perl -MPOSIX -e 'sub _{($.,$/)=@_;eval"\$\\.=sprintf\"\%s\",\"".(grep{s/\S/do{(ord($&)<42+4*2**0.42)?chr((42\/3+1)<<3):$&}/ge,42}grep{s%(?!$)%do{$//=2;"\\\/".(($/=~s/\.\S*//)?ceil sqrt 42:int sqrt 42)}%ge,42}sprintf("%x",$.))[0]." \""};@_=(42292,14,32458834,72,58668,5,8469330,32);while(@_){_@_;@_=@_[2..$#_]};print'|tr UNIX~ REWOP|cat -vet

The vet's first diagnosis: The poor kitten seems to be erudite, but it should probably try a diet of less theory, and instead actively some play rounds of golf. Cautious use of source filtering may also provide support in refactoring into a lean beast. @_@

The message is encoded into a nibble per letter, with the small numbers between words providing the missing 5th bits for the words. The encoding has an issue with leading 'false' 0-chars, i.e. 'p' aka 0x10, which is encoded as 0x1e instead; the final tr undoing the replacement. A red herring of 42 serves as true value and also helps in restoring the missing 2bit ASCII prefix for the quoted hex string. Herring and everything is finally fed to a useless use of cat used to provide the veterinary pun leading to the next paragraph.

I think this still requires some work, as it feels a bit artificial: nothing really abuses artefacts or inherent encodings of core Perl.

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