# †? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 1, 2004, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a/272441 "2004-11-01T23:34:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Weeks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/bbce88/32.png) [@Weeks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weeks)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2004, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a/272441/1 "2004-11-01T23:34:10Z")
[This](http://www.boingboing.net/) website , for example, appears to insert this symbol randomly ( I say random, but I’m sure there is a pattern) I.E. > [@](#): > > Great Pumpkin meets Great Old Ones On Strange Horizons: What if Charlie Brown’s pumpkin patch were designed by HP Lovecraft: > > As you are no doubt aware, I am the issue of solid Dutch stock—the prosperous Van Pelt family of St. Paul. Mine was a comfortable and happy childhood, and I spent much of it in the devoted service of the Great Old Pumpkin. For him, I cultivated an annual pumpkin patch—mostly Autumn Gold and Big Max…blah blah blah… ---
**Author:** ![qubed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f07891/32.png) [@qubed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/qubed)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2004, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a/272441/2 "2004-11-01T23:36:08Z")
It’s likely just an encoding problem. I get similar types of things too. But your webpage comes up fine on my browser (firefox), and your strange symbol corresponds to a DASH on my browser. ---
**Author:** ![Merkwurdigliebe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/74df32/32.png) [@Merkwurdigliebe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merkwurdigliebe)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2004, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a/272441/3 "2004-11-01T23:37:17Z")
I get an em-dash instead of that symbol Most of the time when weird artifacts appear it usually has to do with the encoding used by the website. There are different methods of encoding. I don’t really understand them, but most browsers have an autodetect mechanism, but you can change it manually too. ---
**Author:** ![Weeks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/bbce88/32.png) [@Weeks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weeks)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2004, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a/272441/4 "2004-11-01T23:37:41Z")
ahem… I was saying before I so rudely interrupted myself… What kind of micro universe have I stumbled into here? Is this some kind of" my operating system vs. the rest of the universe" kind of thing here? Java problems? Air pressure too low? Anyone else see these ghosts? ---
**Author:** ![Weeks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/bbce88/32.png) [@Weeks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weeks)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2004, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a/272441/5 "2004-11-01T23:38:52Z")
damn, y’all are fast! ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2004, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a/272441/6 "2004-11-01T23:39:59Z")
It looks fine to be (Mozilla 1.8). ---
**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2004, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a/272441/7 "2004-11-01T23:54:30Z")
The character encoding of the page is Unicode (UTF-8), and Firefox detects that properly and shows the em-dash as intended. If you manually switch it to Western (ISO-8859-1), it switches to the weird symbols like in your original post. Therefore… your browser must be assuming it is Western rather than Unicode. ---
**Author:** ![adirondack\_mike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b5a626/32.png) [@adirondack\_mike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adirondack_mike)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2004, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a/272441/8 "2004-11-02T00:54:37Z")
Its a [fnord.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=283692&highlight=fnord) or maybe it isn’t.