1953: The History of Unicode

2018-02-09T18:21:00Z

141.101.105.60: fix typo

{{comic
| number = 1953
| date = February 9, 2018
| title = The History of Unicode
| image = the_history_of_unicode.png
| titletext = 2048: "Great news for Maine—we're once again an independent state!!! Thanks, @unicode, for ruling in our favor and sending troops to end New Hampshire's annexation. 🙏🚁🎖️"
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by XEROX - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

An {{w|character encoding|encoding of a character set}} is a mapping from characters to numbers. For example, the letter "A" might be represented by the value 65.
{{w|Unicode}} was planned as a way of representing the various characters used in the world's languages in a single encoding. Prior to Unicode, each script had its own character set. Different characters would be represented by the same value. Some languages, such as Japanese, had several inconsistent character encodings, so before people could send text, they would have to have agreed which character set to use. Unicode attempts to solve this by providing for a single character encoding for all the worlds languages. Unicode is run by {{w|Unicode Consortium|a consortium}} of major technology companies and stakeholders.

The founders of Unicode include {{w|Joe Becker (Unicode)|Joe Becker}}, who worked for Xerox in the 1980s. He wears a beard and may be the character featured in the first and third panels.

New characters have continued to be added, and recently many "{{w|emoji}}" (picture characters) have been added to Unicode. One recently added emoji is the "[https://emojipedia.org/lobster/ Lobster emoji]". It was approved as part of Unicode 11, for release in 2018.

This is important for the US State of {{w|Maine}}, which has a large {{w|lobster}} fishery.
The second panel refers to [https://twitter.com/SenAngusKing/status/961331752718557184 an actual tweet] by a Senator from Maine, {{w|Angus King}}.

The central role of Unicode in setting standards for emoji was not foreseen by the consortium's founders.

The title text imagines that Unicode will gain other unexpected roles in the next 30 years. In particular it acts as an international armed force, capable of intervening in military disputes, such as an annexation of Maine by its neighbour, New Hampshire. The title text ends with three Unicode emoji, "🙏" code point 1F64F "PERSON WITH FOLDED HANDS", "🚁" code point 1F681 "HELICOPTER", and "🎖" code point 1F396 "MILITARY MEDAL".

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[1988:]
:Bearded man: My "Unicode" standard should help reduce problems caused by incompatible binary text encodings.

:[2018:]
:Senator Angus King‏
:@SenAngusKing
:Great news for Maine - we're getting a lobster emoji!!! Thanks to @unicode for recognizing the impact of this critical crustacean, in Maine and across the country.

:Yours truly,

:Senator 🐮👑

:2/7/18 3:12 PM

:Cueball: Wait, what happened in those thirty years?
:Bearded man: ''Things got a little weird, okay?''

[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Emoji]]
[[Category:Unicode]]

==Trivia==
Initial version of the comic has "1998" in panel 3 instead of "1988" as shown in panel 1.

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:1785: Wifi

2017-01-13T09:25:11Z

141.101.105.60:

This, I believe, is in reference to things like [https://www.dd-wrt.com/site/ DD-WRT], where someone with knowledge may install it to 'improve' your router. If done right, it can increase the speed and stability, if not, it can brick it. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.78.70|172.68.78.70]] 05:23, 13 January 2017 (UTC) That's what I thought too! Girish, [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.197|162.158.166.197]] 05:27, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
I installed Hurd on my router dont judge me ok. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.137|162.158.91.137]] 06:14, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

''“In most systems this just works but in the case of more geeky operating systems, like GNU/Linux, it needs to be installed separately.”'' Ironically, it's quite the opposite these days. On a fresh Windows install you typically have no network drivers, but with a lot of GNU/Linux distros you have network out of the box. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.60|141.101.105.60]] 09:25, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1953: The History of Unicode

Talk:1785: Wifi