# Win Xp conspiracy going on here? =>_>=



## ilobmirt (Apr 26, 2009)

~Credit goes to Corin [link to journal entry]~

Using Windows (not sure if it works for more than Xp):

1.  Open Notepad
2.  Type, in all lower-case, "bush hid the facts" (without the quotes)
3.  Save the file
4.  Close Notepad
5.  Open the file

When I tried it myself... I was like *wtf =0_0=* all that text was turned into "â–¡â–¡â–¡â–¡â–¡â–¡â–¡â–¡â–¡".

Anywho, if there isn't a conspiracy with this, it sure does make a nice easter egg.


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## net-cat (Apr 26, 2009)

That's pretty funny.


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## Stratelier (Apr 26, 2009)

http://www.eeggs.com/items/48349.html

Technical explanation:

Your text document was saved using ANSI encoding, but Notepad tried to open it with UTF (Unicode) encoding.  Note that if you _specifically_ select "ANSI" encoding from the _File > Open..._ dialog box, your text file retrieves just fine.

No conspiracy theories required, and it's not an Easter Egg either.


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## net-cat (Apr 26, 2009)

I figured it was something like that, though I didn't care to go do the research. You can demonstrate the same phenomenon with a little interactive Python...


```
>>> import codecs
>>> bytes = b'bush hid the facts'
>>> bytes
'bush hid the facts'
>>> codecs.utf_16_decode(bytes)[0]
u'\u7562\u6873\u6820\u6469\u7420\u6568\u6620\u6361\u7374'
>>>
```

(Note that there are 9 Unicode characters in that string, just as with the OP's post.)


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## ilobmirt (Apr 26, 2009)

Awr... thank you guys for ruining the fun on that one. *shrugs* It was a sweet find while it lasted. ;p


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## amtrack88 (Apr 27, 2009)

Has anyone else ever noticed that on occasion in a text editor when you move the cursor to a previous part of the text and begin to add text, the text in front of the cursor starts getting deleted as you type instead of shifting over to the right? This has happened to me for years on various computer and installs of Windows.


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## net-cat (Apr 27, 2009)

I recommend pressing "Insert" when that happens.


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## Stratelier (Apr 27, 2009)

amtrack88 said:


> Has anyone else ever noticed that on occasion in a text editor when you move the cursor to a previous part of the text and begin to add text, the text in front of the cursor starts getting deleted as you type instead of shifting over to the right? This has happened to me for years on various computer and installs of Windows.



That's not a bug either, it's actually quite deliberate.  In most text editors, hitting the INSERT key toggles between 'insert' and 'overwrite' mode.  While most professional word-processors include a statusbar icon to show which mode you're currently in, Notepad/Wordpad do not.

You want a real trick?  In Notepad, try pressing Left Shift + Left Ctrl + Right Shift; if it works, you've just activated right-to-left mode.


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## Shino (Apr 27, 2009)

Gawd, I found that egg ages ago. Be sure to see the volcanoes, planes and candy canes, too! (<-Obvious easter egg hints)


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## Stratelier (Apr 27, 2009)

But it's not, technically speaking, an Easter Egg....

It's even mentioned on Wikipedia:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_hid_the_facts
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notepad#Unicode_detection

If you want another obscure, so-called 'bug', try creating a file or folder named "con" -- you can't, but Windows won't tell you why.  (It happens to be a reserved word.)


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## Pi (Apr 27, 2009)

Stratadrake said:


> If you want another obscure, so-called 'bug', try creating a file or folder named "con" -- you can't, but Windows won't tell you why.  (It happens to be a reserved word.)



On a fresh install of Windows 98:
Start -> Run -> C:\NUL\NUL

Watch it bluescreen.

Used to be fun to send links to file:///c|/con/con, or set it as an auto-refresh in webpages, back when 98 was cool.


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## Runefox (Apr 27, 2009)

Doesn't happen on Vista! =D

The text is actually read as Chinese characters in that particular bug. If you had Chinese language support, you'd see Chinese characters instead (OMFGCHINAHAX?!).



> On a fresh install of Windows 98:
> Start -> Run -> C:\NUL\NUL



You know, I never was able to get the C:\NUL\NUL thing to happen on 98SE. I'd just get a "Windows cannot find the path specified" error. I suppose that's why you said "fresh install", since those systems I'd tried it on were fully patched. That said, for the benefit of all, NUL and CON are virtual devices in the filesystem, much like UNIX /dev/null (NUL). CON is apparently where the console lives.

From an old security report:


```
DEVICE DRIVERS
 --------------
 These are specified in IO.SYS and date back from the early Ms Dos
 days.  Here is what I have found.  Here is a brief list;

  CLOCK$       - System clock
  CON          - Console; combination of keyboard and screen to 
                 handle input and output
  AUX or COM1  - First serial communicationport
  COMn         - Second, Third, ... communicationport
  LPT1 or PRN  - First parallel port
  NUL          - Dummy port, or the "null device" which we all
                 know under Linux as /dev/null.
  CONFIG$      - Unknown



 Any call made to a path consisting of "NUL" and "CON seems to
 crash routines made to the FAT32/VFAT, eventually trashing the 
 kernel.

 Therefore, it is possible to crash -any- other local and/or
 remote application as long as they parse the path-strings to
 call FAT32/VFAT routines in the kernel.  Mind you, we are -not- 
 sure this is the real reason, however there are strong evidences 
 to assume this is the case.

 So... To put it in laymen terms...  It seems that the Windows98
 kernel is going berserk upon processing paths that are made up
 of "old" (read: Ms Dos) device drivers.
```

But anyway, I like the MANUALLY_INITIATED_CRASH bluescreen better.


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## Irreverent (Apr 27, 2009)

Runefox said:


> CON is apparently where the console lives.




It certainly is.  And you can still create (albeit, not edit) files by typing "copy con myfile.type (bat, sys, com or exe if you dare) in a cmd box; then end the input with an ctrl-z or F6-key.

Ah DOS 1.1 memories.  I still wake up screaming.


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## net-cat (Apr 27, 2009)

Stratadrake said:


> You want a real trick?  In Notepad, try pressing Left Shift + Left Ctrl + Right Shift; if it works, you've just activated right-to-left mode.


Thank you. I've been looking for that key combination for ages.


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## ilobmirt (Apr 27, 2009)

=>_<= This tread's getting a bit off topic. 

Not that I mind. I'm starting to get humbled by your obscure and arcane Windows knowledge. =0_0=

Wow....


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## Shino (Apr 27, 2009)

Off-topic?!? Oh, noes! The horror!

You're not alone. I thought I was a -insert Microsoft OS here- expert, but I find myself having to Google terms that 'Rev mentions that I haven't heard in years. If it makes you feel any better, though, most of us learned about the easter eggs from early-internet search engines. (Yeah, pre-Google. Scary, huh?)


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## Runefox (Apr 27, 2009)

> early-internet search engines


Ah, back when meta tags meant something. The first search engine I got into was Lycos. I found it gave the best results. When I got broadband, I learned of Altavista, and that was my poison until Google came along. Actually, I learned of Google through Maximum PC back before everyone knew about it. I was like, "Hey, look, I'm right, Altavista DOES give the most accurate - Hey, what's Google?"


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## Shino (Apr 27, 2009)

Runefox said:


> Ah, back when meta tags meant something.


 
And back when most of the links went to poorly designed eye-melting geocities or angelfire pages loaded with GIFs.

I can't even remember what I used for search back then. I think it was altavista and... and... something before that.

I still remember back when it went from baud to Kbps. Hmm.. I'm rambling again, aren't I?


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## LizardKing (Apr 27, 2009)

Shino said:


> geocities



RIP Geocities :[


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## Runefox (Apr 27, 2009)

To Geocities' defence, they did have one of the easiest to use WYSIWYG editors around at one point (not to mention decently powerful as far as WYSIWYG goes), though to this day I still can't figure out the HTML behind it. Remember this style of website? In spite of it having just been updated back in October, I'd go as far as to say it'd probably work well with IE3. =D


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## Irreverent (Apr 27, 2009)

Shino said:


> I can't even remember what I used for search back then. I think it was altavista and... and... something before that.



Hotbot? Ask Jeeves? Dogpile is (still around).



> I still remember back when it went from baud to Kbps. Hmm.. I'm rambling again, aren't I?



Ha! I remember when it went from 7-bit to 8-bit. :shock:

(I should really give myself an infraction for derailing  )


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## ilobmirt (Apr 27, 2009)

=>_<= *chuckles* oh man, we are starting to show our true nerd colors eh?

Well, going along w/ the new topic now... The first thing I used a search engine for was "transformation" via, yahoo search Win 98 on dialup. ... yep, it should be pretty obvious to see where that led me today. *chuckles*


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## Stratelier (Apr 27, 2009)

Ah, the good old days.  Back when Netscape was the king browser, my favorite search engine was WebCrawler with its cute surfing-spider mascot  (no real love for Google still, it just happens to be the default search engine these days for some wacky reason), and when bandwidth and caching actually WERE real concerns to the everyday user... when stylesheets just didn't exist and tables were the only advanced layout option you had....

I had a Geocities account once (even back in the day where they organized pages by 'www.geocities.com/section/subsection/number' instead of 'www.geocities.com/username' --  -- mine was '/SiliconValley/Campus/4543/'), it eventually died from inactivity.  My old Angelfire page could still be lurking around in the cobwebs though....

I can still remember my old ICQ number, too.  Eight digits and the first digit was '1'.


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## peterswinkels (Apr 28, 2009)

Runefox said:


> Doesn't happen on Vista! =D
> 
> The text is actually read as Chinese characters in that particular bug. If you had Chinese language support, you'd see Chinese characters instead (OMFGCHINAHAX?!).
> 
> ...


 
I remember that. Even something such as "<IMG SRC="\nul\nul">" in a webpage could get an unpatched Windows 95/98/ME to crash... Then again, those versions Windows would usually crash suddenly for no apparent reason all the time. When I first used Windows 2000 I tried a dozen of things to get it to crash. I was amazed at how none of the things that would work Windows 98 could cause a crash. Whenever I hear people whine about XP or Vista, I think they should have a go at using Windows 98...


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## net-cat (Apr 28, 2009)

Heh.

Anyone remember the social engineering attacks that would say "Is this your hard drive?" and then stick file:///c|/ in a frame set?


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## peterswinkels (Apr 28, 2009)

Yes, I remember sites claiming to be able to read the contents of my harddrive.


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## LizardKing (Apr 28, 2009)

Runefox said:


> Remember this style of website?



Not as well as I remember this style >_<


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## net-cat (Apr 28, 2009)

Irreverent said:


> Ha! I remember when it went from 7-bit to 8-bit. :shock:


I once made a RS232 transmitter out of 74-series logic ICs and a 555 timer. It was awesome. Did what it needed to do, too. 1200,8,E,6. Yes, 6 stop bits. It made my transmission window 16 bits long. Shut up.


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## Irreverent (Apr 28, 2009)

net-cat said:


> I once made a RS232 transmitter out of 74-series logic ICs and a 555 timer. It was awesome. Did what it needed to do, too. 1200,8,E,6. Yes, 6 stop bits. It made my transmission window 16 bits long. Shut up.



Designed by committee?  _Never _send a electrical engineer to do a UART's job......


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## SnowFox (Apr 28, 2009)

net-cat said:


> I once made a RS232 transmitter out of 74-series logic ICs and a 555 timer. It was awesome. Did what it needed to do, too. 1200,8,E,6. Yes, 6 stop bits. It made my transmission window 16 bits long. Shut up.



I wish I had the time and the tools to do something like that.


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## net-cat (Apr 28, 2009)

Irreverent said:


> Designed by committee?  _Never _send a electrical engineer to do a UART's job......


You have cheap, fast and reliable. You get to pick two. Guess which I picked. 



SnowFox said:


> I wish I had the time and the tools to do something like that.


Me too. I miss having access to the Capstone lab at school. I don't, however, miss Capstone.


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## ilobmirt (Apr 28, 2009)

I wish I had the time, energy, and a Delorean to learn this relevant stuff =0_0=


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## SnowFox (Apr 28, 2009)

net-cat said:


> You have cheap, fast and reliable. You get to pick two. Guess which I picked.
> 
> Me too. I miss having access to the Capstone lab at school. I don't, however, miss Capstone.



I challenge you to do it with relays next time.


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## net-cat (Apr 28, 2009)

SnowFox said:


> I challenge you to do it with relays next time.



Hey, I bet if I wired enough vacuum tubes together...


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## Pi (Apr 29, 2009)

Shino said:


> I still remember back when it went from baud to Kbps. Hmm.. I'm rambling again, aren't I?



Baud and bits/sec are two different concepts entirely.

Baud is symbols/sec. Bits/sec is, well, bits/sec. The difference is that some transmission modes are, for example, 4 bits per symbol, so at 300 baud, they can transmit 1200 bits per second.

:nitpick:


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## hitokage (Apr 29, 2009)

net-cat said:


> Hey, I bet if I wired enough vacuum tubes together...


and added a few nixie tubes you could build this digital clock.

EDIT: realized I left out a word when I saw my post quoted.


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## Shino (Apr 29, 2009)

Pi said:


> Baud and bits/sec are two different concepts entirely.
> 
> Baud is symbols/sec. Bits/sec is, well, bits/sec. The difference is that some transmission modes are, for example, 4 bits per symbol, so at 300 baud, they can transmit 1200 bits per second.
> 
> :nitpick:


 
Yes, yes, I know. I was generalizing again. I was wondering if someone was going to call me out on that.

Wasn't this thread about easter eggs? Ah, whatever. This is more fun.

*starts daydreaming about the Pentium Pro*


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## peterswinkels (Apr 29, 2009)

LizardKing said:


> Not as well as I remember this style >_<


 
Heh, reminds me of the days when we just had internet access at home, it took ages to load what would now be considered small low quality pictures through the 28.8k connection. This was back in 1995.


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## net-cat (Apr 29, 2009)

hitokage said:


> and added a few nixie tubes you could this digital clock.


That's awesome. I need to find myself some nixie tubes now, just so I can say I have them.


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## Koda (Apr 29, 2009)

Windows actually cares though, if you use the marquee screensaver (or maybe 3D text) if you type in 'who cares' for the text, a few months later it will say 'i do'


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## Irreverent (Apr 29, 2009)

Koda said:


> Windows actually cares though, if you use the marquee screensaver (or maybe 3D text) if you type in 'who cares' for the text, a few months later it will say 'i do'



  sure a co-worker wasnt playing with you?

Another easter egg in cc:Mail, Organizer and some versions of Lotus Notes.  Open the calendar, open help, type "How do I get a date?" in the box.  It should respond with "Ask her out." or various things depending on version.


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## Stratelier (Apr 29, 2009)

Shino said:


> *starts daydreaming about the Pentium Pro*


And the infamous bug in its floating-point division....


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## SnowFox (Apr 29, 2009)

net-cat said:


> Hey, I bet if I wired enough vacuum tubes together...



Now you're making me horny. Seriously.


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## net-cat (Apr 29, 2009)

SnowFox said:


> Now you're making me horny. Seriously.


Pffft. I can do more impressive things with modern electronics.


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## SnowFox (Apr 29, 2009)

net-cat said:


> Pffft. I can do more impressive things with modern electronics.



Yeah but vacfapuum tubes are sexy


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## Arkolyte (Apr 30, 2009)

Yeah, it doesn't work in Vista. :<


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