[efuquen]

Ha, that was one of my favorite answers. When I started reading the question I kept thinking, you know he must of pulled that number out of his a* * (as Musk likes to say). Had a huge smile when I read him admitting it.

Edit: If anyone knows how to get a double asterisk in an HN comment would be grateful for the knowledge, was forced to add the unnecessary space. So far tried the HTML number code, which didn't work, and the help has no guidance.

[JacobAldridge]

Asterisks * * (in Arc? Or just on HN?) is used to start and end italics, so has a tendency to disappear. I'm surprised to learn you got them with the space - seems to do that when there's nothing to italicise.

[jacquesm]

  You could try this:

  test ** test

  But you'd be stuck with the fixed width font.

  The formatting page is not much help either:

  https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc

  Maybe something like

  \*\* 

  could be done.