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Comment by sva_ | Hacker News Reader

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Unironic +1.

SOS is still officially recognized as a distress signal, is universally understood across language and cultural barriers, and works well with a variety of signaling methods.

I agree. There is also hope that someone may recognize the signal (if they were scouts, or cs students who had that as one of the first tasks, ...).

The way you tap it is

     . . . .. .. .. . . .

I didn't know that one. TIL.

I hope you're joking. It's literally SOS in morse code, and it's pretty common hearing the sound in movies / series.

> I hope you're joking.

Why? There, by definition, is always a moment when you learn something. You're not born knowing SOS. At some point in your life you learn of it. To reply to someone who expresses that that this was such a moment with "I hope you're joking" comes off as extremely condescending.

Yes but it's different here. SOS should be as known as Coca Cola.

I'm not trying to be harsh or anything, it's just that I can't imagine someone not knowing such a basic thing like that - similar to not knowing what the number for the emergency services in your country is.

Berating someone for admitting they don't know something is counter-productive and is only going to make them not admit it the next time.

Yes, you're totally right and I probably stated my astonishment in the wrong way.

And I can't imagine you cannot imagine that. You probably know there are people of so many different ages and cultures and backgrounds here, is it really that hard to imagine someone never encountered it?

Honestly, for such a thing, yes. But I should probably consider that, under certain circumnstances, people might not be aware of certain things.

Never mind, sorry for the bad comment.

I usually get downvoted for posting XKCD but here it goes. Relevant XKCD

https://xkcd.com/1053/

I hope you're joking. How can someone not know that the average person is unaware of Morse code? After all, it's pretty common hearing about how ignorant people are in movies/series :P

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