This Day in History: You Must Be Joking :-)
Posted in Humor, blogging, computers, emoticons, history, joke on September 19th, 2008 by Steve Bradley – Be the first to comment
Twenty-six years ago today, something remarkable happened that changed the course of history. Especially for those who are fond of emailing, bloggging, and text messaging.
What was it, you ask?
It was the day that one computer geek showed the world how to take a joke 
Or not 
Still don’t get it? Then read on:
1982: At precisely 11:44 a.m., Scott Fahlman posts the following electronic message to a computer-science department bulletin board at Carnegie Mellon University:
19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman
From: Scott E FahlmanI propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:
Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use:
With that post, Fahlman became the acknowledged originator of the ASCII-based emoticon. From those two simple emoticons (a portmanteau combining the words emotion and icon) have sprung dozens of others that are the joy, or bane, of e-mail, text-message and instant-message correspondence the world over.
Thank you Scott Fahlman! You’ve made the world a better place, and for that, I salute you.
[For the full story go here]
What’s the funniest thing you’ve seen or heard recently?
