Business Bytes
Curt Finch

CMU Invents the Emoticon ;-)

 

I'm considering sending my 17 year old to Carnegie Mellon for a degree in computer science, and what better recommendation could there be than the following?:

On Sept 19, 1982, Scott Fahlman, now a professor at CMU, invented the emoticon (i.e. emotional icon) via a newsgroup posting, starting the ball rolliing with :-) which means "that's a joke, or happy" and :-( which means the opposite. By now you've all seen these. They actually do a good job of alerting people to sarcasm in print, which typically doesn't work well except in the hands of exceptional writers (who are often snobby about the use of emoticons).

Now the concept has evolved into a plethora of new additions:

;-) a wink
:-P a tongue sticking out

and a long list of other strange things.

Curt sells solutions which unite project planning with resource management, track execution and alert you instantly when projects are in danger.

Curt Finch has more than two decades of software development and distributed workforce management experience. In 1997, Curt created the world's first internet-based timesheet application and the foundation for the current Journyx product offering. Curt has a B.S. in Computer Science from Virginia Tech. His book, All Your Money, is available on Amazon. @curtfinch