From: Christian Neukirchen <chneukirchen@...>
Date: 2004-12-25T21:36:47+09:00
Subject: Re: Merry Christmas

Michael Neumann <mneumann@ntecs.de> writes:

> CT wrote:
>>>On Friday 24 December 2004 08:21 am, Christian Neukirchen wrote:
>>>| Well, what more is there to say? :-)
>> *damn*, how'd you do that?!
>
> Pretty easy (except drawing the tree :). Write the source-code first,
> then base64 encode it, and insert newlines/whitespace to make the
> picture.

That's about how I did it.  Except not manually, of course. :-)

# mkxmas.rb

template = <<EOF
s="*****************************************
********************************************
****      *       *       *       *     ****                                
****  *       *      **       *       * ****
****      *       * ****  *       *     ****
****  *       *    ******     *       * ****
****      *       ********        *     ****
****  *       *  **********   *       * ****
****      *     ************      *     ****
****  *        ************** *       * ****
****      *   ****************    *     ****
****  *      ******************       * ****
****      *      **********       *     ****
****  *       * ************  *       * ****
****      *    **************     *     ****
****  *       ****************        * ****
****      *  ******************   *     ****
****  *     ********************      * ****
****       ********************** *     ****
****  *   ************************    * ****
****      *   ****************    *     ****
****  *      ******************       * ****
****      * ********************  *     ****
****  *    **********************     * ****
****      ************************      ****
****  *  **************************   * ****
****    ****************************    ****
****   ****************************** * ****
****  *******************************   ****
****  *       *    ******     *       * ****
****      *        ****** *       *     ****
****  *       *    ******     *       * ****
****      *        ****** *       *     ****
****  *       *    ******     *       * ****
****      *       *       *       *     ****
******************************************##
### Copyright (C) 2004  Christian Neukirchen
EOF

code = <<'EOF'
# Thanks for looking at my code.
#
# Copyright (C) 2002, 2004  Christian Neukirchen <chneukirchen@gmail.com>
#
# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
# modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

STDOUT.sync = true
d1, d2 = 0.15, 0.06
s = "Merry christmas, ... and a happy new year"
m = %w{, . : ! + * 0 O @}
u = " " * s.size

print "\r  #{u}\r";

(0..(s.size-1)).to_a.sort_by { rand }.each { |r|
  sleep d1
  next if s[r] == " "[0]
  m.each { |k|
    u[r] = k
    print "  #{u}\r"
    sleep d2
  }
  u[r] = s[r]
  print "  #{u}\r"
}

sleep d2
print "  #{u}!\r";
sleep 3
print "  #{u}!  --chris2\n";

# filler space ########################
EOF

hexcode = [code].pack("m*").delete("\n")

footer = '";eval s.delete!(" \\n").unpack("m*")[0]'

hexcode += footer

hcnt = 0
0.upto(template.size) { |tcnt|
  if template[tcnt] == ?* && hcnt < hexcode.size
    template[tcnt] = hexcode[hcnt]
    hcnt += 1
  end
}

puts template



> Merry christmas.
>
> Michael

The basic way of bubbling up characters is shamelessly stolen from a
similar obfu I saw at perlmonks, btw. ;-)


Merry Christmas,
Christian Neukirchen