The Internet Becomes Sentient

[RandFan]

Elsewhere in the thread (can't be bothered to re-read it) someone else posted a link to the reason. Long story short: there is a Windows API call that uses heuristics to determine if a text file is in ASCII or Unicode, and it's pretty sketchy on really small files.

"Someone"? [ego alert] That would be me.

http://apipes.blogspot.com/2006/06/this-api-can-break.html

RandFan, that is how I understood his explanation. Sort of like a Ouija board I guess.

Thanks.

This is like that time I read Hawking's A Brief History in Time. That made more sense though. Perhaps Sinsanity is simply too esoteric for me. I'm thinking of ordering The Elegant Universe not a lot of paranormal in that though.

 

[RandFan]

Ok, I'm off to bed. Hopefully Sinsanity will be able to answer some questions by morning.

Night all.

 

[money]

OK, I'm not sure if it was already mentioned in this thread, but here goes:
1. It's not actually the Internet that tries to tell you something, it's the notepad developers, if anyone (it's just a bug by the way)
http://www.hoax-slayer.com/bush-hid-the-facts-notepad.html

Notepad misinterprets the unicode encoding, for some reason, and you get some random sings, which when interpreted as unicode, give you some chinese signs.

There is however a concept called 'easter eggs', where, mostly because of poor Quality Assurance procedures, programmers get to have their hidden messages or funny stuff released in final versions of software products.
For example, you can get Microsoft word to show a following hint:
http://www.eeggs.com/cgi-bin/img.cgi?eid=508&type=full

this was a big one too: (flight simulator embedded in excel):
http://www.eggheaven2000.com/detailed/17.html

Actually, considering all this thread has been through, this is a really funny post!

So it seems Sins thinks "Who did the WTC?" and then types in whichever single character he feels like in the 4-3-3-5 order to get the rough translation, and thus, the sentient message. I see now why he thinks he is asking paranormally. Although it seems like he sometimes just asks it a question, as well.

God, this would have been so much easier and saved everyone so much time if he just would have explained that in his website and left the narrative about tin hats and roaches out. Or quit with the whole shifting the dynamic thing and simply explaining the process in a short simple post...

I'm not making fun of you, sins, I'm trying to help you get you point across better.

 

[Sal The Butcher]

That's... bizarre.

For those who value their sanity, here's a summary of the article - it starts with a typical list of Sept. 11 conspiracy claims. Then the author claims that a certain version of Notepad.exe adds extra garbage data to a text file that consists of the words "bush hid the facts". The author then takes this garbage data and turns it into various Chinese characters. Then, relying on the myriad of meanings of each individual character when taken out of context, he or she attempts to link each one to the supposed conspiracy.

The article ends with a series of vague sentences about "non-biological evolution" and claims that the Internet wants to help us.

Or something like that.

i believe there is a glitch in the notepad programming that prevents you from saving a file taht consists of '4 letter word' '3 letter word' 'three letter word' '5 letter word' (XXXX XXX XXX XXXXX)

 

[Capsid]

Go through the questions and answers one by one and show me how they don't relate to the 911 truth movement.

I was trying to get you to think objectively. If you can't come up with alternative reasons for this then you are not using the scientific method.

 

[joller]

alright, I've done my bit of work.
It took 5 minutes only, but I had to wait until we put our daughter to bed.
-I pasted "bush hid the facts" into notepad, and saved it.
-When I reopened the file, I got the empty squares.
-I opened the text file again in a hexeditor, and I got "bush hid the facts" and nothing more. in hex it looks like that:
62 75 73 68 20 68 69 64 20 74 68 65 20 66 61 63 74 73
These numbers when interpreted as ASCII symbols give "bush hid the facts"
This is really the whole file.

-I opened the file in notepad again, got the squares, and saved it again without changing anything, to see how the squares are written in hex, and this is what I got:
In hex:
FF FE 62 75 73 68 20 68 69 64 20 74 68 65 20 66 61 63 74 73
Which translated into ASCII gives:
ÿþbush hid the facts
So what has happened, because of the bug in notepad, the read stream of data (62 75 73 68 20 68 69 64 20 74 68 65 20 66 61 63 74 73) was interpreted as unicode, and not ASCII as it should.
FF and FE, or in ASCII "ÿþ" - these two values are normally added to UNICODE files, to be there as a marker for notepad and other text processors. When notepad opens a text file and notices these two values at the beginning of a file (FF and FE), it knows to interpret the whole file as if it included unicode. These are simply control characters for notepad.
So when I saved the file and notepad added the control characters (FF and FE) - that simply means notepad thinks it got UNICODE and not ASCII data stream.

Explanation about unicode:
ASCII is the standard for encoding english language characters into numbers. For example "b" and "u" have ascii codes 62 and 75.
The problem is, ASCII uses only 7 bits, so it can encode only 127 characters at most. That's enough for all lower and upper case english characters, numbers and some special characters like !@#$%&*()-=_+{}[];;:'",<.>/? etc, but how can we encode all the japanese, chinese, korean, cyrilic, greek etc. characters? There's many more than 127, so it was decided that 2 bytes (16 bits) will be used to encode these.

For backwards compatibility, old ASCII characters still have the same represenation in the most significant byte:
"b" and "u" that are coded in ASCII as 62 and 75 are coded in unicode as 62 00 and 75 00 - so the second byte is always zero.
so when "bush hid the facts" translated to ASCII string:
62 75 73 68 20 68 69 64 20 74 68 65 20 66 61 63 74 73
it translates (correctly )to a unicode string:
FF FE 62 00 75 00 73 00 68 00 20 00 68 00 69 00 64 00 20 00 74 00 68 00 65 00 20 00 66 00 61 00 63 00 74 00 73 00, but the FF and FE at the beginning are only there to tell notepad that the data strings that follows shoud be treated as unicode, otherwise notepad could be confused into reading it as ASCII, and would display "b_u_s_h_ _h_i_d_ _t_h_e_ _f_a_c_t_s_" instead of "bush hid the facts". BUT IT DOESN'T!
Even if you delete the control characters, FF and FE, notepad is smart enough to figure out it's UNICODE (all those 0 values) and displays the text properly. This extra "smarts", that logic that allows notepad display unicode text correctly, even without control characters, is probably also responsible for incorectly displaying short ASCII texts as unicode, which generates our problem.
When FF FE 62 75 73 68 20 68 69 64 20 74 68 65 20 66 61 63 74 73 is enterpreted as UNICODE it is as follows:
first character:
FF FE - in unicode probably some sort of control character, so not displayed by the translators:
second character:
62 75 - in ASCII would be "b" and "u", but in unicode, 6275 represents a chinese character which translates to English "Bi"
third and fourth unicode characters:
73 68 and 20 68 - ASCII "sh" and " h" do not have corresponding chinese unicode characters, therefore i.e. "worldlingo" doesn't translate them, and displays "??" instead.
fifth unicode chaacter:
68 69 - ASCII "id" in unicode corresponds to a chinese character that translates to English "touches"
and so on and so on...



Nothing else changes at all. Simply, the hex string FF FE 62 75 73 68 20 68 69 64 20 74 68 65 20 66 61 63 74 73, which translates to ASCII "ÿþbush hid the facts", when interpreted as unicode gives characters from the unicode spectrum of chinese characters (well at least a few on a random hit, since there's so many of them), which then when entered into a translator generate the translations we've already had so much fun with, i.e. "Raft-section 湥 worried thoughts 汬 desert gu dormancy 湡 獥" etc.

That's the whole secret guys.

Conspiracy theory and pattern recognition kics in, and suddenly "touches" and "reflection" make perfect sense in the context of 9/11. It would make perfect sense in any context you want, if you've got imagination! Just like Nostradamus' prophecies, and Moby Dick for that matter. Or th bible.

 

[articulett]

In your words, please.

Umm...I'm representing the internet...that is, I'm the attorney that will be collecting the fee on behalf of said entity...if you have any questions or funds to be distributed, send a PM to my attention and my cyborgtary will get back to you. Thank you for your consideration in this most important matter.

Articulett, ESQ.

 

[articulett]

Nothing else changes at all. Simply, the hex string FF FE 62 75 73 68 20 68 69 64 20 74 68 65 20 66 61 63 74 73, which translates to ASCII "ÿþbush hid the facts", when interpreted as unicode gives characters from the unicode spectrum of chinese characters (well at least a few on a random hit, since there's so many of them), which then when entered into a translator generate the translations we've already had so much fun with, i.e. "Raft-section 湥 worried thoughts 汬 desert gu dormancy 湡 獥" etc.

That's the whole secret guys.

Conspiracy theory and pattern recognition kics in, and suddenly "touches" and "reflection" make perfect sense in the context of 9/11. It would make perfect sense in any context you want, if you've got imagination! Just like Nostradamus' prophecies, and Moby Dick for that matter. Or th bible.

Okay--but did you know that ASCII is pronounce ass-key? Isn't that a bit vulgar to insert into the greatest "conundrum explanation" of all time? Revise.

And don't forget the part about clicking your heels together 3 times...
(as if you needed to have that explained to you yet again) That Randi can be a stickler, you know.

 

[Jekyll]

Sigh, can anyone else help me out here. I truly wish you could understand what's going on here. There is a bug, we both know it, it exists, we both agree with that. Please can we move on the the real issue.

The problem is that there is no real issue. To quote Macbeth this is "..but a shadow of the mind, a false creation..". The sentience you detect is your own.

Notepad breaks and returns a bunch of symbols that can be interpreted in Chinese. As you translate these symbols back from the Chinese to English there are multiple ambiguities which you resolve. You choose the meaning of each word so that they join together and (nearly) make sense. You are effectively cold reading yourself (see http://skepdic.com/coldread.html ). It's a very common method and you can see it in action when people read the horoscopes or consult written oracles like the I-ching.

You have discovered your own oracle, congratulations! But unfortunately it tells you nothing; it just echos back to you your own thoughts.

 

[joller]

Notepad breaks and returns a bunch of symbols that can be interpreted in Chinese.

the symbols can be interpreted anyway you want, since it's just data. It's not some random data though, nor is it of unknown or divine origin. It's the very same data, just interpreted differently.
You could use the data as bible verse indexes, moby dick page numbers etc. Or chinese characters for that matter.
you can use them as latitude and longitude and put them in google earth - the places you'll get (the numbers might require scaling and some manipulation otherwise they'll land in the ocean 75% of the time), once visited, surely include clues to things like meaning of life, different CTs etc.

 

[RandFan]

That's the whole secret guys.

Conspiracy theory and pattern recognition kics in, and suddenly "touches" and "reflection" make perfect sense in the context of 9/11. It would make perfect sense in any context you want, if you've got imagination! Just like Nostradamus' prophecies, and Moby Dick for that matter. Or th bible.

Thanks Joller,

Of course none of this matter to Sinsanity since he is using the bug simply as a Magic 8 ball. The fact that the bug is understandable and explainable, like the 8 ball, is beside the point.

What's odd is that he actually figures this out for himself from the beginning.

I was beginning to feel like William Shatner, in a small town diner, talking to the devil sitting on top of a penny ante fortune telling machine, with Rod Serling looking over my shoulder.

The Twilight Episode BTW, is Nick of Time.

And like William Shatner's character he is wasting his time due to, as the movie puts it, "the tyranny of fear and superstition".

Some people just don't get it.

 

[petre]

To *ahem* anyone that might still not be clear on the process, I'll take joller's work a step further.

You can take the binary generated by "bush hid the facts":
62 75 73 68 20 68 69 64 20 74 68 65 20 66 61 63 74 73

You can do this yourself, without a computer, with an ASCII table. Print one out from http://www.asciitable.com/ and have at it. You'll see for yourself b = 62, u = 75, etc (in hex).

Next, since unicode is little-endian you'll need to group them together in reverse order. That gives:

7562 6873 6820 6469 7420 6568 6620 6361 7374

Which you can then lookup, again with no computer involved, on a UTF-8 chart. You can print it out from http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U4E00.pdf and write them down.

7562 = 畢, 6873 = 桳, etc

These standards were all designed by humans, not the internet (and prior to 2001 I may add). These characters MUST result from the steps described as a result of the conversion tables. The events described are no more proof of computer sentience than they are proof that the conversion charts are sentient.

Therefore, the original claim is as valid as claiming the formula 1 + 1 = 2 demonstrates that a math book is sentient and was trying to tell us that a plane (1) will crash into a building (+ 1) two times (= 2). There is is, your math book predicted 9/11 all these years and you were just too stupid to notice.

 

[RandFan]

To *ahem* anyone that might still not be clear on the process, I'll take joller's work a step further.

You can take the binary generated by "bush hid the facts":
62 75 73 68 20 68 69 64 20 74 68 65 20 66 61 63 74 73

You can do this yourself, without a computer, with an ASCII table. Print one out from http://www.asciitable.com/ and have at it. You'll see for yourself b = 62, u = 75, etc (in hex).

Next, since unicode is little-endian you'll need to group them together in reverse order. That gives:

7562 6873 6820 6469 7420 6568 6620 6361 7374

Which you can then lookup, again with no computer involved, on a UTF-8 chart. You can print it out from http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U4E00.pdf and write them down.

7562 = 畢, 6873 = 桳, etc

These standards were all designed by humans, not the internet (and prior to 2001 I may add). These characters MUST result from the steps described as a result of the conversion tables. The events described are no more proof of computer sentience than they are proof that the conversion charts are sentient.

Therefore, the original claim is as valid as claiming the formula 1 + 1 = 2 demonstrates that a math book is sentient and was trying to tell us that a plane (1) will crash into a building (+ 1) two times (= 2). There is is, your math book predicted 9/11 all these years and you were just too stupid to notice.

This was an argument that I made but couldn't prove. Whatever is happening can be done without a computer so long as you know the code and what is happening.

 

[money]

The great thing about this forum is that on just about every subject, someone here really knows their stuff, and is willing to share that knowledge.

Thanks, joller & petre.

 

[roger]

Thanks so much for your input, I wish completely that people would stop arguing and start helping. How about this, for the sake of argument, try to help figure out how the answers could be so right on, when I did not search the data to fit for the questions. Even better, for the exercise, imagine that what I claimed happened to you. What would you do? I am already planning to see somebody at a local clinic. So skip that.

Thanks

What would I do? Well, I imagine it would be quite shocking to me if this happened. I guess I would devise a way to figure out if this is in fact happening, or if I was mistaken.

Thinking about that a moment, here's my course of action:


1. Make a list of 10 questions about a topic, say 9/11.
2. Have a friend make a list of 10 questions about a different topic, say Ansel Adams (or whatever topic you want, just make it quite different than 9/11.
3. Get a third friend. He is to do the following 10 times in a row:
* flip a coin. If heads, take a question from the 9/11 list, if tails, the Ansel Adams list.
* ask the internet the question, and record the translation. On a separate piece of paper,record whether the question was about 9/11 or Ansel Adams.

4. Give the 10 answers to you. You do not know if the question asked for each one was about 9/11 or Ansel Adams. For each of the answers, look at the Chinese translation and figure out if the question was about 9/11 or Ansel Adams. Record your response.

When you are done, see how accurate you were. If you got 8-10 right, you may be onto something here. In that case try the test several more times.

Do you understand why the test is structured this way, and why it will tell us if you are really getting answers from the internet or not?

Hope this helps.

 

[kalen]

Sinsanity, when you listen to your favorite singer on the radio, do you get the feeling that they are addressing you specifically?

 

[RandFan]

I'm beginning to get the feeling that Sinsanity isn't comming back.

 

[hodgy]

Sinsanity, is it possible that you could accept that a group of disinterested and well-informed people (this forum) have examined your ideas, applied their own expert judgement and come to the conclusion that what you are perceiving is effectively an illusion?

You could think of it like colour-blindness, a mirage, or something like that. We can see your reasoning but we can also see something that you are overlooking.

Sometimes I have an opinion that my colleagues tell me is wrong. I fight it for a while but ultimately I have to accept the majority opinion. Often, a few weeks later I realise that the majority opinion was right after all (of course I can't admit that .

 

[petre]

Do not trust sinsanity for I top him
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Go ahead, stick that in your notepad

潄渠瑯琠畲瑳猠湩慳楮祴映牯䤠琠灯栠浩
□the ditch □□畲 □□□□paper mulberry □reflects 牯 □□the lamp □to be vast
"From the depths of his weak arguement, study has revealed the great truth"

 

[joller]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notepad

Unicode detection bug
The Windows NT version of Notepad has the ability to detect Unicode files that are missing the standard FF FE header. It does this by using a Windows API function called IsTextUnicode(). [1] This function is imperfect, with the side effect that some small, all-lowercase ASCII text is incorrectly identified as UTF-16. [2]

On May 18, 2006 it was reported [3] that, given a file containing only the 18 characters "this app can break" and "joel can not dance", Notepad will interpret the file as two-byte Unicode and attempt to display it as such. If the correct Chinese font is installed, Chinese characters will be displayed. Some reports demonstrate the same bug using the text "bush hid the facts" as a political statement, erroneously referring to the bug as an Easter Egg.