Monday, July 27, 2009

It's All Cyrillic (KOI8-R) To Me

Sometimes when I'm at my computer at work, having a mental fart, I start clicking on the right side of my mouse. For the most part my options do not become too exciting. Should I go "Back"? I'm not able to go "Forward"; that option is grey. But oh, what's this? It's a black arrow next to "Encoding." My hand subliminally guides my mouse to this arrow. It is clearly the most rewarding option. Another screen comes up! Suddenly I have five more options: "Auto-select," "Western European (Windows)," "Unicode (UTF-8)," "Western European (ISO)," and finally, teasingly, "More." There is another black arrow next to "More." What could this "More" be?

I drag my mouse across "More," and suddenly a whole new world opens up to me! What language should I choose? "Arabic (ASMO 708)" or "Arabic (DOS)"? Perhaps "Cyrillic (DOS)"? Or maybe "Cyrillic (KOI8-R)"? Or "Cyrillic (KOI8-U)"? What do you suppose this diffference is? And how come there's no "Baltic (DOS)," only "Baltic (ISO)" and "Baltic (Windows)"? Is Estonia not good enough for DOS? And look at this: "Hebrew (ISO-Logical)" and "Hebrew (ISO-Visual)." Hmm. Do I want to celebrate Passover logically, or visually? Do I wimp out and pick "Chinese Simplified," or do I go hardcore and take "Chinese Traditional"? Finally, sandwiched between "Turkish (Windows)" and "Vietnamese (Windows)" is "User Defined." Dear God. Could I create my own linguistic internet universe? Could I defy the laws of time and space, all with the right click of my mouse? Or maybe I could just upload some Farsi software? I prefer to think I could do the former.

1 comment:

Herr Zrbo said...

ISO visual is the way Hebrew is written, from right-to-left. ISO logical translates that to left-to-right.

You must be pretty bored at work.