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Only hackers would try to reimplement the alphabet. I can't decide whether I should be proud or embarrassed.
Take a look at the shavian alphabet for another interesting take on written text.
I wonder if typography can exist within a writing system like this?
I find shavian particularly interesting since it is based on phonetic pronuncation with which I've had many issues and embarrassments!
I feel compelled to write up a summary of the comments here and responses to each one: > This is useless. Who cares? It's super cool! > This is not well-suited for use case X. Did you read the page? It's so great that someone thought of this and did it. > This has been done before. SUPER. COOL. > It's hard to read. I don't know what you aren't getting about this. > What if it implemented improvement X? I don't know,…
I feel like HN should implement a "positive-only" or "constructive-only" flag for posts, whether set by posters or moderators. Perhaps all Show HN. Start to experiment, see what sticks.
Mean comments allowable:
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15For people interested in non-latin methods of writing I would suggest checking out shorthand writing as well as the shavian alphabet. I find shavian particularly interesting since it is based on phonetic pronuncation with which I've had many issues and embarrassments!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Definitely proud. Why embarrassed?
Because the hubris of tech people to think something like "hey, trillions of humans have collectively decided over a few thousand years that the latin alphabet hits a pretty good sweet spot in human communication. I bet they didn't consider how readable it is, though. I can do better than all of them," is wearing thin. This came up in the Robinhood checking thread a few days ago. "Do you really think that you're goin…
I don't know all the fancy names for logical fallacies but this seems to be deliberately misrepresenting the argument. The website clearly states that the problem with the Latin alphabet is that it has to be able to be written efficiently as well as read. Your trillions of humans over a few thousand years have had to both read and write this alphabet. In the past few hundred years we've had technology that allows someone who made a huge investment to produce massive amounts of text without writing, and in the past few decades the ability to produce text without writing has become completely ubiquitous. Does it still make sense for this alphabet to optimize for hand writing? Are you arguing that the constraints that made the Latin (or any handwritten) alphabet have remained unchanged over thousands of years? They want to redesign an alphabet to fit modern constraints. We consume a lot of text on devices that need to have screens that fit in our pockets. Perhaps a two-thousand year old alphabet isn't still the optimal solution?
I also don't think the authors necessarily expect to disrupt anything. They just made something cool and put it on the internet. I'm happy people like this exist.
I feel compelled to write up a summary of the comments here and responses to each one: > This is useless. Who cares? It's super cool! > This is not well-suited for use case X. Did you read the page? It's so great that someone thought of this and did it. > This has been done before. SUPER. COOL. > It's hard to read. I don't know what you aren't getting about this. > What if it implemented improvement X? I don't know,…
I feel like HN should implement a "positive-only" or "constructive-only" flag for posts, whether set by posters or moderators. Perhaps all Show HN. Start to experiment, see what sticks.
George Bernard Shaw worked out a new alphabet too. Tolkien built a language for books about goblins and elves. I can't image how they would be greeted. But perhaps it's just a bad day or hour or something.