Date:  25 November 1982 10:15 mst
From:  Lippard.DSOP (James J. Lippard)
Subject:  Miscellaneous Digest V1 #32
Reply-To:  misc
To:   (Miscellaneous Mailing List)

Miscellaneous Digest                              Volume 1 : Issue 32

Today's topics:
		Communications Breakthrough (5 msgs)
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Date:  25 November 1982 10:13 mst
From:  Lippard (James J. Lippard)
Subject:  Communications Breakthrough

The following four messages are from the Human-Nets Digest.
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Mail-from: Arpanet host CMU-10A rcvd at 10-NOV-82 0826-PST
Date: 10 November 1982 1126-EST (Wednesday)
From: James.Morris at CMU-10A
To: csl^ at PARC-MAXC, isl^ at PARC-MAXC, junk^ at PARC-MAXC
Subject: Communications Breakthrough
Message-Id: <10Nov82 112614 JM90@CMU-10A>

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 here:

(:-) for messages dealing with bicycle helmets
@= for messages dealing with nuclear war
<:-) for dumb questions
oo for somebody's head-lights are on messages
o>-<|= for messages of interest to women
~= a candle, to annotate flaming messages

So you see, bit-map displays are really quite unnecessary :->
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Date: 15 Nov 1982 11:42:37-EST
From: csin!cjh at CCA-UNIX
Subject: re [tone-of-voice in graphics]

   I ran across a variant of this some 20 years ago in, of all
places, READER'S DIGEST; the symbol -) was used to mark
tongue-in-cheek comments.  For clarity I expanded it to ( -), with
(occasionally) ( - ) (less bulky on a typewriter with a half-space
key) for serious material; this prompted one punster to suggest
(- -) for treachery.
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Date: 20 Nov 1982 0109-EST
From: Andrew Scott Beals <RMS.G.BANDY at MIT-OZ at MIT-MC>
Subject: someone otta keep track of ``communications breakthrough''

thingies. (i.e. @= for nuclear war messages)

or at least the new ones should be posted to HN -- i'd like to have
as full of a list as possible. it's been more than once that i've
been burned for losing humor in my messages...
                                        -andy |->  (late night)
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Date: 18 November 1982 08:58-EST
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM at MIT-MC>
Subject: Communications Breakthrough -- sideways facial pictures

This may be a dumb question <-) but how do I remember which way to
turn my head? Also, it doesn't matter which way I turn my cap falls
off. Couldn't you find a way to add those digital comments in the
normal vertical orientation?

        /\
       /  \
      /    \
     --------
     ( O  O )
    !(  ..  )!
    !!( -- )!!
    !! wwww !!
    !!/ ww \!!
/----/      \----\
!                !
!   !        !   !

(Yeah, I know, you can't tell whether that hair is exactly shoulder
length or is longer but hidden from view, and the cap isn't tall
enough.)

<Leave Silly Mode>
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End of Miscellaneous Digest
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