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interface your fears |
Hmm… the HCI “gang sign” looks rather like the infamous IA gang sign from the 2002 IA summit. inspired by? 
Not at all actually, but very cool. I have to say I’d have preferred to be the one to come up with the IA one. I spent a fair amount of time getting my fingers into knots trying to see how HCI could be done.
Had I known about it, I’d probably have one of the two guys do that instead. =)
Does the two fingers mean the same to Americans as it does to English? I thought it was a peculiarly English thing (Agincourt, an’ all that).
It is an English thing. iVan is English, however. Also peculiarly English is their tendency to use the middle finger to point at things which in North America is the “subtle” way of flipping somebody off.
Hey, there was a reason we chose this week to talk about cultural design =)
Well I’m English and I can’t say I have ever seen anyone use their middle finger to point. Everyone I know uses their forefinger. Whoever told you that may have been trying to get you into trouble - the middle finger means the same, give or take, as it does to an American…
It wasn’t told to me. I currently live in London and have been here for the past two years, partially at a professional level and partially at a student level. In that time, I have experienced this on numerous occasions. Perhaps a picture expresses it better.
Of course, I am a) generalizing and b) exaggerating. If someone flipped the middle finger, the meaning would not be ambiguous at all I think in most places in the world.
Mind you, I think it’s really North Americans being overly sensitive about any use of the middle finger to so much as push your glasses up.
no that’s just that nice mr blair “not being aggressive”. (pointing with your forefinger is deemed slightly aggressive)
no that’s just that nice mr blair “not being aggressive”. (pointing with your forefinger is deemed slightly aggressive)
Somebody should teach him how to point with his whole hand, palm out. =)
Curious - I just attended volunteer orientation for the World Swimming Championships. We were cautioned to gesture only with the entire hand, all fingers (or no fingers as the case may be). And to keep our hands to ourselves and off ourselves.
I’ll be the one in the invisible box.
Depends who/what Blair was pointing to. Maybe he was trying to be (subtly) offensive 
He is probably better bred than anyone I know, which ma explain the difference - the old joke about “brought up and sent to Eton vs. eaten and brought up” springs to mind.
Weird. I say I’ve never seen it and then observed it in real life yesterday. Mind you, it was done by a German, and they’re all strange anyway 
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