Conspiracy theory or weird bug?

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CodeCat
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Conspiracy theory or weird bug?

Postby CodeCat » Mon Feb 19, 2007 3:34 pm

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? :P
Furries? Are they the nutters that pretend to be animals and draw humans that look like animals? Christ, I sink my head into my paws... -Rooster
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Postby nickspoon » Mon Feb 19, 2007 5:25 pm

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.
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Postby CodeCat » Mon Feb 19, 2007 5:31 pm

Bleh, now you took the fun out of it. :P
Furries? Are they the nutters that pretend to be animals and draw humans that look like animals? Christ, I sink my head into my paws... -Rooster
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nickspoon
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Postby nickspoon » Mon Feb 19, 2007 5:35 pm

IN THE NAME OF SCIENCE.
If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. (Revelation 2:5, NIV)
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Steve the Pocket
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Postby Steve the Pocket » Mon Feb 19, 2007 6:54 pm

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?
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Postby The MAZZTer » Mon Feb 19, 2007 8:08 pm

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.

Image

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.
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Postby Tum0spoo » Mon Feb 19, 2007 10:06 pm

nothing happened.
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Postby Zaaphod » Mon Feb 19, 2007 10:07 pm

Obviously it's a conspiracy. Watch out for black helicopters. :P
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Postby Dr. Doog » Mon Feb 19, 2007 10:47 pm

they can't be numbers D:

liek omg lol doodz works but not li3k omg lol d00dz
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Muninn
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Postby Muninn » Tue Feb 20, 2007 7:52 pm

Doog found that out because he writes everything in l33t, even his grocery lists.
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Postby Tum0spoo » Tue Feb 20, 2007 8:11 pm

can't be capital letters either.
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Postby Tabris_The_17th » Wed Feb 21, 2007 1:57 am

The truth is odd there.
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