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community weblog
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Jonathan Chan's multi-year quest to figure out what ⍼ (U+237C ⍼ RIGHT ANGLE WITH DOWNWARDS ZIGZAG ARROW) means finally has an answer.
Part 2: update: U+237C ⍼ ⍼
Part 3: Monotype Mathematical Sorts
Part 4: U+237C ⍼ is (also) S9576 ⍼
[Part 5 (spoilers)]
Part 5: U+237C ⍼ is Azimuth
posted by zamboni on Apr 16, 2026 at 9:33 AM
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It will always be Angzarr to me.
posted by grouse at 9:44 AM
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It symbolizes when I really screw up a chart in Excel.
posted by mittens at 9:51 AM
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ChatGPT told me it's a seahorse.
posted by straight at 10:39 AM
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My guinea pigs told me it's a WHEEEK WHEEEK WHEEEEEK
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 11:21 AM
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The part about sextants being used for measuring azimuth is odd -- while you can measure horizontal angles with them, they are nearly always used to measure vertical height (angle above the horizon). For measuring azimuth (the difference in bearing along the horizon) you typically use a transit or azimuth ring mounted on the ship's compass instead. The only case where I turn my sextant sideways is to measure the angular distance between the moon and sun or other star for calibrating my clock (since I can't afford a fancy chronometer like the Harrison H5 to keep track of the time at the Greenwich observatory).
posted by autopilot at 12:11 PM
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Well I'll be. I would have assumed something weather-related.
posted by jquinby at 1:19 PM
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I'm so glad that people collaborated to help figure it out!
posted by brainwane at 1:30 PM
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Anyone else remember the "Fake Unicode Consortium" account on Google+? I loved that shit but as far as I can tell it's almost completely lost to history. Even the wayback machine snapshots just come up as blank pages. I only still have a few examples.
∱: Unicode Character 'NOW FLIP SNAKE TO COOK OTHER SIDE' (U+2231)
℣: Unicode Character 'LATIN CAPITAL LETTER V COMPLAINING ABOUT LOWERCASE LETTERS THESE DAYS' (U+2123)
posted by Riki tiki at 2:32 PM
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autopilot: The only case where I turn my sextant sideways is to measure the angular distance between the moon and sun or other star for calibrating my clock
If your method of navigation involves plotting lunars by hand like James Tiberius Cook just to keep track of the time then I think you're going to need to change your name to manualpilot.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 2:37 PM
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I don't compute the lunars by hand like some sort of pollywog -- I use a slide rule of my own design that employs the haversine formula to correct the effects of parallax and refraction on the lunar distance given the latitude from the noon sight, and then another specialized scale that interpolates between the hourly distances in the nautical almanac to produce the time of observation.
posted by autopilot at 3:14 PM
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Could give it a modern reboot: it would fit right in with MacOS 26's menu icon nonsense.
posted by mazola at 3:38 PM
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.⍼
posted by egypturnash at 6:49 PM
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Hey it turns out that you can get "U+237C" as a custom license plate in California. I wonder if this would cause a special Unicode flavour of the "NOTAG" plate?
The hard part would be proving that it doesn't trigger and of the Refused Configurations:
1. The configuration has a sexual connotation.
2. The configuration is a vulgar term or a term of prejudice or hostility
posted by flyingfox at 3:25 PM
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Could give it a modern reboot: it would fit right in with MacOS 26's menu icon nonsense.
posted by mazola
An article complaining about the visual elements in an OS, that has a garish yellow background.
If you are trying to read it in Safari on a Mac, and that background is too much for you, then hit Command-Shift-R to give you a much cleaner view via the Reader function.
posted by Pouteria at 8:04 PM
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