in reply to Re: Corrupted node
in thread Corrupted node

The second paragraph ended in a row of characters that displayed on my browser as a row of spades. (You know, the symbol that you see on a card.)

I should have preserved some so we could look at what it was, but I didn't think of it until after I fixed the node. And then it was too late. :-(

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^3: Corrupted node
by Boldra (Curate) on Aug 19, 2009 at 11:15 UTC

    Funny, I thought they were diamonds, albiet black ones.

    It was conspicuous because it was an unbroken line of these which was forcing the page width to ~120 characters, and making the whole thread difficult to read.



    - Boldra
      Now that you say it, I believe you're right. I was focused on getting rid of them, not making them.

      Which means that I accidentally fell prey to a piece of trivia that I love. Which is that if you create a set of cards with impossible suits, people flipping through the cards will confidently recognize them as a similar possible suit. It is only when presented slowly that people will learn to see the impossible suits, and this process can be difficult. (This example is presented in Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.) So when I remembered that it looked like something you'd see on a card, I remembered the color but then substituted in a possible suit for the shape.

      Silly me.