this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2023
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.

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[–] [email protected] 143 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I associate the pause symbol (two vertical lines) with "press here to pause." I associate the playing symbol (sideways triangle) as "press here to play."

Tldr: no

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

I agree with you.

This is why shitty players make me do play pause play pause play pause play yes yes right there.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You said the exact same thing as the post though, just in a different way.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The post appears to have been edited. It originally said something like "Everyone subconsciously associates..." Key word being Everyone, which seems to have been corrected so kudos to the OP.

So on to your point no, I do not think so. Please read again.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What I'm saying is that "press here to pause" is essentially the same thing as "currently playing."

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You're still agreeing with the title. The title says most people interpret the pause symbol as "currently playing", so clicking it would mean "click here to pause" - which is what you said :) It's just the same thing with different wording

Oh, unless you meant on devices or software with two separate buttons for play and pause! In which case, yeah totally different and you're right :)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If the system was muted, and you saw two vertical lines, would you assume it's playing or paused?

Just highlighting that you DO associate it as OP says, because you're not an idiot. It may not be the primary association, but it's there.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

If the system was muted, and I saw two vertical lines I would assume that meant "press here to pause." The state of "the thing" to me has nothing to do with the symbol on the button.

How would you then, reconsile the the state of "the thing"on system that had individual buttons for functions such as play/pause/fast forward/rewind/record/eject/etc? Would the thing be playing and paused at the same time?

[–] [email protected] 90 points 1 year ago

Ah, the old debate of "display current state" vs "display current action"...

[–] [email protected] 54 points 1 year ago (4 children)

"Press this button to do this"

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Yes. The button symbol denotes the action/cause, not the reaction/effect.

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 year ago

Speak for yourself.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago

Tell me you're Gen Z or Alpha without telling me you're Gen Z or Alpha.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago

I can assuredly tell you I do not.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I take it you never used a tape player or VCR.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Could only have played DVDs and BluRays on a PS2/3/4/5. In which case ❌=⏯️

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

And today X means Twitter 😂🤣

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think this only applies if the two actions occupy the same space, and change when pressed? If I saw a separate play and pause button, I'd assume play means play and pause meant pause. If I saw only one button for play, I'd probably assume it was currently paused/stopped.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

My bad, I should have been more specific in my post. I was talking in the context of software which in most music players has the pause and play buttons occupying the same space. On physical devices such as dvd player I obviously consider the pause button as "to pause" and the play button as "to play"

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think you are referring the button that user interface provides when such operations are executing.

When the file is playing, you want to pause it, then you may press the pause symbol (Two vertical lines) button to pause it, or else press the play symbol (sideways triangle) to continue playback of the file.

To explain why the pause symbol is two vertical lines, and the play symbol the sideways triangle, here're some history:

the pause button indicates the two rollers beside the read OR write magnet on a tape deck that push the tape up against the head. the single vertical bar with triangle indicates one roller retracted faster play in that direction... basically other than the "play" symbol, which simply means "go" the rest of the symbols are based on the state of the controlling rollers. Record was a red circle, indicating the red shelled "studio in use recording" light outside the door.

The vertical lines represent the sides of frames on a reel. Pause means you are stopped between two frames, play means you are moving through the frames left to right (hence the arrow), fast forward is moving through the frames at some multiple of 1x, and the scene skip button pushes you forward to some preset "hard" frame edge.

From https://ux.stackexchange.com/a/90343

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

On that note, I wonder how many younger Photoshop users have never realized that most of its tools are named after actual tools and practices from the analog times

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I remember actually cutting analogue tape and using sticky tape to repair the join when cropping audio in the studio. Now it's just a symbol of a pair of scissors.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I'm old enough for the rewinding of cassette tapes to be an integral part of my childhood, at least.

Editing was all digital by the time I started taking an interest, though.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

That's a result of devs using the "pause" icon to indicate "paused". And when people tap on the "paused" icon to "play" something, it becomes associated with that.

Blame the UI devs who messed this up.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks for the insight, ElPussyKangaroo

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You're welcome, floridaman.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Florida Man caught thanking kangaroos in the vulva received recognition on fediverse.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I'm still shocked at what the hell I just read but it was pretty wholesome.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Florida Man caught thanking kangaroos in the vulva ~~received recognition~~ on fediverse.

🌚

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

I don't think we all do.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It may astonish you to learn that many media devices in this wide, rich and varied world are not software applications.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Someone here didn't record their favourite songs onto a cassette when the radio played them

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I hate to break it to you, but we're too old. The kids don't know what cassettes are.

proceeds to cry in a corner

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

They'll start calling us cassettes as slang for old farts

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Okay, here's where I lose you. What's AWA?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Lol! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AWA_Technology_Services

I remember my grandfather had a whole bunch of AWA wooden box TV's and stereos

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Oooooo that's cool! Man tech became boring real fast.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Definitely not most people, perhaps most people in the youngest generations, but they still do not constitute a majority. In the future possibly, but there are still plenty of people who either still have sound playing equipment with buttons with those symbols on them or have recent memories of owning and operating such gadgets.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

What would be the reason? Most media players I use like vlc which is well known has the play as the triangle and pause as ||. Same with YouTube.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Confused the absolute hell out of me when I was very young!

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