thebruce's tumblings

See, I’m torn… I don’t know whether BT4 would have been as good if it went 3D. There’s something about the classic grid-based system… /:)

Thanks to Ultima Codex, we have a prototype video of what could have been Bard’s Tale IV. Check it out:

(source)

via btonline

Well, it’s already been solved - the first Day’s puzzle, that is, thanks to neogaf and reddit (and whoever else may have solved it independently :P)

[continued from appendages to my previous post] Indeed, the image on the right was the fourier interference pattern based on the spinning globe of activity on alphalupi.bungie.net, that when the fourier analysis of the left image was viewed, would show a string of text, but only where white was prominent.

Once enough people had visited at the right time (to ‘highlight’ the area of text in the fourier image), the string /98862748014.jpg appeared, which led to the revelation of promo image #1 at alphalupi.bungie.net/98862748014.jpg

Looks like Bungie will provide more tasks each day for 7 days…  Stay tuned!

Oh, and yeah to get past the first task, see this image:

——

The best voices - voices that truly matter - never allow themselves be heard. This lesson is worth learning again and again.

Forever.

Your voice moves as whispers, murmurs and urges inside larger winds. Only the trusted few can absorb what is necessary. Wise and sly and perfect, your instructions drop, leaving nothing but the hard sweet rime of enlightenment.

The path is set. Your voice is unleashed. Except now it is gone…

And maybe it never was.

Note that the diagram in the background of the image seems to be based on a portion of Ptolemy’s Almagest (thx ncsuDuncan) which discusses the duration of solar and lunar eclipses. Based on the premise of Destiny, this seems relevant…

—> My alphalupi tumbls

So there’s this new site, see - http://alphalupi.bungie.net

It just launched, and it’s got a couple of strange updating images, see…

And a link to some more instructions, see…

Our sky is filled with unseen signals. Radio-frequency emissions pulse and flit and dance all around us. Yet even a singing patch of sky can be observed, and transformed into a range of frequencies.

Can you hear it? No, not yet. It has not yet arrived. But together we can receive its call.

Imagine combining the observations of thousands across the globe on an object meandering through the heavens. The resulting array would be quite large. Quite powerful. This is your task.

Alone it will not be enough. Coordination and timing is needed. Observations must be made simultaneously.

Your window will be small. Five minutes at most. But windows may be reopened. And the distance between observer pairs will be key.

There will always be limitations in clarity, so the results must be archived for study. Highly technical observers may be required. Detailed frequency analysis is recommended.

Everything that belongs to us will be ours, but only if we create the capacity to receive it.

Seems everyone’s been recording the image that’s shown for them, which is updated every 5 minutes. A collection of the right images shown an animation that looks like it could be a rotating sphere, by what look like land masses. The title “Active Baselines” implies it could be a map of all the sources of internet activity hitting the page.

But reading the instructions just a little more closely, a few more things stand out…

“Coordination and timing is needed. Observations must be made simultaneously.”

“Your window will be small. Five minutes at most. But windows may be reopened. And the distance between observer pairs will be key.”

The link to the instructions page is also a hint itself - “Note: (x, y) visibility limited. (u, v) analysis might prove useful.” - but it could be that the ‘observer pairs’ and the ‘u,v’ are related, and could somehow allow to map out the data in 3D space… or at least find a way to reduce the noise.

Clearly the instructions state that “high technical observers may be required” and “detailed frequency analysis is recommended”.

But could the first step be to compare visual results between two machines, perhaps by recording the difference in IP, or physical location, as part of the algorithm in cleaning up the data?  Not just mapping out what current image is for anyone, but to actually attach that image to the location of the viewer, and perhaps compared in some way with another viewer?

The problem is, what is an “observer pair”? How might one determine two locations that form a ‘pair’?

…

Or could it be as simple as just getting as many people to view the page as possible in a 5 minute window?

To dig a little deeper yourself, here are some resources:

• Discussion: args.bungie.org
• Discussion: neogaf forums
• IRC Chat: #alphalupi on irc.mibbit.net
• Reddit’s on it too: r/halo

AND DON’T FORGET TO VISIT alphalupi.bungie.net!

Do you have any ideas?

UPDATE

Flashman and techercizer on reddit ran with an idea… there’s a filter for Photoshop that does a fourier transformation on the image, producing an analysis of its content — and numbers are showing up.

Not being an Adobe user, I looked for a tool that would do fourier analysis on an image, and found a sufficient tool, for now.

** It does seem that the more activity is shown on the right image - which is actually the interference pattern applied to the original left image - the more the fourier analysis will show white, and the more the numbers will stand out.

The goal? Yep - get as many people around the world to view the page simultaneously; make the interference image on the right as white as possible, so the difference between that rotating map and the fourier analysis image of the left will produce what is likely a subfolder of alphalupi.bungie.net.

Get to it!

—> My alphalupi tumbls