apology + question about wierd chars in mail

apology + question about wierd chars in mail

[Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor]

First, I must apologize for the
antagonistic/disrespectful style to some of my recent
posts. I have had a wierd condition several years
now, which involves, among other things,
a personality change and cognitive problems. 6 out
of 7 days I have it under control because I'm aware
of it and have by now one zillion rules and methods
to reduce it, but the 7th day, it hits me so hard I'm
unaware of it, thinking I'm well, and then why care
about the rules etc? Anyway I don't want to talk
about it but just felt I had to apologize.

OK, as for the question ... I got a mail the other
day:

𝚃𝚊 𝚎𝚗 𝚏𝚒𝚗 𝚋𝚒𝚕𝚍 𝚟𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚓𝚊. 𝙺𝚘𝚖𝚖𝚎𝚏 𝚗𝚎𝚛 𝚏𝚘̈𝚛 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚔𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚒𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚐𝚙𝚗

This shows up as diamonds for me on the Linux VTs
(512 glyphs). It is MATHEMATICAL MONOSPACE...

What is it, why did it appear (I mean broadly
speaking, not that someone sent it to me, I get
that), and can I configure Emacs globally and/or the
Gnus post (article) buffer in particular to
automatically translate (wash) it to, in this case,
"Ta en..." ?

I'll try to solve it, next...

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
https://dataswamp.org/~incal

Re: apology + question about wierd chars in mail

[Yuri Khan]

On Sat, 29 Aug 2020 at 19:52, Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU
Emacs text editor <help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org> wrote:

> OK, as for the question ... I got a mail the other
> day:
>
> 𝚃𝚊 𝚎𝚗 𝚏𝚒𝚗 𝚋𝚒𝚕𝚍 𝚟𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚓𝚊. 𝙺𝚘𝚖𝚖𝚎𝚏 𝚗𝚎𝚛 𝚏𝚘̈𝚛 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚔𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚒𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚐𝚙𝚗

Is that actual mail from someone you know? Or an unexpected message
from a total stranger?

> This shows up as diamonds for me on the Linux VTs
> (512 glyphs). It is MATHEMATICAL MONOSPACE...
>
> What is it, why did it appear (I mean broadly
> speaking, not that someone sent it to me, I get
> that),

Probably because someone who sent it to you didn’t want automated spam
filters to flag it as such.

> and can I configure Emacs globally and/or the
> Gnus post (article) buffer in particular to
> automatically translate (wash) it to, in this case,
> "Ta en..." ?

Why do you care what spam looks like?

Re: apology + question about wierd chars in mail

[Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor]

Yuri Khan wrote:

>> 𝚃𝚊 𝚎𝚗 𝚏𝚒𝚗 𝚋𝚒𝚕𝚍 𝚟𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚓𝚊. 𝙺𝚘𝚖𝚖𝚎𝚏 𝚗𝚎𝚛 𝚏𝚘̈𝚛 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚔𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗
>> 𝚒𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚐𝚙𝚗
>
> Is that actual mail from someone you know? Or an
> unexpected message from a total stranger?

I know the guy well, AFK, it isn't spam. He isn't
a tech person, either, I think his client/device did
it. The message makes sense and is normal. But it
isn't "sensitive", so I thought I'd just post it as
it is. People speaking/reading Scandinavian will
understand it once decoded - it is a normal message.

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
https://dataswamp.org/~incal

Re: apology + question about wierd chars in mail

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Sat, 29 Aug 2020 14:52:36 +0200
> From: Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor <help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
> 
> OK, as for the question ... I got a mail the other
> day:
> 
> 𝚃𝚊 𝚎𝚗 𝚏𝚒𝚗 𝚋𝚒𝚕𝚍 𝚟𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚓𝚊. 𝙺𝚘𝚖𝚖𝚎𝚏 𝚗𝚎𝚛 𝚏𝚘̈𝚛 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚔𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚒𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚐𝚙𝚗
> 
> This shows up as diamonds for me on the Linux VTs
> (512 glyphs). It is MATHEMATICAL MONOSPACE...
> 
> What is it, why did it appear (I mean broadly
> speaking, not that someone sent it to me, I get
> that), and can I configure Emacs globally and/or the
> Gnus post (article) buffer in particular to
> automatically translate (wash) it to, in this case,
> "Ta en..." ?

The automatic part, you will have to set up yourself (not that I know
why would you want to...).  But manually, assuming you have this
"text" in a writable buffer, mark the part you want to "translate",
and say

  M-x ucs-normalize-NFKC-region RET

Re: apology + question about wierd chars in mail

[Yuri Khan]

On Sat, 29 Aug 2020 at 20:18, Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU
Emacs text editor <help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org> wrote:

> I know the guy well, AFK, it isn't spam. He isn't
> a tech person, either, I think his client/device did
> it. The message makes sense and is normal. But it
> isn't "sensitive", so I thought I'd just post it as
> it is. People speaking/reading Scandinavian will
> understand it once decoded - it is a normal message.

You should alert the guy then that he’s writing in an unusual subset
of Unicode. Maybe he installed something that lets him enter extended
characters and forgot to turn it off. Maybe he thinks it’s cute, like
some people started writing in pink Comic Sans once HTML mail became a
thing. Anyway, you should set him straight. It’s a people problem, not
a technical problem.

Re: apology + question about wierd chars in mail

[Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor]

(NOTE: Emacs-w3m question last. Please remove
crosspost as appropriate.)

Eli Zaretskii wrote:

> The automatic part, you will have to set up
> yourself (not that I know why would you want
> to...). But manually, assuming you have this "text"
> in a writable buffer, mark the part you want to
> "translate", and say
>
>   M-x ucs-normalize-NFKC-region RET

That works, thanks. No, I don't know why I wanted
this automatic either! Probably in my confused state
I thought this was something one should get used
to...

The message reads "Ta en fin bild vettja. Kommef ner
för inspektion imorgpn" which has two typos (Kommef
should be Kommer, imorgpn should be imorgon) but it
means "Why don't you take a nice photo? Will be there
tomorrow for inspection"

Well, that didn't happen. Or if he went, I wasn't
there to greet him :)

Människan spår men gud rår :)

Which is:

  engelska: Man proposes, God disposes.
  finska: Ihminen päättää, Jumala säätää.
  franska: L’homme propose et Dieu dispose.
  spanska: El hombre propone y Dios dispone.
  ungerska: Ember tervez, Isten végez.

https://sv.wiktionary.org/wiki/M%C3%A4nniskan_sp%C3%A5r,_gud_r%C3%A5r.

Wierd, that page works in Emacs-w3m but when I get
the URL with `s' (which is w3m-kill-url-dwim in [1] -
uses `w3m-current-url') I get that wierd URL, that
ends with a dot, and that doesn't work - I should ask
this on gmane.emacs.w3m ...


[1] https://dataswamp.org/~incal/emacs-init/w3m/w3m-my.el
    - line 70. the commented out question in the source
    is unrelated to this BTW - don't know if I ever
    asked that, so feel free to answer that as well :)

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
https://dataswamp.org/~incal