Hexionary/Hex Glossary

Useful terminology for those interested in or involved with hex stickers.

Hexagonista

A connaisseur and/or collector of standard hex stickers.

Hexalicious

A particulary attractive (ensemble of) hex sticker(s).

Hexavaganza

An extravagant amount of hex stickers, at or near the point where it causes cognitive overload.

Hexaverse

The threedimensional volume created by connecting the most distant places in space where hexagon stickers have been taken by mankind. Currently expected to be between 0.1 and 1 trillion cubic kilometers, but once hex stickers are no longer earthbound (thanks to hexplorers) that can rapidly change.

Hexclusive

A hex sticker which is only made available one time, e.g. to commemorate a special occasion (e.g. an event or anniversary).

Hexdrop

The launch event at which a new hexsticker is brought into circulation. Also a verb: "when will you hexdrop this new design"?

Hex editor

This really has little to do with hexagonal stickers. A hex editor is a bit of software that is able to show and subsequently allows to alter raw binary (or other) files through hexadecimal characters.

Hex hazard warning

Stickers on e.g. a laptop are an infosec hazard. In environments where high coercion and machine learning powered surveillance are a thing, your personalised laptop (in fact with any distinguishing visual factor) can be used to fingerprint you. In such situations you should probably use a neutral sleeve for your devices when taking them in public spaces. Also, you nor children or pets in your environment should ever physically eat stickers. Please make sure that people are aware of these risks.

Hexile (verb, to ~)

Retire a sticker from active duty because you no longer wish to publicly endorse the associated effort, organisation or topic. E.g. "That project is no longer free software, so I decided to just hexile the sticker I had on my laptop. Alternatively: to hexpel.

Hexit

Hex stickers can be addictive. For some people it is better to quit the hex scene, and move to other, less addictive sticker formats.

Hexmas

An event at which at least X new hex sticker designs are hexdropped, and at least Y hex stickers are distributed — with X and Y a matter of personal opinion. For some, hexmas or sticker heaven might start in the vicinity of 10 000 stickers, while for other more seasoned hexagonista the threshold may be significantly higher. There are no fixed dates, but a well-known event at which hexmas may take place is FOSDEM in Brussels (Belgium). There can of course be multiple hexmasses a year, the hex movement is naturally inclusive by virtue of being fully decentralised and autonomous. Sometimes the Father Hex may drop by for a suprise visit, but one shouldn't count on that.

Hex-off

A competition (typically held alongside a hex drop from multiple individuals or organisations) where the contestants pit their designs against each other. Each particpant shuffles a stack of original hex stickers (no duplicates allowed) and puts them face down on a draw pile in front of them. Every turn each of the contestants reveal a new sticker, and there is a vote (from the contestants themselves, a jury or the audience) which of the designs is more aesthetic or otherwise more pleasing than the other one. If there is no clear winner, the points remain on the table for the next round. At the end of the context, the player with the most points obviously wins.

HexOps

The workflow of designing, producing, shipping and distributing hex stickers at professional scale. E.g.: "Jo got fed up with being a software engineer and supporting IT operations at their work, and moved to doing HexOps full-time. It is much more satisfying, although they sometimes miss writing test harnesses."

Hexot

A hexagonal shaped sticker that has a different size or orientation compared to the "standard hex sticker". A hex sticker® adhering to the hex sticker convention is a regular polygon with six sides each 25.4 mm long, with one of the three long diagonals oriented fully vertically (so the hex shape is pointing both up and down). See the hex sticker standard.

Hexpel (verb, to ~)

Retire a sticker from active duty because you no longer wish to publicly endorse the associated effort, organisation or topic. E.g. "That project is no longer free software, so I decided to just hexpel the sticker I had on my laptop". Alternatively: to hexile.

Hexplorer

A person that takes a hex sticker to places where hex stickers have never been before. E.g. "When she was selected for a second mission by the European Space Agency, May finally decided to fulfil her lifelong ambition to become a hexplorer. She took her favourite hex sticker along and stuck it on the wall at the International Space Station, where it remains to this day." or "The expedition to the Mariana Trench turned out to have not one but three hexplorers, each taking their favorite hex sticker along to the depths of the ocean". Not to be confused with the 50 kilometer high club.

Hexproof

(disambiguation) a. Some irregular object surface that defies the application of hex stickers, potentially as part of a hexit detox. E.g. "I finally glued sandpaper on the back of my phone, now it is hexproof". b. Some design element that will (nearly) always look good in a hex sticker. "That logo is nearly hexproof. No amount of bad design choices would make it look ugly". c. Cannot be enchanted or jinxed.

Reproducibility

Technical measures taken to assure that multiple independent print runs of a hex sticker design are always visually identical. Every replica is by definition unique, but within a single print run this is normally within fairly tight bounds. Between different print runs, differences can be much larger. By removing reproducibility issues like converting to standardised print colors, pinning on certain (versions of) equipment, dye/ink vendor, etc — the physical production process can be made (more) deterministic and more consistent quality can be achieved. Part of the responsibility of HexOps. See reproducibility crisis.

Reproducibility crisis

Many hex designs are made with logos and other graphical elements that were originally crafted for screen, not for print. These 'digitally born' designs are pragmatically handled by printing facilities on a "good enough" basis, but are actually not 100% reproducible. Depending on the printing process (silk screening, offset, digital print) and the actual equipment and materials used by the printer, there are ad hoc (and potentially proprietary) steps taken by the printer to convert from e.g. the RGB color space to the actually used CMYK by their equipment, change print density, use spot colors etc. This is a fundamental issue that obviously only surfaces in the context of multiple independent print runs. When it is only visible after careful scrutiny by hexagonista, the word crisis may be overblown but when the color differences are obvious even to lay people this can cause societal unrest and stress. Note that the term 'reproducibility crisis' is also frequently used in the context of science, to indicate the problem that scientific methodology calls for independent validation of research results but that such validation is often not technically possible because of the lossy process leading up to publication of the research in question. In software, reproducible builds and publication of open data proper format descriptions may form part of the solution.

50.8 kilometer high club

A hex design can join the 50.8 kilometer high club (which is the cumulative height of 1 000 000 properly sized hexagon stickers properly oriented) in two ways: by reaching a total print volume of one million stickers, or by being been taken up more than said distance up from the Earth's surface. Since the latter is well above the cruise altitude of commercial air flight, it does require significant investment. So far there are only rumours, but no substantiated claims.