!!~expr evaluates to false when expr is -1 otherwise true.
It is same as expr != -1, only more cryptic.broken*
It works because JavaScript bitwise operations convert the operands to 32-bit signed integers in two's complement format. Thus !!~-1 is evaluated as follows:
-1 = 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111b // two's complement representation of -1
~-1 = 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000b // ~ is bitwise not (invert all bits)
!0 = true // ! is logical not (true for falsy)
!true = false // duh
A value other than -1 will have at least one bit set to zero; inverting it will create a truthy value; applying ! operator twice to a truthy value returns boolean true.
When used with .indexOf() and we only want to check if result is -1 or not:
!!~"abc".indexOf("d") // indexOf() returns -1, the expression evaluates to false
!!~"abc".indexOf("a") // indexOf() returns 0, the expression evaluates to true
!!~"abc".indexOf("b") // indexOf() returns 1, the expression evaluates to true
* !!~8589934591 evaluates to false so this abomination cannot be reliably used to test for -1.