this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2024
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.
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The "Internet" and many foundations of networking originated in the US, but the Web, which is what I'd wager many think of when you say "the Internet", was invented in Switzerland by a British man.
I wager you'd be right, but most people are wrong.
I'm saying that everything is built on foundations that are fundamentally English and American, and this influenced even Berners-Lees's creation. HTTP and HTML were fundamentally ASCII. DNS and the WWW eventually evolved broader encoding support, but it's clearly tacked-on and awkward. All you need to do is look at URL encoding rules as proof.
I'm not saying it's right; I'm just saying there consequences of an English, American-centric design of what underlies all computer technology today is evident at all higher levels, no matter how hard we try to mask them.