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That actually exactly why I used the word image, as opposed to symbol. Letters are symbols, with rules. They can be very vague, and must increase in complexity if they want to be more specific. An image is more absolute, and can get across much more detail without the room for interpretation words have these days. We had to develop language and words because mass producing images in early civilization was tiresome, expensive, and very difficult, what with carving them into stone and all. But we live in the future now. How awesome is it that we can send a picture or video we took with our phone instead of writing a letter about the event to a friend? It's the future, baby. Words are obsolete.

 

Edit: By the way, the proper symbol for zombie is: ≈o[-< See, I even drew a picture of a scent. Awesome, right?

 

Edit again: Aw man, no approximately-equal-to symbol on UBB. Well then, a single stink line: ~o[-<

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Originally Posted By: Triumph
Yeah, if pictures are so much better...whatever happened to pictograms, to hieroglyphics and such?


Well hard to say, after all it all started with simple ideas, and with time these ideas changed into sounds... a shame really. In Egypt for example the hieroglyphic system was getting so complicated and so outdated it was left for greek, latin, hebrew and arab alphabets...

Drawing rules any way! As Goethe once said: Science and art belong to the whole world, and before them vanish the barriers of nationality.
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An image isn't absolute. An image is, by necessity, full of details extraneous to what you actually care about communicating. "This is my house." A picture of me next to a house? How is that not "this is the house I visited" or even "I did not notice that the roof needed repair?" or "I have terrible taste in exterior design" to someone who doesn't already know the point? You can send pictures about events now, but everyone still accompanies them with at least a brief description so the recipients have some idea of what they're looking at.

 

—Alorael, who agrees that O + OOO = OOOO is the way to get numbers across. Now how do you do large numbers, or comparisons? When do units appear? How does this ever transmit anything but pure numbers? Language is hard!

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I'd still go with the image of the house, since the phrase "This is my house." has absolutely no meaning whatsoever without an attached image. At least with the picture, you had a chance at guessing the meaning. Without an image, what is one to think? These words are your house? Maybe if it was written on your house, but then you could have just put up a picture of yourself and it would have been just as effective, if not more so, as a name means little without a face.

 

And no, I usually don't need to accompany images I send with text. If it needed to be explained, it probably wasn't worth photographing.

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An image is absolute as it full of details, it is eternal, "plus fort que les airains" (Théophile Gautier), universal, without boundaries, except those of imagination.

The utilitarian aspect is however also a part of it, for nothing can escape the clutches of necessity; an idea can rise from mist. Publicity for example is utilitarian, buy this and you will favor women...

 

It is absolute until the halls of the blind...

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Yeah, I would still argue that pictures are more absolute than words. A picture may have more than one meaning, but it means all the things that are in it. If it's a photograph, everything in it is true (absolute). Words can mean many things, and convey things you didn't mean to convey at all. Miscommunication is common enough, right?

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Originally Posted By: The Ratt
O[-< O[-<

One of the above is a human and one of the above is a zombie. Together they spell my name. How do you pronounce my name? There is why pictograms don't work. In the end you'll always need something to represent different sounds, and pictures of sound don't work.
Oh, and to address some of the questions here. First, you would need a different picture for a zombie, but with pictures, it's way easier for you to invent a new one to mean what you intend, as opposed to inventing a new word, which would require consensus. Your name would be pronounced Human-Zombie, and it was entirely common in ancient cultures for names to be existing words as opposed to proper nouns with no alternate meanings. Instead of names like James and Matthew, people had names like "child of God" or "he who is pious," both of which have evolved into a variety of modern names you might recognize. Or, more recently, Native Americans with names like Sitting Bull, which could easily be represented with pictures. How awesome would it be to choose a few meaningful pictures to be your name as opposed to a meaningless letter combination? You might circle it to show that it is a proper name like the Egyptians did to show that it refers to a specific person, rather than an actual sitting bull. Pictograms do work, they just weren't efficient or convenient in ancient times.
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I have to agree with Monroe that pictures are more absolute than words. Words are abstract in nature, signifiers pointing to semantic clouds. Pictures can be interpreted the same way -- as signifiers -- but they can also be taken at face value, as a direct visual depiction of something. Words have no face value, and no value at all without the signification behind them.

 

So perhaps the correct nuance of phrase is not "more absolute" but "have a greater chance to be partially absolute."

 

Edit: I do not however agree with the screed on pictograms, phonetic ties and names, which does not make much sense to me.

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Aside from the personal opinion that having a name made of pictograms might be cool, everything in that "screed" was true. I apologize that I was unable to find anything that had any meaning for you, personally. That's the second time now that you've agreed with with something I've said but had to add in an extra comment that made it clear that you don't approve of me. Thanks, man.

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Originally Posted By: Khoth
I need to stop skimming people's posts, having my eyes pick out something like "our name would be pronounced Human-Zombie, and it was entirely common in ancient cultures" and thinking "hang on, what ancient culture had zombies?"


Dinosaurs went extinct due to the zombie infestation during their time period.
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Originally Posted By: Khoth
We need to figure out a completely culturally-independent way of saying "we taste horrible and our atmosphere is poisonous".


After all the effort they put into that plaque on Voyager showing them how to get here.*extreme sarcasm*

Also, from Carl Sagan's book, "Murmurs of Earth", here is a description of the cover engravings:

"In the upper left-hand corner is an easily recognized drawing of the phonograph record and the stylus carried with it. The stylus is in the correct position to play the record from the beginning. Written around it in binary arithmetic is the correct time of one rotation of the record, 3.6 seconds, expressed in time units of 0,70 billionths of a second, the time period associated with a fundamental transition of the hydrogen atom. The drawing indicates that the record should be played from the outside in. Below this drawing is a side view of the record and stylus, with a binary number giving the time to play one side of the record - about an hour.

"The information in the upper right-hand portion of the cover is designed to show how pictures are to be constructed from the recorded signals. The top drawing shows the typical signal that occurs at the start of a picture. The picture is made from this signal, which traces the picture as a series of vertical lines, similar to ordinary television (in which the picture is a series of horizontal lines). Picture lines 1, 2 and 3 are noted in binary numbers, and the duration of one of the "picture lines," about 8 milliseconds, is noted. The drawing immediately below shows how these lines are to be drawn vertically, with staggered "interlace" to give the correct picture rendition. Immediately below this is a drawing of an entire picture raster, showing that there are 512 vertical lines in a complete picture. Immediately below this is a replica of the first picture on the record to permit the recipients to verify that they are decoding the signals correctly. A circle was used in this picture to insure that the recipients use the correct ratio of horizontal to vertical height in picture reconstruction.

"The drawing in the lower left-hand corner of the cover is the pulsar map previously sent as part of the plaques on Pioneers 10 and 11. It shows the location of the solar system with respect to 14 pulsars, whose precise periods are given. The drawing containing two circles in the lower right-hand corner is a drawing of the hydrogen atom in its two lowest states, with a connecting line and digit 1 to indicate that the time interval associated with the transition from one state to the other is to be used as the fundamental time scale, both for the time given on the cover and in the decoded pictures.

"Electroplated onto the record's cover is an ultra-pure source of uranium-238 with a radioactivity of about 0.00026 microcuries. The steady decay of the uranium source into its daughter isotopes makes it a kind of radioactive clock. Half of the uranium-238 will decay in 4.51 billion years. Thus, by examining this two-centimeter diameter area on the record plate and measuring the amount of daughter elements to the remaining uranium-238, an extraterrestrial recipient of the Voyager spacecraft could calculate the time elapsed since a spot of uranium was placed aboard the spacecraft. This should be a check on the epoch of launch, which is also described by the pulsar map on the record cover."
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Originally Posted By: Khoth
I need to stop skimming people's posts, having my eyes pick out something like "our name would be pronounced Human-Zombie, and it was entirely common in ancient cultures" and thinking "hang on, what ancient culture had zombies?"
Osiris was a zombie. It's funny because you can tell just by looking at a picture of him.
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Originally Posted By: Monroe
Osiris was a zombie. It's funny because you can tell just by looking at a picture of him.


...I doubt that without prior knowledge of Osiris and his story, all respondents would immediately classify an artist's rendering of him as a zombie. And when you say "a picture of Osiris", that assumes there is one representation.
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Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel

Originally Posted By: Dantius
1 + 2 = 3 = OOOOOO.
Fixed your post.


You know, the last time I checked, and admittedly my information may be a bit outdated, but three most empathetically does NOT equal six. I know that they teach you kids all those fancy maths with calcculators and thingambobbers, but I just checked my slide rule, and it confirmed the result on my abacus: 3 != 6. Sorry.
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Originally Posted By: Ephesos
Originally Posted By: Monroe
Osiris was a zombie. It's funny because you can tell just by looking at a picture of him.


...I doubt that without prior knowledge of Osiris and his story, all respondents would immediately classify an artist's rendering of him as a zombie. And when you say "a picture of Osiris", that assumes there is one representation.

Honestly, that was kind of a joke. It's on par with saying Jesus was a zombie, right? It was just extra funny because he is usually (always?) portrayed with green zombie skin. It's just funny. Also, just so you know, starting a sentence with an ellipse like you quite often do comes off as a bit condescending. You might not mean it, maybe it's just clumsy language again, but that's just the vibe I get from it.
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Originally Posted By: One Thousand Monkeys
—Alorael, who agrees that O + OOO = OOOO is the way to get numbers across. Now how do you do large numbers, or comparisons? When do units appear? How does this ever transmit anything but pure numbers? Language is hard!
Well, you can use this to teach the Arabic number system by creating a table or something mapping each Arabic digit to its pure number. Units of length I suppose could be shown as a line of that length together with digit 1. Beyond that, I dunno...

Originally Posted By: Monroe
And no, I usually don't need to accompany images I send with text. If it needed to be explained, it probably wasn't worth photographing.
Then again, you probably send those pictures to someone who has some context to interpret them. For example, if the picture contains people, you'll likely send it to someone who knows some of the people (or is one of them).

If you sent it to a random stranger, however, some explanation might be needed (depending on the picture).

Originally Posted By: Monroe
Yeah, I would still argue that pictures are more absolute than words. A picture may have more than one meaning, but it means all the things that are in it. If it's a photograph, everything in it is true (absolute).
What about symbolism? Like the snake on a staff signifying medicine?

Originally Posted By: Dantius
Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel

Originally Posted By: Dantius
1 + 2 = 3 = OOOOOO.
Fixed your post.


You know, the last time I checked, and admittedly my information may be a bit outdated, but three most empathetically does NOT equal six. I know that they teach you kids all those fancy maths with calcculators and thingambobbers, but I just checked my slide rule, and it confirmed the result on my abacus: 3 != 6. Sorry.
Ah. Sorry, I thought the first equals sign was a plus. blush

Originally Posted By: Khoth
I need to stop skimming people's posts, having my eyes pick out something like "our name would be pronounced Human-Zombie, and it was entirely common in ancient cultures" and thinking "hang on, what ancient culture had zombies?"
Well, vampires probably qualify...
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Posting only in pictures could be only two things: an interesting experiment in communication or flagrant spam. While I'm interested in seeing how it works, I don't want to have to explain the nuances of spontaneous experimentation to everyone else who decides that this would make a lovely gimmick.

 

—Alorael, who therefore believes the only compromise is to post only images using text. ASCII art, go!

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Post no bills. Pay no bond.

 

Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Neither a borrower nor a lender be.

 

Don't look back. Don't look down. Don't look now. Don't quit too soon.

 

Don't even think of parking here. Don't let your sons grow up to be cowboys.

 

Never give a sucker an even break.

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Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba
Zombies are definitely not vampires. They're both undead, but not at all the same things.

Dikiyoba.



They can be very similar... this I am legend cover proves it, by transforming cannibalistic zombies into nasty bloodsuckers; Zombies and vampires both convey their plague though saliva or/and blood... ghouls, although alive, are not far from it... it depends only if you consider vampires as a distinct species that don't reproduce through blood sucking infections or supernaturally speaking... then yes they are different... it's a question of looking at things...


And about giving the suckers a break, i'd say of course, when taken into sunlight, i'd take a kitkat... and :

together when we burn
There'll be no need to stand and wait your turn,
When it's time for the fallout,
And Saint Peter calls us all out,
We'll just drop our agendas and adjourn,

You will all go directly to your respective Valhallas,
Go directly, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollards"
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Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba
Zombies are definitely not vampires. They're both undead, but not at all the same things.

Dikiyoba.
If you consider vampire myths rather than going with pop culture, then you would have to conclude that vampires are a lot like zombies.


Originally Posted By: upon mars
They can be very similar... this I am legend cover proves it, by transforming cannibalistic zombies into nasty bloodsuckers; Zombies and vampires both convey their plague though saliva or/and blood... ghouls, although alive, are not far from it... it depends only if you consider vampires as a distinct species that don't reproduce through blood sucking infections or supernaturally speaking... then yes they are different... it's a question of looking at things...
You clearly have a limited knowledge of vampires and zombies. wink Pop culture definitions aren't the only ones in existence. Zombies of myth are not so much dead as heavily drugged (they're a voodoo thing, or something), while vampires of myth have many things in common with zombies of pop culture. They rise from the grave every night, and return before morning. In myth, a vampire's bite is not contagious because you have to be dead to be a vampire. (I suppose if the vampire bites kills it might be contagious; not sure about that.)

Pop culture is boring, anyway. Why the Anama would a zombie be contagious? It's a dead body; how would biting something turn it into a dead body? Of course, you could come up with logical explanations for that, but still.
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Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel
If you consider vampire myths rather than going with pop culture, then you would have to conclude that vampires are a lot like zombies.

I am vaguely familiar with vampire myths, though not really familiar with zombie myths. Vampire myths are pretty variable, so it's hard to say as a whole they're like anything, let alone zombies. So no, I am not forced to conclude that zombies and vampires are similar. To my knowledge, the key differences are:

1. Zombies are soulless automations. Vampires are evil spirits (myths) or human-like (modern tales).
2. Zombies eat flesh and brains (human only). Vampires suck blood (human and animal).
3. Vampires are loners or form clans. Zombies typically show up in large concentrations.
4. Vampires have a sexual subtext. Zombies are associated with disease.

Dikiyoba.
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Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba
Zombies are soulless automations.
Agreed; whether they are dead or drugged into mindlessness is irrelevant here.

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba
Vampires are evil spirits (myths) or human-like (modern tales).
The myths I'm familiar with don't seem to portray them as evil spirits; I specifically remember that they rise from the grave each night.

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba
Zombies eat flesh and brains (human only).
No.

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba
Vampires suck blood (human and animal).
Yes.

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba
Vampires are loners or form clans.
The myths I think would normally make them loners. Still, I wouldn't consider it a true attribute of what defines a "vampire".

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba
Zombies typically show up in large concentrations.
This is true, but I wouldn't really call this a true attribute of what defines a "zombie".

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba
Vampires have a sexual subtext.
Um, what? Not really. Except maybe Twilight and its ilk.

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba
Zombies are associated with disease.
I suppose so, yeah... but on the other hand, that's kind of a part of the whole "contagious zombies" idea which just makes no sense.

Originally Posted By: VCH
parasite-controlled/influenced animals come to mind
Um, those aren't really undead...
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Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel
Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba
Vampires have a sexual subtext.
Um, what? Not really. Except maybe Twilight and its ilk.

Actually, Diki's absolutlycorrect onthis one. In Dracula, the definite subtext of the whole "drinking blood" and the behavior of Dracula is the fact that he's a sexual degenerate. It's quite possible to argue that the entire theme of the book can revolve around this fact. You can pick up all the little clues when you go through a reading with this in mind. However, the book being published when it was, Bram Stoker needed something to disguise the implicit meaning, hence, all of the "sucking blood" and stuff.

Ironically, Stephanie Meyer being a devout Mormon and all, her books probably have even less of sexual subtext then a book written in the Victorian era- from what I gather, her books focus more on the "relationships" between the characters.
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What's the point of ignoring the pop cultural vampire and zombie? You can't really do anything with those two staples of horror without dragging in all their baggage now. It's interesting, though, that zombies seem to have lost their original voodoo trappings entirely and are now likely to be pseudoscientifically viral, or maybe just unexplained, but still similars. Zombies come in hordes. They are mindless, or at least very direct. They may shamble or they may charge, and they may be easily dispatched or nigh-unkillable, but they're decaying corpses that want to rend and consume and do all sorts of nasty things.

 

Vampires, on the other hand, seem to have split in a thousand different directions, likely reflecting the many, many mythological creatures that fit the bill of "vampire" quite well if you view the essential ingredients as "undead" and "bloodsucking" and consider the rest dressing. Vampires can be loners or they can come in groups. They can be mindless, ravening beasts, or bestial humanoids, or urbane seducers, or all three. They are often but not always vulnerable to sunlight, sometimes to fire, usually to being staked, and occasionally to garlic and running water. They may be able to transform into a bat, or a wolf, or a lot of bats, or a fog. They may be hypnotic. They may fly. Vampires can be just about anything and not lose the right to the term.

 

—Alorael, who finds it fascinating that many of the early zombie tropes were brought together in I Am Legend, which is explicitly about vampires. Very zombie-like vampires, but vampires.

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Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel
The myths I'm familiar with don't seem to portray them as evil spirits; I specifically remember that they rise from the grave each night.

Some of the really old myths have bloodsucking spirits or demons that aren't deceased bodies. Perhaps they shouldn't count; I'm fine with that. But even the corpse-like vampires are different from zombies. Zombies are rotting and decaying bodies. Vampires, at worst, look only recently dead and don't decay.

Quote:
No.

Brains!

Quote:
The myths I think would normally make them loners. Still, I wouldn't consider it a true attribute of what defines a "vampire".

This is true, but I wouldn't really call this a true attribute of what defines a "zombie".

It would be very difficult to tell a convincing story about a vampire apocalypse, since they don't multiply that quickly and they're cunning enough to know that would be a bad idea in the long run. Similarly, zombies are mindless, so while you can have lone zombies easily, it would be very difficult to tell a convincing story in which a zombie intentionally keeps to itself or forms hierarchies based on who has turned who.

Quote:
but on the other hand, that's kind of a part of the whole "contagious zombies" idea which just makes no sense.

Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's not a common zombie theme!

Originally Posted By: Dantius
her books probably have even less of sexual subtext then a book written in the Victorian era

The first book in the series fixates on the physical appearance of Edward and the final book includes a sex scene. It's not so much a subtext as text.

Originally Posted By: Alorael
It's interesting, though, that zombies seem to have lost their original voodoo trappings entirely and are now likely to be pseudoscientifically viral, or maybe just unexplained, but still similars.

There are still a few somewhat recent voodoo-related zombies out there. Well, there's Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, anyway.

Dikiyoba.
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And there's the fantasy gaming paragenre, where zombies still tend to be related to necromancers and/or evil deities. Zombies and skeletons (aka lesser undead) have to be one of the most common fantasy game enemy type tropes -- second in line, I'd guess, after goblin-types.

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Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES
And there's the fantasy gaming paragenre, where zombies still tend to be related to necromancers and/or evil deities. Zombies and skeletons (aka lesser undead) have to be one of the most common fantasy game enemy type tropes -- second in line, I'd guess, after goblin-types.


I'd argue that undead are still the most common. Goblins may be the universal Kill Me To Get To Level 2 monster, but undead are everywhere.
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Originally Posted By: Dantius
Actually, Diki's absolutlycorrect onthis one. In Dracula, the definite subtext of the whole "drinking blood" and the behavior of Dracula is the fact that he's a sexual degenerate.
No she's not; while pop culture may be like this, the origina vampire myths aren't really like this.

Originally Posted By: Alorael
Vampires can be just about anything and not lose the right to the term.
Except that they must suck blood, right?

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba
Zombies are rotting and decaying bodies. Vampires, at worst, look only recently dead and don't decay.
True, vampires have more of a mummified appearance.

Originally Posted By: Slarty
And there's the fantasy gaming paragenre, where zombies still tend to be related to necromancers and/or evil deities. Zombies and skeletons (aka lesser undead) have to be one of the most common fantasy game enemy type tropes -- second in line, I'd guess, after goblin-types.
This is my kind of zombie.
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Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel
No she's not; while pop culture may be like this, the origina vampire myths aren't really like this.

This is my kind of zombie.

So how can sexualized vampires (Dracula, 1897) and contagious zombies (Night of the Living Dead, 1968) be "too pop cultural" while necromantic zombies (Dungeons and Dragons, mid-1970's) are a-okay?

Also, you get Dikiyoba's gender wrong whenever you use gendered pronouns. Use any gender-neutral set or avoid them entirely.
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