At first glance, it looked like a decorative art installation. Look closer (much, much closer), and you may have realized the spinning circles at the top of Adobe’s headquarters in downtown San Jose were a puzzle waiting to be solved.

After three years of playing on repeat, the code has been finally cracked. Software engineer Brian Vincent solved the semaphore this spring, Adobe announced, staring at and analyzing the circles’ rotations until he ultimately realized it was conveying an image from the “Birth of Venus” painting by Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli.

A semaphore is a way to send a visual message. It can be done with waving flags, fire or flashing lights. Think of Paul Revere’s famous example, when he used lanterns to signal the British were coming.

In the case of the San Jose Semaphore, there are four circles that can each appear in four positions, making a total of 256 possible combinations between them. The puzzle first debuted in 2006, transmitting a message on a loop. The circles take a new position every 7.2 seconds.

This version of the puzzle has been playing repeatedly since May of 2023, waiting for someone to figure out its message.

“I wanted to create a code that was impossible for me to solve,” said its creator and artist Ben Rubin.

The first-ever San Jose Semaphore from 20 years ago broadcast the full text of the novel “The Crying of Lot 49” by Thomas Pynchon. The second was broadcasting an audio file instead: the the famous Neil Armstrong quote “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

This puzzle, the third in the semaphore’s history, was transmitting a visual medium: a small segment of a Renaissance painting.

How is that possible? Well, it turns out it’s extremely complicated. It took years for someone to solve it, after all.

In the simplest terms, the circles were essentially transmitting a code for colors in the pixels of a digital image. Vincent spent years agonizing over the four circles’ rotations until he finally discovered the solution. It was a code for one small rose from the “Birth of Venus.” (Hear more about how Rubin crafted the tricky puzzle and how Vincent cracked the code in the video at the top of this story.)

“I want to say that the difficulty level on this puzzle is probably perfect,” Vincent said. “In some ways it seems a little bit simple, but at the same time it takes a lot of work and a lot of effort, and it stands for years before anyone solves it.”

Now that the code has been cracked, it’s time for a new puzzle. A fourth semaphore is planned for the San Jose building, Adobe said. Whoever solves the next one will get a two-year subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud and major bragging rights.

Widening income inequality and a growing number of U.S. billionaires is supercharging the political debate around wealth taxes, at both the national and local level. Democratic lawmakers and candidates, including some from the party’s energized democratic socialist wing, are promising to impose new levies on the über-wealthy should they win control of Congress, citing both fiscal and moral imperatives. Many blue states and cities are exploring similar measures, even as critics warn of high-income residents fleeing to lower-tax red states.

A key test will come this fall in California, where voters will decide whether to impose a one-time 5% tax on the state’s billionaires. The Golden State has a history of pioneering policy ideas via ballot initiatives.

Supporters say the ballot measure, sponsored by a healthcare workers union, would generate needed funds to cover rising healthcare costs for low-income people. Critics – including Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom – say it could decimate the state’s tax base by driving wealthy people away. Opposition groups, funded in large part by Google co-founder Sergey Brin, have spent over $100 million to try to defeat the initiative. They are backing two counterinitiatives that would undercut the billionaire tax and that will also appear on this November’s ballot.

“What happens in California is going to determine the course of what happens in this country on this issue,” said California Rep. Ro Khanna, who supports the billionaire tax, on a call with reporters last month. “This fight is defining, for what type of Democratic Party we’re going to be.”

Taxing the rich has long been a familiar refrain among Democrats. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has been calling for wealth taxes for decades, and President Joe Biden proposed a billionaire tax in 2024. With the top 1% holding nearly one-third of household wealth in the United States, efforts to impose new levies on high-net-worth individuals have been gaining traction.

In Washington state, which historically has not had an income tax, legislators this spring passed a 9.9% tax on incomes over $1 million. Opponents there are mobilizing behind a referendum to repeal the measure, which appears headed for the November ballot. Maine’s governor this spring signed into law a new income tax surcharge on incomes exceeding $1 million, and legislatures in Minnesota and Rhode Island have passed similar measures.

In New York, Mayor Zohran Mamdani won a historic victory last fall with a campaign that promised to impose new taxes on the wealthy while making life more affordable for ordinary New Yorkers. While New York legislators have not moved ahead on Mr. Mamdani’s biggest tax proposals, in May they passed a tax on second homes worth more than $1 million.

Paramount has made repeated entreaties to Bonta to strike a deal that would allow its merger with Warner Bros. to close.

The studio proposed a firm commitment, via a consent decree, to produce 30 films annually, with a 45-day theatrical release window and a 90-day streaming window, alongside promises to keep both Paramount and Warner Bros. lots open in California, the people said.

Privately, Ellison and other Paramount executives have expressed frustration at Bonta’s refusal to engage, and have pointed to the commitments around content spending — some $30 billion annually — and employment that would flow into California. Already, the region has faced a production exodus to other states — even to Canada — with thousands of entertainment jobs lost in recent years. Ellison and his executives have said that the combined Warner Bros.-Paramount would create jobs in California, helping to stymie that outflow.

But Paramount believes Bonta’s office has rebuffed its overtures, creating what one Ellison adviser said is an “inhospitable” environment for Paramount to operate in. If Bonta sues, the adviser said, the state’s hostility would push the company over the edge.

Bonta’s office did not respond to a request for comment. Last month, he told MSNOW that there were “red flags in the air everywhere,” and that he was “concerned about job loss and prices being increased.”

In a statement, Paramount said, “We continue to engage constructively with the remaining few regulators around the world still considering the merger, including State Attorneys General, and are prepared to address any legitimate antitrust issues.” It added: “We are confident this transaction raises no such concerns, as demonstrated by the dozens of antitrust authorities around the world that have carefully reviewed the transaction.”