Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Always Bet on Text (2014)

graydon2.dreamwidth.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 349 posts

Re: Always Bet on Text (2014)

#151

Post by scroot »

mannykannot wrote: post #147
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…

It is not plausible that, but for the limitations of technology, you could substitute a picture for the argument presented in your post.

Walter Ong said something like (paraphrasing): "If the phrase 'a picture is worth a thousand words' is true, then why does it need to be a phrase at all?"

Re: Always Bet on Text (2014)

#152

Post by criddell »

dmingod666 wrote: post #117
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... :)

If SVG is text, then so is StarWars.mpg.b64.

Re: Always Bet on Text (2014)

#153

Post by fuzzfactor »

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…

>Nothing of this is actually true, period.

Could you kindly verify that by repeating your post using something other than what amounts to a text file?

If not maybe that's an even truer seal of irony.

Re: Always Bet on Text (2014)

#154

Post by Valgrim »

dkersten wrote: post #136
dmingod666 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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... :)

> svg is text. If SVG counts as text, then text is just binary. The encoding is not important, the final result (an image you see on a screen, in the case of SVG) is. Besides, try reading out the actual SVG source text to someone and see if they can tell you what the image you are describing is. I dunno about you, but I find thinking in terms of paths and strokes to be rather meaningless. Or another example, do you c…

SVG is definitely human-readable. It's just drawing instructions, draw a line from there to there, then another one from there to there, etc. I can read it to someone over the phone with a pen and graph paper, and he can draw it exactly like it should be represented, with zero loss of quality. It's no different than someone looking at list of cash transactions. Numbers are text too.

Of course, to extract meaning from this text (what is it?) requires drawing it. But you don't have to, you can just name it. You could just say "I'm sending you the stylised image of a blue bird, with the instructions on how to draw it using the SVG text standard". Or just, more clearly even, the following string of characters: "twitter_logo.svg"

Re: Always Bet on Text (2014)

#156

Post by gmueckl »

koonsolo wrote: post #146
gmueckl wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, GP is right, for a simple reason: look at your input devices. A keyboard and mouse/touchpad combo is most effective at interacting with text. The story would be entirely different if the main interface was e.g. a stylus. A instant messaging service that sends hand written scribbles instead of text follows much more naturally from that.

Some of us are on a desktop computer, all of us are on a mobile phone. You do realize how cumbersome that mobile keyboard is right. With a click of a button, you can record audio and/or video. But still, text messages rule them all. Who sends texts on desktops anyway? A small minority.

No. A lot of people record voice messages, but they need to be in an environment providing enough privacy. But messengers emphasize text heavily in their UIs - again because of keyboards. Keyboard less touch devices are too novel an innovation compared to when instant messaging was cast into its final form.

Re: Always Bet on Text (2014)

#157

Post by VoodooJuJu »

The gist of what he's saying is pretty sound, but he should have gone deeper. For a deeper argument on the importance of "text", the written word, exposition - I recommend reading Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death.

People here are suggesting that images/video are superior, but there's the cliche, "a picture is worth a thousand words". Well, which thousand words? Do they convey the same thousand words to you as they do to me?

Words leave nothing to the imagination. This is one of the most important traits of good exposition. Its arguments/messages are out there, free of the primate dominance gestures, the biases, the emotional stimulants, waiting to be vetted for their logical soundness.

Re: Always Bet on Text (2014)

#158

Post by codethief »

dspillett wrote: post #34
ALittleLight wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm reminded of a story I heard where someone responded to news of a death in the family with what they took to be a crying face, but what the recipients took to be a crying laughing face.

Text can have problems with people guessing what things mean from the situation they first see them (where the meaning is not entirely unambiguous). I've seen a similar story of someone thinking "lol" meant "lots of love" and used it to end messages regarding the death of a family member.

The thing is, with emojis the differences introduced by font designers can be very subtle. In the GP's case, the laughing emoji seemed so much out of place and violated social protocol so heavily that I assume the confusion was probably cleared up later on.

But what about cases where a font designer changes, say, an emoji face with a light, content smile to a shy smile? This has the chance to undermine the entire emotional content of a message, without sender and recipient ever noticing.

For a more concrete example, have a look at https://emojipedia.org/beaming-face-with-smiling-eyes/ . Is it just me who thinks that the glyphs by Apple and WhatsApp show a beaming face with a somewhat sly touch whereas most others simply display happiness?

Re: Always Bet on Text (2014)

#159

Post by numlock86 »

grumpyprole wrote: post #138
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…

Plain text is simple, elegant and has open-standards - it traces its origins back to telegraph codes that we have been using for hundreds of years - and still forms the basis of most of the internet now. So I am inclined to agree with the statement "text is the most powerful, useful, effective communication technology ever, period".

Please elaborate how text is most powerful (in which aspect anyway? define powerful) and most effective (surely it isn't or text wouldn't be the prime example for stuff that's good to compress).
Post reply on HN