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Tag Archives: the ridiculous

Keyboard layouts

Have you ever wondered about your keyboard layout?  I mean, you’ve probably noticed slight differences from keyboard to keyboard, especially between laptop keyboards because they’re always moving things around based on the size of the laptop.  But have you ever considered the differences between a US keyboard layout and other countries?  I mean countries that use a Latin/Roman alphabet.  Have you considered that they would be different?

I never really gave it much thought until recently.  The other day, JoAnn (fabric and craft store) was having a sale and texted me a coupon code.  The text said that I could save 5 euros off my purchase of 35 euros or more.  This isn’t the best sale ever, but that’s not the point.  The point is that they said I could save 5 EUROS.  Or really, what they said was I would “get €5 off your purchase of €35 or more!”

This was really confusing to me.  I live in the US and JoAnn is based in the US, so why are we talking about euros?  The US dollar is our official currency.  I suppose it’s possible that JoAnn wanted to use a global currency.  It’s true that there are more Euros than US dollars in circulation now (in terms of cash value), but I’d say an approximately equal number of countries still have their currency pegged on US dollars and euros and no one currency dominates as the global currency.  Also, JoAnn doesn’t have a presence in any of the countries in the European Union (where the euro is used).

So, I was thinking that maybe this form of social media was being farmed out overseas (which would be ridiculous) and that whoever was typing up these messages was using a non-US standard keyboard.  But…that doesn’t really work.  I took a look at keyboard layouts thinking that there were big differences between keyboard layouts.  There aren’t.  There are three major standards for keyboard layouts, one for the US, one for Japan, and one for the rest of the world (the US and Japan are special, I guess), and they all involve the $ sign over the 4.

US standard (ANSI-INCITS 154-1988)

Japanese standard (JIS X 6002-1980)

Worldwide (European) standard (ISO/IEC 9995-2)

You’ll see that the worldwide standard also involves an Alt Gr command to insert the euro sign.  So, if this person typing up the message had a European standard keyboard, it’s possible that this person could have inserted a euro sign in place of a dollar sign without a bunch of ridiculous keystrokes à la Unicode.  BUT, the euro key and the dollar key still share the same physical space on the keyboard.  It’s just a matter of pushing the shift button or the Alt Gr button.  I don’t really think that’s an excuse to use the euro sign over the dollar sign when sending out a message to customers IN THE US.

Now, I did say that I received this coupon code via text.  I suppose it was possible that this person used a phone to text their client list.  If so, I think JoAnn seriously needs to reconsider how they sound out these messages.  Using a phone to text large numbers of people the same text is kind of ridiculous.  But anyway, if they were using a phone, it still doesn’t make sense to use the euro sign.  This person would have been in the US to text, to save on texting costs, and that would mean using a US standard phone.  That means the dollar sign is much easier to get to than the euro sign.  The euro sign is there, but you’d generally have to go through a few menus to get to it, whether or not you have a hard keyboard or soft one.

This saving of €5 off your purchase of €35 or more remains a mystery.

In other news, now you know that the three major standards for keyboards don’t really look that different.  It’s still in QWERTY format and big changes are normally solved using overlays and new function keys.  The the biggest differences are on the right side of the keyboard with differently shaped/positioned enter keys, backspaces, and possibly extra function keys.  Tada!

Also, in researching the euro sign, I found out that early versions of Comic Sans included an eye in the symbol!

I really wish they kept it.  By the way, did you know that Comic Sans wasn’t originally developed to be a font for distribution?  It was supposed to be “speaking voice” of Microsoft Bob assistants.  But Microsoft Bob was scrapped and somehow Comic Sans made it out into common usage, where it gets a lot of hate.  People are weird.  And I still wish they kept the eye in the euro sign.

Soap: The Miracle Cure

Welp, today’s post has been derailed due to some furious, last-minute clothes shopping the night before.  You see, my boss thought it’d be fun to schedule a client interview for me today.  Of course in Thousand Oaks.  It is my most favorite place ever (I don’t really have a problem with Thousand Oaks).

But in preparation for this interview, which my boss said would be a formal interview but I should dress semi-formally (I DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS), I had to go out and buy something that would be suitable for said interview.  Mostly a top.  The one I wore originally for my interview with THEM has mysteriously disappeared.  I was also trying to figure out how get out of wearing a blazer.  I dislike blazers.  They’re so confining.  So…there was the matter of some kind of sweater or something.  What do people wear to formal interviews that are semi-formal?  Gah.

Anyway, here’s this thing (that is ridiculous) I found before about foot cramps.  It’s a relevant topic because…people’s feet will cramp.  Actually, I started thinking about this when I was going through the prednisone taper, which caused a lot of cramping that time.  And then it had gotten really cold and dry, both of which can contribute to cramping (because cold slows your circulation and dry provides a higher chance of dehydration).  So…there you go.

Soap.  It is the miracle cure to cramps.  Apparently, if you put a bar of soap, probably unwrapped, close to where you cramp, the cramp will go away.  I cannot say if this is true or not, but there is an online store that sells bed soap.  Because normal soap gets away from you sometimes when you’re tossing and turning.  They also sell soap slivers to stick in your socks for foot cramps because it would obviously be difficult for you to stick a whole bar of soap in your sock (I’m wondering why the soap doesn’t lather up when your feet start sweating).

From what I’ve seen, it looks like people always use a new bar of soap.  Maybe used bars of soap aren’t effective.  Their magical cramp relieving properties are washed away in the shower, I guess.  And I guess you can’t cut the soap to size because it’s the whole bar of soap that is effective, regardless of size.  If you cut the bar of soap, you have reduced effectiveness.  And…I guess people don’t go to hotels that often so they can’t steal the little bars of hotel soap.  I guess.  Therefore you have to go buy bed soap and sock soap.

Oh, here’s another reason why cramps and soap is relevant.  I had to get new shoes for the interview too.  The heels that I had worn were…not the most appropriate of shoes.  I just tried to push on through with them anyway.  But I figured if I have to do this often, I might as well get appropriate shoes.  And have you ever tried to wear heels that were too small or too narrow or too high?  Especially if you’re used to wearing steel-toed boots all the time?  Your feet sometimes will start cramping.  Yup.

Anyway, while searching for decent heels that I would be willing to wear, I found…these.

kitty heels

(Links back to source)

T.U.K. apparently has this whole line of shoes, heels or otherwise, that are cat themed.  I am trying to figure out what occasion these are for.  My guess is that they are not for semi-formal formal interviews.  They are vegan friendly though.

OH HEY!  If you decided to use the soap method to ward off cramps and your feet started sweating while you were walking around in these cat shoes, maybe it would start foaming and then you would have rabid cat shoes!  …I still don’t know what occasion it’s for though.