with your code the reason might be because your code looks very similar to mine week ago \:\)
if one wanted to, they could easily plug peaces of my code into yours and make it shorter with just copy/replace.
after some 230 I got bored enough to totally take down the loop construct and finally ended up the monster I had. but for starting code, yours look way much like mine.
in my original code (376) I even had this:
$a=$a+$x[($b & 128)>0]+$x[($b & 64)>0]+$x[($b & 32)>0]+$x[($b & 16)>0]+$x[($b & 8)>0]+$x[($b & 4)>0]+$x[($b & 2)>0]+$x[($b & 1)>0]

don't remember any more was it because I wanted to make my code long or what \:D

anyways, I am sad that some of you guys didn't/don't have time to really compete in this round. maybe next time then.
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