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Conspiracy theory or weird bug?
Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 3:34 pm
by CodeCat
Not sure if you already know of this, but it's still odd nonetheless. If you're using Windows, follow these steps.
Open notepad
Type in: Bush hid the facts
Save the file and close it, then reopen
It seems to work with almost any combination of 4-3-3-5 letter words, too. Conspiracy or just a very odd bug in one of Windows' simplest applications?
Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 5:25 pm
by nickspoon
It's a lovely bug caused by the Windows API. Its basis is in how Notepad handles opening files. Notepad saves the file as ASCII. However, when Notepad reads it back again, the function that it uses to guess what encoding the file is guesses wrongly, so the file is opened as Unicode. Now, instead of ASCII characters, the hex strings from the file are converted to Unicode characters, thus giving boxes or, if you have Chinese fonts, Chinese Unicode characters.
I'm sure you feel better for knowing that.
Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 5:31 pm
by CodeCat
Bleh, now you took the fun out of it.
Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 5:35 pm
by nickspoon
IN THE NAME OF SCIENCE.
Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 6:54 pm
by Steve the Pocket
Yeah, but why, if you do that combination of characters, does it do that and no other time?
More importantly, who discovered this, and how in the world did they run across it?
Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 8:08 pm
by The MAZZTer
Yeah, but why, if you do that combination of characters, does it do that and no other time?
It seems to work with almost any combination of 4-3-3-5 letter words, too.
Other combinations do it. It's because of the way Notepad tries to dynamically figure out encodings in files. You can experiment by using edit.com from the command prompt (which is about 20 years too old to know about unicode) to open text files. You can save files in Unicode from Notepad by using Save As.
As one of my profs says, the old is made new again! Hehe edit.com in Vista...
More importantly, who discovered this, and how in the world did they run across it?
The same way most things on the Internet are discovered: someone has too much free time and not enough ways to spend it.
Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 10:06 pm
by Tum0spoo
nothing happened.
Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 10:07 pm
by Zaaphod
Obviously it's a conspiracy. Watch out for black helicopters.
Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 10:47 pm
by Dr. Doog
they can't be numbers D:
liek omg lol doodz works but not li3k omg lol d00dz
Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 7:52 pm
by Muninn
Doog found that out because he writes everything in l33t, even his grocery lists.
Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 8:11 pm
by Tum0spoo
can't be capital letters either.
Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 1:57 am
by Tabris_The_17th
The truth is odd there.