Gregory's Serverthe most important part of #Unicode history is when a mouse fell out of a light fixture and got added to the count of members present at a Technical Committee meeting (9 Nov 2016)
 80 comments
SnoopJ
P.S. if you are reading this set of silly posts and know of a good "narrative history" of Unicode (or text standards in general!), I would love to read one. I'm interested in the sort of prose you might read in the 'History' section on Wikipedia, but essay/book length. Bonus points for organizational context, i.e. going through what the Consortium is and how its sub-units are structured, how proposals work in general, etc. 
Farce Majeure
@SnoopJ 1980, so predates Unicode, but: https://textfiles.meulie.net/bitsaved/Books/Mackenzie_CodedCharSets.pdf
Farce Majeure
@SnoopJ not exactly narrative... There's a bit of narrative history in "code": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code%3A_The_Hidden_Language_of_Computer_Hardware_and_Software
Ben Companjen
@SnoopJ I would be interested too! I remember a short television documentary (Dutch TV or Netflix) showing efforts to get the trans flag and white wine emojis accepted. I think there were a few sentences about the history that got me interested, but I didn't go look for more.
Ben Companjen
@SnoopJ https://avdt.vpro.nl/browse?layout=episode_timeline&layoutParam=theme&filter=%7B%22tags%22%3A%5B%22recGlcUNVMVrmDkdA%22%5D%7D&episode=recJQWTbAsMW8lReg&mode=simple is the tv programme that I was thinking of. It's in Dutch, but interviews are in English.
wouter bolsterlee
@bencomp @SnoopJ search for ‘unicode’, or use this direct link: https://avdt.vpro.nl/browse?episode=recJQWTbAsMW8lReg
barry dorrans
@SnoopJ when the next security stuff comes out I’m now worried my snark will be in the minutes 😬
Tim Panton
  
Deezy.exe stopped unexpectedly
@DamonWakes @SnoopJ
Marie
@DamonWakes @SnoopJ From the rest of the notes, Mouse seems to represent 0.002 of a Member. Members of the UTC are, I guess, usually companies. I'm not sure which company is a half-member. 
fraggle
@Chip_Unicorn @jamuraa @DamonWakes @SnoopJ 3000 mice in a trench coat voting for addition of the Mouse King emoji
SnoopJ
@jamuraa @DamonWakes I believe the way it works is that full or institutional members of the Consortium who are representing at the committee have a full vote, supporting members have a half vote, and other membership levels do not have voting power (with the exception of Mouse). There's a table of attendance at the bottom of the notes that suggests to me that the half vote at this meeting is from EmojiXpress
Joan of Cat (she/her) 😼
That's George from IBM. Horrible elevator accident. He survived, but he's missing the bottom part of his body.
Unsigned Long -> Furpoc
@jamuraa @DamonWakes @SnoopJ There's a table on that page listing the members represented, seems like EmojiXpress is a "Supporting Member" instead of a "Full Member" and probably counts as 0.5
Andrew Pardoe
@DamonWakes @SnoopJ I read this as a joke reference to the MOS 6502 processor, a legend amongst microchips.
Joan of Cat (she/her) 😼
I was wondering that too. A mouse is DEFINITELY not 0.5 of a person, let alone 0.502. My guess is that the mouse was like 0.043. Which means, we've yet to account for the missing 0.459 of a person!  
Jennifer Kayla | Theogrin 🦊
Let no one state that they're unwilling to acknowledge active representation by a party who is clearly invested in the proceedings. 
Scott Jampa
nyami
@SnoopJ @0xabad1dea The mouse has 0.002 votes on the Consortium, which is more than me! How many votes would a cat have?  
Joël Franusic
Steven R. Loomis
Steven R. Loomis
@jpf @SnoopJ Food is often an important part of hosting a gathering, and this is no exception. The north campus had no cafeteria, and some great restaurants but not in walking distance, so the food was trucked in from 555 Bailey. I had to do some analytics to figure out how many brownies or sodas to seat out each day, etc.
Steven R. Loomis
@jpf @SnoopJ Facilities (we were a tenant) was aware of a persistent issue where mice, looking for a place to go, would somehow get into vents and climb up into the ceiling. Had to make sure not to leave food out and so on. Anyway, I didn’t see the mouse fall out of the ceiling but I was glad it didn’t fall on someone, or worse. It landed in some marinara sauce. The lid was closed, and the whole container taken outside where the mouse was released.
Steven R. Loomis
 
Chris Bohn
@SnoopJ I'm trying to decide if that particular fraction was chosen to get "6502". Was it suggested by the Apple representative? 
aismallard (relocated!)
@SnoopJ Wow the mouse came all that way to attend the committee meeting, and they immediately resolve to have it exiled??
Charlie Galvin
@SnoopJ That was no mouse! That was your agent from Rodential Insurance. “Own a Piece of the Maze!”
Maverynthia🌱
"Thursday, November 10, 2016 Meeting opened at 9:36 am. 6.002 members represented: Adobe, Apple, Google, IBM, Microsoft, UCB, Mouse" Mouse still in the house. 
Chloe Raccoon
@SnoopJ @VulpineAmethyst Hah! This is so great, I'm reading it in tom "grumpy emoji expert" scott's voice... ;) |
bonus fun fact: the same meeting notes indicate that the committee discussed a proposal (L2/16-329) for adding a Klingon script (pIqaD) to Unicode
https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2016/16325.htm#149-A103