him.

Upon seeing the impossible arcane pattern emblazoned across it, he fell to the floor with blood streaming from his eyes.

She always had been a wizard with silk.

---

Thank you for reading. If you'd like to support my writing, you can do so at https://ko-fi.com/strangelittlestories

[todays-xkcd]

They just want researchers in the enclosure to feel enriched and stimulated. ('The Enclosure' is what archivists call the shadowy world outside their archives in which so many people are trapped.)

Archive Request [Explained]

Transcript Under the Cut

[Cueball sits at a desk, on his laptop.]

Computer: To request data from the archives, fill out this form. The pages will be scanned, encoded to CD-ROM, and mailed to you within 10 business days. Computer: Download the decoder for our propriety format here (requires Windows 98® or XP®). Cueball: Ugh, fine...

Caption: Archivists actually have everything in digital repos now, but they still do this to provide enrichment for researchers, the way zoos hide food for animals in hard-to-open-boxes.

[alchemist-of-life]

I’m curious how binary cant work for admech since day 1. At first, I thought it’s just high speed alternation in frequencies of sounds to denote 0 and 1, just like how computer cable does with voltage. So I wrote a python script to convert natural language to binary code then to sound based on the idea (so that I can curse in binary in ttrpg). However, since the human auditory cortex can only distinguish sound about 20ms apart, the current commonly used binary coding method (Unicode) that requires 8 bits to encode for one letter (16 bits for one character in Mandarin) would make binary cant less efficient than natural language through the bare ear. As a result, binary cant users not only need vocal implants but also auditory implants to receive info (or perhaps cortex implants to decode). Based on these assumptions, binary cant would be able to happen in sound frequencies not perceivable by the original human cochlea so techpriests conversation can be extremely quiet. And more efficiently, just through data cables.

Or it could be the other way around, scientists might develop more efficient binary language without basing it on the symbol system of natural languages (I’m not that familiar with linguistics so I don’t know if this is possible or not).

However, the sound techpriests made in the game mechanicus doesn’t sound like my assumption. There are definitely more than 2 pitches used in the conversations (which makes it less binary...) and they seem to be faster than natural language. I still couldn’t figure out what’s happening here. Do the twisting pitches actually encode more than one bit? Is binary cant actually an analog signal encoding a digital signal? Or is the sound effect just mean to sound better for the game?

The binary curse program (turn the sound on!):

[audliminal]

It's just a game, right? Pt 1

Masterpost

"I just don't see how sitting around is gonna do anything!" Dash argues, face to face with Sam.

"Well, if you have other ideas you're more than welcome to offer them, but we can't just take out the giw. They have more manpower than us, more equipment, and the new agents actually seem to be competent in fights! And we are a bunch of high school students!"

They are all, ostensibly in English Class right now, but even Mr. lancer has forgone the illusion of normal classwork. He assigns books and hands out reading assignments every week, but nobody really cares whether they get turned in or not. The city, after all, has a much bigger problem.

"I don't know! But sitting here-"

"He's not entirely wrong, the longer we wait the more likely they figure it out, just like we all did." As Valerie finishes speaking, the room temperature drops noticeably, and the kids all glance nervously over at Danny who's head hasn't moved from it's spot on his desk. He almost seems dead with how still he is. Beside him Tucker stares at his PDA, the only one who hasn't reacted to the temperature change.

"Should I even ask what you're messing with?" Sam asks, walking over while the others stare nervously at Danny.

"Actually, yeah." Tucker easily shifts so they can both see the webpage displayed on the handmade tech. "I got something through."

"I thought getting stuff through wasn't really the problem?"

"I mean, yeah, they're letting Everything Is Normal posts through, but this wasn't. That. I was, um, kind of fucking around with ciphers and shit? Not saying anything relevant, but just seeing whether they'd flag any old weird shit, you know? And um. I got a video out."

"Okay, but how does that help us?" Valerie asks.

"It helps because if they let a cipher through then means if I encode shit well enough, then it'll also get through."

"But if it's, like, that hard to figure out what it says, then won't it be useless on the outside?"

"The chances of it getting into the hands of someone who could crack it do seem, uh, improbable."

"Not if we stack the deck."

"Wes-"

"No, listen, I know you're all still mad at me, but like. If you can attract a community of codebreakers? Then eventually someone will crack the code on what you need them to!"

"If you have an idea then just fucking say it, Wes," Sam snaps.

"Make an ARG. We can even have like, the base level be completely United to anything real, just make up a story about, i dunno, space travel? And then bury the actual info beneath that. Eventually somebody will crack into the real stuff, and if it's popular enough by then, and the GIW tries to suppress it? That'll be even more suspicious-looking, and just make them dig harder."

"What the fuck is a ARG?" Dash asks, pulling his gaze away from their definitely-just-sleeping classmate.

"Augmented reality game. It's like an unfiction thing. Make a story but the story is interactive and people have to decode shit to figure out what's going on." Tucker glances over to Wes. "And actually not a bad idea. If we all work together, we could probably make something cool."

"You could treat it as a class-wide project." Mr. Lancer says, making everyone jump. "That way I can back you up if anyone starts asking questions."

"Make it about black holes," Danny says, finally pulling himself up from his desk. "We can base it in wormhole theory, and distract the GIW with all the theoretical science."

"What, so like we make videos that seem like they're being sent through a black hole?"

"Fuckin. Sure, why not? As if shit couldn't get any weirder around here."

"Star, please try to refrain from swearing in front of me. I know the situation is - difficult - but I am officially still your teacher."

"Sorry, Lancer."

[lxgentlefolkcomic]

First page || Previous page || Next page

Start reading Episode 1

Dialogue transcripts:

Panel 1

Jonathan: My diary! You fiend!

Panel 2

Nemo: Stay your anger, Mr. Harker. I perceived you had lied to me, and for the safety of this vessel and its crew it is my responsibility to determine the truth.

Panel 3

Jonathan: The truth about what?

Nemo (offscreen): Your reasons for coming to sea, for one.

Godfrey: This is a monstrous invasion of privacy!

Panel 4

Jack: He wouldn’t be able to read it, anyway—Harker uses shorthand.

Nemo (offscreen): Yes, and wisely so. Fortunately, I have had occasion to study this form of shorthand, and was easily able to decode it.

Panel 5

Nemo: Consider the facts, Mr. Harker. I found you three in the wake of a great monster, sifting through the wreckage of its latest target. When Mr. Harker lied to me about your intentions, my suspicion was aroused.

Panel 6

Nemo: I suppose you suspected me, just as I suspected you. Yet now, with the evidence of this encoded diary you assumed would be safe from prying eyes, I am satisfied on the matter.

Panel 7

Nemo: I am sorry, Mr. Harker, that I have brought up so many unpleasant memories of this “Count”. Now that I have verified your trustworthiness, perhaps I can win your trust in return.

[foone]

Have you ever wondered what's the difference between a Beta and VHS tape? Like, physically? They're both half-inch (12.7mm) magnetic tapes, after all... and you can't exactly put a beta tape into a VHS VCR, or vice versa... but what if we opened up the cassettes and transplanted the tape between them?

So I opened the beta (left) and vhs (right) tapes

I wound the tape from the beta onto the VHS tape

I needed to unspool the old VHS tape, which is hard. this thing is nearly a half-kilometer long, about 1400 feet. So how do you do that? A POWER DRILL!

And I put it back together. And I stuck it in the VHS VCR, and hit play.

Well, it doesn't really show anything. The VHS VCR can't decode the Beta signal, because it's encoded differently. There's no sound, either.

But what about the tape? Is it similar enough to VHS tape that we could record onto it?

YEP! Without any issues.

I'd love to try the opposite way, but I don't have as many beta tapes to spare, and also my beta VCRs are barely functional as it is, they have trouble playing beta tapes, let alone VHS tapes in horrible hybrid forms.

[anouchard]

Okie dokie, solution time!

Ya know, just in case anyone has been wondering what all the funky codes meant.

1. The ciphers: these were mainly encoded using ROT[insert days left in countdown here]. Most people figured this out - congrats if you did! The exceptions were the extra codes (ROT18, because why not?*), the fake-out solution post code (ROT160, because of the "apologies for the deception" reference), the FINAL final code (ROT30, for episode 30), and the code for when we had 24 hours remaining (ROT24, because a shift of one felt FAR too easy). 24 was a fun one - the hidden song was 24 Hours, released quite recently by my friend Chloe (we shared a day job a while back, and she really is doing AMAZINGLY well!).

2. The songs themselves: these were (almost) all from the 'Tunes To Blackmail Your Boss To' playlist. The exceptions were the two Gorillaz tracks, which were both referenced with timestamps for ...

3. A laugh: the Italics in the raw ciphers, when all put together, spelt out "guess who gets the last ...", with the final clue of the 'Clint Eastwood' intro filling in the (hopefully obvious, by this point) "laugh"! This was perhaps my favourite moment to record, and I also enjoyed the ambiguity and malleability of the chosen phrase (which *may* come in to play should we ever return to this). After all ... does she really?

Right, that should be everything! Let me know if you have any questions, and thank you so much for playing along - It's been really grand (and fun!) seeing all your theories, puzzling-outs, joy, and occasional confusion.

Until the next time, then ... 🥰

*Edit: I know people were pretty stumped by the final two lines of the EA code! Once decoded, all you had to do was Google the first line to get to 'Feel Good', and then use the second line as a timestamp. Infuriating, I know - it really was as simple as cutting the Gordian Knot. 😁

[oriley42]

Serious question but no need to answer if you don’t want to

I see a lot of talk about Amber’s portrayal being sexist in the show, but I’m not quite sure why? To me her motives always seemed really well-defined (high pressure = “I’m only worthy when I’m successful”) so she puts on this sharky mask with a feminine facade so she is feminine enough to get a certain amount of approval but never shows how much she cares (which could be used against her but also could be used to undermine her “oh you’re too soft”). I thought the show did an excellent job of showing a mask for her

But a lot of people talk about 00s sexism and how it impacts her characterization. The sexism… Is it that she gets called a cutthroat bitch? Or how her story revolves around a man after she leaves House’s team? Is it the fridging?

Any of those could be it I guess but it just sounds like you and others are talking about something a little more fundamental to her personhood so I thought I’d ask if I’m missing anything.

Very interesting question! I think you're getting at exactly the trickiness of the issue, which is that sexism always operates systemically. It's not that any key aspect of Amber's character "is" misogynist, it's that every aspect of her character is automatically filtered through a lens of sexism.

In today's world where "bitch" has been very de-clawed, turned into a more casual and way less gendered insult that's used without cruel intention in queer slang, I think it's hard to understand just how violent the term was--and was meant to be--in the aughts. House in canon is not calling Amber a bitch in a cute, almost self-deprecating, friendly way (though I think it's valid to re-write it that way in fic to defuse the term!). He is calling her a bitch to contain and belittle and dehumanize her. We see the term mobilized this way against Cuddy in 5 to 9 as well: calling a woman a bitch was an extremely powerful rhetorical tool to turn any dangerously competent, brilliant, threateningly accomplished woman back into a harmless, debased, controllable object. So, "CB" reflects how easily the fact that Amber is the "female House" gets turned against her--it doesn't mean she's an eccentric genius like him, it means she's an evil copycat who needs to be put down. And this kind of structural logic applies to her whole characterization--it doesn't matter that House does it all more frequently and worse, if she does it, it's unacceptable because she's a woman. (There are parallels here with how racism means that when Foreman acts like House, he also gets the axe instead of the narrative bending over backwards to make what he did alright.) That's why she was fired, after all!

And her death. Woof. Classic case of killing a woman for man-pain. Everything supposedly about her death is actually about how her violent destruction can be used to fuel Wilson and House's character arcs. The narrative is occasionally conscious of this, for example, Wilson saying "none of you even liked Amber" is an almost metatextual reminder of how cruelly she was disenfranchised in every way (including the sexism of her trying to "defect" to the men's team early on, having no female friends, because unlike House who has so many people orbiting him, she is truly alone). Comparing her death to Kutner's is instructive: Kutner gets a whole episode that's about characters desperately trying to know him better. They trace their relationships towards him. Amber, on the other hand, is nearly absent from her own death. The characters trace away from her and towards the way male characters feel (Wilson's loss, House's guilt). Amber becomes just an imagined figure of House's guilt. Even her ghost is not her own. (Though I think many fans do a more feminist read and reclaim the way she haunts the narrative--but imho that would be a negotiated if not fully oppositional reading, to use Stuart Hall's decoding/encoding terms.)

One easy way to see that gendered difference is in how the show refers to these characters after death. Kutner is always "Kutner," never just "House's dead fellow" or rarely "our dead colleague." Amber is often referred to as "Wilson's dead girlfriend." Kutner is his own person, Amber rhetorically gets reduced to an object belonging to a man.

In conclusion: sexism operates structurally, which can make it hard to identify! And one of the funny effects of contemporary fandom doing so much good work to un-fridge women and give marginalized female characters richer personalities and more chances to grow is that canon's intended message of sexism gets obscured. Which, is awesome? Keep up the good work! Let's make misogyny unintelligible 🎉

[suppermariobroth]

In 2019, an activity called "Mario Secret Message Fun Decoding" was posted on Nintendo of America's official activity site. The top image presents an encoded answer to the following question:

Oh no! Undodog undid Cat Mario’s homework! What will Cat Mario do now?

The bottom image shows the key to decoding the top image. The answer is provided in an image linked here to avoid spoiling the solution.

Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Small Findings | Source

[bambi-kinos]

A question to be taken lightly but not meant to offend you or anything. But who was/ is the walrus? like in the video, in the song(s) and what can it mean, really? ( I "know" the "official" content) but I don't really believe neither wrote songs w/o meaning anything or used double meaning words for nothing. I also don't think everything has a meaning or an answer.

I think the concept of the Walrus is amorphous and shifted around depending on their moods. A meaning can't be pinned down because the meaning changes depending on the context. The most reliable interpretation of the Walrus is that it demonstrates John's mindset depending on how he uses it. Otherwise I don't think there's anything special about the Walrus in of itself.

So the official story is that John wrote I Am The Walrus to get back at the people who were convinced that every Beatles song had a special encoded meaning. John responded with one of his nonsense poems and he ended up choosing Lewis Carrol's creation The Walrus as a touchstone. Right? Right.

There used to be a post floating around waxing rhapsodic about how John modeled himself on the Walrus and Paul on the Carpenter and this was because the Carpenter could ONLY be Paul and zomg you guiz SYMBOLISM. It was all so intentional!!! (Personally I think that shit gets more and more pretentious the more I think about it.)

It's a cute idea but it's missing out on one important factor: John didn't think in those terms. There is a connection between him, Paul, and Carroll in John's mind but it would only make sense to John and perhaps Paul. When John says he wrote it to bite back at critics, who were using their Ovaltine decoder rings trying to figure out the DEEP INTENTIONAL SYMBOLISM OF BEATLE SONGS, I think he meant it. He made the Walrus a touchstone because John loved Carroll's wordplay and poetry. They were aiming for an animal motif and it fit. It was a cute shorthand nod to his genuinely sociopathic partner, John got to watch a bunch of overeducated pencil jockeys trying to figure it all out, he laughed, good times had by all. The important part is that it wasn't a big deal.

But for John there was dismay on the way. People would not shut the fuck up about the Walrus and what it meant and John is getting increasingly angry because it doesn't mean anything and now a bunch of people are getting fired up over nothing and OOOOHHH GLASS ONIONNNNNN. So John puts in the Walrus again on Plastic Ono Band, again as a big middle finger to all of these blowhards and me-tooers all pulling on his coattails going "hey John! hey John! what about the Beatles! what about the Beatles John! what does it all mean John!" So John writes "I was the walrus but now I'm John" on the track God. The Walrus itself still does not mean anything to John, he's just weaponizing the perceptions of fans against themselves. In their minds "the Walrus" represented The Beatles and John's own Beatleness and John knew that. The boomer fans at the time were absolutely convinced that I Am The Walrus was a secret masterwork of unbreakable code...simply because they didn't understand it. "I don't get it so it must be super deep!"

And the thing is John hated that kind of thinking. He appreciated mystery sure but he was a lot more invested in accessibility. He wanted art to be for everyone, he wanted everyone to invest their own meaning into art. That was why he was so taken with Yoko in the first place, because Yoko's artwork is based in creating open ended experiences where the art itself is created by the thoughts and feelings and sensations you experienced while you interact with her exhibits. You don't get in the bag to look cool, you do it so you can have the experience of being in the bag, even if it was just "well that sucked." What John loved about it was the "YES" factor, that Yoko Ono wants the audience to create the art with her by interacting with her exhibits. Art is not a static thing where you sit on your ass and stare at it or listen to it, art is the thing that happens inside your head when you hear "I am the Eggman/I am the walrus/googoo gah joob" and think "what the fuck does that mean" and then you develop a personal interpretation with your thoughts and feelings that belongs to you and you alone. (And that is why Yoko is actually kinda underrated! She was too hip for the room man. You just don't get it man....)

But the fans and overeducated idiots didn't want to do that. They wanted strict prescriptions for interpreting Beatle music. Many fans refused to appreciate I Am The Walrus for what it is: a silly and slightly lewd/violent nonsense poem John probably worked out on the back of an envelope. (Written with Paul's bottom as a table, I'm sure.) They wanted it to be more than it was instead of appreciating the joy that John gifted them by singing the song for them.

So John turned it around on them in God and on Plastic Ono Band. They want to believe in the Walrus so much? Fine. He'll kill the Walrus. It's dead. There is no more Walrus, there are no more Beatles, there is only John, and Yoko, and John&Yoko. The fans wanted the Walrus to mean something so badly that they strangled the poor thing to death and John had to put it out of its misery. That poor fucking creature, John just wanted it to amuse the children and look what the cretins made him do. The Walrus was supposed to be a cute nod to Lewis Carroll, not be a fucking Beatle thing!

It's important to note John's (warranted) bitter and volatile mindset towards the Beatles machine. I want to make a whole post about it someday but John was pretty furious and I think he was right to be. But he also chose to deal with it by killing what the fans loved. I think he was justified but also, oof.

Wrt the music video: I believe it's Paul in the Walrus costume right? George referenced this in the When We Was Fab music video where there's a left handed bass guitarist in the Walrus mask. So yes, there was a link to Paul and the Walrus in the beginning. I think this was part of John's private joke. Paul was the closest to his heart so of course Paul should get to play the character from John's favorite poet. John even references this in Glass Onion, the last time he tried throwing Paul a bone. But again, I don't think it meant anything overly deep or significant as a symbol in of itself. The Walrus doesn't mean anything innately.

But then we get into the interesting stuff: John referencing "the Walrus" in his Just Like Starting Over demo. Specifically referencing taking the Walrus back to bed! Well, well, well. And I believe there's an interesting line from Paul in 1979 isn't there where he says "I am the walrus/was the walrus but now I'm Paul" in an interview or something? I may be making that up, I'm not sure.

So what does this big slurry mean?

I think that the Walrus started out in John's mind as just a cute literary toy for Beatle fans to puzzle over. The overeducated and overeager pencil jockeys got one in the eye trying to make sense of gibberish and John got to indulge in his love of cosplay by sticking Paul in a Walrus suit. And it should have ended there, except it didn't, everyone and their dog assumed the Walrus meant something (what about the poor Eggman???) and John tried to pacify them and then that didn't work and then he goes FINE YOU DON'T GET TO HAVE A WALRUS ANYMORE. And he pulps the Walrus.

The change comes with John's shift in mood. Paul's arrest in Japan legitimately threw John for a loop IMO. That's when John started softening towards Paul, that's when Bermuda happened and his creativity came roaring back. The sudden reminder that he could lose Paul forever and then John's realization "I can steer my own ship, I'm in charge of my own life!" which resulted in John starting the process on leaving Yoko under his own power, a very vital point. John was getting his own divorce lawyer according to industry rumors. John was reemerging as the hero he needed to be to save himself and forgive Paul.

All of that culminated in "the time has come the walrus said/for you and me to stay in bed again." If the Walrus charts John's inner landscape and his personal feelings towards Paul then this means he was coming out of the fugue and wanted to dote on Paul again, like he used to. Figure out where they could go from here. And it seems John was very optimistic about his future with Paul to be perfectly honest. Taking Paul back to bed after all that time? And Paul seems to have been the one who instigated it! He was still hot for John! Whew!

So all that IMO is what the Walrus "really means." I don't think it's definitive and there's lots of stuff I am definitely missing and didn't include here. Someone I used to know once said she didn't put anything past John because he read everything and kept it all stored in his head, so who knows maybe the jerk off interpretation about the Walrus and the Carpenter and Paul is true.

But ultimately it's just a word with no genuine connection to its animal counterpart and the purpose of it is as a demonstration of John's personal thoughts and feelings mostly (but not always) relating to Paul McCartney.

[zephiris]

Being autistic feels like having to emulate brain hardware that most other people have. Being allistic is like having a social chip in the brain that handles converting thoughts into social communication and vice versa while being autistic is like using the CPU to essentially emulate what that social chip does in allistic people.

Skip this paragraph if you know about video codec hardware on GPUs. Similarly, some computers have hardware chips specifically meant for encoding and decoding specific video formats like H.264 (usually located in the GPU), while other computers might not have those chips built in meaning that encoding and decoding videos must be done “by hand” on the CPU. That means it usually takes longer but is also usually more configurable, meaning that the output quality of the CPU method can sometimes surpass the hardware chip’s output quality depending on the settings set for the CPU encoding.

In conclusion, video codec encoding and decoding for computers is to social encoding and decoding for autistic/allistic people.

[definitelyunhingedagentphoenix]

Fabricator: we've received an encoded message from the E.O.D

Zor: ... Alright. Decode it and read it to me then. Maybe they've finally come to their senses and surrendered.

Fabricator: *giggling as she decrypts it*

Zor: oh god, what?

Fabricator: *hands them the note that says "you just lost the game"*

Zor: ... Fucking hell!

[nectardaddy]

another rant about inumaki's speech (hi, hello I'm a teacher and used to teach primary which is all about learning letters/sounds/blends/basic words)

inumaki had to have learned his cursed words in a VERY secluded environment. I would also venture to say the inumaki clan is probably very well versed in phonics and morphology. they have to be, especially while trying to learn how to speak or teach their children how to speak.

my best guess on how he actually learned to speak is honestly pretty simple: he had to enunciate really, really slowly.

take the word "cat" (after letters, which even for him would have been pretty straightforward - there's no harm in just letters, you start with one syllable words.) he would've had to learn, even from just simple words like cat, to sound out words slowly. breaking down each letter to the point it barely sounded like a word. saying each sound with a pause, and if he knew the word was a safe word he could fully blend it together.

however with cursed words- he would do the same thing BUT he couldn't blend the word together fully unless it was a controlled environment.

I use the word "twist" as an example all the time, but it's a harder word to master so it's a good example. with twist he would've already had to learn letter blends (tw, qu, cr, etc...) he would genuinely have to sound this word out agonizingly slow when he was learning it as to not hurt himself or others. but when it came time to practice it, he most definitely failed to blend the whole word together on numerous occasions.

kids find it pretty easy to know what a letter/letter blend sounds like, but to put words together is actually very hard.

(things get REALLY complicated in 3,2,1...)

THIS BEING SAID- there's a big difference between encoding and decoding words. encoding words is using your knowledge of letter sounds to sound out words. decoding is blending these sounds together to form the word, and thus being a fluent reader. decoding (even though it seems silly, but I promise there's a science to it) helps a reader/speaker understand what they're reading. if you don't understand the word and how to say it, 9/10 you don't understand the meaning.

inumaki is probably a VERY GOOD speller because all he knows is encoding. while he can read, it's probably a bit behind because of his lack of decoding skills (not like he can help it though- his clan probably didn't even teach him certain words). he's probably a very slow reader (nothing wrong with that tho, I am too!) because he only knows how to encode words (sound out letter by letter) rather than decode them (blend the word together).

thank you for coming to my insane ted talk

@inumakis-boo @inumakisser idk if yall will enjoy this lmao but just some thoughts

[audliminal]

It's Just a Game, Right? Pt 8

Masterpost

"So I think they're using other languages," Tim says, the moment Bernard opens the door.

"Well hello to you too my beloved boyfriend," Bernard responds, kissing Tim on the cheek and pulling him into the apartment.

"Shut up," Tim says, following Bernard to the table. This is hardly the first time Tim has skipped past pleasantries like that, and Bernard seems to find it more amusing every time.

"Aw, I dunno if I can do that. I really like to talk to you," Bernard grins conspiratorially. "Plus, then I wouldn't get to tell you that you're half right."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, obviously other people noticed the comment, right?" Bernard, gestures towards the computer, where Tim can see the cryptic comment. It already has dozens of responses. "Mostly people are just freaking out about it, because this is like, our first instance of direct communication from them, but one of the people who saw it actually recognized what language it is."

"Just one?" Tim frowns.

"Yeah. It's called esperanto. I googled it and apparently it's a conlang from the late 1800s which is pretty cool. It was, like, invented to be kind of a universal language, I guess? It pulls from a lot of different languages, so that's why it looks like multiple languages."

"Huh."

"But! There's still the encoded portions to figure out, because the translation as-is doesn't really make any sense." Bernard scrolls and points to the translation that a commenter had offered. It reads To be fqzuhsx-ayccas is to be qtdkv-avnwkwkb; the veil afph-gqkduik but it is meant to igpmtwi-ocdq. Determination in the face of doubt.

"Huh," Tim studies the text, then notices something. "They've specifically encoded the verbs."

"Yep," Bernard shrugs. "I haven't tried anything for the encrypted stuff yet; figured i might as well wait for you."

"Okay, well I guess we start with the simplest? We know they've used caesar ciphers before, plus this is in response to what we did with the first caesar ciphers before, so we might as well try one of your decoder websites for that first."

"Seems reasonable," Bernard says, pulling up the website from before. He quickly copies the first word over and hits the button. "Well shit, that was quick."

"Only the first half, though." Tim mutters. "Do it to the rest of them." Bernard copies and decodes the rest. In short order, they have a the first half of each encryption decoded.

"To be gravity is to be orbit, the veil disk but it is meant to eclipse?" Bernard frowns. "That... doesn't make much more sense."

"What's up with the focus on astronomy, too."

"Oh, right, we haven't gotten that far yet. They keep referencing space stuff. There's like, a running theory about these messages being supposed to have come through a black hole?"

"Is that even possible? i thought black holes ate stuff forever."

"I dunno, I'm not really into space stuff. Besides it's like, sure there's evidence for it, and space seems to be narratively important? But the premise seems kind of contrived to me."

"You think they're doing something bigger than what everybody is seeing." Tim stares at the forum thread. If anything was going to give Bernard's theory some credence, it would be what literally just happened.

"Exactly." Bernard posted on a forum arguing that he thought the game ran deeper than people realized. And the creators, who so far hadn't interacted directly, had responded to that post, with a triple-encrypted message.

"Each shift was one further away than the last," Tim thinks rapidly. "It started with language, which could be either a part of the effort to encrypt it, or a part of the intended meaning. Possibly both. Then, they used caesar ciphers for the first layer of encryption, the same thing they used in their first post. How did they encrypt things in the second post?"

"I think I kind of mentioned it before, but the second post used a vigenere cipher. The names of the people in the first video were the keys, if I remember right."

"The first is the key to the second."

"What-"

"Take the second part and decode it with the first."

"Dude your mind is scary sometimes," Bernard laughs, but moves to do as Tim says, revealing the first encrypted word. "To be seen. That works..."

Tim starts writing down the full message, as Bernard decodes the rest. Finally, they have the full text of the message the creators intended to send.

"To be seen is to be remembered; the veil distracts but it is meant to hide. Determination in the face of doubt." Tim reads.

"Huh," Bernard says, leaning over to read it for himself. "Well, now we know what it says. Now we just need to figure out what that means."