                     Communications Breakthrough
                     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Because you can't see the person who is sending you electronic mail you
are sometimes uncertain whether they are serious or joking.  Recently,
Scott Fahlman at CMU devised a scheme for annotating one's messages to
overcome this problem.  If you turn your head sideways to look at the
three characters :-) they look sort of like a smiling face.  Thus, if
someone sends you a message that says "Have you stopped beating your
wife? :-) " you know they are joking.  If they say "I need to talk to
you :-( ", be prepared for trouble.

Since Scott's original proposal, many further symbols have been proposed:

 :-)     humor.
 :->     humor variation.
 %-}     humor variation.
 :-(     sad.
 :-<     sad variation.
 %-{     sad variation.
 :_)     tongue in cheek
 :-!     foot in mouth
 <:-)    for dumb questions.
 (:-)    for messages dealing with bicycle helmets.
 (8-)    for messages dealing with owls.
 d:-)    for messages dealing with baseball.
 d :-o   hats off to your great idea
 q:-)    for those who wear their caps backwards.
 @=      for messages dealing with nuclear war.
 o>-<|=  for messages of interest only to women.
 ~=      a candle, to annotate flaming messages.
 oo      for somebody's head-lights are on messages.
 ;-)     say no more, nudge nudge.
 :-$     put your money where your mouth is
 >:->    leer
 ;-}     leer? (terminal dependent)
 |-<>    kissy face
 :-|     man playing an harmonica
 O:-)    for those innocent souls
 [:|]    from a robot (or other appropriate AI project)
 :>)     from someone with a big nose
 :<|     from someone who attends an Ivy League school
 :-)8    from someone who is well dressed
 #-)     from someone who partied all night
 %-\     from someone hungover
 :-*     from someone who just ate a sour pickle
 -:-)    from someone who sports a mohawk and admires Mr. T
 :-'|    from someone who has a cold
 :-)'    from somone who tends to drool
 ':-)    from someone who accidentally shaved off one of his eyebrows
 8:]     from a gorilla
 (:)-)   from someone wearing scuba mask
 P-)     from someone getting fresh
 |-)     from someone who is falling asleep

Miscellaneous:

 (-:|:-) Siamese twins
 :~/     Really mixed up
         the invisible man
 {:\/    sounds like a duck
 .\/     duck variation
 :-0
 |:-O
 %+{     from the loser of a fight

   ___
  /   \
 | RIP |
 |_____|    from someone who is dead
 -------

So you see, bit-mapped displays are really quite unnecessary :->
