The Great Unicode Conspiracy: How Codepages Ruined My Life

Once upon a time, in a land where computers were the size of refrigerators and had the processing power of a modern-day toaster, the world was a simpler place. Back then, we knew that computers were invented in the English-speaking world, and we didn't care to write without our accents and Ç and whatnot. Life was good, and our keyboards were blissfully devoid of any unnecessary characters. But then, one fateful day, a woke executive in Silicon Valley decided to unleash a horror upon us that we never asked for: codepages.

Yes, dear reader, codepages. The so-called "inclusiveness" that was supposed to make our lives easier but instead turned our keyboards into a battlefield of unwanted characters and annoying configurations. Suddenly, we had to deal with a keyboard that had a Ç key, which was always an extra annoyance to configure. And don't even get me started on the times when I had to boot up a Linux rescue disk. It was like entering a parallel universe where nothing made sense, and my keyboard was a cruel joke played by the tech gods.

But the nightmare didn't end there. Oh no, my friends. The tech overlords decided that codepages weren't enough. They had to go one step further and give us Unicode. Yes, Unicode, the ultimate weapon of mass confusion. Now, the entire world had to code around all possible different cultures, even the ones that are literally backwards (as they write right to left, backwards, pun intended).

Imagine my horror when I first encountered Unicode. It was like opening Pandora's box, but instead of releasing all the evils of the world, it unleashed a torrent of characters that I never knew existed. Suddenly, my keyboard was a chaotic mess of symbols, letters, and punctuation marks from every corner of the globe. It was as if the Tower of Babel had been rebuilt, but this time in digital form.

And let's not forget the endless hours spent trying to make sense of it all. I remember the first time I tried to write a simple program using Unicode. It was supposed to be a straightforward task, but instead, it turned into a Herculean effort. I had to navigate through a labyrinth of codepages, character sets, and encoding schemes, all while trying to keep my sanity intact. By the end of it, I felt like I had aged a decade and lost a few brain cells in the process.

But the real kicker? The fact that all of this was done in the name of "inclusiveness." As if the world was clamoring for more characters and complex configurations. I mean, who needs a simple, easy-to-use keyboard when you can have one that's a constant source of frustration and confusion? It's like trading in your reliable old car for a shiny new one that breaks down every other day.

So here we are, living in a world where Unicode reigns supreme, and our keyboards are a testament to the folly of tech executives who thought they knew better. We've traded simplicity for complexity, and in the process, we've lost a little bit of our sanity. But hey, at least we're inclusive, right?

In the end, I suppose we have to accept our fate. We may never go back to the good old days of simple keyboards and straightforward configurations. But we can take solace in the fact that we're not alone in our struggle. There are countless others out there, battling the same codepages and Unicode characters, all in the name of progress. So let's raise a glass to our shared misery and the great Unicode conspiracy that brought us all together. Cheers!