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Weird characters in the Sequences

5 Post author: ciphergoth 18 November 2010 08:27AM

When the sequences were copied from Overcoming Bias to Less Wrong, it looks like something went very wrong with the character encoding.  I found the following sequences of HTML entities in words in the sequences:

 

’ê d?tre

Å« M?lamadhyamaka

ĂŚ Ph?drus

— arbitrator?i window?and

ĂŞ b?te m?me

… over?and

รก H?jek

ĂƒÂź G?nther

ĂŠ fianc?e proteg?s d?formation d?colletage am?ricaine d?sir

ĂƒÂŻ na?ve na?vely

ō sh?nen

ö Schr?dinger L?b

ยง ?ion

ĂƒÂś Schr?dinger H?lldobler

Ăź D?sseldorf G?nther

– ? Church? miracles?in Church?Turing

’ doesn?t he?s what?s let?s twin?s aren?t I?ll they?d ?s you?ve else?s EY?s Whate?er punish?d There?s Caledonian?s isn?t harm?s attack?d I?m that?s Google?s arguer?s Pascal?s don?t shouldn?t can?t form?d controll?d Schiller?s object?s They?re whatever?s everybody?s That?s Tetlock?s S?il it?s one?s didn?t Don?t Aslan?s we?ve We?ve Superman?s clamour?d America?s Everybody?s people?s you?d It?s state?s Harvey?s Let?s there?s Einstein?s won?t

ĂĄ Alm?si Zolt?n

ĂŤ pre?mpting re?valuate

≠ ?

è l?se m?ne accurs?d

รฐ Ver?andi

→ high?low low?high

’ doesn?t

ā k?rik Siddh?rtha

รถ Sj?berg G?delian L?b Schr?dinger G?gel G?del co?rdinate W?hler K?nigsberg P?lzl

ĂŻ na?vet

  I?understood ? I?was

Ăś Schr?dinger

ĂŽ pla?t

úñ N?ez

Ĺ‚ Ceg?owski

— PEOPLE?and smarter?supporting to?at problem?and probability?then valid?to opportunity?of time?in true?I view?wishing Kyi?and ones?such crudely?model stupid?which that?larger aside?from Ironically?but intelligence?such flower?but medicine?as

‐ side?effect galactic?scale

´ can?t Biko?s aren?t you?de didn?t don?t it?s

≠ P?NP

窶馬 basically?ot

Ĺ‘ Erd?s

Now, an example like "ö Schr?dinger L?b" I can decode: "C3 B6" is the byte sequence for the UTF-8 encoding of "U+00F6 ö LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH DIAERESIS".  But "úñ" is not a valid UTF-8 sequence - and those that contain entities larger than 255 are very mysterious.  Anyone able to make any guesses?
EDIT: รถ translated into Windows codepage 874 is C3 B6!

 

 

Comments (5)

Comment author: jmmcd 18 November 2010 01:37:10PM *  2 points [-]

Speaking of weird characters in the sequences, I've always wondered who "the one", eg here, might be. Is it Neo from the Matrix by any chance?

Comment author: Risto_Saarelma 18 November 2010 02:38:46PM 2 points [-]

It's a parable'y way of saying "someone" and "the same someone as earlier"?

Comment author: komponisto 18 November 2010 06:31:21PM *  2 points [-]

Indeed. Usually a stereotypical "person who doesn't 'get it'."

I've always thought that one of the ultimate LW insults would be: "you're so 'the one'."

Comment author: Risto_Saarelma 18 November 2010 06:37:27PM 0 points [-]

I really didn't get that impression. Read it just as neutral affectation.

Comment author: komponisto 18 November 2010 06:39:41PM 1 point [-]

It's usually Eliezer's foil; a person espousing the incorrect view he's arguing against.