Smiley face turns 25

It was a serious contribution to the electronic lexicon. :-) Twenty five years ago, Carnegie Mellon University professor Scott E Fahlman says, he was the first to use three keystrokes a colon followed by a hyphen and a parenthesis – as a horizontal smiley face in a computer message. To mark the anniversary, Fahlman and his colleagues are starting an annual student contest for innovation in technology assisted, person-to-person communication. The Smiley Award, sponsored by Yahoo Inc., carries a US$500 cash prize. Language experts say the smiley face and other emotional icons, known as emoticons, have given people a concise way in e-mail and other electronic messages of expressing sentiments that otherwise would be difficult to detect. Fahlman posted the emoticon :-) in a message to an online electronic bulletin board on September 19, 1982, during a discussion about the limits of online humour and how to denote comments meant to be taken lightly. It gave computer users a way to convey humour or positive feelings with a smile – or the opposite sentiments by reversing the parenthesis to form a frown.

Attempt to sell Belgium on eBay

Hidden among the porcelain fox hounds and Burberry tablecloths on sale at eBay.be was an unusual item: "For Sale: Belgium, a Kingdom in three parts ... free premium: the king and his court (costs not included)." The odd ad was posted by one disgruntled Belgian in protest at his country's political crisis which reached a 100-day landmark with no end in sight to the squabbling between Flemish and Walloon politicians. "I wanted to attract attention," said Gerrit Six, the teacher who pos-ted the ad. "You almost have to throw rock through a window to get attention for Belgium."

Sick man fined for going to work

A sick Canadian bakery worker has been fined C$1,000 for ignoring an order to stay at home until he recovered from symptoms of salmonella poisoning, medical officials said on Thursday. Health inspectors in Alberta had told Adam Duerr to stay at home until tests showed he had recovered. But Duerr, 20, failed to have himself tested and went back to work. The bakery was fined C$1,500 and the owner C$1,000.