Communications Breakthrough

 

                     Communications Breakthrough

                     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Because you can't see the person who is sending you electronic mail you

are sometimes uncertain whether they are serious or joking.  Recently,

Scott Fahlman at CMU devised a scheme for annotating one's messages to

overcome this problem.  If you turn your head sideways to look at the

three characters :-) they look sort of like a smiling face.  Thus, if

someone sends you a message that says "Have you stopped beating your

wife? :-) " you know they are joking.  If they say "I need to talk to

you :-( ", be prepared for trouble.

Since Scott's original proposal, many further symbols have been proposed:

 :-)     humor.

 :->     humor variation.

 %-}     humor variation.

 }:-)    devilish grin

 :-(     sad.

 :-<     sad variation.

 %-{     sad variation.

 :_)     tongue in cheek

 :-!     foot in mouth

 <:-)    for dumb questions.

 (:-)    for messages dealing with bicycle helmets.

 (8-)    for messages dealing with owls.

 d:-)    for messages dealing with baseball.

 d :-o   hats off to your great idea

 q:-)    for those who wear their caps backwards.

 @=      for messages dealing with nuclear war.

 o>-<|=  for messages of interest only to women.

 ~=      a candle, to annotate flaming messages.

 oo      for somebody's head-lights are on messages.

 ;-)     say no more, nudge nudge.

 :-$     put your money where your mouth is

 >:->    leer

 ;-}     leer? (terminal dependent)

 |-<>    kissy face

 :-|     man playing an harmonica

 O:-)    for those innocent souls

 [:|]    from a robot (or other appropriate AI project)

 :>)     from someone with a big nose

 :<|     from someone who attends an Ivy League school

 :%)%    from someone with acne

 =:-)    from a hosehead

 :-)8    from someone who is well dressed

 #-)     from someone who partied all night

 %-\     from someone hungover

 :-*     from someone who just ate a sour pickle

 -:-)    from someone who sports a mohawk and admires Mr. T

 :-'|    from someone who has a cold

 :-)'    from somone who tends to drool

 ':-)    from someone who accidentally shaved off one of his eyebrows

 8:]     from a gorilla

 (:)-)   from someone wearing scuba mask

 P-)     from someone getting fresh

 |-)     from someone who is falling asleep

 .-)     from someone with one eye

 :=)     from someone with two noses

 :-D     from someone who talks too much

Miscellaneous:

 (-:|:-) Siamese twins

 :~/     Really mixed up

         the invisible man

 {:\/    sounds like a duck

 .\/     duck variation

 :-0

 |:-O

 %+{     from the loser of a fight

   ___

  /   \

 | RIP |

 |_____|    from someone who is dead

 -------

So you see, bit-mapped displays are really quite unnecessary :->