A job offer and a kinda cool puzzle

ZeroTurnaround is looking for an infrastructure engineer in Tartu (http://bit.ly/zt-infra-eng). If you want to apply or just have a little fun, solve this puzzle:
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Please don’t post the answer in the comments, but you’re welcome to tell what game is the quote from and how long did it take you to solve it.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 18th, 2010 at 3:59 pm by Jevgeni Kabanov and is filed under cool. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

  • Adam

    Hey guys,

    it took me about 40 minutes to do it, mainly because of tooling ;)

    I think it is from Starcraft or so…

    Good luck all others…

    Adam

  • leroy jenkins

    10-15 mins, starcraft, job sounds ok pity it’s on the other side of the planet!

  • testy mctester

    Starcraft FTW!

  • cr3

    heh, fun times. About 10 minutes, mostly due to a lack of a working ****** editor.

  • Toomas Römer

    I guess my time was also 15min from couple of years back to a similar puzzle. Remaking this with some other technologies took a lot more :)

  • Jevgeni Kabanov

    @Toomas I think we cooperated on the 15min :)

  • http://blog.andyhot.gr andyhot

    Nice! took me a bit less (10~15min) but I had tooling (+google)! anyway, great puzzle…. unless it also involves mastering starcraft :P

  • Olavi

    It took some 10 minutes, but I didn’t recognize the quote! Then again I never played Starcraft…

    Nice puzzle though.

  • JMK

    Starcraft and Python FTW. Took 5 minutes.

  • raster

    python + 20 mins = starcraft quote.

  • http://spotthenerd.com Toomas

    Just got a call from the PHB. He was supposed to be home 6:30 pm but he could not leave the office before 6:45 because he was battling with the problem :)

  • Jefff

    Took about 3 minutes using no coding. Just a few online tools, a hex editor and one tool I won’t mention because it’d give something away.

  • Aivar

    Thanks for wasting my time :p
    But i did it!! :D

  • http://orip.org orip

    Nice, thanks. Python+gvim+google (seems popular).

  • http://687474703a2f2f6e6f737461636b74726163652e636f6d 01001110 01101111 01110010 01101101 01100001 01101110 00100000 01010010 01101001 01100011 01101000 01100001 01110010 01100100 01110011

    Y2EgZmUgYmEgYmUgMDAgMDAgMDAgMzIgMDAgMWQgMGEgMDAgMDYgMDAgMGYgMDkgMDAgMTAgMDAgMTEgMDggMDAgMTIgMGEgMDAgMTMgMDAgMTQgMDcgMDAgMTUgMDcgMDAgMTYgMDEgMDAgMDYgM2MgNjkgNmUgNjkgNzQgM2UgMDEgMDAgMDMgMjggMjkgNTYgMDEgMDAgMDQgNDMgNmYgNjQgNjUgMDEgMDAgMGYgNGMgNjkgNmUgNjUgNGUgNzUgNmQgNjIgNjUgNzIgNTQgNjEgNjIgNmMgNjUgMDEgMDAgMDQgNmQgNjEgNjkgNmUgMDEgMDAgMTYgMjggNWIgNGMgNmEgNjEgNzYgNjEgMmYgNmMgNjEgNmUgNjcgMmYgNTMgNzQgNzIgNjkgNmUgNjcgM2IgMjkgNTYgMDEgMDAgMGEgNTMgNmYgNzUgNzIgNjMgNjUgNDYgNjkgNmMgNjUgMDEgMDAgMDkgNGQgNjEgNjkgNmUgMmUgNmEgNjEgNzYgNjEgMGMgMDAgMDcgMDAgMDggMDcgMDAgMTcgMGMgMDAgMTggMDAgMTkgMDEgMDAgMmYgNTQgNjggNjEgNzQgMjcgNzMgMjAgMzUgMjAgNmQgNjkgNmUgNzUgNzQgNjUgNzMgMjAgNmYgNjYgMjAgNmQgNzkgMjAgNmMgNjkgNjYgNjUgMjAgNDkgMjcgNmMgNmMgMjAgNmUgNjUgNzYgNjUgNzIgMjAgNjcgNjUgNzQgMjAgNjIgNjEgNjMgNmIgMDcgMDAgMWEgMGMgMDAgMWIgMDAgMWMgMDEgMDAgMDQgNGQgNjEgNjkgNmUgMDEgMDAgMTAgNmEgNjEgNzYgNjEgMmYgNmMgNjEgNmUgNjcgMmYgNGYgNjIgNmEgNjUgNjMgNzQgMDEgMDAgMTAgNmEgNjEgNzYgNjEgMmYgNmMgNjEgNmUgNjcgMmYgNTMgNzkgNzMgNzQgNjUgNmQgMDEgMDAgMDMgNmYgNzUgNzQgMDEgMDAgMTUgNGMgNmEgNjEgNzYgNjEgMmYgNjkgNmYgMmYgNTAgNzIgNjkgNmUgNzQgNTMgNzQgNzIgNjUgNjEgNmQgM2IgMDEgMDAgMTMgNmEgNjEgNzYgNjEgMmYgNjkgNmYgMmYgNTAgNzIgNjkgNmUgNzQgNTMgNzQgNzIgNjUgNjEgNmQgMDEgMDAgMDcgNzAgNzIgNjkgNmUgNzQgNmMgNmUgMDEgMDAgMTUgMjggNGMgNmEgNjEgNzYgNjEgMmYgNmMgNjEgNmUgNjcgMmYgNTMgNzQgNzIgNjkgNmUgNjcgM2IgMjkgNTYgMDAgMjEgMDAgMDUgMDAgMDYgMDAgMDAgMDAgMDAgMDAgMDIgMDAgMDEgMDAgMDcgMDAgMDggMDAgMDEgMDAgMDkgMDAgMDAgMDAgMWQgMDAgMDEgMDAgMDEgMDAgMDAgMDAgMDUgMmEgYjcgMDAgMDEgYjEgMDAgMDAgMDAgMDEgMDAgMGEgMDAgMDAgMDAgMDYgMDAgMDEgMDAgMDAgMDAgMDEgMDAgMDkgMDAgMGIgMDAgMGMgMDAgMDEgMDAgMDkgMDAgMDAgMDAgMjUgMDAgMDIgMDAgMDEgMDAgMDAgMDAgMDkgYjIgMDAgMDIgMTIgMDMgYjYgMDAgMDQgYjEgMDAgMDAgMDAgMDEgMDAgMGEgMDAgMDAgMDAgMGEgMDAgMDIgMDAgMDAgMDAgMDMgMDAgMDggMDAgMDQgMDAgMDEgMDAgMGQgMDAgMDAgMDAgMDIgMDAgMGU=

  • Jevgeni Kabanov

    @Noman

    5 minutes? Did you have to take a smoke? :P

  • Ivo Mägi

    30 minutes. But – I think in PHB category I should win by miles!

  • http://spotthenerd.com Toomas

    @Norman Richards

    So true and same here :(

  • http://nexno.blogspot.com nexno

    solved with php in <5 minutes. thanks, that was funny :)

  • Adomas

    Solved in under 5 minutes. Good luck to those willing to apply.

  • kL

    I’m stuck, because I’m paranoid and refuse to run someone’s code on my computer, twice.

  • rdewalt

    Not bad. 5-ish minutes to solve, and once I got the quote I failed at knowing where it was from. Ask a search engine, and boom, there it was.

  • http://HURDUE HUR DUR

    solved it in 20 seconds wow you guys are slow

  • Nate

    Figured out the message however getting an exception

  • Raugturi

    @kL: You can solve it without running any unknown code.

  • Tõnis Tobre

    Nice puzzle, it took 3 hours to solve complitely. Shame on me…

  • KT

    For the position you seek, you guys would be better off with something like the classic:

    Please help us fix the following program:

    cat “test… test… test…” | perl -e ‘$??s:;s:s;;$?::s;;=]=>%-{<-|}<&|`{;;y; -/:-@[-`{-};`-{/" -;;s;;$_;see'

    (warning: don’t run this code)

  • Juhan

    I very much enjoyed solving the puzzle ;-)

  • Erko Mägi

    1h 20min to solve (lacking 0×48 0×45 0×58 ediror etc.), I suck.

  • Erko Hansar

    WTF, I’m not Mägi :) (prev post)

  • Volli

    25 minutes including some work-related interactions. Pretty cool puzzle. Glad you didn’t convert the first input to a picture with some weird font that would require either some mad OCR or retyping :P

  • Torgeir

    23 Minutes.. And littered the filesystem with a whole lot of intermediate files underways…

  • http://www.eeror.com Eero Ränik

    The puzzle owned. Something like 5 minutes to decode with C# and 10 wasted on trying to run the bytecode when I could’ve read the answer as plaintext. :P Loved the Starcraft reference.

    More job offers with puzzles please! :)

  • http://priyank.co.in Priyank

    This is easy puzzle, no encryption nothing, just simple encoding, lot of time wasted on converting bytes codes on Windows. Ah Windows don’t have built in xxd.

  • http://mirbsd.de/mksh mirabilos

    Well, 7 minutes, but only because the four-letter thing at the end was something unusual for me, I’m at work where we have Kubuntu instead of my usual BSD, and because I had to help a colleague with his notebook during that… and I didn’t hurry. I think 3‥4 minutes should be easily doable.

  • Axel

    Got the string after 7-8 Minutes. Took further 15 minutes to get the last program running though. I neither like nor am I used to that brown, ugly four letter thingy.

    The rest of the puzzle was nice though. Liked the double hex encoding. Wasted too much time on trying to fix my perl code to not give me the hex code I just threw in again until I noticed that it’s working fine from the beginning and I have to just use the same perl script a second time.

    Would have had no idea from which game or movie that could have been from, though.

  • Zahhar Kirillov

    Got it in 1,5 hours, including about an hour of failed attempts to solve it under Windows. Then switched to Linux and it was much easier to finish. The last step was a miracle for me as not being Java programmer: 10 minutes to find out how to run it, shame on me! Another shame: I don’t know this phrase as I am not gamer either. 

  • http://www.zeroturnaround.com/ Toomas Römer

    Hopefully you enjoyed it. We are working on a new one, will release soon, I’ll post it to this blog too.