Something New?

[interdudial]

So did anyone else get this e-mail today? I found it in my spam folder, seems to be pertinent, especially in light of the wall-medina deal:

Greetings,

Wa||-Medina Labs is currently recruiting research participants to take
part in a new study. This study will analyze the reactions of
participants as they interact with a conversational AI. This study is
part of a larger project focused on the creation of quasi-sentient
‘emotion mimicry’ programs, and the data collected will aid us in
designing more effective artificial intelligence systems. This study
involves no risks other than those posed during everyvxvday life. Once
the data is collected, it will be coded by a conversation ID and
participants’ identification information will be deleted. Upon
completion of the study, participants will be entered into a raffle to
win a $25 gift card to Amazon.com. Winners will be contacted via their
submitted email address, with one winner per 50 participants.

To participate in the study, please follow the link below:
wall-medina.net/sparks


Department of Participant Solicitation,
Wall-Medina Labs

Honestly, seems to raise more questions than it answers. I'm going to do some digging around and see what I can find there, hopefully making a post tomorrow summing up some theories I've been kicking around.

[gamegirl42]

This site looks like another puzzle. Are there any tech/computer people who want to help out?

[lysander]

The other Wall-Medina link someone posted no longer points to the same site. Either that person edited the link, or the old W-M site that was apparently found by googling "omeostat" has been... updated.

wall-medina.net/intranet/ms1.html

5
00 (server.qibpqdip.error)
We iqlqplpiregret lbollodl vpilliqv
lbollodl to inform you that an error has occurred.
oqvbdvpooqvbdvpo
Our {oqdiibpo}apologies,qqibdipp, we will

ooowwooo ooowwooo ooowwooo
ppvdbvqq look into the situation and contact you upon its #wqqooppw#rectification#wqqooppw#.


Viewing the source code reveals an HTML comment, which may or may not be related to our job. I don't know what an "orphix" or a "tuthu" is, and Google doesn't seem to either.

edit: Yes, I'm pretty sure we're absolutely supposed to be reading HTML comments. Start a conversation with sparks and then read the source code. He seems pretty socially inept, but it looks like if we feed him the right words he'll probably be a little more responsive. Poor little guy.

I'm guessing the ooowwooos and pdibqs in the staff pages have something to do with this - there must be a series of passwords there. I'll check it out a little more post-Crystal Castles.

Also, I just wanted to note: I'm sure this was probably obvious to everyone else, but just in case, I just realized that the symmetrical character strings only use a certain set of characters: those with bilateral symmetry (m, o, l, et cetera) and those that have symmetrical counterparts (q/p, b/d, etc). I haven't seen any that contain letters that don't fit this pattern (like r, e, h, c) although there are some with commas and hash-tags (although I don't think they're technically symmetrical).

[kodrvige]

Hello, I received the same e-mail and was taken to the web site for this laboratory. I found your forum by a google search for the e-mail text. There is a lot to take in on your forum for a new-comer .

Do you think this laboratory has anything to do with this man?

www.brainrules.net/about-the-author

"DR. JOHN J. MEDINA, a developmental molecular biologist, has a lifelong fascination with how the mind reacts to and organizes information."

I also found out that the "University of Groche" which is listed in the "Recent Works" section of the Wall-Medina web site is not a real university, but "groche" is a word in the Picard language meaning "ashes" which reminds me of the ash figures in one of the other threads here.

I hope this is helpful

[kodrvige]

I don't know about codes but I found this in the source code of the main page.

!n.qdiibp

It is not symmetrical like the rest of the strange phrases... unless "!n" is part of a code?

[meowth]

i found some white stuff in a place where i found pins one time before (in front of Regenstein) but there was nothing there, not sure if its relevant or not...