Posts...leet??

[Patti Feinberg]

I just happened to notice a certain (very nice) cousins' post, and on her posts it said
Posts
leet

?huh?

Patti

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I'm afraid I haven't got a clue what you're talking about, Patti. It might help if you explain which post you're referring to so that I can check it out for myself. 

[McTrooper]

I just happened to notice a certain (very nice) cousins' post, and on her posts it said
Posts
leet

As far as I know . .

The word "leet" also spelled "l33t" kind of means "cool".
It's based on (or inspired by) the word "Elite".

"l33t speak" is where you substitute numbers and symbols for letters.
"3" in place of "e"
"|/" in place of "w"
And so on.  The "formula" isn't the same everywhere.

The place where I see "l33t" used the most is on line comic MegaTokyo.
But if you ever play 3d first person shooters on line you will probably "l33t" and "l33t speak" a lot. 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

That's all quite true, McTrooper. And frequently playing off on Math or Web concepts (who can forget SMF 1.0 Beta -3.1415, as in a negated value of pi?  ) the SMF developers have even incorporated the use of leet in the name of one of their beta versions of the upcoming SMF 1.1 (SMF 1.l33t). However, I wasn't aware that they'd somehow incorporated it into this particular version of SMF (we just recently upgraded to version 1.0.5) until Patt's post got me to wondering and so I did a text search of all the scripts. Sure enough, when a member's post total is at 1337, it's replaced with leet:

Code: [Select]

$profile['posts'] == 1337 ? 'leet' : comma_format($profile['posts'])
Oh, those wacky SMF developers! 


And speaking of SMF 1.1, Beta 3 was released on June 28th and I *may* consider installing it here on the forum. Previous beta versions have incorporated quite a few new and interesting features, and I've simply been holding off until a stable beta version is released before installing it. Beta 3 might be it. 

[Ian]

Y0u kn0//, 1 p3r$0n411y c4nn07 $74nd 1337. 1 kn0// p30p13 //h0 u$3 17 0n 4 r3gu14r b4$1$. 17 41$0 74k3$ f0r3/3r t0 134rn h0// 70 7yp3 1ik3 7hi$.

Bleh...I know I made some mistakes up there too...I hate leet.

[Raineypark]

Thank you VERY much for showing us what "leet" looks like, Ian.  Now that I've seen it, I hope I never see it here again. 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

All this discussion of leet speak reminded me of something I'd recently read that's actually quite interesting. It has to do with a fascinating phenomenon known as typoglycemia:

The following may look weird, but, believe it or not, you can read it:

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to rscheearch taem at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Such a cdonition is arppoiately cllaed Typoglycemia

Amzanig huh? Yaeh and yuo awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt.

Amazing? Yes! And it certainly explains how we can easily miss typos in our own as well as others posts.    However, I would NOT suggest that we resort to using either leet speak or typoglycemia any time soon on the forum. 

[McTrooper]

Y0u kn0//, 1 p3r$0n411y c4nn07 $74nd 1337. 1 kn0// p30p13 //h0 u$3 17 0n 4 r3gu14r b4$1$. 17 41$0 74k3$ f0r3/3r t0 134rn h0// 70 7yp3 1ik3 7hi$.

Bleh...I know I made some mistakes up there too...I hate leet.

Pure L33t like that would drive me nuts.
I don't hate l33t, but that extreem example is hard to read.
Also 4 characters to replace "w" seems like more work than it's worth.
= = =
Mysterious Benefactor  That is truely amazing!  I'm not even sure what to say about it. 

[Ian]

Also 4 characters to replace "w" seems like more work than it's worth. 

That's because it is more work than it's worth. I cringe when I see leet.

Oh, and at MB...Man...I've seen that Cambridge study so many times now, I've lost count. It is ture tughoh. Epesailcly wehn yur'oe simkmnig!

[Raineypark]

Amzanig huh? Yaeh and yuo awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt.

Oh for pete's sake......NOW you tell me that it doesn't matter a damn that I can't spell!!!!!!!! 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Well, the study isn't saying that learning how to spell correctly isn't important. After all, if we didn't learn the words in the first place, we wouldn't be able to recognize them even when all but the first and last letters are jumbled. They really would just be gibberish.    But apparently once our minds have absorbed the correct spelling, even if we can't always duplicate it ourselves, needing to see words spelled correctly to understand them goes right out the window so long as the first and last letters are correctly placed and the words are used in their correct context.    I just find that a completely wild concept! 

[Josette]

MB. since you read this somewhere else and didn't write it yourself, I assume I don't need permission to use it elsewhere, but thought I'd mention that I'm going to post it on my WordPerfect forum.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Go right ahead, Josette. According to the article I read, supposedly it has already been posted on over 5000 Web sites. 

[Josette]

An interesting addition - my aunt is blind in one eye and has macular degeneration in the other, so can hardly read anything.  I figured she wouldn't be able to see whole words, which this needs.  But, I tried printing it very large and gave it to her.  She got through a couple of lines and deciphered most of the words.  Of course, when I asked if she realized that they were misspelled, she didn't.  I guess the brain got enough letters for her to get the words without actually realizing that they were wrong.  I think that's even more amazing!

[Patti Feinberg]

(the funny thing is Josette...it was you I was referring to... )

Patti