Sam Heywood wrote:
>You don't put a descramber on your telephone in order to try to understand
>a caller who speaks to you in some language other than the one you
>normally use at home.
A but that language differs (my father is a bit "crazy" <g> (not really
just funny)). Currently it's swedish, but saturday (I think) it was german
for a while. We've also tried talking English but since noone understands
it well (which was the point of using it) but me (they even have problems
understanding ex. Bill Clinton) that was dropped soon as well. BTW: my
father is the only one that talks german in any reasonable way.
Anyway, to get back to the phone. I once called a friend (I was 11 at the
time IIRC - or I had just had my 12th birthday) and when someone picked up
in the other line it was someone speaking English. Now, I don't want to
brag or anything but I think I handled it rather well. Apparently my friend
had given me the wrong date for when he was coming back and the people that
lived in the house they had borrowed in Italy was staying in theirs.
>Why should you have to install a code page on your
>computer to view a written message the same way as your correspondent wrote
>it? It should not matter what language it is written in. Anything that
>gets transmitted in the clear should appear on the receiving end the same
>way as it looked on the sending end. If this is not happening, then there
>is a problem.
But things get over correctly.
You just have to remember that a computer doesn't send/recieve chars, it
recieves bits (1 and 0). These get transported correctly and "appear on the
receiving end the same way as it looked on the sending end" (not 100% true
but we'll assume so here - voltage doesn't apply for the explanation). How
the diffrent programs then interpret the combinations of 1 and 0 is another
thing entirely. Just as I can interpret a song in one way and you in
another. The notes and lyrics are still the same, but how we interpret them
are probably diffrent.
A better analogy would probably be that Geri Halliwells "Live and Let Die"
is interpreted diffrently by her (and various people around) than Paul
McCartney (and various people around - Linda for instance) did. Then if you
and I listen to one of these (I only have Geri's version) we can interpret
it diffrently.
The code page (or programs) is like Geri/Paul and you and me are the same
as you and me (for instance you might find this explanation and analogy
extremly stupid, while I might agree with you - or not <g>).
//Bernie
http://bernie.arachne.cz/ DOS programs, Star Wars ...
