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Admin
Interesting. U+FFFD is "REPLACEMENT CHARACTER", and is described as:
Source: https://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/fffd/index.htm
Quite what it's replacing is unclear... (er, by definition)
Admin
That strange message contains some cuneiform, such as 𒅃 and 𒀱
I didn't know they had email back then!
Admin
That text contains cuneiform (no idea which version) and Burmese (the ones with the rectangle around it), and a decorative punctuation mark from Javanese (the one with the swash). The four-armed one looks like an ornamental thing to me. At any rate, the combination means nothing, it's just mojibake.
Admin
The Land Rover one looks like sadly typical "dark UX" to trick you into opting in. Like those all-too-common cookie popups on which, after bothering to scroll through the whole thing and individually disable each group of cookies, I let my guard down and, thinking I'm done, hit the nice blue button which, of course, is "accept all" and not the (far less prominent) "save preferences"...
(Kudos to everyone behind the vanishingly few cookie popups that have a one-click "decline all" option. I've seen the odd one or two and am always grateful. )
Admin
I think that when "Pelopennesian Paul" talked about parsing HTML via regular expressions, he was referring to this classic StackOverflow post: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open-tags-except-xhtml-self-contained-tags/1732454
Admin
Of COURSE they had e-mail back then. But every computer from that era was destroyed by the Y0K bug.
Admin
Thank you for sharing such insightful content on [topic of the blog post]. I found [specific point or idea mentioned in the post] particularly intriguing because [brief explanation of why it caught your attention]. I've been exploring [related topic or your own experience related to the post] recently, and your perspective has given me some valuable new insights. It's always refreshing to come across well-researched and thought-provoking articles like this. Looking forward to reading more from you!
Admin
Well, isn't that special. An Error'd-worthy spam post here on the forums.
Admin
You could submit it, but then Lyle would just save it for one of his "special editions" which we never see :-P
Admin
T̵̢̤̼̭̼̳͋̑̃̈́̕h̴̹̦̜̦̟͐̋̋͋̋i̷̧̧͈͓̠̗̠̔̇̂͂̚͝s̴̞͙͕͕̔͆ ̴̛̛̯̦̗͔͖͎̯̘̿̓̃̊ͅw̵̺̰̜̑̀͒̊̋͐ͅą̸̡̼̹̣̭̗͛͌́̅š̷͈̣̃̀̑̂̊ ̵̢̹̯̻̘̙̒̏͋ạ̷͍̕n̵̳͍̫̋̈̈́̀̐͛͒́ ̶̟͙̭̽͆̆̄̒́͊ê̶̹̲̺͉̍́̏̾̾́͘a̶̛̞̻̜̩͉͖̬̰̔r̶͖̯̠̱̽ͅl̶̠͇͙͍̫̿̌̐̅̏̓͜͜y̶̛̦̲͒̈́̏͘͝͠ ̴͖̬͎͈̹̹̗͉̆ͅv̴̛̹͋̾̌͌ẹ̸͓̒͗̅̌̏̋̿̈́͘r̸̛̹̓̇̇̓̿̊͒̚ṣ̶̈̌̈͝͝i̷̢̙̮̘̬͓͓̝̪͌̏̅́̆o̷̧̺̝̖͆̾̄͂n̶̢͖̖̟͕̖̙̎́̓̅͗̚ ̵̡̬͉̻̯͖̍ͅo̵̡̗͓͎̎̾̂͝f̵̠̮̲̖̻̱̘̹̉ ̷͖͖̰͇͎͙̮̦͆̑̀̉̈́̐̈́̈́͌ͅZ̴̞̝͉̼͎̽̈́͌̚ä̷͈́͊͐̏́̔̓̿̕l̴̤̬̐̓́͐̊́g̷̝̉͗͝o̴͔͍͆͝ ̸̱̲̲͙̙̖͒̔͆͐́̐͐͐t̶͔͔̰̯̫͌͐̉ę̷͈̳̲͎̠̱̂͑̏̀̊̚̕x̷̼̥̣͚̪̌̽̉t̶̢̫̪̓̿̂̂̌̍͘͝ ̷̟͒̓̓̌̾̄̾̚z̷̝̱̽́̈́̅̊̈́̚͘ą̶̥̯̯̐͗̈́̑͗̿͒͘l̸͚̭͖̣̬̂̇͑̿̋̇ģ̸͈̇̌̀͐̽́̈́̚o̷̮̟̻̞̗͙̣̓̆̒̋̃̾ͅ ̷̛̼̰̂̓̃͆̈̿͐̍h̷̨̜̳̭̝̪͛̒̐̿̎͝͝͠ę̷̭͕̘̦͔̳̺̅̔͊̓̂̚͘ ̸͕̽́͑͑̂͂̈́ͅc̵̩̆͗͒ȯ̶̧͙͎͊̉̎̈͗̈́̕͠m̵̲͔̎͌̃͛͑̉͝͝ḙ̴̛̜̱̼̣̬̱̑͋ͅs̶̜͐̾̍́.̶͈͈̟̈́̓̐̽͗͂̇̕͝.̶̨̢͉͍̫̞̺̉̍͝.̶̟̭̋̈́̐̃̔̚
Admin
That's not cuneiform, that's Zalgo text. Pelopennesian Paul, run! Run! Don't look back, just run!
He comes...
Admin
I don't know. It's all Greek to me.
Admin
That's a mix of Cuneiform, Burmese, and Javanese.
Admin
Of course we had computers and Email back in the day. What else do you think all those clay tablets were for?
Kids these days. Well, sit down and prepare for a lesson on the history of computing.
The first machine I ever worked on was back in the Neoassyrian days. It was called the ZG-5, that's Zigurat 5 for short. But we called it many other things. All typically puns on the back breaking labor it took to actually work the thing.
You see, back in those days we did not have all these fancy Eeelectronics. All we had was water power. And the computer was the size of a literal stepped pyramid. The way it worked was entirely mechanical. We had these huge, and I mean huge, like the size of a mans torso, slabs of baked clay with binary holes in them. And the machine had water running through these holes to power gears. So you'd set up the tablets in such a way to produce binary arithmetic with them and direct the water to where you wanted it to go.
The way it was programmed was that we'd take slabs of wet clay and drill holes in them. Than unpaid interns (slaves really) would lug these up to the top of the Zigurat to dry in the sun. And when that was done they would lug the tablets back down and into place.
It all ran on water power from the Tigris. And I remember how we were always jealous of the bloody Egyptians and their Nile powered machines that ran twice as fast. That is until Ashurbanipal managed to close the computing gap by conquering them.
Admin
Bravo! Well played, sir, well played indeed!
Admin
And you know what was the funniest part? When we finally got a hold of their Pyramid machines it turned out they were crap.
All those years we thought that the Pyramids had to be super powerful, what with all the power of the Nile and their enormous size. But no, apparently the reason why they were that big and sucked up so much power was because they were behind us on technology.
The Egyptians newer figured out clay tablets. Instead their developers would write code on a piece of papyrus and have it shipped to a quarry all the way in Aswan where master stonemasons would carve it into tablets and have them shipped all the way back.
So where as we had build times measured in days, as long as a tablet takes to dry in the sun, theirs was measured in weeks. And it wasn't cheap either. Turns out that needing to #include<master stonemason> into your build instead of just having an intern poke a hole in some wet clay really adds up.
The combination of glacial build times and the sheer cost and weight involved with using granite for their punch-slabs meant that you had an entire country still running on waterfall when we were doing Agile for five thirds of a century at that point.
And of course while we could quick refactor and bugfix they couldn't. And they couldn't just throw away old slabs either. Not with how much they cost. So most of those massive pyramids were actually filled with commented out junk code in the form of old unused slabs that had to be bypassed using wax plugs. The actual working set was just about the size of a small chamber somewhere in the middle.
That's why we were consistently able to break their codes through the great war of 673. Kind of funny in hindsight. But at the time it was a shock to us all.