4 ms·

Tone is notoriously hard to communicate in written form. Body language is never conveyed. Intonation is non-existent. At best you get some word choice signaling

by sulam 7y ago

Tone is notoriously hard to communicate in written form. Body language is never conveyed. Intonation is non-existent. At best you get some word choice signaling, but while I think low latency may be over-rated in the "catalogue" above, high-bandwidth is exactly the point vs reading an email/slack/etc. If you seriously think written text is as communicative as face to face communication, I would consider being evaluated by a professional for a social interaction disorder of some sort.

pts_ 7y ago
Or, you know, learn to read the manual?
- reciprocity 7y ago
  His point is that all in-person communication includes elements that cannot be translated over text. This includes things like facial expressions, non-verbal body language. You responded with "learn how to read the manual" which isn't addressing the point that the comment is making.
  - pts_ 7y ago
    Of course it is. At the end of it all lie the specs. So why dance around it?
- dang 7y ago
  Please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN. The site guidelines particularly ask you not to be snarky here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - pts_ 7y ago
    Well you better whether you like it or not. Because when the weather goes apeshit and viruses are on about, you get no one to hand hold you.
devdas 7y ago
What you are saying is that written communication is also a lot less noisy. Of course, you could learn to write better and convey the same information over text.
- sulam 7y ago
  It’s only noisy if you don’t know what you’re looking at. Watch a professional poker game sometime and you’ll see the lengths people go to avoid non-verbally communicating the strength of their hand. Table talk is completely casual up until someone is involved in a monster hand and suddenly they go catatonic. Of course there’s still noise. Just like in text. Professional writers struggle just as hard to get their word choice and phrasing -just so-.
Fnoord 7y ago
For someone with autism (raises hand) body language might not be well conveyed anyway, or gets misinterpreted. I'm looking forward to AR/VR taking over more cake of the need for physical needs.

by sulam 7y ago

pts_ 7y ago

Or, you know, learn to read the manual?

reciprocity 7y ago
His point is that all in-person communication includes elements that cannot be translated over text. This includes things like facial expressions, non-verbal body language. You responded with "learn how to read the manual" which isn't addressing the point that the comment is making.
- pts_ 7y ago
  Of course it is. At the end of it all lie the specs. So why dance around it?
dang 7y ago
Please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN. The site guidelines particularly ask you not to be snarky here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- pts_ 7y ago
  Well you better whether you like it or not. Because when the weather goes apeshit and viruses are on about, you get no one to hand hold you.

devdas 7y ago

What you are saying is that written communication is also a lot less noisy. Of course, you could learn to write better and convey the same information over text.

sulam 7y ago
It’s only noisy if you don’t know what you’re looking at. Watch a professional poker game sometime and you’ll see the lengths people go to avoid non-verbally communicating the strength of their hand. Table talk is completely casual up until someone is involved in a monster hand and suddenly they go catatonic. Of course there’s still noise. Just like in text. Professional writers struggle just as hard to get their word choice and phrasing -just so-.

Fnoord 7y ago

For someone with autism (raises hand) body language might not be well conveyed anyway, or gets misinterpreted. I'm looking forward to AR/VR taking over more cake of the need for physical needs.