31 ms·

Why does the recipe contain zero length characters? Like described here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16754987 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1675

by chanz 9y ago

Why does the recipe contain zero length characters? Like described here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16754987 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16754987 Screenshot taken with addon: https://i.imgur.com/rgG0tMb.png https://i.imgur.com/rgG0tMb.png Screenshot taken without addon: https://i.imgur.com/BV3sxqP.png https://i.imgur.com/BV3sxqP.png The zero length character is also at the end of the title in this hacker news entry.

simcop2387 9y ago
What addon is that? I'm curious to see if other websites are doing that to me now. EDIT: my bad, I assumed the earlier hn link there was about the discussion on fingerprinting with them.
- chanz 9y ago
  Right now there is 'only' a chrome extension that I know of that just scans for zero-length-characters: https://github.com/chpmrc/zero-width-chrome-extension https://github.com/chpmrc/zero-width-chrome-extension For Firefox there is this extension that does search and replace based on regex (so you need to create the rule by yourself). https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/foxreplace/?src=search https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/foxreplace/?src=... Apply an autoload rule with these settings: Name: zero length replacement HTML: Output only URL: <entering no url matches all sites> Replace: (\uFEFF|\u200B|\u200C) Type: Regular expression With: <span style="background-color:#F00 !important">😳</span>
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
fluxsauce 9y ago
There's some odd markup: > <div>you cant p<span class="ex">er</span>seve the suet from the meat</div> It's also around a possible spelling error"? (preserve vs perseve)
- bch 9y ago
  I think “perseve” == perceive.
- coroxout 9y ago
  The markup flags up abbreviations. I'm not quite clear on the distinctions between the different tags but it looks like "ex" is for expansions/excluded letters and "sl" is something to do with superscript letters, or thereabouts. See here for more on early modern "secretary hand" abbreviations: https://www.english.cam.ac.uk/ceres/ehoc/conventions.html#contractions https://www.english.cam.ac.uk/ceres/ehoc/conventions.html#co...
dalore 9y ago
Could it be to prevent copy paste? Or perhaps it was copy pasted from somewhere else with those as copy protection.
jeffburka 9y ago
I think the recipe was copy/pasted from a transcription project, possibly this one: http://transcribe.folger.edu/ http://transcribe.folger.edu/ The zero width characters might be leftovers from the transcription process, marking disagreements or known spelling errors or something. If you click into one of the books on that website, you can see options to mark stuff as "ex" or "unc", which explains the weird markup (<span class="ex">er</span>).

by chanz 9y ago

simcop2387 9y ago

What addon is that? I'm curious to see if other websites are doing that to me now. EDIT: my bad, I assumed the earlier hn link there was about the discussion on fingerprinting with them.

chanz 9y ago
Right now there is 'only' a chrome extension that I know of that just scans for zero-length-characters: https://github.com/chpmrc/zero-width-chrome-extension https://github.com/chpmrc/zero-width-chrome-extension For Firefox there is this extension that does search and replace based on regex (so you need to create the rule by yourself). https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/foxreplace/?src=search https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/foxreplace/?src=... Apply an autoload rule with these settings: Name: zero length replacement HTML: Output only URL: <entering no url matches all sites> Replace: (\uFEFF|\u200B|\u200C) Type: Regular expression With: <span style="background-color:#F00 !important">😳</span>

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

fluxsauce 9y ago

There's some odd markup: > <div>you cant p<span class="ex">er</span>seve the suet from the meat</div> It's also around a possible spelling error"? (preserve vs perseve)

bch 9y ago
I think “perseve” == perceive.
coroxout 9y ago
The markup flags up abbreviations. I'm not quite clear on the distinctions between the different tags but it looks like "ex" is for expansions/excluded letters and "sl" is something to do with superscript letters, or thereabouts. See here for more on early modern "secretary hand" abbreviations: https://www.english.cam.ac.uk/ceres/ehoc/conventions.html#contractions https://www.english.cam.ac.uk/ceres/ehoc/conventions.html#co...

dalore 9y ago

Could it be to prevent copy paste? Or perhaps it was copy pasted from somewhere else with those as copy protection.

jeffburka 9y ago

I think the recipe was copy/pasted from a transcription project, possibly this one: http://transcribe.folger.edu/ http://transcribe.folger.edu/ The zero width characters might be leftovers from the transcription process, marking disagreements or known spelling errors or something. If you click into one of the books on that website, you can see options to mark stuff as "ex" or "unc", which explains the weird markup (<span class="ex">er</span>).