Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Twitter logo in SVG format is only 687 bytes and can be as large as you like: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9f/Twitter_bird_...
SVG is XML, which I'd say counts as text.
it's not consumed as text
Always Bet on Text (2014)
261–270 of 349 posts
Re: Always Bet on Text (2014)
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
HN doesn't render ASCII or ANSI art correctly however both methods can serve as representation of Twitter in text and graphic less then ,~ ('v)__ (/ (``/ \__>' hjw ^^ Twitter Bird kindly borrowed from: https://www.asciiart.eu/animals/birds-land
That does not even remotely represent the Twitter logo, though. Shape and color are completely lost information, which are essentially the key properties that make the Twitter logo the Twitter logo.
Valid point.
Re: Always Bet on Text (2014)
#263Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do PNG files reduce in size over time?
Not by themselves, but maybe they didn't use an optimiser before. Or used a far better optimiser now. Or tweaked the logo, and now it's more amenable.to optimisation.
The author says in the post that it's a 20x20 image. That's only 400 pixels, and 4 bytes per pixel (RGBA) would only make it 1600 bytes with no compression at all.
Re: Always Bet on Text (2014)
#264The first comment is interesting:
"Send me a link to a news story that turns out to be a video, or an audio file, and I’ll close it unconsumed: I haven’t got that kind of time. Send me a transcript: I’ll finish reading in half the time it would take me to passively sit there while it played, and I’ll more clearly remember it."
The author is ok with sitting and staring at the article because it's faster. What he misses is that it forces you to actually be in a position / context where you can read from the screen.
Personally I have been giving a lot of though about balancing how I consume content. Text vs audio. Walking / exercising or whatever instead of reading.
I don't believe we should optimise on "time to consume" but rather "healthiness of consume".
Re: Always Bet on Text (2014)
#265Earlier quoted context omitted.
> XML still survives, though. The tooling is good. If you type XAML or HTML in the right editors, it's serves the purpose competently and without drama. HTML isn't XML, though XML was inspired by HTML and HTML has an XML serialization. IIRC, some or all of the versions of XAML aren't, strictly, XML either, merely XML-derivedl0
> XML was inspired by HTML No. HTML used to be "an application" of SGML. Meaning HTML brings a profile for SGML features (formerly, an SGML declaration determining things such as allowing tag inference and other minimization) plus a DTD grammar. Though HTML has also quirks for script/style elements, and URLs. OTOH, XML, like SGML, is a markup meta-language and a proper subset of SGML (also with a fixed SGML declarati…
> > XML was inspired by HTML
> No. HTML used to be "an application" of SGML.
The “No” is wrong. It's true that HTML used to be an SGML application, but that doesn't contradict that XML was inspired by HTML.
Specifically:
(1) First, HTML was an SGML application.
(2) Then the Web took over, making HTML a very popular SGML application.
(3) Then, inspired by the design of HTML, but seeking broader application without the complexity of unconstrained SGML, XML was created.
Re: Always Bet on Text (2014)
#266Apples 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…
Compare a book (a few megs) with a picture of the same size. What do you think can communicate more info? Do you have a single counter-example?
The beauty of both mediums is in the compression.
Text is that it's highly compressible while also being highly compressed (and lossy) info already. To make text we have to filter our own ideas, and then to interpret text we have to add a bunch of info back from context.
Pictures have the same tricks up their sleeve. Bitmaps are great but inefficient. If we put it through a lossy compression, it's a lot better. If we make it semi procedurally with a vector file, it's even better. How far can we take a compressed procedural file though? Well.. .kkreiger was about 97 KB, and stores a full 3d shooter. For a meg, you could store 100 such full games. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.kkrieger
Text isn't best in every way. With clever design we can use all the same principles that make text efficient, and make other types of data more efficient. It is a very good default though.
Re: Always Bet on Text (2014)
#267Earlier 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... :)
If SVG is text, then so is StarWars.mpg.b64.
Some SVG is very readable and easy to modify. I'm no designer but I've opened up SVG files and made modifications to get what I want (remove elements, change colors, etc).
Not all SVG authoring tools make SVG's easy to read/modify. Tools in the 90's used to the same thing with HTML. Are you going to argue HTML isn't text?
Re: Always Bet on Text (2014)
#268As usual, context matters. If you're trying to convey complex thoughts about abstract matters, then language is the way to do it. If you are trying to convey deep emotional states, then a photo or video is probably better. You cannot convert the 1st amendment into photos, and you cannot convert the Mona Lisa smile into words.
Just try to use words to describe either of these photos and see how they fall short:
https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2015-10/19/1...
https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2015-10/19/1...
Between recorded voice and written text, I personally prefer written language. I like the ability to consume at my own pace, go back and re-read tricky bits, and easily search or quote. Plus it's much easier to use TTS to convert text to speech than the other way around (at the moment). Maybe someday technology will remove this boundary but currently that's my stance.
Re: Always Bet on Text (2014)
#269I think the one weakness of text is context. In 2,000 years, if someone finds an inscription reading "Thanks Obama", what will they make of it? They'll might know that Obama was a president of a country. Without context it would be hard to tell if this was 1) genuine sentiment 2) snarky criticism or 3) ironic. Good luck with "Covefe" or whatever.
My point is that context matters a lot, and (I assume) that it can only be reconstructed through a lot of text.
Re: Always Bet on Text (2014)
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not by themselves, but maybe they didn't use an optimiser before. Or used a far better optimiser now. Or tweaked the logo, and now it's more amenable.to optimisation.
The author says in the post that it's a 20x20 image. That's only 400 pixels, and 4 bytes per pixel (RGBA) would only make it 1600 bytes with no compression at all .
Then that's quite some impressive, uh, decompression.