asdf is a beautiful arrangement. At asdf.com, a gathering place for devoted followers, asdf is introduced as follows:
asdf is the key sequence you type when there’s no subject.
asdf likes jkl;.
asdf is the first four letters you learn when practicing typing.
asdf is free.
asdf is what happens to fads.
asdf is nothing.
asdf just is.
asdf is green?
asdf is worth 8 points in Scrabble (a board game where players spell words with letter tiles to score points).
asdf is the title of an unwritten zine.
aoeu is asdf’s cousin.
asdf is a four-letter word.
asdf should be capitalized, but isn’t.
asdf is a significant difference.
asdf could be this,
asdf could sound like this?
Among those who try to assign all sorts of meanings to asdf and embed it in their own memories is Min Guhong. He gives asdf a specific significance as part of the very first step in creating a website: adding a <div id="asdf"></div> element as a direct child of the <body> tag.
This act suggests a possibility—that the center of a web page may be nothing more, or less, than a quietly meaningful asdf.
Min Guhong also once wrote about asd, a variation of asdf, in his piece Three-Letter Stories:
The keyboard on the first typewriter, invented by Milwaukee-based newspaper editor Christopher Latham Sholes, was arranged alphabetically. But to his friend James Densmore, this layout was flawed. It wasn’t suited for stenography, and typing sequential letters that were too close often caused the typebars to jam. A new layout was needed.
The story behind the now-standard QWERTY layout, once accepted as fact, is now regarded more as folklore. We don’t know exactly how Sholes rearranged the keys, but QWERTY eventually became the standard, and through the keyboards of early personal computers, it became the most common layout in use today.
If you’re sitting in front of a computer, lean back in your chair and place your index fingers on the F and J keys—the ones with raised bumps. This marks the default posture for most computer users today. Unless you’re typing hunt-and-peck style, you can use those bumps as a kind of Braille to locate keys without looking down. Your eyes stay on the screen, your hands on the keyboard.
From your left pinky to your ring and middle fingers, you’ll find ASD—some of the easiest keys to type. That’s why, in today’s computer environment, they’re often used for various purposes. In usernames, they suggest a dismissive attitude—”whatever.” In chat, they show that you have nothing to say, or nothing on your mind. (Of course, anyone who’s ever used a chat knows that asd isn’t the only way to say that.) Sometimes, someone might even title their writing about ASD. Whether or not there’s really that much to say is another story.