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A FoxTrot with a binary math puzzle.

ucomics.com — This FoxTrot cartoon has a binary math puzzle as an Easter Egg.

Who dugg this? Made popular Jan 11, 2006

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  • charlie763, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Here's a hint:
    In binary, the character to the far right represents, in base ten, one or zero. As you move to the left each character represents twich the number to the left. This means that the second character represents two or zero, the third four or zero, the fourth eight or zero, the fifth sixteen or zero, and so on. Sum all the numbers represented.

    binary ten
    -------- ------------------
    000 0 + 0 + 0 = 0
    001 0 + 0 + 1 = 1
    010 0 + 2 + 0 = 2
    011 0 + 2 + 1 = 3
    100 4 + 0 + 0 = 4
    101 4 + 0 + 1 = 5
    110 4 + 2 + 0 = 6
    111 4 + 2 + 1 = 7

    These numbers represent different characters in ASCII text.

    Base Ten ASCII
    ------------ -------
    65 A
    66 B
    ...
    90 Z

    The lower case letters are represented by the same numbers as the upper case letters plus 32.

    Base Ten ASCII
    ------------ -------
    97 a
    98 b
    ...
    122 z

    Here's a nice binary-ACSII converter: http://nickciske.com/tools/binary.php
  • Nobi-Wan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Not as funny as I thought the message would be. Kinda obvious what it would say. Here's the full code so you don't have to bother typing it in yourself:

    01011001010011110101010101001110010001010101001001000100

    Just copy and paste it into one of the translators above.
  • passion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4It says...
    BE SURE TO DRINK YOUR OVALTINE
    ;)
  • 16x9, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3> periwinkle wrote: "sweet monkey. somehow I expected it to be harder"

    Dude! It's a comic strip. It's probably the most complex joke that has been in the comic section of the newspaper -- ever.
  • Spartacus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Nice. I love binary, I learned it so many times in college that I could teach it to anyone.

    http://www.theskull.com/javascript/ascii-binary.html

    for the conversion to ascii
  • Kitsune818, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It is arguable that knowing enough to go to an online discussion to obtain the necessary information to decode the message is enough to make it applicable. Now its just geek chest beating. I'm surprised no one has claimed they didn't have to look up ASCII to read it.

    Submitter should have pointed out that it is a binary alphabetic cypher, not a "math puzzle".
  • sirmasterboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2convert the binary to dec in calc or just add the placeholders then hold alt and type what each value equals to get the letter.
  • DeathSun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Now let's just wait for the very special edition of Family Circus where one of the kids has an easter egg telling the audience their favorite porn sites.
  • veruus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I feel like Ralphie from A Christmas Story. So cheated...



    ;)
  • periwinkle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1sweet monkey. somehow I expected it to be harder
  • Nerfdude, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1valid point, mr. amend.
  • Madh2orat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1They definitely got me nailed.
  • SpringDog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You win this round, Amend...
  • Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1ASCII is NACKed and EOFed, the now code is Unicode.
  • TokenUser, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1For those without access to a compiler, but with a copy of your favourite spreadsheet ...

    =CHAR(VALUE(MID(A30,LEN(A30)-0,1)*2^0)+VALUE(MID(A30,LEN(A30)-1,1)*2^1)+VALUE(MID(A30,LEN(A30)-2,1)*2^2)+VALUE(MID(A30,LEN(A30)-3,1)*2^3)+VALUE(MID(A30,LEN(A30)-4,1)*2^4)+VALUE(MID(A30,LEN(A30)-5,1)*2^5)+VALUE(MID(A30,LEN(A30)-6,1)*2^6))
  • TinMan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"we old card punchers and asm coders still have some mad skillz i guess"
    People whom actually did those things don't speak like that. We actually learned the English language.
  • jmonw, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0That's pretty funny. DUGG
  • mutt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0haha, nice.. and true!
  • veruus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Beaten by passion. Drat!
  • Xophmeister, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Hee hee - very good ;)
  • vatchea, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0yet again...Foxtrot rules.
  • jedi55555, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Though I am not knowlegeable about reading bianry I think this is hialrious and can really appreciate this type of cleverness put into a mainstream comic.
  • rbug, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0That was awesome.
  • bluehouse, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@passion... good one!
  • wware, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0oops, first one is 0x59, not 0x49. I wondered why he thought he was in my debt.
  • oceandead, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Actually, I'm more of a dork.
  • wware, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Python: map(chr, [0x49,0x4f,0x55,0x4e,0x45,0x52,0x44])
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Ha ha better than a banana Jr 6000 ad from the 80's

  • HydraulicToast, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0^i'm ashamed for getting that.
  • 1percent, on 10/12/2007, -0/+04, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+099999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
  • t1tan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Funny in some freakin' way...
  • elfhat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0haha that's funny, yet true!
  • RMuffin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yes, I am.
  • atrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0sad that i was able to figure that out in seconds without needing a program to do it for me...
  • spidoman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0don't ruin it people! :P
  • masterremus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Amend made fun of me :(
  • ImaFraud, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0There are 10 types of people in the world...

    Those who understand binary and those who don't...

  • nonchallant0819, on 03/28/2008, -0/+0This is a great story... found this one through http://www.google.com




    ___________________________________
    http://www.TopNotchCarpentry.com
  • jmweirick, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I love it!
  • sdub, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0charmap
  • jabfish, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0perl -e "@var=(0b1011001,0b1001111,0b1010101,0b1001110,0b1000101,0b101
    0010,0b01000100);foreach(@var){print chr(sprintf("%d",$_));}


    :p - using a perl module paradize? lame? :p
  • plasma, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0http://phuse.fofso.net/images/comics/foxtrot/foxtrot041201.gif
  • 404notfound, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Well, the URL up there got a bit screwed up. If you click it, remove the parenthesis and comma at the end.
  • shamanking, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0thats funny
  • 404notfound, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0A lot of math-y stuff like this shows up in Foxtrot; I've seen at least four different instances over the course of my readership. Of course, with the former president of a school math club (http://www.reuben.org/ncs/members/biogs/amend.asp), it's not surprising.
  • nullbrot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"See Rock City"?? I thought it was funny enough with the binary. Didn't think to decode it..duh.

    Oh and "1337 cyber script kiddies.."...haha...we old card punchers and asm coders still have some mad skillz i guess!
  • hcetrepus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Ok I agree its funny and worth a read/translate, but do we really have to submit every foxtrot cartoon as a digg story? There's been like 2 in the past week. Just bookmark it and read it yourself.

    I liked it!

    (Panties in a bind over Tejada?) =p
  • spidoman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Anyone have a link to the christmas 2004 comic? I'm looking for it, but all I can find is a forum saying that it was racist, now I really must see it! :D
  • vortex05, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0104 101 121 32 97 114 101 110 39 116 32 119 101 32 97 108 108 32 110 101 114 100 115
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