Yes, Nasturtio, this is a visual representation of the bits in the executable image of the SunOS 4.1.3_u1 version of the "who" program.

Why? Huh . . .

Well, you see one day, on an email list some folks started a silly discussion. "What is Art?" they said to each other variously. "This is Art" said one, "No, That's Art" kibbled another. Yet a seventh quippled, "Who is this Art you are all talking about." Whereupon I decided "Who is Art" had some kind of mystical significance and made the SunOS 4.1.3_u1 version of the "who" program into a visible image and contemplated it for nine years until my legs fell off. The black pixels are the "1" bits and the white pixels are the "0" bits. The rough 4-fold symmetry is an unconscious artifact of misusing the utilities that turned bits into pixels, and really reflects the internal structure of the original binary image. Yo, this is a 32 bit architecture, and the image is 128 bits across. 32 times 4 is 128, so ...

I know, y'all funna say, "Ken, this is not art, this is punkuter nerdology." Yeah, yeah.


updated- Thu Jul 2 14:05:55 EDT 1998 by . . .

Cousin ITT (Information Technology Tactician)

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