That’s the Net Prophet, a new four-character, blasphemous emoticon invented by Sandy Sandfort:
Please note the turban and matted beard. Net Prophet is suitable for e-mail, websites and graffiti. And I think it’s a lot btter symbol for free speech than some stupid ribbon.
Not to mention better than flying the flag of a jurisdiction. The beauty of the Net Prophet is that it is not merely a symbol for free speech, it is free speech (where “free speech” is communication that someone wants to forcefully suppress).
Why “support” free speech when you can engage in it? There may be no other issue where direct action is so easy, so do it!
Mike,
Interesting. But if this guy has invented that, then, as a reader of your blog, I would like to go to the blog post where he lays his rationale for that. You only link to an empty webpage!!!!
I regret everything I said about you over-linking to Wikipedia. Now, I want a wikipedia webpage that tells me more.
Ciao,
CFM
He introduced it on a mailing list that has no public archives. I reproduced the entire rationale.
Look at the beak on that prophet!
I hope blasphemous emoticons can be devised for other belief systems, too.
Just to be sure it’s properly understood, when using the Net Prophet in HTML, it might be helpful to combine it with the following Unicode entity:
[ ☪ ] Crescent Moon & Star
[ number: ☪]
☪ @:^#