All the Unicode characters in order. Yes, it's more interesting than it sounds
The Unicode character set is one of the great unsung heroes of computer technology, allowing people around the world to use computers in their own languages.
Because modern computers were developed by English-speakers, for a long time computers were Anglophone-centric, using the limited Ascii character set (which is why you sometimes see strange characters on websites where non-Ascii accents - é - or signs - ` - have been used). Unicode fixes that by allowing several language sets inside a single font.
Artist Jörg Piringer has made a video of it - each character in the set is displayed, one frame at a time.
There are 65,535 available characters, of which 49,571 are used, so the whole video is around half an hour long. It may sound boring, but with the soundtrack (of which more after the jump) it's strangely hypnotic:
The Metafilter thread in which I read about it points out that the soundtrack, which sounds at first like the random thumps of a drum pad, may actually be the sound of a voice reading each letter but being cut off almost as soon as it begins.
It's oddly reminiscent of Autechre, which gives me a good if tangential excuse to post the band's song Flutter below. Flutter was on the 1994 Anti EP, released to protest the same year's Criminal Justice bill which proposed to criminalise (after a fashion) music with 'repetitive beats'. So Flutter doesn't have any repetitive beats at all. Enjoy:
Feeling like a beginner again
While researching a news story I started up my copy of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview in a virtual computer....
Top 5 unexpectedly dangerous animals on Wikipedia
We know to avoid snakes, spiders and sharks but they're not the only members of the animal kingdom...
Adventures in 3D printing with the Sculpteo iPad app
How much would you pay for a miniature coffee cup with a profile picture of your face on it? What if...
Making the move from inkjet to laser
After nearly 11 years of faithful service, my HP 930cm inkjet printer finally couldn't take it any more...
by David Mitchell on Making the move from inkjet to laser
by Dev priya on Making the move from inkjet to laser
by michel on Making the move from inkjet to laser
by Lynnrose on Lots of online storage for Microsoft Skydrive
Select committee will look at issues such as broadband demand in the UK
A technology for downloading files. Allows even very large files to be downloaded quickly.
|
|
|
|
|
Computeractive Excel (2010) Online tutorialPrice: £19.99 |
Computeractive Word (2010) Online TutorialPrice: £19.99 |
Computeractive Powerpoint (2010) Online TutorialPrice: £19.99 |
Angry BirdsPrice: £9.99 |
Back Issue CD-Rom 14 (2011)Price: £15.99 |