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I guess because the goal of Unicode is to be able to represent every character that's appeared in language. This one is in a published book, while guns and a s
by jrockway 4y ago
I guess because the goal of Unicode is to be able to represent every character that's appeared in language. This one is in a published book, while guns and a sexual intercourse symbol aren't.
Emoji was a weird value add that Japanese mobile providers added to their phones before Unicode. To get them to move to Unicode, they had to keep them. That's why there's a Tokyo Tower emoji, but not an Eiffel Tower. That's why the post office has a 〒 on it. That people get any use out of emoji outside of Japan is really pure luck.
- shadowgovt 4y agoI've even heard emoji referred to as "the carrot that keeps the implementations current." Every time a new version of Unicode is published, a few more emoji are tacked on. It acts as incentive for all the cellphone carriers and such to put the money into updating their implementations, because nobody wants to be the one on the block with the one phone that can't render "Mirror Ball" . (ETA: LOL, Hacker News drops "Mirror Ball" https://emojipedia.org/mirror-ball/ https://emojipedia.org/mirror-ball/ from the comment when you post)
- Traubenfuchs 4y agoI believe the majority of emoji do not work on hacker news.
- jrockway 4y agoIncidentally, Windows doesn't have the mirror ball. I guess it is a carrot to get me to upgrade to Windows 11, which I am skipping. (The key with Windows is to only use the good versions; XP, 7, 10, ???. Hoping ??? arrives soon ;)
- int_19h 4y agoIt's not in Win11 yet.
- ElfinTrousers 4y agoThat seems actually logical when you consider that kanji presumably began as simple depictions of objects that could be drawn quickly. Perhaps the only difference between emoji and kanji is time.