Should/can mersenneforum.org get its own emoji?
 

This kickstarter project has piqued my interest: [URL="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/374397522/phantom-open-emoji"]Phantom Open Emoji[/URL][QUOTE]We here at Genshin Souzou K.K. [Phantom Creation Inc.] would like to create a completely free and open set of emoji that anyone can use and distribute in any way without any particular requirements. Our licensing model will be the same as the Font Awesome project which is a combination of the SIL Open Font License, MIT License and the CC 3.0 License. Distribution will be from a github repository and we will provide a fork of gemoji that replaces all the unlicensed emoji with our liberated versions.[/QUOTE]Among the pledge levels is this one:[QUOTE]Pledge $90 or more

0 backers

A completely custom emoji and an animated version of that emoji of your choice *not* from the standard set and to be included in the POE extended set. You choose what you want us to create into an animated emoji - it could be an emotion, a thing, a person, a logo, etc. and the tag you want us to use for it (it can not be a common tag). You will also be accredited for funding this emoji.
Estimated delivery: May 2013[/QUOTE]This difference between this pledge level and the adjacent lower pledge is that this [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoji"]emoji[/URL] is animated.

[B]Is this something worth sponsoring for the forum? Can it be used here? I would gladly make a significant contribution for this.[/B]

ps. Props to this project for thinking of a genuinely useful highest pledge level for some entrepreneur:[QUOTE]Pledge $5,000 or more

0 backers Limited (1 of 1 left)

We have an open room in our office in Okazaki, Aichi, Japan that we'll rent out to you for 2 months. We'll also help you do business in Japan when we can (translation, light paperwork, introduce you to people). Come and work with us! Steal our coffee and run up our water bill!
Estimated delivery: May 2013[/QUOTE]

Ok, it's clear that there is no interest in this.

I just thought I would complete my thoughts because mentioning something commercial or drumming up money for third parties is crass - so I think it is fair to explain what I was thinking when I brought this up.

Gmail lets you put over 1300 emoticons into emails now. Facebook is testing emoticons. I don't have a smartphone and am not social network active excepting some timid Google+ lurking.

When I saw this Kickstarter project and believed their statement that there is no unencumbered full set of emoji, I thought that Linux might get neglected in an important social scene. I also thought that if this project gets funded and if its set gets promulgated, some users might enjoy looking at the extended (non-unicode) custom emoji that this project will create to reward pledges.

I thought that a cool emoji to include in their extended set would be a Japanese Abacus: [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soroban"]Soroban[/URL]. It would be named :soroban:

Leaving it generic like that would make it useful to lots of people. I've looked around and have not found anything like that. As these emoji are scaled down from 64 pixel width images, there is not much room for detail but I was thinking of an animation that would show, on 3 rods, the numbers 3, 7, 31, 127.

I thought that would be perfect. Lots of people use abacuses (really), and people curious about those numbers could quickly find us. I just thought it sounded cool.

Honestly? I had a look to their page after your first post. I did not like any. They are not suggestive (for example, the crying one are not even sad, the one which screams is more line yawning, etc) and the colors are... well..

Let the professionals make emoticons. They have the knowledge to stress the expressions... Or ask some 12-15 year old boy/girl (you should see my daughter's circle of "internauts"...) they have the enthusiasm and "genial" ideas...

[QUOTE=LaurV;330935]Honestly? I had a look to their page after your first post. I did not like any. They are not suggestive (for example, the crying one are not even sad, the one which screams is more line yawning, etc) and the colors are... well..

Let the professionals make emoticons. They have the knowledge to stress the expressions... Or ask some 12-15 year old boy/girl (you should see my daughter's circle of "internauts"...) they have the enthusiasm and "genial" ideas...[/QUOTE]I didn't like the color either. Their page says this:[QUOTE]We want this emoji set to NOT be based on the "new" international look with yellow smileys and multiple emoji referencing one generic image; but rather to be based on and more closely resemble the high quality Japanese emoji sets. [/QUOTE]The expressions didn't look great to me either but as I don't customarily use this kind of thing I feel a bit like an old fogey trying to understand juvenile slang.

[QUOTE=only_human;330938] I feel a bit like an old fogey trying to understand juvenile slang.[/QUOTE]
That is 101% true for me too, haha, in spite of the fact that I [U]do[/U] use emoticons, I still feel "[URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m48GqaOz90"]so too thousand and late[/URL]" when it comes to it. That is why I said about teenagers.

I actually have a soroban (but don't actually use it :razz:)

[QUOTE=Dubslow;330960]I actually have a soroban (but don't actually use it :razz:)[/QUOTE]I had one once but barely used it.
[URL="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/alexs-adventures-in-numberland/2012/oct/29/mathematics"]World's fastest number game wows spectators and scientists[/URL]
[QUOTE]Flash Anzan, in which contestants add up numbers with an imaginary abacus, reveals the astonishing potential of the human brain – and makes for a breathtaking spectacle too[/QUOTE][QUOTE]In 2008 I visited Yoji Miyamoto's abacus school in Tokyo and he showed me another fascinating aspect of Flash Anzan. Since abacus and anzan calculation use a different part of the brain from pencil and paper arithmetic, as discussed here, it is possible to play language games while playing Flash Anzan.

In this clip the two girls are adding up 30 digits in 20 seconds while simultaneously playing "shiritori", a Japanese game in which you must say a word beginning with the last syllable of the previous word.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=only_human;330963]I had one once but barely used it.[/QUOTE]

[URL="http://cs.iupui.edu/~aharris/chis/chis.html"]Almost everyone has (at least a two digit) one[/URL]. :wink:

Indeed, it was things of that sort which convinced me to take that one week soroban course during my high school's intersession. :smile:

[grumpy]
I have for years had my browser set to disable viewing of the "limited basic" set of emoticons on offer around here.

Complete waste of bandwidth, IMO.

[I don't see the avatars, either.]

If you need more than the old-fashioned :) ;) :P - style ones to "express yourself", you're better off wasting time over on $&$#! Facebook and other sites whose only purpose is to suck you into wasting time, money and coughing up private data.
[/grumpy]

Also, 640K out to be enough for anybody.