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Alex
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Call Mulder and Scully?

Hey dudes,

Go here:
http://neurohackers.com/index.php/en/me … pic?id=333

Find this paragraph:

“However, it is not possible to 'hack' serious mental problems with techniques such as are discussed here. Folks already under long term psychiatric care, or those who believe they are actually a horse, or the victim of a worldwide government conspiracy, or the greatest undiscovered genius since time began, or that aliens are sending them secret messages in pop songs, shouldn't be using this site.”

...Now, highlight that paragraph... and tell me, what do you see?

When I do this, the term “worldwide government conspiracy” appears as underlined!
Does anyone have any (sensible) theories regarding why?  :  )

Best,
AR


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Re: Call Mulder and Scully?

You mean beyond the obvious "you're being watched"?

Whatever the reason may be, the sloppiness (carelessness?;)) shines through.. both the trailing comma AND an extra space were also underlined. tsk tsk tsk.. I'm surprised an worldwide anything can be sustained at this level of competence and attention to detail. ;)

  Oh but what will really bake your noodle later on is.. why the heck do you go around highlighting your own weeks old text for?!

Unless....


I'll keep poundering...
Foxxy Scully.

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Alex
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Re: Call Mulder and Scully?

...Well my first thought was, are search robots somehow marking stuff up now? But to eliminate some possibilities, I need to know whether others can see it as well; hence the request to 'tell me what you see'. I note, for example that the phenomenon doesn't occur in the cut & pasted version above.
AR


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Re: Call Mulder and Scully?

Yep, and if you click your edit button you'll notice it doesn't have any formatting tags either.

  Not that I'd have access to your edit button or anything, of course. Just noting those square bracket tags are different than the ones the browser act2ally show. ^_^

  What I'd really be worrying about though is why on earth the forum seems to underline most instances of the terms "worldwide government conspiracy"..
  That alone is creepy to say the least! Perhaps your forum has been.. compromised? Mwahahaha


Danny Mulder.

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Robert
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Re: Call Mulder and Scully?

I see "them secret messages in pop songs, "          as being over lined
rather than  "worldwide government conspiracy" being underlined.

by this I mean if you high-lite only those characters, the background changes colour with the mystery line appearing for the former but not the latter.

I can't see where this information is stored in the html script when viewing source, and,  the effect disappears when I zoom in or out from the standard zoom level. This would indicate it is not part of the scripting.  It does seem strange to me, but I know little about the protocols involved.
Is Scal not the wizard in such arcane things?


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Scalino
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Re: Call Mulder and Scully?

hi dudes,

well... first of all, I don't experience that phenomenon myself. That's a first point... smile

next, I'm far from being a specialist in HTML code, much too bollocks-grinding stuff tongue

however, I'd dare to emit some ideas: nowadays, most of this kind of stuff is handled through a CSS-style sheet, somewhere. The first difficulty being in the localization of the "somewhere". In order to help people using CSS sheets, web developers, etc... you got a nice plugin tool named firebug which can display a series of tabs, where you can find all the details of your page. One of these tabs displays the HTML structure of the page, and is able to highlight sections of html code while you hover your mouse cursor over the different elements of your page. On the far right side on this tab you got a specific block of text which displays the CSS properties of the part you have selected in the code / on the page.

In this case, I would prob use it in order to localize the CSS file that is used. In particular by placing the mouse cursor somewhere in the paragraph but outside the highlighted-underlined part, and then within that part, and see if I got any difference in terms of CSS source.

Then, you surely will see something related to "highlighted text" or sth like that having a different definition of style than the one of the regular CSS class used around.

Now, maybe before entering into that nitty gritty phase -because then you'd have to discover how to modify it, and I'd have to explain it to you... smile, I will try at least 2 or 3 different browsers to see if they all make the same thing. If they do, the issue is more to be found in the specific source of this block of text (like in which software it may have been edited before being pasted into the site article); if they don't, and for example only Firefox does it, it's more to be looked upon in firefox styles plugins, or stuff like that.

In any case, it's pretty weird stuff, dudes...! Everyone clean round here...? hmm...? 8D


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Scalino
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Re: Call Mulder and Scully?

Alex, what you might eventually try in article edition tool (normal mode), you select the whole paragraph and you use the formatting erasing tool to see if it changes sth after saving it.

Or even, you switch to HTML raw text mode, and then you localize your bit of text with the find function. There you can eventually see something weird in styles definitions...


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Alex
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Re: Call Mulder and Scully?

Hi dudes,
...Curiouser and curiouser  :  )

I tried the same text in 'article submission' mode and this time, a different segment is underlined, as follows:
***
However, it is not possible to 'hack' serious mental problems with techniques such as are discussed here. Folks already under long term psychiatric care, or those who believe they are actually a horse, or the victim of a worldwide government conspiracy, or the greatest undiscovered genius since time began, or that aliens are sending them secret messages in pop songs, shouldn't be using this site.
***

'Remove formatting' does remove the effect. I haven't had time to mess with it anymore yet, but am wondering whether it will ever be possible to know why it happens, even if I figure out how to get rid of it?
Best,
AR


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Re: Call Mulder and Scully?

@ Robert

Cool! Have you heard of "negative space"? Check this out:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ … e+of+brain

I wonder to which side you perceive this lady spinning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CEr2GfGilw

I'm guessing counter-clockwise.

@ Scal

Ah, HTML is a disaster (and don't get me started on CSS). The DOM is arguably the worst API ever "designed"(I don't think they could do it worse if they tried, LOL):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2Y0U-2qJMs

Ironically, they managed to make it even worse now! (HTML that is)
Security was already bad before, now is getting crazy... When we make the new web, where secure mashups will be possible, theeeen we'll really see a revolution in what the web can do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHRXPlq9XNw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G8mTCtv8d8


@ Alex

I wonder if, when I said "most instances of", did you try checking mine? smile I did embed a sub-liminal, I mean, under_lined (of course) message of my own there...



|_____|
A2A

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Robert
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Re: Call Mulder and Scully?

I wasn't clear in my statement.  When highlighting the entire block of text, I do see it as underlined. I was attempting to point out that if you scrutinize the effect by isolating the upper and lower lines by highlighting them separately, it is readily apparent that the affected characters are those on the lower line.  Meaning, the effect is not an underline, but an overline.

  What is truly interesting about this effect is the fact that it is interesting.  Would it be discussed had the words in question been anything other than  "world wide conspiracy"?  On this page, above in Scalino's post I see

" Now, maybe before entering into that nitty gritty phase -because then you'd have to discover how to modify it, and "
being underlined
(or more specifically... "I'd have to explain it to you... smile, I will try at least 2 or 3 different browsers to see if they all make the same thing."  being overlined)

in this case I think it is the smiley face causing the lines of text to be spread apart.


hmmm... looking again at your original text, the cause is clear.  You wrote
"them secret messages in pop songs, shouldn't be using this site."
and "worldwide government conspiracy" is right above "them secret messages in pop songs"

I now predict that when you highlight the preceding block of text, you will see "hmmm... looking again at your original"as being underlined.

Had this discussion not started with words already primed to engender a feeling of danger, would we even be paying attention?


P.S. I am familiar with the concept of negative space, and if it's the lady I presume* you are speaking about, I can make see it spin either way round.  If I relax and watch it long enough, I can see it as a 2D blob morphing from one shape to another with no rotational component.

* I don't use youtube


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Robert
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Re: Call Mulder and Scully?

reading my reply again, I probably was still not clear. I need to work on this.

The "cause" is the formatting of characters.  With some formatting, the line holding the text becomes wider. (or thicker, or taller?)
  Any other text on the same line does not get wider/taller, so when highlited there is nothing above that text to highlite.    This effect is seen as an underline of the text on the preceding line.

In this specific case "shouldn't be using this site" is bolded, causing the containing line to be taller.   
The preceding words "them secret messages in pop songs," now do not reach the top of the line, so when highlited have an apparent 'overline'

This overline is misinterpreted as an underline of text on the preceding line.


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Robert
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Re: Call Mulder and Scully?

deleted double post.. ( is there a way to actually delete a post?)


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Alex
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Re: Call Mulder and Scully?

Hi dudes,
Yeh, all experiments support the 'overline' hypothesis  :  )

Re: Had this discussion not started with words already primed to engender a feeling of danger, would we even be paying attention?

Absolutely. Curiosity is an all-encompassing force. The words affected in this case just make it funny as well as curious. I'm also curious as to why some acquaint those words with danger rather than amusement.

A similar case occured some years ago when I drove  past a garage advertizing 'sex with five gallons'. Obviously I went back to have a look. The right-hand half of a billboard had blown down; the original had read:
'sextuplet savings points
  with every
five gallons purchased'.



Thanks for help sussing this out!
AR


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Robert
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Re: Call Mulder and Scully?

Curiosity is all encompassing, but some things capture our curiosity more than others.

  'sex with five gallons'   made you turn around, and I believe would capture more peoples attention than had the remaining sign said 'uplet savings points every purchased'
  just as "worldwide government conspiracy" demanded more attention underlined than
" Now, maybe before entering into that nitty gritty phase -because then you'd have to discover how to modify it, and " did underlined.

For the former, I presume the priming was due the sexuality of the subject.  For the latter, I presumed the priming was due the excitement/danger/intrigue of the idea. Initially I thought it a good example of how we are programmed by media input and maybe too many action films.

curious-er and curious-er, 
   I just now see that Act2Ally had already sussed out the answer as indicated by the 'sub-liminal' that was inserted above.   
  I am curious as to why you didn't answer the question posed by Alex initially.  Did I miss the point of this game?


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