Cyberstream Poem

May 3, 2004 2:32 AM

Poem in the cyberstream Still trying to figure this one out.
posted by Niahmas (12 comments total)

It looks to me like it's the hexidecimal/binary view of a word document named "testaz.doc". I would imagine that if you copied and pasted it into a hex editor and saved that as a file, you'd get a word doc with some bad poetry in it.
posted by jaded at 4:02 AM on May 3, 2004

It's definitely a zip file, but I'm having trouble unzipping it....
posted by seanyboy at 4:18 AM on May 3, 2004

OK - I've unzipped it, but I either unzipped it wrong, or the doc file is just rubbish.
The Doc file can be found here. [INTESTAZ.doc] and the zip file is here. [hexpoem.zip]
I've not tested the DOC file for viruses or anything like that, so be careful.
posted by seanyboy at 4:32 AM on May 3, 2004

Sweet. How did you do it?
posted by Niahmas at 7:02 AM on May 3, 2004

Poem by Nari: "The works of Poem by Nari are results of a creative collaboration; artists, writers, computer programmers, and Netizens of the world. Digital code and data, program logic, information from cyberspace, all things digital, are source materials for creative exploration."
posted by josephtate at 7:28 AM on May 3, 2004

Additive Color Theory. This "poem" is interactive and obvious. Color by numbers.
posted by josephtate at 7:32 AM on May 3, 2004

Fix the line at 200h and it works.

I wish I'd solved it from the beginning by myself. But neat anyway.
posted by ikalliom at 11:21 AM on May 3, 2004

Ah yes. That'll do it.
So. For the curious, the poem is a blank word document zipped, and then converted to Hex.
Author: Rinaldo Rasa
Revision: 2
Created 10/02/1999
Application: Microsoft Word 8.0

Slightly different to Coleridge, but decoding it was fun anyway.
I guess it says something about the information needed in the modern age to say nothing.
Or some such nonsense.
posted by seanyboy at 1:58 PM on May 3, 2004

Sweet. How did you do it?
In case that question was pointed to me...
Copied the text to my favorite text editor, and stripped out (nearly) all the spurious characters.
Used Borland Delphi to convert the Hex to Characters and save in a new file.

I guessed it was a zipped file from the fact it seemed to contain (a) garbage, (b) the characters "PK" at the front of the file and (c) a filename at the end of the file.

Opened the zip file and then opened the Word Doc contained therein.
posted by seanyboy at 2:03 PM on May 3, 2004

cant we just cheat here and y'all post the poem for us lazy folks? ;)
posted by dabitch at 2:05 PM on May 3, 2004

It's blank. There is no spoon poem.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 2:16 PM on May 3, 2004

ah. clever.
posted by dabitch at 2:50 PM on May 3, 2004