glitchr_

glitchr_info

                    ̥ ̥̥ ̥̥̥ ̥̥̥̥ ̥̥̥̥̥ ̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̊̊̊̊̊̊̊̊̊̊̊ ̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̊̊̊̊̊̊̊̊̊̊̊ ̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̊̊̊̊̊̊̊̊̊̊̊ ̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̊̊̊̊̊̊̊̊̊̊̊ ̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̊̊̊̊̊̊̊̊̊̊̊ ̥̥̥̥̥ ̥̥̥̥ ̥̥̥ ̥̥ ̥
          
        

If we take a look at the actual characters of the above string
str.split(//).map(&:ord).to_s
=> [10, 805, 32, 805, 805, 32, 805, 805, 805, 32, 805, 805, 805, 805, 32, 805, 805, 805, 805, 805, 32, 805, 805, 805, 805, 805, 805, 805, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 32, 805, 805, 805, 805, 805, 805, 805, 805, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 32, 805, 805, 805, 805, 805, 805, 805, 805, 805, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 32, 805, 805, 805, 805, 805, 805, 805, 805, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 32, 805, 805, 805, 805, 805, 805, 805, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 778, 32, 805, 805, 805, 805, 805, 32, 805, 805, 805, 805, 32, 805, 805, 805, 32, 805, 805, 32, 805, 10]

Looking at the bulk ok this string, character 805, this appears to be how this character is meant to be displayed. See http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/ipa-unicode.htm, "Non-spacing diacritics and suprasegmentals", it's part of the unicode characters for the International Phonetic Alphabet. It works like that do you can do things like:

[105,805].pack "U*"
=> "i̥"

I think, which makes that 'voiceless' apparently.. I guess it's quirk of being able to display two characters 'on top of each other' that means you can make stuff like that arrow. You can have fun with this in irb:

  [805,805,805,805,805,805,805,805].pack("U*")
  => => "̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥"
  irb(main):033:0> 

Interesting, the symbol displayed changes depending on what encoding you use quite substantially:

  require 'iconv'
  Iconv.list.flatten.each do |enc|
    puts "#{enc}: #{Iconv.conv("UTF-8",enc, [805].pack("U"))}" rescue enc
  end

This is a pretty good read on unicode stuff - http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Unicode.html.