# A Matter of Life and Death — Solution
The challenge description mentions a cat, and you are given a very long list ofinteger pairs called `alive`. Weird...
A reasonable approach would be to assume these integer pairs are coordinates.Let's plot them and hope they simply spell out the flag.
![Alive Plot](img/alive_and_far.png)
The points definitely don't spell out the flag, but they don't look randomeither. Let's enhance...
![Zoomed In](img/alive_and_close.png)
An experienced eye might recognize these shapes, but suppose we're not thatlucky.
Let's recap what we know so far:  * When interpreted as points on a plane, the contents of `alive` file seem to    produce some deliberatly made shapes in the plane.  * The challenge description contains some weird sentence about the definition    of a cat.  * The title of the challenge, and the name of the file seem to revolve around    life and death.
Let's google the sentence from the challenge description.
We quickly find [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdMzngWchDk) ofJohn Conway talking about his game of life. It should now be obvious that thecontents of `alive` represent the initial state of the world in the game of life.
Now we simply plug that into a simulator, and let the nature do its wonder:
![Flag](img/flag.png)
**Easter Egg:** The flag contains a lyric from [thissong](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7X3LYGV_N8), which in turn referencesthe [Monster group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_group) — abeautiful, very large, symmetrical thing that John Conway seemed to be[somewhat interested in](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOCe5HUObD4).