special fancy characters in username

July 13, 2005 6:23 PM

well, now this is certanly ??.
posted by delmoi to Bugs at 6:23 PM (80 comments total)

Is it?
posted by ORthey at 6:25 PM on July 13, 2005

woah. Origionaly those were two korean characters, which lead to a user who's name was, in fact, those two (&김치,김치) characters.

Also, meta's unicode handling code needs some work. Each time I hit "preview" it eats my HTML entities. (wasn't this fixed on the blue?)
posted by delmoi at 6:27 PM on July 13, 2005

So somebody figured out how to use unicode in a profile.
Good for them.

[Cue Kimchi Jokes]

What a saucy fellow...
This certainly spices things up...
...
posted by mystyk at 6:28 PM on July 13, 2005

김치 becomes:
김치 which becomes:
?? which (when psoted) finaly becomes:
??
posted by delmoi at 6:29 PM on July 13, 2005

er, hang on

김치 becomes:
김치 which becomes:
김치 which (when psoted) finaly becomes:
?? when the 'post' button is pressed. On successive previews (김치) is the terminal.
posted by delmoi at 6:31 PM on July 13, 2005

Calling smiffy! Oh, smiffy! Clean up on aisle 25955!
posted by mischief at 6:32 PM on July 13, 2005

for just $5 (or whatever it is) you, too, can be called ❤❤❤❤❣
posted by andrew cooke at 6:32 PM on July 13, 2005

(and, of course, most people see ?? in place of all asian characters anyway). Crazyness.
posted by delmoi at 6:32 PM on July 13, 2005

Gracious me, I've been registered for all of three hours and already I'm called out on MetaTalk. Is that some kind of record?

I've been lurking for a long time. I got the idea from this fellow and from here. As much as anything else, the registration was an experiment to see if I could actually create such a username and have it show up. As I had to actually pay the $5 to find out (can't view anything about a username until it's paid apparently), I might as well use it.

Upon further reflection, I see that this might make it hard for everyone else to address me. D'oh! But I'm friendly and I'll answer to anything (as long as I can tell that you're addressing me). I guess I'm going to have to live with being called ??. But you can always call me kimchi.
posted by 김치 at 6:34 PM on July 13, 2005

Also, meta's unicode handling code needs some work. Each time I hit "preview" it eats my HTML entities.

I die a little inside everytime this question comes up.

wasn't this fixed on the blue?

A quick test shows otherwise.
posted by sbutler at 6:38 PM on July 13, 2005

I remain a fan of the unpronouncable user name. Pickle on, you beautiful cabbage!
posted by [!] at 6:40 PM on July 13, 2005

So is July 13th 2005 the day Metafilter broke the "western languages barrier"?
posted by clevershark at 6:45 PM on July 13, 2005

!!
posted by jonmc at 6:55 PM on July 13, 2005

jonmc, no, you're pronouncing it wrong! Here it is again: ??

Hehe.
posted by 김치 at 6:58 PM on July 13, 2005

A query?
posted by interrobang at 7:00 PM on July 13, 2005

Wow, this isn't going well :P
posted by delmoi at 7:00 PM on July 13, 2005

Welcome, Kimchi. Very clever.
posted by LarryC at 7:18 PM on July 13, 2005

If he changes his name, can we refer to his name as The Poster Formerly Known As ??...?
posted by Balisong at 7:18 PM on July 13, 2005

"Two Squares" your name shall be
In honor of the ancient
And honorable
"Two Dogs Fucking" joke.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 7:21 PM on July 13, 2005

Dibs on the next unicode name...

Ok, well maybe not, but I have had an idea for a sockpuppet using unicode for a while.
posted by mystyk at 7:23 PM on July 13, 2005

what a welcome, huh? you go, kimmie! : >
posted by amberglow at 8:08 PM on July 13, 2005

I just wish that you could put html in usernames and have it work, so that I could replace this account with one that actually said "ROU Xenophobe," or maybe "ROU Frank Exchange of Views" so I wouldn't get called "xenophone" so much.

But I know full well that if usernames accepted html tags, it would only be three minutes before we saw

posted by ?? 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

so that ain't gonna happen.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:16 PM on July 13, 2005

?? seems to show up correctly on a mac. Well, at least before I hit the post button.
posted by chunking express at 8:25 PM on July 13, 2005

Damn it.
posted by chunking express at 8:25 PM on July 13, 2005

Gosh y'all, I'm getting all misty-eyed over here. Thanks!

And I hope his welcome means that mr_crash_davis is unretiring. Hi crash!
posted by 김치 at 8:37 PM on July 13, 2005

Yeah. The hardest part is that the preview and post button behave diffrently.
posted by delmoi at 9:24 PM on July 13, 2005

Welcome, indeed, ??/Kimchi. Good to have you aboard.
posted by me3dia at 9:35 PM on July 13, 2005

i almost forgot the square was mm
thanks
now spell banana
posted by philida at 9:38 PM on July 13, 2005

I guess I'm going to have to live with being called ??. But you can always call me kimchi.

Can we call you Tiny Man Trying to Jump From Sailboat to Dock But Missing?
posted by soyjoy at 10:59 PM on July 13, 2005 [1 favorite]

I think I really envy a name like ??. It makes you stand out even as an new member!
posted by invitapriore at 11:01 PM on July 13, 2005

I meant ?? of course.
posted by invitapriore at 11:02 PM on July 13, 2005

Forget it.
posted by invitapriore at 11:04 PM on July 13, 2005

????.
posted by mosch at 11:05 PM on July 13, 2005

well that didn't work at all.
posted by mosch at 11:05 PM on July 13, 2005

You have to retype the unicode values in the preview window so that it doesn't get processed before posting, I think. 김치 might know more about this!
posted by invitapriore at 11:10 PM on July 13, 2005

I hope the tiny man doesn't drown! He's so small and cute.
posted by librarina at 11:42 PM on July 13, 2005

Kim Chi?
posted by clevershark at 11:47 PM on July 13, 2005

So how is ?? pronounced, anyway?
posted by clevershark at 11:47 PM on July 13, 2005

d'oh! I meant of course "how is ?? pronounced"... but the preview window tricked me.
posted by clevershark at 11:49 PM on July 13, 2005

argh, I give up.
posted by clevershark at 11:49 PM on July 13, 2005

*brain explodes recursively*
posted by loquacious at 11:55 PM on July 13, 2005

This is like a nerd version of "Who's on First?" Hilarious. Half the ?s are meant to be Korean unicode, and half are genuinely meant to be question marks, but I have no idea which half is which. Fantastic!
posted by jonson at 11:57 PM on July 13, 2005

Nice user page.
posted by grouse at 12:04 AM on July 14, 2005

happy userday, ??
you're in good company
posted by philida at 12:28 AM on July 14, 2005

I am so fucking confused now.
posted by cytherea at 12:36 AM on July 14, 2005

?? you too!
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 1:09 AM on July 14, 2005

MetaProfile
All round good show.
¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`A++++ WOULD SIGNUP AGAIN`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸
posted by NinjaPirate at 1:51 AM on July 14, 2005

Kimchi is a delicious sidedish with a teaming multitude of tasty variations, consumption of any of which, if you believe the media here in Korea, will prevent you from getting SARS.

[Note: I do not believe the Korean media.]
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 2:21 AM on July 14, 2005

teeming.

Although kimchi tag-teaming is also not unknown, that's not what I meant.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 2:28 AM on July 14, 2005

The user page sent me down the rabbit hole. Or am I now finally out of the rabbit hole?
posted by OmieWise at 5:41 AM on July 14, 2005

Yep, this is fun. I am calling from Kimchi's user page, and want to join stavros' tag teem.

Welcome, ??
posted by taz at 5:46 AM on July 14, 2005

Welcome from me as well. Needless to say, I'm delighted to see a non-Latin-alphabet username.

*plans sockpuppet named ???*
posted by languagehat at 6:02 AM on July 14, 2005

Dammit.

*joins chunking express, invitapriore, and clevershark in bar*
posted by languagehat at 6:03 AM on July 14, 2005

If I had to guess, I'd say orthogonality. The "guitar licks" are the same.
posted by Rothko at 6:04 AM on July 14, 2005

This thread is like a birthday present.
posted by CunningLinguist at 6:17 AM on July 14, 2005

?? ??
posted by Kwantsar at 6:23 AM on July 14, 2005

I was wondering if there was any way I could change my name to the Prince symbol.
posted by Pollomacho at 6:28 AM on July 14, 2005

김치 pancakes for everyone, y'all!
posted by skoosh at 6:31 AM on July 14, 2005

(btw: here's a useful page for converting text into Unicode/HTML escape characters, for the next time we have a party like this).
posted by skoosh at 6:34 AM on July 14, 2005

This brings up something important: why is preview still broken for HTML character entities? sbutler posted a simple, elegant solution that is a cakewalk to implement and actually works. It'll let people use & codes without the wacky re-pasting. Yes, pasting in Unicode characters directly will still get the ??s, but at least with this we can use the entity codes without cowering in fear every time we hit the Post button.
I hope this comment doesn't get lost among the LOLing going on. I've been considering posting a proper MetaTalk thread about it; maybe I should.
posted by zsazsa at 6:43 AM on July 14, 2005

stavrosthewonderchicken writes "Kimchi is a delicious sidedish with a teaming multitude of tasty variations, consumption of any of which, if you believe the media here in Korea, will prevent you from getting SARS."

But will it keep you safe from fan death?
posted by clevershark at 7:12 AM on July 14, 2005

zsazsa writes "This brings up something important: why is preview still broken for HTML character entities?"

Actually the annoying part is, that preview show the characters correctly when you cut-and-paste them, but posting the comment will somehow "break" the characters. I'm guessing that the problem exists somewhere between the application and the database :(
posted by clevershark at 7:26 AM on July 14, 2005

clevershark, yeah, if standard unicode characters are sent to the database, they get eaten alive and get turned into ??s. Using the & entities instead shouldn't get eaten on the way to the database, but they do--they get passed back to the browser as-is on preview. The browser helpfully decodes them into unicode characters upon posting. Which get eaten by the database. Using sbutler's solution keeps the browser from parsing the & entities by replacing each & with an &, and everything (mostly) works.

An even more transparent solution to this would be some kind of unicode-to-entity translator in the MeFi code that posts get run through before getting chucked to the database. That way people could just paste/type in unicode characters with abandon without having to manually look up HTML character entities themselves.
posted by zsazsa at 7:48 AM on July 14, 2005

I would just like to come out and publicly decry the alphabet chauvinism displayed in this thread, and this post is simulcast in Zapf Dingbats to show solidarity.


posted by darukaru at 8:13 AM on July 14, 2005

An even more transparent solution to this would be some kind of unicode-to-entity translator in the MeFi code that posts get run through before getting chucked to the database. That way people could just paste/type in unicode characters with abandon without having to manually look up HTML character entities themselves.

This would be simplier than it seems, but you have to understand a couple things first.

1) Your browser sends UTF-8 encoded data. This is a multibyte encoding scheme, meaning that some characters are actually sent as multiple bytes while others are sent as a single byte.

2) This causes problems for programmers because they like to write things like "for (int i = 0; i < blah; ++i) dosomething( str.charat( i ) ). so what java -- the language i believe backs mf -- does is store all characters internally wide, or in otherwords as 32 bit values.br>
3) There appears to be a problem with the JDBC driver. It is taking wide characters and mangling them when what it should do is convert them to UTF-8. Now, there are several ways to solve this problem.

a) run the string through java.nio.charset.CharsetEncoder. This will take the internal Java format and convert it to UTF-8 (or any other encoding it understands) and then pass this to the JDBC driver.

b) manually entity encode anything above 0x007f, which is the highest single byte character representable in UTF-8. This is essentually what people are doing right now, but you could do it in code with maybe 6 lines.

Of course, all these points are moot if MF isn't writen in Java behind the scenes. I don't know crap about CF, but it appears to have a Java bridge and I've heard #1 talking about JDBC before.
posted by sbutler at 8:49 AM on July 14, 2005

I'm glad that you liked my user page. I've always wanted to try that.

I suppose I should note, by the by, that the problem that everyone has with posting Unicode characters in Metafilter comments also exists for user pages. If you simply type 김치 into the box you'll end up with ?? in the result. You need to type &#xAE40;&#xCE58; instead. Fortunately, I can edit my userpage if I make a mistake. Also, if I spell-check my comment, the spell-checker automatically converts the escape sequence to the Unicode characters which can't be posted.

soyjoy, the "little tiny man" represents the ch sound in Hangul, which is a phonetic alphabet (although, in Unicode, the syllables forming my username are also available precomposed, and are what I use). But you can call me whatever you like (including ch). fwiw, the Metafilter spell-checker seems to believe that the escape sequence representing my name should be exhale axe.

The main benefit of eating kimchi, as far as I'm concerned, is to prevent kimchi withdrawal.
posted by 김치 at 8:50 AM on July 14, 2005

"exhale axe" is a damn good username, I'd snap it up if I were you.
posted by NinjaPirate at 9:01 AM on July 14, 2005

Kimchi is a delicious sidedish with a teaming multitude of tasty variations, consumption of any of which, if you believe the media here in Korea, will prevent you from getting SARS.

[Note: I do not believe the Korean media.]

Heh. In Beijing, we were told that incense would prevent SARS. That's pretty much when I decided to move back home.
posted by gd779 at 9:28 AM on July 14, 2005

Can I join in or is the party over?

And, yes. I decided to do this once I saw that someone else had successfully pulled it off, although I had entertained the idea for some time.

Figure out who I am a sock puppet for. It isn't a severe challenge.
posted by ハッカー at 9:42 AM on July 14, 2005

??



posted by gramschmidt at 10:29 AM on July 14, 2005

Here at work, without the asian character sets installed, Kimchi's name is converted to question marks by my browser, making the thread even less comprehensible.

Awsome.
posted by delmoi at 11:17 AM on July 14, 2005

Thank you to everyone in this thread that has taken the time to try and explain this baffling behviour. I've been trying to understand this discussion everytime it's come up, and this is the first time I've made sense of it.

Now a final test to see if I really get it. *closes eyes, crosses fingers*

김치
posted by raedyn at 11:57 AM on July 14, 2005

VICTORY!!!

Thank you, all. *waves to taz & anyone else hanging out in 김치's user page*

김치/kimchi/exhale axe your name will now and forever sound so sweet to me.
posted by raedyn at 12:00 PM on July 14, 2005

?? writes "But you can always call me kimchi."

Can some one with Metafilthy who actually sees the characters instead of all ?? report on how this works with that tool? The above was done with metafilthy but considering I see only ?? it's not surprising that that is wh the script sees.
posted by Mitheral at 12:56 PM on July 14, 2005

Thanks for the clarification, Tiny Man Trying to Jump From Sailboat to Dock But Missing. I found upon checking this thread in IE on my PC at work today that the imagery is clearest in Safari in OSX. On here the guy's head is flattened, and in the serif font on the user page it's a diagonal. Still, I will continue to use this name, as "exhale axe" is for me too frustratingly close to, but not quite, a palindrome.
posted by soyjoy at 3:09 PM on July 14, 2005

Soyjoy: Here you go: with MetaFilthy, quoting kimchi turns out like this:

?? : "The main benefit of eating kimchi, as far as I'm concerned, is to prevent kimchi withdrawal."

Skoosh: Thank you insanely for that converter page. The following is a test to see if it works.

虫パン
posted by Bugbread at 7:30 PM on July 14, 2005

Whoops. That first part should have been directed at Mitheral, not Soyjoy. Sorry.

And, Skoosh: Yay!! It worked!
posted by Bugbread at 7:32 PM on July 14, 2005

好啊！
posted by delmoi at 9:07 PM on July 14, 2005

A bucket of cocks is a can of worms. This doesn't bode well.
posted by quonsar at 4:10 AM on July 17, 2005

You can no longer register a name with entities in it.

This is an unfortunate development. I didn't register using Unicode escape sequences because I wanted to be able to spoof someone -- it never even occurred to me that someone might use it for that purpose.

I used the escape sequences because it is the only known workaround to Metafilter's UTF-8 bug. So now there's no way to use non-Latin characters at all. Given the vast diversity of language, writing, and culture, I think it's sad that Mefi is now completely restricted to 128 characters.
posted by 김치 at 1:31 PM on July 17, 2005