zlacker

[return to "What's up with all those equals signs anyway?"]
1. ruhith+Vh[view] [source] 2026-02-03 11:56:40
>>todsac+(OP)
The real punchline is that this is a perfect example of "just enough knowledge to be dangerous." Whoever processed these emails knew enough to know emails aren't plain text, but not enough to know that quoted-printable decoding isn't something you hand-roll with find-and-replace. It's the same class of bug as manually parsing HTML with regex, it works right up until it doesn't, and then you get congressional evidence full of mystery equals signs.
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2. lvncel+Ko[view] [source] 2026-02-03 12:40:16
>>ruhith+Vh
> It's the same class of bug as manually parsing HTML with regex, it works right up until it doesn't

I'm sure you already know this one, but for anyone else reading this I can share my favourite StackOverflow answer of all time: https://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454

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3. josefx+br[view] [source] 2026-02-03 12:59:10
>>lvncel+Ko
I prefer the question about CPU pipelines that gets explained using a railroad switch as example. That one does a decent job of answering the question instead of going of on a, how to best put it, mentally deranged one page rant about regexes with the lazy throw away line at the end being the only thing that makes it qualify as an answer at all.
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4. bityar+K51[view] [source] 2026-02-03 16:18:26
>>josefx+br
But--and this is crucial--the one about regexes is hilarious.

It also comes from a time in Internet culture when humor was appreciated instead of aggressively downvoted.

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5. encom+8v1[view] [source] 2026-02-03 17:59:06
>>bityar+K51
It's because the author put effort into it. Most (online) humour is lazy, low effort, regurgitated meme spam. See: Reddit. It should be downvoted and ideally never posted at all.

This is also the reason why I consider the lack of images in IRC a feature.

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