Frodo Morris <graham.lee[at]invalid.wadham.oxford.ac.uk> wrote:

> Frankly I don't care what other people on Usenet look like; maybe I
> spend too long around people IRL for it to really matter much.

X-face isn't about what people look like, it's about identity. If you
were able to see x-faces, you would see that very very few are actually
faces. Think of it more like an icon or an avatar, that people use to
represent themselves. When you're flicking through reading a thread, and
you see an x-face in your peripheral vision while reading the post, you
don't have to read the headers to see who it's from, your brain has
already opened the file for that person and is appending this new post
to what is already stored about that person.

Despite knowing what Richard Grant looks like, if I meet him IRL I will
be a little surprised that he doesn't have orange and black stripes.

--
Pd

In article <1fxisit.g9kexiebpbr5N%pd.news[at]dsl.pipex.invalid>,
pd.news[at]dsl.pipex.invalid (PeterD) wrote:

> Despite knowing what Richard Grant looks like, if I meet him IRL I will
> be a little surprised that he doesn't have orange and black stripes.

And I'm amazed you can get that information from a monochrome x-face . .
.. ;)

--
Richard P. Grant | It's called a bio-assay -
0x5F9559B1 | If enough of your customers die,
www.rg-d.co.uk/ucsm/ | you know there is something wrong.
www.rg-d.com/BioLOG/ | - Adrian Tuddenham on ucsm

PeterD wrote:
> Frodo Morris <graham.lee[at]invalid.wadham.oxford.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>
>>Frankly I don't care what other people on Usenet look like; maybe I
>>spend too long around people IRL for it to really matter much.
>
>
> X-face isn't about what people look like, it's about identity. If you
> were able to see x-faces, you would see that very very few are actually
> faces. Think of it more like an icon or an avatar, that people use to
> represent themselves. When you're flicking through reading a thread, and
> you see an x-face in your peripheral vision while reading the post, you
> don't have to read the headers to see who it's from, your brain has
> already opened the file for that person and is appending this new post
> to what is already stored about that person.
>

Perhaps I've just been reading for long enough that I can recognise the
shapes of words and associate them quickly enough with names that I
don't need additional info, then. Especially when looking for regs in
froup postings, as their names are more immediately recognisable and I
don't even have to consciously read them (this also explains the number
of 'Literal Democrat' votes in the Portsmouth constituency in the 1980s).

Besides which, another Peter wrote earlier:

> Now, I suppose I'm going to change every week now...

Errors notwithstanding it looks like the X-Face is, in the wrong hands,
pretty crap as an avatar as well. What's the point of a quickly
recognisable icon, if you can't recognise it?

--
FM

"Frodo Morris" <graham.lee[at]invalid.wadham.oxford.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:3F04240A.7060705[at]invalid.wadham.oxford.ac.uk...
> PeterD wrote:
> > Frodo Morris <graham.lee[at]invalid.wadham.oxford.ac.uk> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Frankly I don't care what other people on Usenet look like; maybe I
> >>spend too long around people IRL for it to really matter much.
> >
> >
> > X-face isn't about what people look like, it's about identity. If you
> > were able to see x-faces, you would see that very very few are actually
> > faces. Think of it more like an icon or an avatar, that people use to
> > represent themselves. When you're flicking through reading a thread, and
> > you see an x-face in your peripheral vision while reading the post, you
> > don't have to read the headers to see who it's from, your brain has
> > already opened the file for that person and is appending this new post
> > to what is already stored about that person.
> >
>
> Perhaps I've just been reading for long enough that I can recognise the
> shapes of words and associate them quickly enough with names that I
> don't need additional info, then.

So in that case you think we should get rid of icons on the mac and just go
to words?

> Especially when looking for regs in
> froup postings, as their names are more immediately recognisable and I
> don't even have to consciously read them (this also explains the number
> of 'Literal Democrat' votes in the Portsmouth constituency in the 1980s).

no, thats because most people in Portsmouth are illiterate! Look at me, no 1
target for the grammer stasi, where do you think I grew up? ;-)

> Besides which, another Peter wrote earlier:
>
> > Now, I suppose I'm going to change every week now...
>
> Errors notwithstanding it looks like the X-Face is, in the wrong hands,
> pretty crap as an avatar as well. What's the point of a quickly
> recognisable icon, if you can't recognise it?

people say that but it doesn't really happen. Once you have one you tend to
stick with it.

Woody

In article <1fxisit.g9kexiebpbr5N%pd.news[at]dsl.pipex.invalid>,
pd.news[at]dsl.pipex.invalid (PeterD) wrote:

>Despite knowing what Richard Grant looks like, if I meet him IRL I will
>be a little surprised that he doesn't have orange and black stripes.

This is taking HAZCHEM to ridiculous extremes.

--
Peter

Woody <usenet[at]alienrat.co.uk> wrote:

> > Besides which, another Peter wrote earlier:
> >
> > > Now, I suppose I'm going to change every week now...
> >
> > Errors notwithstanding it looks like the X-Face is, in the wrong hands,
> > pretty crap as an avatar as well. What's the point of a quickly
> > recognisable icon, if you can't recognise it?
>
> people say that but it doesn't really happen. Once you have one you tend to
> stick with it.
>
> Woody

Actually, it was me that said I'd change weekly, but tbh it's taken me
years to actually get one organised - that'll probably stay now. As you
say, no point having an avatar if noone recognises it.

Peter.
(no, I'm not going to change my name because of overcrowding - I've been
here long enough!)
--
This email address is never read.
To reply, use peteraleeatmacdotcom

Frodo Morris <graham.lee[at]invalid.wadham.oxford.ac.uk> wrote:

> Perhaps I've just been reading for long enough that I can recognise the
> shapes of words and associate them quickly enough with names that I
> don't need additional info, then.

Ah - this gui interface you have to deal with when using a Mac must be a
hindrance for you eh? Dispensed with the Finder and mouse, and using
nothing but Terminal now? But what's this? Mozilla? Isn't that one
o'them newfangled non-command-line interface thingies?

Enough sarcasm - the point of the gui with words is that if you're a
purely verbal processor, you can just look at the words. If your brain
is sufficiently complex that it can work with pictures, you can use
those as well. It's a wonderful world!

> Errors notwithstanding it looks like the X-Face is, in the wrong hands,
> pretty crap as an avatar as well. What's the point of a quickly
> recognisable icon, if you can't recognise it?

Tell that to Apple. Only today I noticed some weird fuzzy little icon in
my dock and wondered what on earth it was. I had to point at it to find
out that it's the new FileMaker icon, a dull grey and ochre blob. The
previous icon was instantly recognisable even at tiny sizes as a bright
orange filing cabinet. Even Microsoft managed recognisable icons with
WordX and ExcelX, but Apple, the former champion of human computer
interface, have produced a nondescript pale document icon that
disappears on a white background for the TextEdit app.

--
Pd

PeterD <pd.news[at]dsl.pipex.invalid> wrote:



>
> Despite knowing what Richard Grant looks like, if I meet him IRL I will
> be a little surprised that he doesn't have orange and black stripes.

I would have an irresistable urge to stroke Debbie's ears......


--
~ Adrian Tuddenham ~
(Change 'offline' to 'online' to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk

Adrian Tuddenham <poppy.uk[at]ukOFFline.co.uk> wrote:

> I would have an irresistable urge to stroke Debbie's ears......

I was tempted to insert the old 'Ynak' X-Face here , but resisted......
:-))
......purrrrr.........

Deb.
--
Y! diatomdeb :: 0°07'W 51°18'N :: www.scientific-art.com
Croydon Cats Protection http://www.btinternet.com/~cpl.croydon/

In article <BB2A2023.14696%bellajonez[at]yahoo.co.uk>,
Bella Jones <bellajonez[at]yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> in article BB2A29E39668ADF07[at]0.0.0.0, Peter Ceresole at
> peter[at]cara.demon.co.uk wrote on 3/7/03 5:43 pm:
>
> > In article <1fxisit.g9kexiebpbr5N%pd.news[at]dsl.pipex.invalid>,
> > pd.news[at]dsl.pipex.invalid (PeterD) wrote:
> >
> >> Despite knowing what Richard Grant looks like, if I meet him IRL I will
> >> be a little surprised that he doesn't have orange and black stripes.
> >
> > This is taking HAZCHEM to ridiculous extremes.
>
> Arrgh! You got there first! Great minds....
>

Well then, for both of you:

*roffle*

--
Richard P. Grant | It's called a bio-assay -
0x5F9559B1 | If enough of your customers die,
www.rg-d.co.uk/ucsm/ | you know there is something wrong.
www.rg-d.com/BioLOG/ | - Adrian Tuddenham on ucsm

Frodo Morris <graham.lee[at]invalid.wadham.oxford.ac.uk> wrote:

> The internet - and here I'm specifically talking about its high-end
> protocols such as USENET, web., Gopher etc. - was designed with the goal
> of remote distribution of information.

Surely the ultimate goal is the "consumption" of that information.
There's no point in simply distributing it, there must also be someone
at the other end receiving it. Usenet is both a way of sharing
information and a social construct, part of which affects the authority
and credibility of that information. If an X-Face is a useful aid to the
not-exclusively-verbal newsgroup readers for identifying the author of
an article and referencing the prior history, then it is certainly
contributing to the fulfilment of that original design.

> I don't think that sticking a
> picture in USENET postings is a particularly fine example of information
> distribution. It's not that I specifically have a low bandwidth, but of
> course there will be people with slow modems to whom bandwidth is
> precious, and whether or not they choose to *view* pictures, HTML mail,
> and all these other frivolities, they usually still have to *download*
> them. And when you pay for your bandwidth, that sucks.

I agree - I too draw the line at HTML mail with pictures and all these
other frivolities (unless of course the picture *is* the information
being transmitted), especially so since HTML will usually double the
bytes sent, and in many cases where the email has been written in MSWord
and converted to HTML, will have a text to bytes ratio of over 1:10. The
worst I have received had one character of text for every 283 bytes of
HTML received.

An X-Face, however, is a fixed size overhead. It doesn't increase
proportionally to the increase in message size, as HTML does. It conveys
significant information to those who enjoy them.

Newserver paths, on the other hand, are a complete waste of space for
almost everyone, yet take a considerable number of bytes to transmit.
Your post that I'm replying to has nearly three times the number of
bytes in the path header than my X-Face.

The text-lover's version of the X-Face is the sig line, usually some
little aphorism the poster finds amusing or significant. Often more than
the 150 or so bytes in an X-Face. At the extreme end of the text-lover's
repetitive "waste" of resources is geek code. Now *that's* annoying, and
requires massive waste of resources to find out a bunch of stuff about
someone that when you finally find it out, you discover you didn't
really want to know it in the first place.

> I suppose it really comes down to me hating to see resources going to
> waste. Which would also explain why I try not to use graphical
> desktops, where possible (which it isn't on this system due to the
> nature of the beast).

Which rather begs the question why you use a Mac at all. It's not the
ideal text-processor, especially with OSX wasting all that processor
power on "pretty" transparency and fancy window tricks.

--
Pd

Frodo Morris <graham.lee[at]invalid.wadham.oxford.ac.uk> wrote:

> PeterD wrote:
> > Frodo Morris <graham.lee[at]invalid.wadham.oxford.ac.uk> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Perhaps I've just been reading for long enough that I can recognise the
> >>shapes of words and associate them quickly enough with names that I
> >>don't need additional info, then.
> >
> > Ah - this gui interface you have to deal with when using a Mac must be a
> > hindrance for you eh? Dispensed with the Finder and mouse, and using
> > nothing but Terminal now? But what's this? Mozilla? Isn't that one
> > o'them newfangled non-command-line interface thingies?
>
> ? On NeXT systems I usually log in as 'console' to get a text mode
> interface, and on Mac systems I go for '>console', which has the same
> effect. I think you can restart the WM by logging in as '>exit' too,
> but I'm not sure.

Are you allowed to do that on a Mac? Don't you get ostracised with
immediate effect? I know for sure that it's one way to get banned from
the inner inner circle...

> > Enough sarcasm - the point of the gui with words is that if you're a
> > purely verbal processor, you can just look at the words. If your brain
> > is sufficiently complex that it can work with pictures, you can use
> > those as well. It's a wonderful world!
>
> Congratulations for explaining the concept of a GUI. It's just a shame
> we were talking about the internet :-)

Um... the point being is that pictures *can* convey information as
efficiiently (or even more so) than text in certain circumstances.
> The internet - and here I'm specifically talking about its high-end
> protocols such as USENET, web., Gopher etc. - was designed with the goal
> of remote distribution of information. I don't think that sticking a
> picture in USENET postings is a particularly fine example of information
> distribution.

I disagree wholeheartedly. Personally I find it a bit annoying that
there are so many people who *don't* use x-faces.... it's a wonderfully
informative use of relatively little data.

> It's not that I specifically have a low bandwidth, but of
> course there will be people with slow modems to whom bandwidth is
> precious, and whether or not they choose to *view* pictures, HTML mail,
> and all these other frivolities, they usually still have to *download*
> them. And when you pay for your bandwidth, that sucks.

Indeed, but to be honest, with the amount of crap spewed onto usenet
these days (and, in fact, for a good few years, even before LookOut
Express!) does it really matter? I know, every byte counts, but if you
(yes, you specifically) cared that much you could have trimmed your post
by ten or so x-faces....

> Well that TextEdit.app icon is probably a jazzed-up version of the NeXT
> Edit.app icon, which is just a white square with what could - with more
> than a hint of generosity to the designer - be called 'text' on it.
> Thing is, the dock in NeXTStep/OPENStep/Window Maker is dark grey, so
> white icons work. The dock in OS X is (IIRC) white, so it doesn't.

My dock is grey. I use ClearDock.

-z-


--
"I'm not sure how useful this is, but it's bloody clever."
- Jonathon Sanderson in uk.comp.sys.mac
Are you posting responses that are easy for others to follow?
http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/2000/06/14/quoting