Khoth comments on Open Thread, October 27 - 31, 2013 - Less Wrong

2 Post author: mare-of-night 28 October 2013 12:59AM

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Comment author: Khoth 28 October 2013 03:00:05PM 15 points [-]

A state of affairs which I hope continues.

Comment author: Lumifer 28 October 2013 03:55:57PM 6 points [-]

A state of affairs which I hope continues.

Ah, a vote for "it's better this way". Why do you prefer pure text? Is it because of the danger of being overrun with cat pictures and blinking gif smileys?

Comment author: hyporational 29 October 2013 03:47:56AM *  3 points [-]

Let's take that particular image. It covers a huge block that could have been filled by text otherwise and conveys relatively little information accurately. It distrupts my reading completely for a little while and getting back to the nice flow takes cognitive effort.

This moment I'm reading on my phone and the image fills the whole screen.

Comment author: Gunnar_Zarncke 29 October 2013 04:14:27PM 0 points [-]

It is because text can be copy-pasted and composed easily since browsers mostly allow selecting any text (this is more difficult in win apps).

Whereas images cannot be copy pasted as simple (mostly you have to find the URL and copy paste that) and images cannot be composed easily at all (you at least need some pic editor which often doesn't allow simple copy-paste).

This is the old problem that there is no graphical language. A problem that has evadad GUI designers since the beginning.

Comment author: Lumifer 29 October 2013 05:05:51PM 0 points [-]

Whereas images cannot be copy pasted as simple

Um. In Firefox, right-click on the image, select Copy Image. Looks pretty simple to me. Pretty sure it works the same way in Chrome as well.

This is the old problem that there is no graphical language.

I think you're missing the point of images. Their advantage is precisely that they are holistic, a gestalt -- you're supposed to take them in whole and not decompose them into elements.

Sure, if you want to construct a sequential narrative out of symbols, images are the wrong medium.

Comment author: Gunnar_Zarncke 29 October 2013 07:50:02PM 0 points [-]

Um. In Firefox, right-click on the image, select Copy Image.

And how do you insert it into a comment?

I think you're missing the point of images. Their advantage is precisely that they are holistic, a gestalt -- you're supposed to take them in whole and not decompose them into elements.

That may be true of some images but not all.