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I like introducing people to new concepts, and I will assume this entry is for non-technologists. This is an excellent start. If I may suggest, stop insulting

I like introducing people to new concepts, and I will assume this entry is for non-technologists. This is an excellent start. If I may suggest, stop insulting your readers (e.g., several places implying reader does or does not do something 'normally', or not know something). In cases where an error is well known, describe the error so it is understood you are using it as an example, and not an actual error (e.g., Null character (�) a black diamond with white question mark in the middle). Single bit is the most often used type of data (vs "single bit is almost completely useless"). Your lights are on, or off; you are dead or alive; it is today or not, vast majority of network flags in various protocols are single bits. There are a lot of weasel words throughout the post. If you plan to educate, uncertainty reduces comprehension and retention. There are some absolute statements are made too, but might rightfully questioned (e.g., [b]inary is the only language computers understand). Make sure your absolutes are truly absolutes. Keep up the good work.

tialaramex 3y ago
> (e.g., Null character (�) a black diamond with white question mark in the middle). The description in the linked article is wrong, that's not a null character (U+0000) or ASCII's NUL. That black diamond symbol is U+FFFD the Unicode Replacement Character, it means "Something went wrong, so instead here is this symbol". For example if your decoder algorithm gets some gibberish and you can't or won't accept errors in decoding, a correctly designed decoder should produce U+FFFD each time, this is what Rust's String::from_utf8_lossy and String::from_utf16_lossy are doing. U+FFFD was carefully chosen because it's not anything. It's not a letter, or a digit, it's not some ASCII control character, it's not a separator in any known writing system or protocol, it has no defined pre-existing purpose, which means if bad guys can trick your bad software into injecting U+FFFD into some data, chances are they achieved nothing of value.
- passterby 3y ago
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- deleted 3y ago
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- IIAOPSW 3y ago
  Tangential aside we've collectively made a mistake using A-F for HEX representation. Alphabetical order seemed obvious at the time, but there's a far more literal option that's just pleasing on a visceral level. LHTIFE. The horizontal lines of each letter are literally encoding binary information. True there's no letter encoding 3 in this block style but that can either be invented or ignored. Or you can fudge the pattern slightly with a diagonal such as z or a curved lower case such as b. It would have mapped so cleanly to 7 seg type displays. Even the name "HEX" is 2/3rds of the way to being self descriptive. A perfect little numeral grouping of chars.
  - tremon 3y ago
    The I is a bad choice since it's similar to 1, using the letter Z instead would be much better. The letter T can't be mapped to a 7-segment display either, so if that's your goal you would need to use EFGHLP.
    - IIAOPSW 3y ago
      I'm reluctant to grab "encoding letters" out of the curvy set, simply because there's nearly enough of them to make a complete binary-lettering alternative on their own. uhbDPB. That one is also frustratingly one digit missing from completion. If they were complete sets, you could treat curvy/rigid as a bit and thus have an easy and obvious system for translating between half-bytes and English orthography. I'm not getting sucked back into this. There comes a point when you're just staring at the alphabet letters and thinking "TF am I DOING?"
    - IIAOPSW 3y ago
      Also, yeah obviously T can't be mapped, but I still put T in the same category as all the other square intersecting grid letters. There are other, obviously repeating groupings that would work better on a different segmented basis. Some examples: diagonals {Z N X Y A V K 7 4 W M}, circle based {O G C Q D}, loopy: {B P b d q J S 8 9 3 }, 7 seg: {L H T I F E}
  - leduyquang753 3y ago
    That would be a trivia to have to know, otherwise it just looks like a mess of arbitrarily chosen letters. The binary patterns shown on the chosen letters do not match the actual binary patterns those letters represent. And then you don't try to do the same with 0 to 9 which makes the whole effort half-baked.

tialaramex 3y ago

> (e.g., Null character (�) a black diamond with white question mark in the middle). The description in the linked article is wrong, that's not a null character (U+0000) or ASCII's NUL. That black diamond symbol is U+FFFD the Unicode Replacement Character, it means "Something went wrong, so instead here is this symbol". For example if your decoder algorithm gets some gibberish and you can't or won't accept errors in decoding, a correctly designed decoder should produce U+FFFD each time, this is what Rust's String::from_utf8_lossy and String::from_utf16_lossy are doing. U+FFFD was carefully chosen because it's not anything. It's not a letter, or a digit, it's not some ASCII control character, it's not a separator in any known writing system or protocol, it has no defined pre-existing purpose, which means if bad guys can trick your bad software into injecting U+FFFD into some data, chances are they achieved nothing of value.

passterby 3y ago
[dead]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
IIAOPSW 3y ago
Tangential aside we've collectively made a mistake using A-F for HEX representation. Alphabetical order seemed obvious at the time, but there's a far more literal option that's just pleasing on a visceral level. LHTIFE. The horizontal lines of each letter are literally encoding binary information. True there's no letter encoding 3 in this block style but that can either be invented or ignored. Or you can fudge the pattern slightly with a diagonal such as z or a curved lower case such as b. It would have mapped so cleanly to 7 seg type displays. Even the name "HEX" is 2/3rds of the way to being self descriptive. A perfect little numeral grouping of chars.
- tremon 3y ago
  The I is a bad choice since it's similar to 1, using the letter Z instead would be much better. The letter T can't be mapped to a 7-segment display either, so if that's your goal you would need to use EFGHLP.
  - IIAOPSW 3y ago
    I'm reluctant to grab "encoding letters" out of the curvy set, simply because there's nearly enough of them to make a complete binary-lettering alternative on their own. uhbDPB. That one is also frustratingly one digit missing from completion. If they were complete sets, you could treat curvy/rigid as a bit and thus have an easy and obvious system for translating between half-bytes and English orthography. I'm not getting sucked back into this. There comes a point when you're just staring at the alphabet letters and thinking "TF am I DOING?"
  - IIAOPSW 3y ago
    Also, yeah obviously T can't be mapped, but I still put T in the same category as all the other square intersecting grid letters. There are other, obviously repeating groupings that would work better on a different segmented basis. Some examples: diagonals {Z N X Y A V K 7 4 W M}, circle based {O G C Q D}, loopy: {B P b d q J S 8 9 3 }, 7 seg: {L H T I F E}
- leduyquang753 3y ago
  That would be a trivia to have to know, otherwise it just looks like a mess of arbitrarily chosen letters. The binary patterns shown on the chosen letters do not match the actual binary patterns those letters represent. And then you don't try to do the same with 0 to 9 which makes the whole effort half-baked.