#octothorpe

[itshungreysuzuki]

facts about ren:

he doesn’t like needles, has gotten better on HRT

hates sedatives, doesn’t like the sleepiness

prefers usage of distress scale since his pain scale baselines at 3 at all times

has two “personas”

the first persona is all hard, sharp edges, like a tortoise shell with nails duct taped to it. it deters scientists, but can freak out his friends. he only speaks when spoken to, but will snap when threatened. meant to protect the self and others.

the second persona is tame and soft, forcefully so. it is complacent and docile, lowering suspicion at a mental cost. it is a shield, and a hostage at once, to keep others away from prying eyes.

his true self is pretty messy, full of empathy and compassion, but also primal anger, and anxiety. he’s kinda broken, but he’s a sweetheart when he feels safe otherwise he’ll default to instinct.

[just-my-insufferable-existance]

I've got new followers (mutuals? (I'm old and crusty)). I have a hunch that it's only because I added the SEO hashtag in one of my posts.

[thephilosophicalengineer]

The thing that annoys me the most is I once found an excellent story regarding the name of this symbol, but in 2006 Douglas A. Kerr rewrote an article on his blog, removing the punchline. Now I can't find any reference to it on the internet at all, so I can't even prove that I didn't imagine it, but anyways, the rest of the article is still there on his blog at dougkerr.net/Pumpkin/articles/Octotherp.pdf

You might note that the title of the post is "Octotherp" and not octothorpe: that's because that was the original name coined!

To paraphrase the article, in the 50s, the Bell Telephone Laboratories invented the tone dialling telephone (replacing the older pulse signal rotary dials with a tone signal push buttons). They decided early on that they wanted a 12 tone system, which would correspond to the numbers 0-9 plus two buttons, a star and a diamond.

However, Douglas was already seeing a relationship between phones and computers already, and pushed for the characters to be an asterisk and a hash, as a hash symbol leans right and the negative space in the middle is a diamond.

But, when Douglas presented his characters to the committee, he didn't use their names, just presented them as '*' and '#'. Shortly after the decision was made to use these symbols, two friends from Bell Laboratories John Schaak and Herbert Uthault invited him out for lunch where they, dismayed that the # didn't have a unique typographical name, coined the term "octotherp", based solely that the 'th' sound in the middle was missing in some languages and would be difficult for some people to say.

Here's where the existing article diverts from the one I originally read: the first article targeted a specific person at Bell Laboratories with a lisp that would struggle the most with this new word. However, this newer article seems to have dropped off that, and left it as a nebulous "'th' [] does not appear in German and several other languages and thus might be difficult for users of those languages to pronounce, which would serve them right."

(which given the surnames of the two friends, is rather funny)

Nevertheless, the article continues that Kerr would introduce the word in all his memorandums to the field about the tone-dialing decoders, that "...it responded to the codes for the digits 0-9 and the special characters '*' and '#', [with a] footnote that read, 'sometimes called octotherp.'"

Soon enough, they were seeing non-Bell publications refer to octotherp, often with invented etymological explanations.

Somehow over the years the word has morphed into octothorpe, and that's what gets spread around today.

The article finishes off by saying, according to the ASCII standard, the symbol's real name is "number sign".

Good evening. My detestable Zoomer child just called my beloved Pound Symbol (#) a "Hashtag". Any Suggestions on how I could punish such insolence? I've already Obliterated all of her favourite toys.

[klikomo]

Interesting facts #53

[flarmbt]

Am I thorpin

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Morbi aliquam laoreet metus, id elementum tellus vulputate et. Mauris eros est, pulvinar vitae condimentum ac, laoreet tincidunt sem. Proin vel lacus mattis libero varius iaculis. Morbi rutrum porta tristique.

[doubleduchessdesign]

hashtag#bringbackoctothorpe

[trainwrecklikehawkeye]

Ah, ye olden days. You see, children…long ago, around the grand and terrifying turn of the century, we had phones like this. We had texting limits on our flip phones so Every Text Was Sacred. And, of course, we had the T-9 texting form. We had no keyboards, no fancy touch screen. To make ourselves seen, we must sacrifice our souls and hit the buttons until our letter came up on the tiny screen. (Woe…when we went to far and had to scroll through again) See, you think things like LOL, rn, omw, etc… are part of internet/phone culture without knowing why, but we crawled so that you, my precious child, could run screaming into the void.

#octothorpe #poundsign #hashtag

I need a little help here

[encyclopediaofuselessfacts]

Useless Fact #37

The real name for the # symbol is octothorpe.

[sadgirlart]

[itshungreysuzuki]

I made a few new characters for my story + new concepts

Warren is a hollower (a character who represents a trauma, the aftermath, or the after effects), who takes the form of an anthropomorphic jackrabbit with a plain brown coat. His “area” resembles a warm field of grass, surrounded by mud, old, broken pick up trucks, and a small cabin. He represents distrust, or wariness towards others to prevent harm. Warren is blind, a consequence of a fight against a stronger hollower. Warren also owns various riot guns, sound-oriented, and will shoot indiscriminately.

The Sigil system is a sort of magic, in the Depths (subconscious lucid dream realm where subconscious takes form). Sigils require markings, which call upon certain strings of code. Markings also represent its user with basic shapes (ex: the proxy symbol can represent a marking), alongside travel symbols, which are more complex to help differentiate, often related to path finding or hazards. The strings of code are based off HTML.

Sigil-types;

- Healing, easy to learn, a few examples of sigil users of this type include the Surrogate. These commands use the code in DNA to resolve the injury. Users (who can summon their marking with a hand) usually have stronger “magic”, and usually have a power relating to healing, (I.e. Surrogate capable of quick regeneration to the point where limbs regenerate in minutes) or abilities of a similar caliber. These commands can also work in alternate paths, such as forcing bones to break, or manipulating the body to the user’s wishes. Also known as physical sigils, as these sigils can be used in a physical space by anyone (mainly the healing ones) or relate to physiology. The consequences of these commands is fatigue, and bodily pains.

Ex: <repair>

<!—area of damage is lower right forearm (aka the arm attached to ur wrist). the parts of the body are sectioned off for ease, like torso, shoulder, forelimb, thigh, calf, etc.—>

area: forelimb-ls-r;

<!—damage-family relates to the time of damage (i.e. “burn, tear, perforation, fracture, etc., etc.). a value is then assigned akin to triage to determine the strength of healing, the strongest value is 8, which instantly regens up to half of the human body+anatomy. 3 is quite strong on its own, to show healing commands aren’t always needed—>

damage-family: burn-3;

<!— this is the area of the wound, for specific injuries so as to not command the whole damn limb. 1px = 0.1 in for size. —>

width: 38px;

height: 74px;

</repair>

<!—This command is used to heal physical damage, such as cuts, and broken bones. For illnesses and infections, other commands are used—>

-Psychic, extremely powerful, but unpredictable due to Ren’s damaged psyche which can cause sigils to backfire. Usually can only be harnessed by stronger entities such as Higher Depthborne or hollower connected to stronger feelings. Commands can be used to manipulate an area familiar to the user, and used to create small, powerful items, such as gates that block off chunks of the area (chunks equate to a 500x500grid of the area, depending upon size), or summon homunculi, creatures that can follow simple directions (do anything if you can explain it to a 7th grader). Sigils are nonphysical, and most users rarely use commands due to instability. The trick is to remain clearheaded with the command in mind to avoid syntax errors. The Caretaker uses psychological commands, mainly to keep Ren from progressing. Other abilities include influencing nearby thinking creatures’ thoughts, telepathy, and basically every ability associated with the Absolute Solver except modifying one’s body. The effects often drain its users, resulting in mental exhaustion, sensitivity to loud noises, and anxiety. Due to its fluidity, based on both HTML and CSS (violent screaming directed towards flex-box).

-Base Sigils, aka all the subgroups. Basically the two above are the main Sigil groups (manipulate mind or body not both, both are scary). Extremely unique, based on the user, which can range from being able to use leech commands or change the properties of specific items. Usually they’re weaker, and often work alongside the user. Such examples include teleportation, or could be a specific skill that becomes enhanced, such as carnekinesis (manipulation of flesh á la Cyn).

All sigils can be used to harm or help everyone. A psyche-Sigil user can use telekinesis to help distract a Sentinel for their packmates to sneak by without hurting anyone, or crush it into a gory mess. A phys-Sigil user can be valuable for healing, but they aren’t nurses. They can break bones by looking at someone, cause burns without ever using flames, and make sickness.

Archivist Cecil is a warden for Ren. She is characterized as a low energy lunatic, sarcastic, and patient, yet capable of snapping, alongside a dark sense of humor. She wears metal goggles with orange lenses, which double as her glasses, with carbon-fiber pull straps, a white labcoat, and some sort of shitty t-shirt on top of some nice long pants. The t-shirt may or may not read “Scourge of God” in red comic sans with flams around the text, alongside an image of Serial Designation V from Murder Drones, drinking a can of gasoline. She hates it here and wants to leave but the facility won’t let her. Her kid has also been sent here so that if she incites another specimen rebellion, they will kill him, alongside using him to observe the exposure to specimens (positive). She’s also a fully transitioned woman. Cecil is also born to French-Australian parents, and had a husband (killed/silenced by Tadano for leaking sensitive documents about the specimens). His name was Silas Giuseppe, who majored in subhumanology (study of specimens).

Neat tidbits:

-Bisexual

-Freckles. Tons of freckles.

-Long, shaggy black hair with a small strand of stark white hair in her bangs.

-Coffee addict

-She’s basically an underpaid social worker turned found mother, but if her wards were her children.

-Jokes about her “kids”/wards.

-Slightly cringy/Out of pocket, shits given: none

-Suffers from Long Covid symptoms, and the existential horror of how all the specimens in her care will die eventually as part of a vicious cycle that neither she nor her son are immune.

-Allows Ren to steal files for his research, since she is desperate for her son’s safety. Therefore she lets him get everything he needs

Kelsey is Arch. (Pronounced “ark”) Cecil’s son. He’s almost the spitting image of his mum, and wears a special necklace, currently barring him from any and all experimentation besides Project Deltarune. He’s 9, reads in the rec room, and sleeps in a tent inside the laundry room of the specimen dorms (he likes the noise because specimens are schizo when it comes to the times when they do laundry). Kelsey finds most of the scientists mean, and doesn’t really feel connected with other humans. He also has a minor fear of sentinels (finds them scary). He has his mother’s dark hair, eyes and freckles. The specimens see him like a mutually owned cat, and they all refer to him as “Tess”, except Ren, who calls him “Critter”. Kelsey’s more energetic like his dad, enjoys engineering, and likes listening to specimens infodump. He also carries an emotional support Serial Designation N. He’s also still naïve and Ren takes it upon himself to make sure Kelsey’s at his happiest.

[tarofel]

OCTOTHORPE GANG, KILL

[ricks-fallen-angel]

One of my favorite fun facts is that the original name for this symbol # is “octothorpe”

Reason 1. Just say it. Octothorpe! What a fun and silly word!

Reason 2. On two glorious occasions many years ago I had the opportunity to listen to a boomer rant about kids these days being so stupid that they call a pound sign a hashtag and how they shouldn’t use slang, to which I had the honor and delight of responding that the patented term is octothorpe, and both pound and number sign are simply boomer slang

[rlewisphilly]

What Hashtag should I use?

An Octothorpe? For hundreds of years, it was a sign suggesting you go “pound” it.  Bell Telephone added this to your phone in the 1980’s, when voice mail became a “thing”.   Today it’s a hashtag used on most Social Media. I saw one in a store, it weighted a pound and was a little sharp.  (one funny for music fans).   I ponder how to “hashtag” this blog post?

[ricky-mortis]

S1 Pulp Musicals Gang my beloved

[crumb4]

comic experiment about suffering