Clue 4 hint 6

The code of life is DNA, and that picture looks like a DNA analysis, except for the squiggle.

As pointed out by the JohnSteed, the squiggle is odd. Looking closely, it resembles a rest in musical notation. So in the score, perhaps it is the rests that are the signal and the notes are noise.

I got nowhere using the rests as dots and dashes of morse code.

The squiggle in the pixmap looks like a musical rest symbol on its side. The score is full of them, much more than you get in most music, at least the sort of music I used to play on the piano 40+ years ago. If its a character in a code maybe it is the space symbol or one of the commonest letters E,A or R.

There are an infinite number of codes so 'covering all the bases' is impossible. Our hint setter seems to have fallen into a schoolboy error of thinking that codes are easy to break and it is as much work to make up a code as to break it. Codes are many and varied and many require a key, sometimes a physical key, for instance the three staves could have represented the three rows of keys on the QUERTY keyboard and the lowest note could have been the leftmost key in the row and so on.

"gotten to the bottom of the puzzle" could mean for us to ignore the upper two staves and work only on the part played by the cello.

The music is full of "improbable patterns" and does seem more like noise than music, maybe the problem is the signal to noise ratio is too poor.

Maybe the letters "DNA" are the key or that acid's full unabbreviated name is the key. If I did not have a full time job maybe I could "not rest until" I had cracked it but while this is a bit interesting it ain't going to pay the mortgage is it. Life is full of maybes. Maybe pigs might fly, maybe Dream Lover Labs will prosper despite holding up a product release just to make someone think they are clever. Maybe you are just playing us along and don't actually have a product at all and just want to feed our thoughts into your product development plans. Maybe you have an IQ of 200 and think people with IQs in the 130s are dummies who deserve to be strung along. Maybe we are being really silly not spotting the obvious, but whats obvious to one person is not obvious to others who have different cultural backgrounds and life experiences and education. Really intelligent people tend to have very poor common sense.

Good catch, Norman1066 & Henry. Identifying the third band from the left in the gel as a musical symbol makes sense given the prior clues.

The current clue states that we should "make the jump from the noisy realm of the Code, and see the data from the context of a new domain," which to me is an oblique way of suggesting that we should somehow transpose the musical code into some other code, apparently one having to do with DNA.

I believe the image in this clue is of gel electrophoresis. Gel electrophoresis can't be used to read DNA, but rather to determine the relative size, or length, of unknown DNA strands. It also is worth pointing out that DNA is often represented as the four letters A, G, C, & T. So how do we take the musical notation, the DNA notation, and use link between the two - the musical rest - to start decrypting the code?

Perhaps we should try replacing the rest symbol with one of the four DNA letters to start with...

I'm not so sure DNA has anything to do with it. Perhaps this clue is just a way of saying the rests are important. "Because sometimes, silence is just as telling as words."

So what have we got:
* Boethius's notation maps the score to letters A,B,..G (and possibly also H for G#)
* don't ignore the rests
* read it backwards

And...

...it still looks as intelligible as a monkey at a typewriter.

But when read out loud it sounds like someone wearing a large ballgag. Is that the answer? lol

PS is this an adult toy company or a recruitment site for the NSA?

On topic:

1. This picture is definitely gel electrophoresis. It also definitely has a 90 degree rotated quarter-rest added in.

2. I am not sure, but I also believe there are letters or symbols that are also rotated along the top. If you turn the image contrast all the way up and then adjust the brightness you can see some letters. Not sure what to make of them. They’re clearer if you desaturate the image too (make it greyscale.)

3. I agree with others and believe that the most recent clues indicate that there is a pattern in the rests.

Off topic:

I am interested in seeing the DL-2000 in action. Is there anyone in Chicago who might let me look at one they own? Or is there anyone who would be willing to share videos of someone being trained with one? (I would be super discreet, obviously.)

I am delighted to hear that these clues and guessing are not holding up the product release. I do not feel put down by the clues and hints just frustrated, and normally I only allow my Mistress to do that to me :-)

Its Saturday so I have more time now so here some more ideas.

Clue 2. I am fairly sure the connector pictured is not a USB port but an HDMI port. This goes along with my earlier idea that this is a remote control pan/tilt mechanism, but now including the camera itself. Hopefully the signal would be encrypted so only the intended watcher, in my case my Mistress, could view the images and control the camera and use the information so gained to activate a DL2000 when she changes her advice to not buy one yet. As before there could be multiple ones of these in different room with motion detectors to which could automatically tilt and pan the camera and switch the video stream between cameras. Maybe there could even be a pool of users whereby my Mistress could allow other ladies to 'baby sit' or just enjoy the view but at the same time be sworn to secrecy.

Clue 1. The motor/gear assemblies could perhaps mount onto water taps to control the flow and temperature of a shower. I could be enjoying a nice warm shower when my Mistress turns it to ice cold, like Alfred Hitchcock did to the actress in his film Pysco, to get a stunned reaction. In a male of course the reaction is somewhat different. Someone mentioned golden showers, though I am not into them at all, you could take the conventional shower output and switch the flow suddenly to the golden liquid (and I don't mean the amber nectar).

If I remember correctly the original message spoke of it being orthogonal to the DL2000. Well maybe this is a physical reference to it being at 90 degrees. The DL2000 fits along the penis so maybe the new device fits at a right angle to the penis. The petticoats of a sissy maid would allow it to project forward but I doubt D.L.Labs would want to restrict themselves to such a small market so more likely the device would stick backwards between the legs. I imagine the two motor/rear assemblies being there and able to independently crush the testicles. Alternatively one could face forward to control the penis and one backwards to control the anus. Maybe just restricting urination and defecation but maybe pushing something up the penis towards the bladder and prostate and through the anus up into the bowels.

As it was hinted to get to the bottom of the problem, I looked at the bottom (Cello) stave and following someone else's suggestion of Morse code, looked to see if the notes on lines and off lines could be dots and dashes or vice-versa and the rests could be the gaps between letter or words. This did not get me anywhere.
Listening to the midi file seemed more promising. It seemed like dit dit dit dah dah dit dit dit dah dah which if we follow the back to front instruction gives us TV TV which fits into the camera idea. I listened again and maybe I am reading more into it than is there but I felt it could be starting (and hence ending when reversed) with CCTV TV. i.e closed circuit television, Television. Maybe I am reading too much into the noise.

What do the others think?

By the way some of you may not have seen a blog entry by 'q' who said he had held a new prototype DreamLover device in his hands and it was "a great supplement to the DreamLover 2000 and will provide days of sweet frustration for all that own one" but would say no more. The fact he has held it in his hands implies to me it is light enough and small enough to fit in two hands but not in one hand.

Are we getting warm D.L.Labs?