˙ǝʇɐpdn ʞooqǝɔɐɟ ɹo ʇǝǝʍʇ ɹǝʇʇıʍʇ ‘ʇsod ƃoןq ʇxǝu ɹnoʎ uı ǝuo sıɥʇ ɥʇıʍ unɟ ǝɯos ǝʌɐɥ ‘spuǝıɹɟ ɹnoʎ ɹoɟ ɥƃnouǝ ǝʌıssǝɹdɯı puɐ ƃuısnɟuoɔ ʇ’uǝɹɐ sʇɥƃnoɥʇ uʍo ɹnoʎ ɟı
(If your own thoughts aren’t confusing and impressive enough for your friends, have some fun with this one in your next blog post, Twitter tweet or Facebook update.)
It’s not voodoo – its a simple combination of equivalent English characters (where a p is an upside down d and vice versa), and Latin Unicode characters. But don’t worry, you don’t have to do it all by hand. Visit the Upside Down Text generator at WhatIsMyIp.Org, and just type your right-side-up text into the box. The generator will automatically convert your text into the upside down version.
Keep in mind, the upside down text will probably not work in many chat programs, since the chat programs don’t recognize the Unicode characters, but it can be fun for blogs and social network updates.
For the curious geeks, if you’re wondering how they do it, it’s a simple string replacement javascript. View the source of the generator to see exactly what’s happening, but this bit does the bulk of the work (I didn’t include the entire thing – you get the idea.):
[sourcecode language=’jscript’]var flipTable = {a : ‘\u0250’,
b : ‘q’,
c : ‘\u0254’,
d : ‘p’,
e : ‘\u01DD’,
f : ‘\u025F’,
g : ‘\u0183’,
h : ‘\u0265’,
i : ‘\u0131’,
j : ‘\u027E’,
};[/sourcecode]
As you can see, it’s simply going through each character and replacing it with either the English upside down version (d to p, p to d) or the Unicode.
More Text Tools
WhatIsMyIP.Org also hosts several simple (but actually useful) text tools as well, including a list of the HTML for special characters, a text date to timestamp converter, a text case changer (makes text all uppercase, all lowercase, title case, etc), a regex tester, a password generator, etc. And of course, their homepage shows you the IP address of the computer you’re currently using, which is utterly useless for many people but an absolute godsend for techies in specific circumstances.
