Friday, November 27, 2009

Comic 667: Free At Last

yeah this post is late. maybe it's because I was eating dinner last night with...GEORGE WASHINGTON??? anyway, deal with it.
SkiFrii
Now unlike everyone else, I had never played this "skiing free" game, and so I had no idea what to say when it was introduced into the comic-story. Monster? It will always kill you? Ok. Of course, I am someone who considers skiing a metaphor for the inevitability of death because I am quite certain you will always fall down, painfully.

So for the billionth time, i must admit that perhaps this comic's point was lost on me, that perhaps you must have felt the terrible dread of the imposing snow creature, felt its putrid breath upon your bescarved neck, and thought that each moment must surely be your last, in order to understand what is happening in this comic. But I have a feeling it doesn't matter. I have certainly played games with the same feature, so I'd like to think I can relate.

But ultimately, what is the point? The girl thinks that the monster will kill her, then she finds out that it won't. So her metaphor was....flawed! HA ha ha. Death isn't inevitable? No, just that her image isn't. That last panel is meant to be a sort of "fill in your own joke here" pause because there is nothing funny Randall could actually write there. Seriously, all she could be thinking is "Huh, guess I was wrong."

Of course, what I think this comic is really trying to say is "Guys, I just found out that you can escape the skifree monster, let me show you my knowledge so you will be impressed." but that's just cynical old me talking.

98 comments:

  1. I agree. I have no idea what he was trying to achieve here =.=

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  2. Dude. No. Wow. You clearly don't get it.

    Suppose you have some sort of hermeneutic for understanding life. Like, "the inevitability of the Abominable Snowman represents the inevitability of death" or "the Bible contains no metaphor, allegory, parable, or any literary device; it is only a literal historical account of actual events."

    Now obviously, OBVIOUSLY, if something seems to contradict the descriptive validity of this hermeneutic--such as "you know, the Abominable Snowman isn't inevitable" or "uh, Jesus explicitly told parables, so there are obviously non-literal elements of the Bible", you don't revise the hermeneutic. No! You revise reality.

    So, therefore, death isn't actually inevitable (see: alt-text) and Jesus's parables really are literal historical accounts (see: nutters), and to hell with any attempts to reconcile your epistemology with reality.

    This comic, taken together with its alt text, is CLEARLY a statement on the revision of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral (scripture, tradition, reason, experience) into the Wesleyan One-Legged Stool (scripture) by contemporary right-wing extremist American fundamentalist evangelicals.

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  3. Oh, god, the link on wikipedia is real! Damned xkcd-wiki-tards attacked already! Life is meaningless!!!

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  4. The 'F' stands for Futility

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  5. All the previous comics of Randall trying to show off something he just learned on the internet... this tops them.

    Also, I normally don't like to rant about the comics Carl doesn't yet have a post for, but how the bloody hell does Randall not understand how a Venn Diagram works?

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  6. I'm not quite clear on what he did wrong with it. The formating isn't perfect because of what the comic needed to say/do, but it isn't ambiguous or incorrect.

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  7. Scott, notice how there's no limit between "Musics you like" and "What Pandora plays", but those sets cannot be the same. That's just for starters...

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  8. His diagram is in a rectangle. Which makes the area of the rectangle outside the circles a category. Which two of his labels are in.

    Yes, I realize that that is just the border of his comic, but when he doesn't draw a background or any other details, how can you not see it as part of the picture?

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  9. At this game, whenever this yeti appeared, it meant end game, as it was fucking fast.

    But most of players didn't know about the "f" thing to accelerate.
    A few did, and it was kinda surprising to realize that there was a way to escape, after all.

    Something like trying to beat a boss, always losing, and then someone shows you some stored special power, for example.

    Although I don't think it's worth a forced joke about the metaphor thing. This is fun for a FFFUUU comic, at the most.

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  10. I think somebody in chat pointed out that there's more than one of the snowman things and pressing F again slows you down. So the analogy works and the joke doesn't.

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  11. know what's even worse than xkcd-wiki people? Actually I don't think there is anything worse, but I found this on youtube because I didn't believe you could actually escape the Yeti (I'm refering to the comment section)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFeNHZEP32E

    the horror, THE HORROR

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  12. On the other hand, do you really expect YouTube commenters to be anything other than slam-your-head-in-the-door retarded?

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  13. no, and considering the comments that are posted from the xkcd fora, this surprises me more?

    It's not that I don't expect it, it's just that when you find it, it kind of depresses you

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  14. The Venn Diagram is poorly labeled. The entire thing is supposed to be 'music Randall likes', the left circle is 'music Pandora plays', the right circle is 'deeply embarrassing music'. But you wouldn't get that impression from looking at the comic, because Randall put the last label outside the circle it's supposed to describe.

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  15. so we agree that Randall once again fails at correctly making grade school graphs?

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  16. Nah, I think he drew it right, and part of the conclusion (but not of the punchline) is "What Pandora Plays = Music You Like".

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  17. I cant decide if none of you ever played skifree, or if i was apparently really bad at it... but the bottom line was that 9 times out of 10, while in "fast mode" the snow monster will still eat you. then, to make things worse, there is a second snow monster if you get past the first one.

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  18. Did no one notice the most remarkable thing about this comic?

    The person at the computer is female. And she is kinda sorta wrong about something. There is also a male character who knows more than she does.

    Take a moment to let that sink in.

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  19. I think the point Randall is trying to make with that venn diagram is that he only realizes the music is really embarrasing when other people are around.

    Think about it. If, when alone, Randall doesn't realize the music he likes is deeply embarrasing, then that music will go in the "Music You Like" section. If others are around, Randall realizes his music is deeply embarrasing, so that music will go in the middle section.

    Therefore, Randall is insecure and worries about what others think of his musical preferences.

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  20. I think the point Randall is trying to make with that venn diagram is that he only realizes the music is really embarrasing when other people are around.

    Think about it. If, when alone, Randall doesn't realize the music he likes is deeply embarrasing, then that music will go in the "Music You Like" section. If others are around, Randall realizes his music is deeply embarrasing, so that music will go in the middle section.

    Therefore, Randall is insecure and worries about what others think of his musical preferences.

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  21. damn this comment box!!!

    sorry bout that :(

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  22. It's funny that everyone cares so much; has anyone thought of the idea that, perhaps, by creating all of this discussion, Randall Munroe has actually succeeded?

    Cool blog, bro

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  23. I'm not entirely clear on what you are implying. Are you saying that the blog called "xkcd sucks" has caused Randall Munroe to succeed, or is at least helping him do so? That is pretty clearly false. Randall Munroe makes money on shirt sales, not traffic. Even if it is somehow generating more traffic for him (at best I think it is sustaining traffic), XKCD shirts are not the sort of thing you buy if you hate XKCD (unlike, say, SGR, which makes excellent shirts even if you dislike the comic). So to suggest that we are somehow helping Randall Munroe out is pretty silly--and this blog has definitely converted a few people to the dark side.

    If you are suggesting that our blog's popularity is indicative of Randall Munroe's success, yes--we wouldn't care about him if he was failing.

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  24. @Anonymous

    Of course we have. Don't you know? Haven't you figured it out by now? "Carl Wheeler" is Randall Munroe. All the regular commenters here are covert xkcd fans. The whole thing is an elaborate farce. Nothing in this reality is what you think it is. Your entire life up to this moment has been monitored and subtly controlled by Forces beyond your reckoning. Everyone you've ever known or loved, every place you've ever visited, any God you may have prayed to: all part of an elaborate fantasy, an artificial universe in the service of a mission you can scarcely comprehend. You have done well, my son.

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  25. @Rob -- I think his point is that Randall's goal is to inspire discussion and commentary on his comic strips...?

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  26. Oh. Well that doesn't make any sense. Why should we oppose that goal? If anything we should encourage it. It coincides with our own.

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  27. I will admit, the latest comic with the diagram through me off because it was a little clumsy.

    The universe (the rectangle) contains all music.

    Each circle in the diagram is labeled, but the label is above the circle. So the left circle is music you like, and the right circle is embarrassing music.

    So the overlap is music that you like which is embarrassing.

    The confusion is derived from the fact that the left circle is ALSO labeled on the inside, as music that Pandora plays, because Pandora (whatever it is) plays music that you like.

    So the circle is labeled twice, and in a confusing manner, in order to enable the joke.

    The joke being, of course, that Pandora plays music that you like all the time, but will specifically play music that you like that is embarrassing when somebody else is around to hear it.

    With that explanation out of the way, it is very clumsily done, even if it's somehow correct. Although I'm pretty sure labeling one set in your universe as two different things is probably incorrect.

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  28. By the way, I personally love xkcd.

    I've read your xkcd reviews and I've noticed they all correlate to one simple thing: you don't get it. xkcd isn't DESIGNED to be funny for eveyone, only nerds like me, and you, I am sorry to say, are not cut out for the jokes. Go off and find something you DO like, instead of ranting about things you don't on the internet.

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  29. Okay, first off: we DO like ranting about things we don't like on the internet. It's fun.

    Second: we get the jokes. They are just not funny. Most people here used to be fans; nearly everyone here is a nerd. We're well within the target audience. We just, you know, have a properly developed sense of humor.

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  30. Also that's not what correlate means.

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  31. @Cuddlefish Prime: I'M MAKING A NOTE HERE, HUGE SUCCESS. /meme

    I'm starting to dislike you GreaterSteven, for you spelled the word "threw," as "through," which is a longer word, hence, eliminating the argument that chatspeak saves time. Therefore, you're an idiot and all following and preceding claims are inherently false.
    (Related: I'm trying to inspire a boardgame called "Fallical Logicy". It didn't get *through* the censorship committee)

    (& jokes man. I know, being the striking argumenteur that I am, that I should not debase one's argument threw the misuse of the word "through")

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  32. CharlesPrior: Sorry, but you've done everything wrong in creating an argument against this site. I've tried, and it doesn't work unless your as committed and intelligent as William Monty Hughes (IQ 224).

    So, for an argument of your calibre, first you need to state where the blog "didn't get it." Cite a time where the writer and the commenters were simply flat-out wrong, missed the joke, or otherwise were just too plebian for Mandall Runmoe.

    Furthermore, find a way of proving that the people here are not obscenely nerdish. From my passive observation, Aloria from this blog crochets 1-Up shrooms. That's somewhere around the summit of nerdishness.

    For my finishing strike, I present the idea that that the people here don't come to be angry. That's pretty silly. Most people (Besides Carl, he might just be coming here by audience demand) who do come here do so for enjoyment. You know, the reason why people do almost anything they don't find obligatory.

    So come back another day, present some new thoughts, but rest assured, the people in this blog fortified their undersea defences long ago to prevent cuddlefish warriors from breaking down the wall of coral.

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  33. wait, mesosade, does that mean you're on our side? Or are you just shutting down people who have weak arguments?

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  34. The 'F' key was fun because it was a cool little secret that your friends didn't know. Way to ruin that, xkcd.

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  35. Ehh, before, I disliked this site in the same way that many others did. Eventually, I grew to accept and like it (For its community of intelligent people). Still, I support anyone who finds a noteworthy argument against this site, and I try to play devil's advocate whenever I have time and the blogpost seems flawed.

    Overall, I'm on the side that tries to look at XKCD through a clean lens (However impossible that may be), and working against those who oppose me. I do not believe XKCD inherently sucks.

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  36. The venn diagram is correctly labeled. The circle on the left is music you like. The circle on the right is embarrasing music. The stuff contained only in the left circle is stuff that Pandora plays (when you're alone). The stuff in the intersection is stuff that pandora plays when you're not alone

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  37. Okay, so then part of the premise is that Pandora plays ALL the music you like and ONLY the music you like.

    Here's my suggested edit:

    Left circle: Music Pandora plays.
    Right circle: Music that is deeply embarrasing
    Intersection: Music that Pandora plays when anyone is around.

    Drop the whole "Music you like" thing.

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  38. GreaterSuxven is an enemy to all free peoples.

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  39. Um, the premise of PANDORA is that it plays the music you like and only the music you like

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  40. Dr. Richard Lewis Esq. LLCNovember 28, 2009 at 12:01 AM

    You don't like xkcd? What's the matter... TOO DEEP for you?

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  41. So am I missing something, or is this the exact same joke as the "iPod shuffle feature will play the Power Rangers theme song during sex" comment?

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  42. Oh, of course, silly me. The difference is that in this comic, Randall is also informing us that he's several years late on the whole "discovering Pandora" thing.

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  43. I liked the last comment and the new one. Comic 667 is decent in spite of its punch line being delivered in the second frame. Still, not that bad. Since when is someone having an existential moment/being really deep in thought ruined by a simplistic answer not comedy? It's akin to when someone tries to pick a lock and then their partner breaks in the window on the door. It's been done, but Randall did it different.

    The new comic took all of 3 seconds to figure out what he was trying to label (though it's done poorly) and is really the same thing as when "go go power rangers" goes off cause his iTunes is on shuffle and he has a girl over. However, the joke here is decent (even if old) and Pandora (please don't call this nerd name dropping, it's a really popular site) is a lot of fun.

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  44. Damn someone beat me to most of the second half of my post. That's what I get for not reading all the way down.

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  45. I'm fairly sure everyone who enjoys posting here has owned at least a 1-UP shroom t-shirt at a minimum. That is all.

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  46. I think the premise of the comic is actually "The Mandall likes embarrassing music." Which I don't get. What the hell? How can you be so insecure about frickin' music? Are the lyrics clearly and unironically about tentacle shota? Do you listen to some pretty literal-minded KKK group? Do you listen to recordings of yourself singing very badly?

    I don't understand how, in a world where rap is popular at least, it's possible to be embarrassed about music. And even if the impossible happens, given the music-hipster-irony tri-link you can always pretend you listen to it ironically... Hell, people will most likely assume that in the first place.

    I mean, honestly, I listen to some pretty lame stuff. Although some people did question my taste when I asserted something in arguments over music, I've yet to be actually embarrassed by it.

    And I mean, I sing Still Alive on the bus in as similar a voice as I can. Maybe I'm just devoid of shame?

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  47. Of course, thou faux pharoah. You have a positive attitude towards this Blasphemous Beelzeblag. That and shame are mutually exclusive.

    Once more telling to the denizens of the Devil's smithy: Acquire. A. Life.
    Please.
    Thank. You. In. Advance.

    -William Monty Hughes, esq
    IQ 224
    "Cogito Ergo Sum"

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  48. William Monty Hughes, can I borrow some of your colorful phrases for use in a rap I'm writing?

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  49. Dammit, lost my post.

    "And I mean, I sing Still Alive on the bus in as similar a voice as I can."
    Remember me not to ride the same bus as you. Nothing personal: I just hate that song.

    Anyway, I think the diagram would be much more readable and funny if, instead of putting those inner labels, the two chunks of the left circle were filled in with a pattern, and then explained below. I just wonder if Randall has that much of a problem with graphs, or if he does one draft and, "screw it, this is good enough for me".

    Like I said on the previous thread, I find the strip not bad, but I always get pissed when Randall talks about music; once he alleged (arguably) that he knows his rock music from Guitar Hero, in another said how techno music was a 15 second sample repeated for four minutes, yet in another he dragged Meg-- his girl on a "Mission to Culture", as if he knew better. The cuddlefish could say, "duh, those were just JOKES", but we all know how xkcd has this pattern of being scarily confessional many times. And if those were just characters, and not Randall's own image, how would we know that they're different characters?

    Randall, you know shit about music.

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  50. My problem with the Venn diagram is slightly different: surely music can only be deeply embarrassing if you like it. If you don't like it then it's just bad music that you have no call to be embarrassed by. 'Deeply Embarrassing Music' should therefore be a subset of 'Music You Like'.

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  51. Um, the premise of PANDORA is that it plays the music you like and only the music you like


    Yeah, that's the goal of Pandora, but I think anyone who's not a total dumbfuck knows that it doesn't achieve that goal with 100% reliability. And if it DID, he STILL wouldn't need to clutter the set with two labels.

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  52. "...terrible dread of the imposing snow creature, felt its putrid breath upon your bescarved neck,.....I have certainly played games with the same feature,..."

    Rilly? (My transcription and transliteration of the word 'really' to better approxamate its atrocious Yankee pronounciation)

    You've played 'Hide the Wiener' with Ms. Palin's bespattered daughter too then?

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  53. WE LOVE EACH OTHER. i am going to name the baby "flump"

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  54. Carl where'd the funny go?

    I may start writing for xkcd sucks sucks if this keeps up.

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  55. you guys are fucking idiots for not getting the venn diagram
    the universe is obviously "all music"
    the left circle contains music you like
    the right circle contains music pandora plays
    the captions inside the circles are just that, captions.
    you can be pedantic fucktards all you want, but not understanding the diagram just means you lack basic graph comprehension.

    that being said, fuck chart comics, they're not funny anymore.

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  56. Alright, here's a cuddlefishe's interpretation of the venn diagramm:
    Universe is music
    Left circle is "Music you Like"
    Right circle is "Music that embarrasses you"
    Intersection, then, is "Music you like that is embarrassing"
    In the left circle, the "music you like" category, is "music pandora plays"
    This is only part of the category, there is probably other things that could go in that circle, but "music pandora plays" is one of them.
    In the intersection, again as the first element in a potential list, is "music pandora plays when other people are listening"

    That's the way it makes sense to me, although there are obviously other ways to interpret it.

    This comic vaguely amused me, mostly cause I can remember a few embarrassing incidents where things like this happened.

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  57. the right circle contains music pandora plays

    That's obviously incorrect, since the right circle contains "Deeply embarrasing music". Unless Randall decided to place the label for the right circle inside the left circle.

    Seriously, drawing a two-circle Venn diagram to represent the intersection of like four sets is a fucking stupid thing to do. Either cut down the number of relevant sets, or use more circles. There are Venn diagrams OTHER than two circles sharing a slivered intersection. He could have at least tried to use an accurate one, rather than using the familiar one and trying to hork labels around to fit.

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  58. King Neckbeard, you just gotta be kidding.

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  59. Attempted improvement

    Same intended meaning* as the comic but removes any possible ambiguity.

    *I base this on the following assumptions:
    a) Pandora plays music you like and only music you like
    b) You like some embarrassing music
    c) When people are around, Pandora only plays embarrassing music

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  60. Also, the CAD rule applied to xkcd 667 for the heck of it.

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  61. Carl, have you seen this?

    http://plover.net/~bonds/asdf.html

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  62. Dude, Sam, I'm sorry but that sucks. Adding an extra circle doesn't make it less ambiguous, it makes it confusing as fuck.

    The graph is fine.

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  63. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  64. that's okay Jay I can live with that

    At the least very least I am not disproving poore's "everything is terrible" stance

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  65. I think that the diagram works fine in that it is easy enough to get the punch line, that Pandora plays embarrassing music when people are around. However, elementary mistakes in terms of construction/labelling have been made, so that if you think about how the diagram actually operates, it makes less sense. And if part of the joy/humour of Xkcd is, as so many of its defenders suggest, its inherent 'geekiness', its appeal to 'geeks' and 'geeky' things, surely this would mean doing those 'geeky' things (like, presumably, Venn diagrams, properly).

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  66. The graph is correct enough, but it would be a million times funnier(read: negligibly amusing) if the left descriptive "Music Pandora Plays" was taken out and only the intersection descriptive was left in. Then it would be a clear enough joke without that extraneous clunky bit that is totally unnecessary and also makes the graph asymmetrical.

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  67. TheMesosade -- I actually caught the through/threw mistake after I posted, and figured I'd be mocked for it because that's how we work here at xkcdsucks. But if I had taken the time to post again to correct the one mechanical error in my post, I probably would've been mocked for that too. Because that's how we work here at xkcdsucks.

    Rob -- You're so adorable, making jabs at me! I rest my case.

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  68. GreaterSteven,

    You did not actually make a case. Your post just pointed out a number of aspects of internet arguments and then ended with a lame taunt.

    No case there. You did not even establish a single point

    Also, your comma and conjuction use would make your English teacher cry.

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  69. GreaterSteven: Before, I wasn't actually mocking you. Now I will, because the one thing you shouldn't do while criticising is having your facts wrong.

    Earlier, I was speaking in jest. This is seen in perhaps everything after writing "I'm starting to dislike you..." I was making a logical fallacy, and recognized it too. It was distinctly obvious, as well. I neither disagreed nor agreed with whichever point you were making. Clearly, you didn't read farther than my mild comment on "through."

    Most people on this site don't HONESTLY care if you make casual mistakes in writing. Casual mistakes being the ones normal people make if they don't have time to proofread and edit. However, your writing style IS representative of your image on the internet. If you write like a child, be prepared to be treated like one.

    GreaterSteven, your lack of reading, understanding, and knowledge of basic human emotion have made me lose all faith in you. You are now branded a failure at life, for now and forever.

    (If you're trying to be ironic/funny in any way, I doubt it, I disbelieve you, and would say in a heartbeat that everyone else does too).

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  70. First time poster, long time reader of both xkcd and xkcd sucks. Shit nobody cares about aside, I didn't find the Pandora comic very funny. I know people have been rather anal about the diagram but I couldn't care less about it.

    Maybe it's just because I don't know what Pandora is (But a comment here leads me to believe it's another webcomic?). Even without knowing what it is, I could still understand the basic premise and still didn't find it amusing in any way.

    I feel like the particular comic that this post is the focus on (Does everyone run out of steam once the latest comic has been posted? It seems like everyone is expending themselves with comments about it on this one) is kind of retarded. I mean, I've never played the game, but it looks pretty terrible, which is understandable considering it's meant to be sorta old, I guess. But the deeper philosophical part of the strip seems kinda stupid.

    All I know for sure is the last time I played, say, Tetris, I didn't try to use it as a gigantic methaphor for keeping my life organized so that it wouldn't pile up on me and cause me to fail horrificly.

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  71. @Revenant: you're so right. I had to struggle through an entire two Google results for "pandora" before I found the answer. I admit, had it not been for you, I may have abandoned the search after one result. But I thought, "I can't give up! I have to do this... for Revenant!". And lo, I was enlightened. Your comment was not in vain, dear friend.

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  72. @Revenant I would like to see quotes from the comments here that led you to believe Pandora was a webcomic, please.

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  73. @Ann Apolis: Many thanks. I salute you! Seriously though, I wasn't sure at first if that was it, and would've preferred to get confirmation about it.

    @Anonymouse: Honestly, I read something along the lines of 'Pandora's website' and assumed it was a webcomic due to the author of XKCD sometimes referencing other webcomics, like with the Parody Week.

    I was seriously under the impression Pandora may have been a character, or something. Obviously I didn't really try to go and figure out what it actually was, but I didn't think I'd have to keep in the know about many things on the internet to enjoy a particular webcomic.

    But that's just me.

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  74. Apologies for the mis-spell there. Wasn't paying attention at the time, and there appears to be no edit function for unregistered users.

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  75. @Anonymouse: Honestly, I read something along the lines of 'Pandora's website' and assumed it was a webcomic due to the author of XKCD sometimes referencing other webcomics, like with the Parody Week.

    Yes, because everything with a website is a webcomic. Totally logical.

    CAPTCHA: renwooki. A big hairy guy who dresses up as a peasant once a year.

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  76. I enjoyed this one. (It helps that I've played SkiFree, and know all about that horrible creature that zips in out of nowhere, gobbles you up, and does a dance.) The last panel doesn't have much more to say than "...huh." But I think it actually works. The alt text was a nice touch, although it might have made for a better punchline.

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  77. It was obvious to me Pandora was some sort of music service without having to look it up. Still, it's not fucking funny even if you ignore how poorly worded it is and how the diagram makes no fucking sense at all.

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  78. TheMesosade -- So much hostility, seriously. I was merely acknowledging that I had seen the mistake.

    If your problem is with my accusation of the people at xkcdsucks being picky about spelling and grammar, I apologize. But it's true. Not all of the people, of course, but enough of them. And the ones that are tend to be prominent members of this community.


    Regularjoe -- I had been implying that some people at xkcdsucks are rather petty with their arguing. Here is me posting a comment about the comic and why I dislike it, and here is rob accusing me of being an enemy of all free peoples, presumably because of previous disagreements I had with him several weeks ago.

    Essentially: My point is that some people here are petty, and my supporting evidence is a comment from Rob, who is being petty.

    But it's cool, you can attack me, if you'd like. I still don't understand why there is so much hostility.

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  79. You don't understand a lot of things. Interestingly, your very lack of understanding is the very "why" you don't understand w/r/t hostility.

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  80. all of you can eat my dick

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  81. Unless you can pull some sort of Jesus move, I don't think there'll be enough for everyone.

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  82. Hey look an outsider. Get him!

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  83. GreaterSuxven, you are neither funny nor insightful.

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  84. I love how GreaterSteven is, probably without even realising it, showing all the classic symptoms. "Shit, they don't seem to be taken aback by all my swaying arguments. It must be because it's impossible to reason with them; they'll simply attack any outsider for being an outsider, not because he brings bullshit arguments."

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  85. He has been here before and he sucked then. That is where he earned his name, GreaterSuxven. He is pretty great!

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  86. For a second after I opened the link to this blog, I thought you were all the most boring/pathetic bunch of people.

    Then I realised you are trolling

    8/10

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  87. Fred -- You guys aren't really arguing with me. My initial post covered one topic, "this graph is hard to read," and for the most part you've all agreed with me about that.

    I'm not trying to convince you that some of you are petty. I know that for myself. And I wager most of the people reading this who don't comment do, as well.

    It's not a battle, it's not a conflict, because I'm not fighting. But you guys keep attacking me anyway.

    I'm not trying to convince people that you're petty. I don't have to.

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  88. I have nothing to say about this comic, but Mal's comment about the Wesleyan Quadrilateral has, in itself, entirely justified the existance of this blog. It's purely brilliant.

    TRiG.

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  89. Stevens, if you're not trying to convince people tha we're petty, why are you making so many posts at such length that are nothing but stating "The XKCDsucks people are petty"? If you're not trying to demonstrate it or argue it or anything, do you just like stating it?

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  90. You've never played Ski Free?

    Get off of the internet. Seriously, pack up your computer, send it back to Dell (or what ever crappy wholesaler you used) and stop using the internet. Next thing we know we're going to have to explain to you the significance of the name "Buddy Holly". For shame...

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  91. This comic could have been made infinitely better by removing the last two panels and replacing them with a large picture of GIRL A on a tank, riding through a Nazi-era-Berlin and a nice line of speech.

    'I found it, old friend. I found the f key.'

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  92. So to suggest that we are somehow helping Randall Munroe out is pretty silly

    It is actually not. Every link to a website contributes not only to its traffic, but also to its relevance in search engines.

    Plus, some smart people say there's no such thing as bad publicity. You're not only spreading the idea to peole who hate xkcd, you're also promoting xkcd among the people who enjoy it.

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  93. Yeah, a lot of people search "xkcd" not knowing what they're looking for.

    And those smart people are wrong. There is such a thing as bad publicity--ask Amanda Knox.

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  94. I think the costs of sending lots more people to xkcd.com (which are, I guess, that people searching for "xkcd" will be more likely to find "xkcd.com"? I guess? Which is already the top hit for "xkcd"?) are more than outweighed by the benefit of knowing that if we send him enough traffic, he'll have to see "xkcdsucks" in his google analytics referral page, every single day.

    ReplyDelete