[Informatics] Fwd: Multimodal communication

[ken price]

So when the CIA talked about "dress code", they were being quite literal.

https://ageofsteam.wordpress.com/2011/01/13/the-secret-language-of-the-fan/
has a wonderful discussion of the secret language conveyed by fans in the
Victorian era.

("Victorian fan language" in this case meaning how people in the era of
Queen Victoria conveyed messages by using small hand-held air moving
devices, not the abuse yelled by football fanatics in the lovely State of
Victoria).

*Examples:*

Placing the fan behind the head, “Do not forget me.”

Fan in right hand in front of face, “Follow me.”

Twirl fan in the left hand, “We are being watched.”


Somewhere I also have the coded language used by ANARE expeditioners in the
Antarctic in the 1950s and 1960s to convey messages back to their loved
ones via the very limited bandwidth of the telegraph system. I found out
about this when my father in law named his yacht YIKLA, which was the code
for "this is the life".  Not sure how often that particular message was
sent from midwinter Antarctica.
Ah - here it is  http://antarctica.kulgun.net/History/WYSSA/

*Examples:*

YIWOC = "I am setting out on a man-hauling sledge journey to <place>"
YITUB =  "I am not sure whether men training dogs or dogs training men"
 (odd how similar this is to the similar-sounding "YouTube" 50 years
later..)
YASKA "It has been very cold"  (for the Antarctic expeditioner who has
little to say, I guess)
YOGIP = "Please send details of bank account"  (apparently there were
Nigerian Princes giving away money in 1950s Antarctica too)




kp


On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 2:35 PM, Mark <mark at vceit.com> wrote:

> Hi, MMOSsers,
>
> I don't think shoelaces have been used recently as a mode of communication.
>
> Apparently, during the cold war, CIA agents communicated using the way
> their shoes were laced.
>
>
>
> A long shoe-lacing conversation, however, might have drawn undue
> attention.
> At that point, maybe, agents might have started using interpretative
> dance, or semaphore.
>
> --
>
> Mark Kelly
>
> mark at vceit.com
> http://vceit.com
>
>
>
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