I worked at a startup that had a shared bathroom with a keypad on it. Somebody had the brilliant idea to tell the new guy the bathroom code was a 16 digit number. It worked because the only respected the last 4 digits to match the passcode. Everybody memorized the 16 digit code and made sure they entered it in when going to the bathroom when the new guy was around. The prank went on long enough that people wanted to see how long they could keep it going.
It was eventually spoiled when someone from the neighboring company witnessed the new guy entering the 16 digit code and pointed out the code was only 4 digits. As this was happening, it was witnessed by one of the architects and his cry of "NOOOOOOOOOOOO" could be heard throughout the floor.
I think it's due to the fact that the human brain does not work linearly, like a lexer. It recognises patterns of letters. And once you've seen the word 'pranker', it's hard to un-see. I think it's a particular problem with web addresses because you know there will be several words joined together without spaces, so you're already starting by trying to identify clumps rather than reading words. Plus web addresses often contain made-up words.
Or it could just be that these days people just scheme through text. Just reading from left to right, you'd auto complete 'startup' and honestly without another 'p' ranker auto completes itself too. Which is why I am inclined to think that people are just scheming through words now.
The brain does not read linearly from left to right, letter by letter. Unless you're 3 years old, you see a word and parse - or rather, pattern-match - it as a whole. And the matches depend heavily on whatever is in your head (that's how context and anchoring work).
I too, initially, read it as "startup pranking", even though there's only one "p" in the domain name.
I'm not sure that 'scheme' is 100% the word you meant to use (perhaps you meant 'skim'?).
People don't read from left to right. The same way that they don't press individual letters on the keyboard (think about it, if you're typing at 100 WPM you can't think of every single individual character at that speed).
A perfect example is Spritz. Try this. I managed to comprehend at 700 WPM. No way my eyes could move at that speed. It works because of pattern matching.
If a lot of English speakers parse the address incorrectly, then the fault lies squarely with the address. "You people are reading it wrong!" just doesn't fly :)
Heh it really says something about the current macro tech environment when that URL is misread and then everyone is actually disappointed when the site loads and it's not about startup idea pranks.
very basic question. where does the list of startups come from and how do you know what country a startup belongs to? making a list like this is harder than you think, so im curious to hear how these guys address it.
I worked at a startup that had a shared bathroom with a keypad on it. Somebody had the brilliant idea to tell the new guy the bathroom code was a 16 digit number. It worked because the only respected the last 4 digits to match the passcode. Everybody memorized the 16 digit code and made sure they entered it in when going to the bathroom when the new guy was around. The prank went on long enough that people wanted to see how long they could keep it going.
It was eventually spoiled when someone from the neighboring company witnessed the new guy entering the 16 digit code and pointed out the code was only 4 digits. As this was happening, it was witnessed by one of the architects and his cry of "NOOOOOOOOOOOO" could be heard throughout the floor.