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Always Bet on Text (2014)

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Re: Always Bet on Text (2014)

#111

Post by openlowcode »

jen20 wrote: post #101
koonsolo wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah come on, this is not accurate at all. We have tons of tech now: audio, video, charting, etc. Circles are pretty easy in powerpoint or any such software. The tech is obviously here already. But still, why do people prefer sending chat texts instead of calling or video calling? Surely not because of tech.

In my case because of the asynchronous nature of text versus vide or voice calls. An effective compromise is voice notes in modern messenger systems, which preserves asynchrony while also allowing the expressiveness of speech.

Imagine you have to communicate something precise to me and I am stuck in a meeting:

- you send me a picture, it may be ambiguous;

- you leave me a voice call, I have to go out of the meeting room to listen to it

- you write a message, it just works. If there is info to use, I will easily copy your message in any application (Excel, Word, SAP...).

Also, text can be stored easily, so I will keep an archive of your text, probably far less an archive of your voice message or diagram, as they are very heavy.

Re: Always Bet on Text (2014)

#112

Post by zests »

virgilp wrote: post #8

I would like to add that text, as a thousand-years-old-technology, has always included illustration too. Even in recent/digital text, you have this bird that doesn't take 4k bytes: [edit: unfortunately hackernews doesn't display the unicode character U+1F426] Text is very powerful, but it doesn't need to always work by itself (arguably works best together with other media)

Here, try this bird: 𓅭

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_Hieroglyphs_(Unicode_...

Re: Always Bet on Text (2014)

#114

Post by cycomanic »

koonsolo wrote: post #98
robenkleene wrote: post #88

The question is whether these advantages are because text is a better communication medium, or because of the limitations of our technology? Take using a computer to type a word versus draw a picture: Effectively everyone who uses a computer can type a word, but I'd bet less than 10% could draw a circle. But put a piece of paper in front of someone and effectively everyone can draw a circle. This points to there bein…

Ah come on, this is not accurate at all. We have tons of tech now: audio, video, charting, etc. Circles are pretty easy in powerpoint or any such software. The tech is obviously here already. But still, why do people prefer sending chat texts instead of calling or video calling? Surely not because of tech.

Actually I would argue that people send texts despite it often being highly inefficient. It often takes an infuriating amount of text messages to agree on something that would only take a 2min call. It's just we're so used to sending chats.

Re: Always Bet on Text (2014)

#115

Post by ajconway »

LocalH wrote: post #91
ajconway wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Emoji are modern hieroglyphs. It's just an additional means of conveying meaning. > font designers now have control over the way I get to express my emotions This could have been a major issue, but media platforms recognized it and have provided their own pictograms for years, mostly compatible with each other.

They have a valid point, however. What is now widely considered to be a "water gun" emoji started out as an actual gun, but Apple decided at one point that they were going to be "progressive" and changed it to a water gun. To me, this upends the entire idea of emoji having a stable definition.

Words don't have stable definitions either. My point was that there is nothing special about emojis any more than there is about Chinese characters or Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Re: Always Bet on Text (2014)

#116

Post by aaron695 »

> We can read texts from five thousand years ago,

What's interesting is pretty much all file formats are still readable (The media they are stored on is often not)

If you have the file it should be readable with a program you can find on Google.

On topic, No, although the article might be technically correct the biggest thing holding back many consumer products is lack of ability for non-text.

Signal had massive issues for years because it didn't have emoji. Now it's up with the rest. It's so much easier now you can copy a photo from Signal.

Like all these apps it needs work, like where's my real gun emoji. But they'll get there.

Re: Always Bet on Text (2014)

#117

Post by dmingod666 »

numlock86 wrote: post #93

Apples and oranges. The post states that the used Twitter logo PNG is 4000 bytes, while it's only 723. Try to express that logo in text, English language and in all its details with 723 characters, so you are able to reproduce a pixel perfect representation. Not even possible with 4000 characters anyway. Don't bother. Text will be ambiguous, unless you describe every single detail. If the target is to communicate "Tw…

well, svg is text. The jpg/png icon will pixelate when zoomed, but svg will retain its quality no matter how much you zoom in... :)

Re: Always Bet on Text (2014)

#118

Post by everdrive »

robenkleene wrote: post #88

The question is whether these advantages are because text is a better communication medium, or because of the limitations of our technology? Take using a computer to type a word versus draw a picture: Effectively everyone who uses a computer can type a word, but I'd bet less than 10% could draw a circle. But put a piece of paper in front of someone and effectively everyone can draw a circle. This points to there bein…

A circle doesn't usually convey very many ideas, though. Words can.

Re: Always Bet on Text (2014)

#119

Post by [deleted] »

powerapple wrote: post #68
mihaaly wrote: post #63

Text is not the oldest - nor easiest to use -, text is a heavy abstraction born somewhat recently in human history. The oldest and easiest is the visual in 3D, then comes the visual in 2D. Those exist since we have eyes. Our brain have dedicated and sizeable infrastructure for that. Children can communicate in 3D (gestures, posture, expressions, objects) and in 2D drawings before learning textural communication with…

The reason human knowledge develops so fast is the existence of text. If we rely on visual in 3D we will be the same as other animals. Apparently now we are behaving badly since we are consuming videos and pictures rather than text. I believe text is superior because of its abstraction, when you read, you are creating alongside the author.

[deleted]

Re: Always Bet on Text (2014)

#120

Post by naringas »

the phonetic alphabet is a brilliant invention. made by thousands of people over thousands of years.

the least studied 'character' of this alphabet is the most imporant, the most critical character in any phonetic alphabet is the blank space. withoutitphoneticwritingsdoesnotmakesasmuchsesnse.

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