Wael • August 14, 2017 10:28 AM

@Nick P,

Great fiction, though.

Good thing you didn’t originally identify it as fiction, otherwise I may have skipped it.

Wael • August 14, 2017 2:30 PM

@Czerno, @Clive Robinson,

apologies for the typo (actually, more a /lapsus calami/due to not practicing enough the fine English tongue

None needed. It’s a finger, in this case. How’s that for nitpicking? 🙂

<cite<Technically a SUB should take longer than XOR because the carry has to "ripple" through all the bits, whereas XOR is bit-by-bit parallel …

Courtesy of: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16419960/x86-comparison-instruction-that-uses-xor-instead-of-subtraction

Now I normally don’t use stackoverflow for references in these matters, but it’s the thing I found first. I asked a couple of ex-colleagues who still have their hands dirty, so to speak. One of them said: “They may be same, and of course the HW is always changing, so it may differ between models even”. Unfortunately the replies I got are divided, so I’ll accept your “matter of preference” stance.

I don’t have the bandwidth to read @Clive Robinon’s reply.

Wael • August 14, 2017 10:39 PM

@Clive Robinson, @Nick P, @Czerno,

So let’s here your excuse 😉

Got none except to say I’m not infallible.

Back then every byte counted.

That was still the case when I did BIOS. At one point I had to fight for 20 bytes. Went through all sorts of convoluted stuff to optimize the code since I wasn’t given it. That’s before UEFI.

Backtracking to an earlier post:

You guy’s are such youngsters,

Thank you! That’s a complement 🙂

and I guess never went below assembler in your programing lives …

Debug-wise, yes. Development-wise, no.

[…] Hope that has given you a glimpse behind the Microcode/RTL curtain without having to use a spotlight.

Cut to the chase! What’s more efficient: xor or sub? 🙂

I’ll continue to use xor. We do cryptography, too. Lol

@Czerno,

Integer divisions remain slow, still and it’s a well known programmer’s trick (as I’m sure you are aware) to mutliply by an inverse instead of DIV

Also shift right to divide by two or it’s multiples, which makes a huge difference in performance on some micro controllers.

@Nick P,

You read the story:

Patrick said, now in full form. “A hacker adds this code to the compiler and distributes it to everyone. The code detects that it’s compiling the compiler and adds itself back into the binary. One revision later the hacker removes the code from the official source distribution. The hack then perpetuates itself forever, with no trace in the source.”

Now that they root-caused the problem, how could they have recovered from this infection loop?

Wael • August 15, 2017 1:38 AM

@Clive Robinson

It sounds easy when you say…

That’s what they said, and I didn’t buy it.

In theory they can not go back to what was originaly there as it’s now gone…

There’s got to be a way other than what they tried. More efficient too. I just can’t think of it now. I’ll sleep on it as I said a mouthful today. If I stay up any longer I’ll be replying in limerickese.

For some strange reason, I can’t keep my eyes open. Perhaps I thought about one of the books you reccomended in the past.

Wael • August 15, 2017 10:20 AM

@Clive Robinson,

How much do you trust Open Source codes and projects ?

And…

The setting of the story shows

Why are you attributing these to me? You should drink your 3 pints of tea before you make comments here!

Castels-v-Prisons

I shortened it to C-v-P not CvP

Wael • August 15, 2017 12:36 PM

@Clive Robinson,

And just like that, @Clive Robinson wrote Bong-Smoking Primitive Monkey-Brained Spook’s obituary!

I shall have to talk to the fetid foot apparel if it can hear anything above the embarrassed bubbling 😉

The foot apparel is the sockpuppet. Suddenly everthing makes sense now.

But: I neither confirm or deny the relationship between my left hand and the sock.

Wael • August 15, 2017 1:05 PM

@Nick P,

The answer was in the story and my original comment.

Something tells me there is another efficient way. Not sure how, yet.

Wael • August 15, 2017 3:25 PM

@pup socket,

What’s “DCE”?

Wael • August 15, 2017 3:42 PM

@pup socket,

You’re pretty impressive! The answer applies to two posts! but you’re wrong on (1) and DCE – think vectors, not scalars. You’re right on the three other permutations.

Do I need to explain?

Wael • August 15, 2017 3:58 PM

@Anura

Thanks. I wasn’t sure of the context. @pop socket blockquoted nothing. Funny that his answer applies to two posts, and I wasn’t sure which.

This isn’t about DCE, though! This is about making a copy of a variable that maybe a vector or just incrementing it in-place. It makes little or no difference if i is a scalar (built in type, like an int) Not sure if compilers treat that the same way as DCE. Still: in the for loop: ++i is the more efficient way.

@pop socket’s response applies to these two posts:

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/08/friday_squid_bl_588.html#c6758312

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/08/friday_squid_bl_588.html#c6758329

See, one talks about two shots to the head, and another talks about !!i; ‘!’ is called a ‘bang’ so there are two bangs to the ‘eye’ which is in the head. Freakin’ amazing response! That’s why I wanted to see how “DCE” applies to the first part of the poem!

Me and my pattern matching 😉

Wael • August 15, 2017 4:06 PM

@pup socket,

You’re a genius! It’s no accident as your choice of handle shows! You deliberately replied to two posts in two lines. Most impressive!

+10

Wait a second! -1 for the DCE answer. .+9 isn’t bad, still 🙂

Wael • August 15, 2017 4:51 PM

@Anura,

Give me sometime. I’ll prepare a concise answer…
but you can search for that on the World Wide Web?

Wael • August 15, 2017 5:30 PM

@Anura,

Check answer #328 here
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/24901/is-there-a-performance-difference-between-i-and-i-in-c

Try to get a copy of Scott Meyers Effective C++ series.

Vector could be an STL iterator. Scalar is built in type.

Wael • August 15, 2017 6:30 PM

@Anura,

I used it in the past. My for loops use preincrement rather than postincrement (or decrement). Sometimes we use external libraries that we don’t have source (or time) to investigate. Just use ++i in the loop and you’re fine.

This was just one example, by the way 😉

But, when I have the time, I’ll verify it again. Don’t hold your breath, though.

Wael • August 16, 2017 11:42 AM

@Anura,

Quick and dirty (for blog size constraints, too).
play with ++p vs. p++ in the bolded lines,
Compile and run the program. I get, on average:
++p: 1.138 Seconds
p++: 1.41 Seconds
On MacOS, Xcode, compiler defaults. Don’t have time for other platforms or compiler flags. My guess is it won’t make much difference.

//  preincrement vs. postincrement
//  replace p++ with ++p in the three places it occures and check the time
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
#include <ctime>
using namespace std;
int main(int argc, const char * argv[]) {
    vector<int> v(100000);    
    double start=clock();
    // create an iterator over the vector container
    vector<int>::iterator p;    
    int i = 0;   
    // populate vector elements
    for(p = v.begin(); p != v.end(); ++p) {
        *p = i;
        i++;
    }    
    // display the contents
    for(p = v.begin(); p != v.end(); ++p) {
       // cout << *p << endl;
        ++p;
    }    
    double stop=clock();
    cout << "time: " << (stop - start) / CLOCKS_PER_SEC * 1000 << endl;
    return 0;
}

Wael • August 16, 2017 12:12 PM

@Anura,

Sorry – minor bug fix. Timings now favor ++p vs. p++ more prominently… (I had an unneeded iterator incrementation.) Only two places to mess with pre vs. post. All I could afford for this was 6 or 7 minutes… Apologies to the host – net time I’ll use past bin or something. but the code here is tiny

//  preincrement vs. postincrement
//  replace p++ with ++p in the two places it occures and check the time
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
#include <ctime>
using namespace std;
int main(int argc, const char * argv[]) {
    vector<int> v(100000);    
    double start=clock();
    // create an iterator over the vector container
    vector<int>::iterator p;    
    int i = 0;   
    // populate vector elements
    for(p = v.begin(); p != v.end(); ++p) {
        *p = i++; }    
    // display the contents -- commented out on purpose to remove common denominator I/O timings
    for(p = v.begin(); p != v.end(); ++p) {
       // cout << *p << endl;}    
    double stop=clock();
    cout << "time: " << (stop - start) / CLOCKS_PER_SEC * 1000 << endl;
    return 0;
}

Surprise! I had a bug in my code because, of course, I used C++. Had I used a different programming language, this would not have happened, for sure 😉

Wael • August 16, 2017 12:27 PM

@pop socket,

Fix it 😉

Wael • August 16, 2017 12:30 PM

@pop socket,

Tsk, tsk…

@i_freakin’anf? Where have you been hiding, man? Only he said tsk, tsk 😉

Wael • August 16, 2017 12:59 PM

@pup socket,

I prefer you use a blockquote tag to save me the time needed to guess wtf you’re talking about 😉 You’re not planning to get another +9, are you?

Wael • August 16, 2017 10:09 PM

@Ratio,

I like this quote from the link I gave you last:

Some mothers (who are also [sic] software engineers) …

A bucket and a half of sh•t — same old same old.

Hey! Cool it down with @Clive Robinson 😉

I’m outta here for good this time. A few days only, don’t celebrate yet 🙂

Wael • August 17, 2017 11:26 PM

@snur-pele,

Apologies for the late reply.

i’m not fluent in c, or any other hll, being strictly in the hw bin myself.

That hasn’t stopped others from sharing their ‘expert’ opinion. But thanks for the question.

therefore i gladly yield to the experts,

Be careful! Take everything with a grain of salt ranging in size from a tiny grain to … @Clive Robinson will tell you!

but it seem to me the type of potential difference would show up at a higher percentage when the loop is short.

I’m curious to know — at a high level — why you believe that should be the case! Let’s not create a 100 iterations out of this discussion too.

So why not test using thousands of loops with a depth av two?

Well, one could test it in different ways, including what you’re suggesting. But the point being made, and what my whole intent of what one should take out of this discussion here is the following:

Knowing that one method is sometimes more efficient than an alternate method is a good reason to use the more efficient one consistently as a measure of precaution. Replace efficiency with security, and the statement remains valid. I believe that should apply to HW as well as other domains.

See, the discussion started after a comment I made to @Nick P regarding a questionable decision a character in the story made regarding a ‘sub’ operation being an efficient method of zeroing a register. In my experience, xor was the preferred method.

To clarify: xor is at least as fast as dec, on some platforms. Meaning it’s sometimes faster, but never slower. To counter this argument, one must demonstrate a case where sub is faster in at least one case; basic logic, you know!

I shared a related (sometimes surprising to others) claim that ++p is more efficient than p++ (with clarifications under what conditions it may make a difference.) Hence:
Pre-increment is never slower than post-increment (there are those who claim the reverse is true on some platforms, but I haven’t seen that in my experience, nor understood their ‘rational’ if they had any.) So the recommendation is to use pre-increment as opposed to post-increment, of course where it does not affect the desired outcome (x = p++ has different purposes than x = ++p, and that’s elementary and understood)

Now, I had a few minutes (a little short of 7 minutes — hardly commercial-quality code) to give a clarifying example of what I meant by vector vs. scalar. I used a vector container by coincidence. The results I shared were run in an IDE as a debug build: code was not optimized, on purpose[1]. This should have prompted the question: why is timing different, debug or release not critical at this point!) In addition, I gave references to the justification and the explicit comment that this does not apply to intrinsic, built-in, or scalar types. And this should have been sufficient to demonstrate the case. Period.

[1] I also claimed that shouldn’t make a difference. Unfortunately, In this example it did.

Wael • August 18, 2017 3:28 AM

@pup socket,

Come on, pup!
I have a ton of sh*t to do. I need more time! You make it feel like work 🙁

(Strong crypto!)

My Quantum computer isn’t up yet, and you hit me with strong crypto? snot fair!

puppet master

Yea. Your puppeteer pissed me off. Say, what happens if I reach 100%? Blow your cover?

Wael • August 18, 2017 5:25 AM

@Clive Robinson,

Avoiding the patent topic…

Let me know when you’ve dug through to Australia 0:)

No can do.

one big failing of C is you can not get at the CPU flags

One can use inline assembler, right? At the cost of losing portability. Not such a big failing, especially when we can extent this functionality in C++ with classes.

Code cutters spend their lives looking for cheap “specmanship” optimisations thus condem themselves to the hamster wheel of pain.

There is truth to that. There are also those who work with embedded systems with severely restricted resources and less advanced compilers and primitive tool chains. These engineers need to know a lot of optimization techniques and can’t fully depend on the tool chain. Then again, who will develop the optimized libraries and protocols and tool chains? Will you classify these also as code-cutters because their main interest is efficiency and optimization?

At the very least this makes using very long integers a lot more trouble than it should be as well as other large bit array functions (think crypto shifts etc).

Not if we know what we’re doing.

Wael • August 18, 2017 4:21 PM

@Gerard van Vooren,

Read it once, just now. Are you arguing for Oberon over C++? What is it you’re telling me?

It’s usually clearer to include an excerpt of a previous comment so I correlate the context. I didn’t blockquote any of your comment because this reply applies to all of it.

@pup socket,

I missed attributing the post before this one to you – never mind, I saw you responded.

Wael • August 18, 2017 4:55 PM

@Gerard van Vooren,

The gist is of thinking about the bigger picture instead of focusing on tiny problems such as optimization.

Got it. Agree with that disposition as well. Wasn’t my intention to drag on the topic, and didn’t expect it to elevate to that level. Normally I talk about principles and avoid details and low level, unless pushed or challenged. I also have stated more than once that compilers aren’t my favorite topic. I leave that for experts in that domain, like @Nick P.

But don’t downplay other aspects! Big picture alone isn’t enough. I’m an engineer by education, so I value details — something I can’t change, and at the same time I understand and agree to what you said.

Wael • August 18, 2017 9:21 PM

@pup socket,

Sorry, put it in the wrong thread! I’ll ask for final hint later. Don’t want to blow my last chance.

Wael • August 19, 2017 6:23 PM

@pup socket,

I can’t allocate much more time after your final hint.

Short status:

Highest possibilities:
pup socket = @Ratio
book_review = @Bruce Schneier
pup socket = @Bruce Schneier
or
pup socket = book_review

Feels like an Indian movie. Everyone is related. Hopefully it doesn’t end in a fight …

Still inconclusive….

Some brief details — not all:

1. shouldn’t matter because of DCE, 2. two shots to the head is one way, yes.

Methinks: Ok, there are other ways. Meaning: !!i isn’t the only way. But that’s very peculiar! This guy (or girl) is a genius! How did he make that correlation? This is a person with unusual capabilities. It’s not an accident! Expect trouble now … Nice going, butthead (talking to myself.)

not sure, tbh. (Couldn’t pass up doing poem and code…)

Methinks: Resembles @Ratio’s style of “talking”. Not definitive, matches other’s, have to account for deliberate style camouflage.
Still bump @Ratio by one
@Ratio = 1

You’re a genius! It’s no accident as your choice of handle shows! You deliberately replied to two posts in two lines. Most impressive!
+10
Wait a second! -1 for the DCE answer. .+9 isn’t bad, still 🙂

This could become relevant as the number nine shows up later. Save it for later…

now won’t compile because of commented out closing braces… Tsk, tsk…

Methinks: I know that “Tsk, tsk”: freakin’ @ianf! Hmm he denied it’s him!pup socket != @ianf!

1.138 v 1.41? Or 1.138 v 1.141? (Exactly 3 hours left. Tick-tock, Clæwice…)

Methinks: Are you freaking kidding me? What a puzzle! Well,
A Ratio thing? Possibly. Ummm pi? 3.141? Nope. Has to do with ratios is all I can guess. Universal constants? Harrumph… fu*kit just ummm:

Bump @Ratio by 1
@Ratio = 2

Let’s test theory. Give him a hint that I busted him — that’ll work and reduce my pain. Deception, you know 😉

Methinks: Send him a not-so-subtle hint, without asking for information directly. Maybe he’ll fall for it and think that I’m a genius, too. I don’t know what that campaign would be called in security jargon… Stop drifting and Focus! Send the message and measure the effect!

You’ll arrive at similar results (ratio preserved!)

Hmmm. Let’s wait and see!

See if it’s @ianf!

@ifreakin’anf? Where have you been hiding, man? Only he said tsk, tsk 😉

@Wael: considering my demise, but you still have doubts, so maybe not. Use brain.

He denied he’s @ianf! BUt denial is not categorical. Not clear… Could still be @ianf — can’t completely eliminate him! What’s the deal with the “brain”? The sock puppet of late? Don’t know…

Time’s up, Clæwice! You can find me and my brother at the base. (I think you knew.)

Methinks: Worked! Time’s up, the only hint I gave him is the highlighted “ratio”, and he thinks I nailed him. And he stresses that with: see you at the base; a ratio related thing, like a denominator or something. Well:

Now @Ratio = 3 roughly 70% confidence!

But what’s with this “Clæwice” thing? Silence of the lambs (Clarice)? My name could also be extracted from that strange string going backwords, almost. What’s with the letter “æ”? Several things: Nordic? That’s an @Bruce Schneider thing! Na! @ianf has a weird keyboard. It’s gotta be hime, but he denied it…. Drop @ianf for now.

this is why VSP insist on spec and formal—oops, sock’s slipping! (^^^ Too late!)

Thats sounds like @Ratio ranting about someone here… Could be someone else. @Nick P is the likely candidate, but he’s not into this kind of stuff….

Gotta be @Ratio again!
++@Ratio (@Ratio = 4) (@Ratio++ isn’t as efficient 😉 )
Case closed! Or is it???

(pantomiming) (from a separate thread

Again, this is characteristic of @ianf vocabulary usage!!! Arrrrgh.

Can’t you see I’m mourning @Bong-Smoking Primitive Monkey-Brained Spook?! (sob)

Bruce wouldn’t care!
Who would say that? Many possibilities — ignore.

will always be 3 (brother) and 9 (me)! Code: FRH3 ⇐ LQ3 Strong crypto for brother who is 3 is symmetric. So: 3QL ⇒ 3HRF.

Looking for brother? Answer right there in strong crypto, staring in your face.

That’s gotta be the picture on this page!

@Bruce Schneller = 1

puppeteer should be obvious. Brilliant, funny, famously humble: rare combo. 😉

Possibly and probably this

Bump by three.
@Bruce Schneller = 4
Not too many share these qualities on the blog.

Need to solve the “Strong” crypto:

3QL ⇒ 3HRF
FRH3 ⇐ LQ3

Hmm? Left, Right?…

And see how it can be applied to guessed entities to validate identity

Then again, what are the two questions? (Who is brother and who is me? — are these the questions?)

Wael • August 19, 2017 8:07 PM

@pup socket,

There are three entities then:

Two sock-puppets: you and your brother
A puppeteer: the one who “controls” both of you

Makes sense! A pair of socks and one person 🙂

This is not asking for a hint! It’s a clarification of the problem statement.

Wael • August 19, 2017 9:48 PM

@pup socket,

Step closer. Staring me in the face:

pup socket ==> sock puppet

pup ==> sock
socket ==> puppet

3QL ==> 3HRF is the transformation, possibly key…
pup ==> sock

…

Wael • August 20, 2017 9:41 AM

@pup socket,

is it:

brother’s code, not mine! Tell you part of mine, before nice ⇒ arrow? Yes?

Or

brother’s code, not mine! Tell you part of mine, before nice ⇒ arrow? Yes?

Don’t do me like that, dawg! Don’t give me cryptic hints too! Which is it, the first or second?

Wael • August 20, 2017 6:27 PM

@pup socket,

Truely yours gives others ample time. This one hasn’t been revealed yet.. Watch and learn.

So relax. No more hints, and I don’t want to hear you ticking clock either. It reminds me of other things — I fit a profile, see. 😉

I can blog here and multitask at the same time. But these sort of puzzles require undivided attention, which I can’t afford for too long.

Don’t get me wrong! I like your puzzle.

Wael • August 21, 2017 1:52 AM

@pup socket,

You haven’t answered this question yet:

Is the puzzle solvable at the time you gave me the first count down without the additional subsequent ‘hints’ you provided? If that’s the case, I’ll sleep on it and share results later.

Your puppeteer will see it, and may or may not reply. But if I find out who it is, I’ll address him directly and discretly.

Since you’re about to leave this cruel world, well… It was a pleasure (before you puppeteer turns the hologram program off.) And I’ll mourn you too, just like you mourned my sockpuppet (sob)

this is part of the cvs I have…
,Entity,ROT13,,,,
,brother,oebgure,,,,
,pup socket,chc fbpxrg,,,,
,puppeteer,chccrgrre,,,,
,three,guerr,,,,
,nine,avar,,,,
,brother’s code,3QL_3HRF,,,,
,pup socket code,JRW_MQBS,,,,
,wael,jnry,,,,
,sock puppet,fbpx chccrg,,,,
,nice,avpr,,,,
,before,orsber,,,,
,arrow,neebj,,,,
,mister,zvfgre,,,,
,illuminate,vyyhzvangr,,,,
,Ruiu,Ehvh,,,,
,Clæwice,Pynrjvp,,,,
,b4,o9,,,,
,book_review,obbx_erivrj,,,,
,ianf,vnas,,,,
,ratio,engvb,,,,
,master,znfgre,,,,
,bruce,oehpr,,,,
,schneier,fpuarvre,,,,
,moderator,zbqrengbe,,,,
,VSP,IFC,,,,
,ross,ebff,,,,
,rolf weber,ebys jrore,,,,
,brain,oenva,,,,
,base,onfr,,,,
,star dog,fgne qbt,,,,
,NSA,AFN,,,,

I don’t know if your choice of handle factors into the puzzle, or whether I am reading too much into it

pup socket ==> sock  puppet
123 456789 ==> 4567  123389

the 33 above (underneath the pp in puppet) may clarify the reason you chose to use the letter ‘æ’ (ash) in this word: Clæwice, because it transforms it to from an 8-letter word to a seven-letter word to match the ‘codes’ for you and your brother.

Your ‘code’ lead me to this direction: “Elliot Carlson. Joe Rochefort’s War: the odyssey of the codebreaker who outwitted Yamamoto at Midway. Naval Institute Press. Sort of spooky (big brother)

Am I reading too much? I don’t know. Missing something really really obvious? It sounds like it. Something tells me it’s related to the book “Decoded” – but it’s just a feeling, nothing much to go on (and I searched the book for related matters… couldn’t make a connection)

None of the usual suspects commented (probably enjoying the show, and laughing) or they’re not interested. Either way, perhaps it’s better I don’t drag on this too much or the Moderator will give me a yellow card (unless he’s in on it too.)

Wael • August 21, 2017 4:25 AM

@pup socket,

ok – that helps. The skull is getting numb.

I need to find the transformation from 3QL to 3HRF
and apply the same transformation to the input: JRW_MQBS, which will give me the second part (that corresponds to 3HRF of your brother.)

Thought about Base64 encoding… will need to find “formula”. brother 3 and you 9 maybe the other clue. 3 could be S or some other mapping or meaning. Let’s see how far I can get. 3HRF. Need to see the significance of the bolded “3”.

Wael • August 21, 2017 5:05 AM

@pup socket,

okay. Thread was about xor / sub

3QL ==> 3HRF

3QL xor 3HRF = 337b030a Hex

so 3QL xor 337b030a Hex ==> 3HRF

Formaula: xor first part with 337b030a hex to get second part.

Then:

JRW_MQBS xor 337b030a hex ==> JRW_~*AY

Brother hint: JRW_~*AY

Google Fu next… perhaps tomorrow or actually today.

If it’s the wrong formula… well then. It’s a matter of conclusively extrapolating the formula. Not sure that can be deterministic with one input sample test vector. Clues may narrow it down…

Wael • August 21, 2017 5:14 AM

@pup socket,

Loosing track between the left and right socks:

Brother hint: JRW_~*AY

Should say:

You, not your brother.

Wael • August 21, 2017 7:08 AM

@pup socket,

Me counting sheep. May be I’ll get if in your lifetime.

Wael • August 21, 2017 8:30 PM

Nope!

Can’t be wrong! 100% confidence.
You were right. The socks had many holes. I just didn’t see them!

How many dogs were in the litter again? It’s more than two! Clickee da linkee there, Mistah Ratio! “See you at the base”? Come on, dawg! That’s dangerous.

Just remember: I don’t like leaving open issues, my insomnia will come back!.

So tick-tock tick-tock… you have 52 weeks. And I won’t remind you. Ummm: I got your permission to publicize your cover if I am 100% sure. So hopefully we’re good.

I’m out for good this time. @Nick P, will get to you when I come back.

Wael • August 24, 2017 12:08 AM

@Ratio,

I need to apologize for this:

Ratio: I’m gonna kick your xxx. You made a mistake in composing there puzzle.

I wrote it in the editor and intended to delete it, but it slipped through the cracks. It was supposed to be replaced by:

… What I meant is the other name for donkey.) …

That’s why two ‘versions’ were there.

It would be greatly appreciated if @Moderator masked the xxx. Or even better, kindly expunged the whole block:

Ratio: I’m gonna kick your xxx. You made a mistake in composing there puzzle. It’s not the reason I didn’t get it, but that was sloppy 😉

It was an honest mistake that I just discovered.