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. :-( 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 :-)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 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 :->