Comments on: Nonsensical Icons: Why is there a "V" on top of my television!?!?

By: "Facebook" emoticon code

"Facebook" emoticon code — Mon, 21 May 2012 03:41:07 +0000

yup re ! Is it related to alpha and omega ?

🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Thu, 17 May 2012 19:40:33 +0000

Hourglass? Preposterous!

By: CherryBombSim

CherryBombSim — Thu, 17 May 2012 17:58:11 +0000

If you want to reach really, really far back, how about the sundial icon to show time elapsing? (Alternatively, an hourglass.) These are all a kind of modern hieroglyph.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Thu, 17 May 2012 17:26:56 +0000

Sean, you are totally ruining this meme, stop it!

By: Jim Plassard

Jim Plassard — Thu, 17 May 2012 10:00:42 +0000

Having stopped to think about it, it is amazing the amount of information that is presented to us in pictographs, which may or may not be representative images. The thing that confuses me most when traveling abroad is the pictographs. And btw, barber poles in Korea mean something entirely different from here.

By: Sean

Sean — Thu, 17 May 2012 06:24:05 +0000

I’d say the clipboard isn’t the most out of place on the list. Bookmarks aren’t some old anachronism, I use them pretty regularly. Bookshops often give you a free bookmark with their logo on it every time you buy a book.

Similarly, we still use calendars with little metal spirals, and I use envelopes every day at work. I just received an invoice copied using carbon paper, as most handwritten invoices are.

And come on, I’n only 28, but I used to have a phone with an old fashioned handset and a polaroid camera. Maybe things are just much more advanced where the author’s from.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Wed, 16 May 2012 21:51:38 +0000

Apple didn’t want to violate its own patent?

By: MadScientist

MadScientist — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:55:30 +0000

@Wojtec: Apple’s lawyers suggested using triangular displays – because Apple has a patent on the rectangular display on tablet computers.

By: tetsuo

tetsuo — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:47:29 +0000

they way these icons evolved seem not to stand with every-day logic, but I’m sure there is SOME logic in that..

By: Ian Kemmish

Ian Kemmish — Wed, 16 May 2012 09:19:03 +0000

it’s a long, long time since icons of any sort had any intrinsic meaning. Certainly since Salvador Dali (?) created the icons for the various Olympic sports disciplines. Does the “choke” icon on your car’s dashboard look like a choke (or even an electronic engine management unit)?

Indeed, one of my beefs about WYSIWYG UI’s in the 1980’s was that they all suffered from “International Airport Syndrome” – they are never self-explanatory, and only at best mnemonic. But then, that also means that they never become “old”: if you’re an old codger struggling to use a computer for the first time, then you need the mnemonic function; but if you’ve grown up with them ever since you were old enough to press buttons, then you don’t, they are merely conventional.