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Capital i and lowercase L look the same in pretty much any sans-serif computer font

2d 16h ago by sh.itjust.works/u/DeltaWingDragon in mildlyinfuriating

I l

l I

Guess which one is which?

I don't really care about 1, because it's usually different, and I can't be arsed to change the font.

I Il
lI IL

I'm sorry for you Ioss. Was it caused by poor font design?

.:|:;

Is this IOS?

No, this is sans-serif

in that case it's 1 2 2 49, which i prefer over a single L.

Not sure what you’re talking about

People named Al are not necessarily artificially intelligent.

but they could be weird

One of them calls me Betty.

I can be your long lost pal

As a job title: sysadmin

Loathe.

Every now and then there crops up the situation where there is no copy/paste from host to host. And when that involves a fucking product key or some shit... Mother fuckers just base 58 that shit.

What would you rather read and type?

Product key: "I dont fucking know lots of lllllIIIIIIlllIII etc"

Or...

Product key: "CqiDNKttsj1NUubpbVJ2VJL9eMEpRvRFMV3hNPRxtUX7SMox5UQjeEZX3DqqHNAfkSE"

I rest my case.

Please enter your serial number…

One? Ell? Eye? Zero? Oh? Vee Vee Double-U?

Mother fuckers just base 58 that shit.

I'm assuming that this is the point you're making, but just to clarify:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base32

The most widely used[citation needed] base32 alphabet is defined in RFC 4648 §6 and the earlier RFC 3548 (2003). The scheme was originally designed in 2000 by John Myers for SASL/GSSAPI.[2] It uses an alphabet of A–Z, followed by 2–7. The digits 0, 1 and 8 are skipped due to their similarity with the letters O, I and B (thus "2" has a decimal value of 26).

This is generally considered to be a preferable encoding for things like this.

Yeah... No

I didn’t mean RFC Base32.

I meant human-safe alphabets.

Base58 or Crockford Base32 that intentionally remove I, L, O, and 1 (which is distinct from "base 32").

RFC Base32 still hits the exact problem I’m ranting about.

To be clear the (vanilla) base32 version of the aforementioned string:

"I dont fucking know lots of lllllIIIIIIlllIII etc"

Outputs:

"JEQGI33OOQQGM5LDNNUW4ZZANNXG65ZANRXXI4ZAN5TCA3DMNRWGYSKJJFEUSSLMNRWESSKJEBSXIYY="

You can use cyberchef to check for yourself.

This does not solve the problem.

I meant what I'd said: base 58.

In French, il has always looked a bit weird when typed at the beginning of a sentence.

Il y a un I suivi d'un l.

Like "O" and "0" in some fonts. The O is slightly fatter.

In the case of Il, the l is slightly taller. Don't get me started on |.

One reason why they were called grotesque in their early days.

I hate this so much. There are plenty of aesthetically pleasing ways to avoid it. Windows 8 was particularly bad, my recollection was they literally looked exactly the same there, no difference at all. Luckily I only had to use it for a very brief unpaid internship.

How about the Greek question mark: ; I still need to find an opportune moment to prank some collegues with that one.

That is very irritating. Hope you eventually get the chance to use a font that passes the i-l-1 (eye-ell-one) test.

lmL

reaIIy?

i L

L i

Capital i is slightly taller than lowercase L.

Other way around friend capital i is still shorter than lowercase L

Il=iL lI=Li

That's stupid, the capital letter should be taller than the lowercase; and yet that's how it is in almost every font!

I agree that the uppercase I should be larger than the lowercase L, but i disagree that that’s how most fonts do it.

I was saying "that" is how it is.

Other way around friend capital i is still shorter than lowercase L

This is that. I was referring to the previous comment when I said "that", so I agree with you.

Oh, I misread your comment.