Why UTF-8/16 character encodings?

[Peter Williams]

On 29/05/13 09:57, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 09:33:32AM +1000, Peter Williams wrote:
>> On 28/05/13 19:12, Jacob Carlborg wrote:
>>> On 2013-05-28 08:00, Manu wrote:
>>>
>>>> Is there anywhere other than America that doesn't?
>>>
>>> Canada, Jamaica, other countries in that region?
>>>
>>
>> Last time I looked Canada was in America (which is a continent not a
>> country). :-)
> [...]
>
> If you say that to a Canadian to his face, you might get a hostile (or
> faux-hostile) reaction. :)
>
> Up here in the Great White North, we like to think of ourselves as
> different from our rowdy neighbours to the south (even though we're not
> that different, but we won't ever admit that :-P). And yes, "America"
> means USA up here (and "American" especially means USian, as distinct
> from Canadian), even though we all know that technically it refers to
> the continent, not the country.

Last time I was there (about 40 years ago) Canadians didn't seem that 
touchy. :-)

Peter