Year end, of course, is the time to think of friends, relatives, colleagues, and those whom we've misplaced in our every day lives but haven't forgotten. For the past few years I've been sending Christmas and New Year greetings using the internet (I'm terrible with paper cards). My first year, I sent plain email greetings, while for the last two years I used the services of Blue Mountain (https://www.bluemountain.com) which offers a multitude of colourful, animated, and musical greetings.

This year I had planned to use the Communications Authority of Thailand's (https://www.cat.or.th) services, which provides greeting cards similar to Blue Mountain, but with a decided Thai motif. In the end, though, I decided go "retro" and sent email with embedded "ASCII Art" instead.

My reason for doing this is simple: email with ASCII art is "light". Furthermore, it can be prepared well in advance and sent en masse at the last moment. It also saves the recipient the bother of linking to a web page to view your greetings. Finally, it allows the recipient to save your art for sending to others. The downside, of course, is that it's less visually appealing than the likes of Blue Mountain or CAT. But for those of us who grew up in the early days of computing/the internet, it brings back memories of a simpler time.

But what is ASCII art? Very simply, it's art created using ASCII characters (i.e. characters, numbers, symbols, etc.). Some examples:

                                                     .-----.
                                                    ( #-...'`\
                                                     \ #     |
                                                    _ )"===="| _
                                                   (_`"======"`_)
                                                    /`""""""""`\
                                                   |        o _o\
                                  ,_               |         (_>|
              ___                {` `}__            \      '.___/--#
 _  _      ."`   `"=,            `;"`   `"=,         '.    ;-._:'\
{_}:_`'=='` _,=="""=,\           /     _.-'`\          )===\  <)_/  __
     `'--.=" _.====, `|         ;  _.'`   _.;`   .---""`====`-'\__.'  `|
         `'_(| ^.^ |)/          ;'`    _.:_^}   /             ()\     /
           )';_'='_/.'  _ .'=_._\___.-|`|| || _ \___..--'        \_.-'
        .'`    '.=/(__/` |_`-.=||_||_||_||_|/` |   |           () |
       /    /   o|  \ \_/ .=`-`/           \\_/    ;              ;
      /`-,_/    o|  |-'       /`-..-'   ~~ |/       \          ()/
      `(`___   o/__/          \_/`        /          \      '.  /
       _`\ \`""`  \  __       __\ \   '-./ __,    _.'`\       `;
      || `'.'._   /-"//      {{o '.'.   //" //   (     `\       \_
      ||  ,/`-.`./  //       {{  \/`.`.//  //     \    .-`\       `\
  jgs `\\_/    `'-.//        `\\_/   `'; o//       \___)   `._____.'
                                    `"`      `"`

                         _.--"""-,
                       .'         `\
                      /             \
                      |  /.-.--.-.--.)
                      .\|(_._.__._.__)
                     (   )   0 _ 0   \
            \  /_     `-|     (_)     |       _\  /
            \\/       /`|             |`\       \//
          '-.\\ \/   |  \   \     /   /  |   \/ //.-'
            __\\|    \   '.  '._.'  .'   /    |//__
               \\   .-'.   `'-----'`   .'-.   //
                \\.'    '-._        .-'\   './/
                /`          `'''''')    )    `\
               /                  (    (      ,\
              ;                o  /\    '-..-'/ ;
              |                  (  '.       /  |
              |                o  )   `;---'`   |
              ;                  /__.-'         ;_
          .-''-\               o `             /  '-
                `.                           .'
            jgs   '-._                   _.-'
                      `"  '  - - -  ' "``