Hidden ascii art in page source of BarackObama.com | Hacker News Reader

Hidden ascii art in page source of BarackObama.com

barackobama.com

17 pointsandygcook15 comments

  # curl -s http://www.barackobama.com | head -30 | tail -24
  <!--
                .:+uuuuuuuuuuu+:.
            ./sssssssssssssssssssss/-
         ./aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa/.
       .+uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu+.
     `/sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss/
    `aaaaaaaaaaaaa:-`       `-:aaaaaaaaaaaaa.
   `uuuuuuuuuuu/.               ./uuuuuuuuuuu.
   sssssssssss.                   .sssssssssss`
  -aaaaaaaaaa`                     `+aaaaaaaaa:
  uuuuuuuuuu.                       `uuuuuuuuuu
  ssssss-```                         ```-ssssss
  `       ....aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa....       `
  ...+uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu+...
  -ssssssssssssss+//-```                  `````
   aaaaa+/:-`            ...aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
   `/-``        ..::uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.
          .:/+sssssssssssssssss-```      ````
       /aaaaaaaaaaaaa+/:-``       ...aaaaaa
       .+uuuuuuu/:-``        .-:/+uuuuuuu-
         ./s/-`         -:+sssssssssss+.
                    -/aaaaaaaaaaaaa+-`
                .:+usausausausa+:-
  -->

I'll spoil it for anyone who hasn't figured it out. It's in the page source. In the beginning of the page, after the Doctype string and the lines for older versions of Internet Explorer, there is an ASCII art image of the Obama "O" logo.

Edit: And it's done with the letters u, s, a, and just a few kinds of punctuation marks. (Thanks to stephanerangaya.)

Further edit: No obvious easter eggs in the source of the Mitt Romney campaign page. I am disappoint.

It's funny how they did it using the letters USA

Woah good catch, didn't even notice that in the first glance!

And my mind somehow interpreted it as "ASUS". Weird.

Off-topic, but I just discovered that Safari does not have a "view source" command. It's like Apple is trying to lose my respect. :-/

Can you turn it on by going to Safari -> Preferences -> Advanced and then checking "Show Develop Menu"?

Also off topic: I don't know how to turn off image loading in Chrome (on Mac). It's like Google is trying to lose my respect. :-/

Menu -> Settings -> Advanced -> Privacy -> Content Settings -> "Do not show any images"

Okay, I feel better knowing that it's one configuration change away. The Internet had lead me to believe that I needed to download a plugin to make this work. :-/

That said, their fancy source navigation tool breaks the formatting of the ascii art. :-(

They decided recently this is a developer feature, so you have to enable the "Show Develop menu" feature (in the "Advanced" pane of Safari's preferences window).

This irritated me at first, but then I recalled the time my dad (accidentally) viewed a website's source, and how perplexing it was to him.

First he wastes my tax dollars and now my bandwidth?!

/sarcasm

This. But without the "/sarcasm". :)

Looks like a few of you are a bit politically sensitive! ;)

I do not think that it was Obama who coded it so it is kind of irrelevant to me.

trying to win over the geeks now.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com