L33t

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(C)Copyright 2018, C. Burke.

1f y0u c4n r34d 7h15, y0u n33d 4 n3w h0bby.

This is Comic #1337, which means "leet" is "leetspeak", which is short for "elite", and was an offshoot of a hacker language that was popular back in usenet in the 90s (and probably earlier, but that's when I got onto usenet). It was a cipher, a secret code, replacing letters with numbers or a combination of symbols. So A could be 4 or @, T could be 7 or +, H might be ][ or |-| or even ]-[. You get the idea, or 1|)34.

Translating wasn't a big issue; it was the typing that was the problem. Plus, different generators have different defaults, which meant that I could pick and choose between them. But I wanted to ASCII (particularly because of the paint program) so I wasn't going to use, say, the registered trademark symbol for 'R'.

I don't think I could have imagined when I did the Roman Elite Guard back in Comic #220 (2009), that I'd still be doing this a thousand comics later!




Come back often for more funny math and geeky comics.