Identicons

It would be nice if rather than using the hash (which you have no control over), the algorithm looked at the distribution of languages I program in and used that to pick the colors. That would be a better representation of my programming identity and is in line up with what github already does for repos.

i spent some time working on something like this - i wanted something that could carry as much information as a typical cryptographic hash, but be memorable to a human.

it turns out that it's quite hard to make that much information memorable :o) (it's even harder to measure whether something is memorable, or even "different" - i ended up getting sidetracked into extreme value statistics, and then giving up)

but one important trick was to make the pattern symmetric in some way, which seems to be also used here. although it halves the amount of data (assuming other parameters constant) it makes it much, much easier to remember.

anyway, these look good (for this use case).

Pointless estimation:

There are, say, around 10x2^(5x3) = Identicons assuming about 10 color shades can be told apart easily. That's ~300,000 different combinations. You need ~650 people contributing to a repo in order to get a 50% chance of collision.

So, while there are almost certainly collisions across all Github users, you're pretty unlikely to see one in any thread you'll participate in.

Especially since so many Githubbers actually do have Gravatars.

I found an identicon onomatopoeia: https://identicons.github.com/mask.png

What problem do these solve? Serious question.

Mine is pretty unexciting: https://identicons.github.com/mwylde.png.

It would be nice if the algorithm took interest (probably defined as a ratio close to 50/50 white/black cells) into account to prevent mostly black or mostly white avatars.

Religious symbol or two hands holding a pea? Or if you stretch the imagination really hard, a top down view of a TIE/IN ? :-)

https://identicons.github.com/JohnHammersley.png

I wish Gravatar themselves would add more options for fallback images. All the ones they have are pretty obtrusive. Ex: nicer looking identicons, someones initials (Trello style), or even just the ability to pass a URL that has a querystring as a fallback image.

They do have a "identicon" already. I wonder why GitHub didn't use it -- probably just didn't like the way they looked.

https://secure.gravatar.com/site/implement/images/#default-i...

I could not have chosen a better one: https://identicons.github.com/jemfinch.png

Mine looks weird, to say the least: https://identicons.github.com/ssilva.png

Mine is pretty boring...

https://identicons.github.com/eberfreitas.png

But overall, it looks really cool :)

I got an evil alien:

https://identicons.github.com/andrewf.png

Mine is sad!

https://identicons.github.com/chasing.png

I realise it's completely childish but I was amused by https://identicons.github.com/hate.png looking like a smiley face.

Also https://identicons.github.com/balls.png

Reminds me of Jared Tarbell's "Invader Fractal:"

http://www.complexification.net/gallery/machines/invaderfrac...

(Jared also happens to be one of Etsy's co-founders...)

I really like mine! It's about as minimal as can be, only two pixels with different color.

https://identicons.github.com/tlongren.png

https://identicons.github.com/jhorvat.png I like how mine looks like an H (my last initial)

Mine is the anonymous/guy fawkes face: https://identicons.github.com/pathikrit.png

mine is... borderline offensive?

https://identicons.github.com/ultimatedelman.png

or a racecar. not sure which.

I like their small file size, around 200 to 300 bytes. Though that's arguably large to store a 5x5 bitmap + one RGB color, which would fit comfortably in 7 bytes.

Mine looks like a human: https://identicons.github.com/samanbarghi.png

Great update. I never cared to sign up for Gravatar as it's now owned by WordPress, but it was a minor annoyance that I was not identifiable by my avatar.

"Huge number of unique identicons"? Since they all seem to be symmetric, there's only N * 2^15 = N * 32768 of them (N = number of colors).

I like this! Now I'll use it for other things too.

I found a blank one: https://identicons.github.com/lessons.png

Mine's mousey https://identicons.github.com/tel.png

mine looks upside-down https://identicons.github.com/gingerlime.png

but I LOVE this idea and execution. Considering turning off my gravatar.