offtopic, but how'd you get an emoji in a HN comment??

(maybe it doesn't get stripped bc the flag is encoded as [U][K], two "letterlike symbols" but still it's the first time i've seen one!)

Quite a lot of emoji are allowed on HN. I once saw someone make a post enumerating them all.

I guess it is probably because most people are using desktops/laptops to browse HN. I feel like Emoji use on QWERTY keyboards is harder/less common. It is possible though: 🇺🇳

On a Mac, if you have the input menu enabled in the menu bar, selecting "Show Emoji & Symbols" will pop open a palette allowing you to put all kinds of things into pretty much any text input.

System Preferences → Keyboard → Show input menu in menu bar

i was referring to the fact that last time i checked, HN stripped emoji. hold on let me check:

edit: yeah, my cat got removed :/

I guess they're distinguished by unicode block: the regional indicator letters are "Enclosed Alphanumeric Supplement", and emoji are "Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs". still not sure why remove them though

Can you see my UN flag? I also posted one of their easter island faces but that got stripped.

But I had to zoom right in to see which flag it was. So it fails as a flag.

actually no, i can't! it just shows "U N" in a bold blue capital letters, which explains some of the confusion i guess. (Android 7.0)

On Windows you can hit Win+; to pull up an emoji keyboard!