2002.09.15
Some people think they have found the first 'Net smiley, with more details from the inventor here. (though others are convinced that this is a reinvention, that they were around before on various BBSs.)
And even those may have been predated by Emoticons on the PLATO System which were even cooler. On that system, you can overwrite characters (like on a typewriter, you can hit "backspace" and put a character over the last one) and some of the results (like these two here) are cute...to the right is what you'd type, and to the left is the result. That link had even more interesting ones...
Quote of the Moment
But even the thought of a Billy Joel 9/11 opera justifies raising our nation's bad-art threat level to CONDITION ORANGE.
Link of the Moment
Frank Jump is the force behind Fading Ad Campaign, photos of the advertisements you would sometimes see on the sides of old buildings. Just realized now that the artist with HIV, and that might influence the subject matter...also, that (now defunct) Word.com helped put him on the 'Net.