[Hated demonic entity "shufti" has vomited another pile of horrible words from the sulfurous depths of hell. What follows is a rough transcript. -Ed.]
I'm disappointed again guys. I actually enjoyed xkcd for a while - a good three weeks in fact. I was kinda flabbergasted that, for once, there was quality on xkcd. All of it was flawed, of course, but it was still decent. Randy seemed to have rediscovered what a "punchline" was and that it meant the comic was "over", he actually displayed a bit of "subtlety", and for once the nerd references weren't so maddeningly stupid and out-of-place. These comics still had their flaws, but they were at least amusing for a change.
And of course Randy's 4chan alarm went off that SOMEBODY WHO HATED HIM DERIVED ENJOYMENT FROM HIS COMIC, so he swoops in with 830, a metaphorical C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER of shit and fail.
Oh, who am I kidding, this wasn't intentional - Randy just sucks at humor. I mean, "Your parents had sex"? That's the punchline? Thanks Captain Obvious. This is exactly like that damned Computer Problems comic or that also-damned Desecration comic - it's a couple of adults acting like fucking infants (or Tea Partiers) over the stupidest shit. I feel like Randy took a trip to Simple Wikipedia (or a Tea Party rally) and he suddenly lost faith in a person's ability to reason anything beyond 1 + 1 = 3 or something.
Is this Randy trying to say he remembered a repressed childhood memory? Or maybe he was catching up on his Big Bang Theory and saw that one episode where Sheldon was being teased about his "Mema" having had sex at some point and he thought, "Oh that's funny. I shall use it for my webcomic."
Well, a pox on your webcomic, Randall. A POX.
It's a shame, because this strip could have been leading into anything, yet it had to lead into that.
ReplyDeleteAt least the goatkcd was sort of funny.
Am I the only one who found the "I need to be alone" line hilarious?
ReplyDeleteThough as the meaning I'm thinking was probably not the one intended by Randall, it really doesn't save the comic, either.
"I mean, "Your parents had sex"? That's the punchline?"
ReplyDeleteIt's the punchline, but it's not the joke, which is what you seem to be implying.
You read genetic tests and you're expecting him to be diagnosed with some genetic disease. Instead, it turns out that it's something rather obvious that would show up on a genetic test. You're expecting one thing. You get another. That's the humor. That's the funny part. Not "ZOMG my parents had sex?!?!?!
Dearest "Politely Disagrees": If I tell you I'm going to show you a delightful buffet, and then lead you to your kitchen, buffetless and exactly stocked as it was before you met me in your living room... will you tell me that a joke has occurred because expectations have not been met? If yes, why? Because I felt your emotional investment in the possibility of a buffet, and the reveal at the end that no, there is nothing here you didn't already know, lets me savour your sorrowful tears.
ReplyDeleteHere we have two lumpy stick figures we cannot identify. The "reveal" shows us nothing exciting or new, and we cannot even laugh maliciously at the turn of events because honestly... we feel no sympathy for these Faceless Void-Creatures.
Were these two characters we knew and loved and who sported quirks we'd grown to identify over the past 800 or so updates, then yes -- a joke may be possible. But sadly, again, we have XKCD telling a joke that is not XKCD material given the XKCD medium.
Newest XKCD, I had to re-read after the caption to realize what he was depicting. I don't dislike it, and for some reason I wish he'd gone somewhere with his tooltip.
ReplyDeleteRandall, you are a tease -- all promise and no delivery.
831: OMG GOOMH I look at weather radars TOO! WOW. On the up side this made me think of entropy, and thus George Carlin, who makes me smile all the time. RIP George.
ReplyDeleteMy good friend Ravenzomg,
ReplyDeleteI believe you are addressing a different issue from me. Would your example be a joke? I think one would have to a agree that person one played a joke on person two. You seem to be making the argument that it isn't funny. I don't think a joke necessarily has to be funny for it to be a joke. There are such things as bad jokes.
My original point was that the joke here is not "my parents had sex". I believe the author ("shufti"?) was mischaracterizing where the joke was coming from. I should have written, "That's where the humor is supposed to be coming from." My initial post insinuated that there was humor coming from the joke. Whether or not the joke was funny was a matter I had not planned to delve into as that is a matter of pure opinion.
Subversion of expectations does not automatically make a joke an elephant.
ReplyDeleteSEE I BET YOU THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO SAY "FUNNY" THERE BUT I DIDN'T. FUCKING SUBVERTED YOUR ASS. HILARIOUS.
Anon 10:14
ReplyDeleteAre you arguing that I'm wrong about where the joke is, or are you arguing about whether the joke is funny?
On a side note, I found your post humorous.
831: horrible. Not funny, stupid, makes no sense, a book in the alt-text that's pretentious and stupid, stupid, not funny, and fucking terrible.
ReplyDeleteThat's all.
Anon 10:14 here.
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying you're wrong. If Randall was usually a competent joke teller then I'd be inclined to believe the joke was the subversion of expectations. Whether that's funny or not depends on the person. But he has shown himself to ignore a lot of the good conventions of comedy so it is hard to say. It might be the content of "parents having sex" line, as Rob suggests, or the fact that the "parents having sex" line is unexpected and underwhelming.
I also made that post (well, started typing it, decided to take a shower then came back to it) before your second post so I thought you were saying subversion automatically = funny. Which seems to be a big thing on the xkcd forums.
I also found my post slightly humorous because I did not expect myself to type it.
Needs more drunken Aloria. What happened to drunken Aloria?
ReplyDeleteI do not mean sober Aloria, of course. I can neither sympathise not empathise with sober Aloria.
Ravenzomg:
ReplyDeleteNo, it would not be funny to me. Watching it happen to someone else would be FUCKING HILARIOUS. Sucker.
I found this comic funny. But only because I wasn't expecting an obvious punchline. I expected something like "I'm happy I broke up with you" or "you'll die from exposure to (nerdy hobby)". Double bluff.
831: extremely fucking stupid. Reminds me of "you notice how wikipedia uses certain words" one. He's making some sort of observation that nobody who doesn't browse certain websites obsessively would get.
ReplyDeleteExcept... now I'm actually noticing that Wikipedia uses words like "portmanteau" and "neologism" a lot.
CURSE YOU RANDALL MUNROE.
Captcha: Spershb. Just too funny sounding not to include.
Subverted expectations are always funny. It's like when bugs bunny tells Elmor Fudd that if he wins, he will get what's coming to him, and the prize is a big punch to the face.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I am gay
ReplyDeleteI've seen the phenomenon mentioned in 831 a number of times, although it's usually with a sigh of relief. It's very nice to be just missed by a scary patch of colour, especially when you see news reports the next morning about how much damage that was done through flash flooding, hail etc.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I couldn't really enjoy the strip because the joke was pretty weak and it felt like one of the standard xkcd observation-without-really-making-a-joke strips.
NEWSFLASH: "brains are so interesting!"
ReplyDeleteOddly, I appreciated the "P.S. I am gay", because it helped differentiate between that "Politely Disagrees" and the heterosexual-to-the-point-of-harassment original "Politely Disagrees".
ReplyDelete*Elmer Fudd
I think SMBC threw around a line saying "If your article can be summarized as "No," don't publish it"
ReplyDeleteThis same line can be used for 831.
(In response to "When the folks at the weather offices see you refreshing too often, they start teasing you.")
Better idea for 831:
ReplyDeleteFrame 1: Same, no text
Frame 2: Same, no text
Frame 3: Figure running happily to the window to see the storm, perhaps calling out in joy
Frame 4: Clear sky, sunny day.
Frame 5: Randy's Marty Stu feels the same disappointment I feel every time I look at xkcd.
Alt text: Meteorology isn't a real science.
Randall is probably one out of, what, 10 people who refresh their radar obsessively hoping that a "cool" thunderstorm is coming towards them.
ReplyDeleteAnd that, of course, implies that EVERYONE DOES THE SAME. Therefore, 831.
Of course, EVERYONE loves thunderstorms, especially when they went to work and left his umbrella at home, or has piles of wet clothes to dry.
There IS humour somewhere in this strip, but Randall has to ruin it with his thought that EVERYBODY IN THE WORLD IS EXACTLY LIKE RANDALL. And what's worse? Now EVERYONE IN THE FORUMS WILL BE SAYING "LOL I DO THAT TOO!". No, you don't, you fuckers. You DON'T.
831 is apparently a humorous rendition of the weather forecast for Randallton, located in the Vast Gray Sea of Nothingness.
ReplyDeleteI'm one of those people who refresh the weather radar compulsively (I theorize there are two reasons for this: 1. I am Dutch, and we obsess about the weather by default, and 2. my primary mode of transportation is a bicycle and I hate cycling in the rain).
ReplyDeleteThat said, I can't recall every noticing that... And if it does, I'm glad, since usually if I'm checking the weather radar it means I want to go outside so I'm hoping it'll stay dry.
Also, there's definitely more thunderstorms now than when I was a kid. This may have something to do with moving to a country where there are more thunderstorms.
Finally, I stopped compulsively refreshing the weather radar since I got an iPhone app that gives me push notifications when there's rain near my present location. :)
First of all... Rob, I hate you, I had to go to the site to check this abortion of a comic because you didn't update quickly this time round. Actually, redux is off the hook as well, what the heck?
ReplyDeleteThis comic gives the impression that Randall thinks that subversion of expectations = instant humor. It's not. In fact, it can be used for other things than humor. And it also can be incredibly pointless.
It's just hard to find the funny in an obvious "revelation" like that. It gets even hard to find it when Randall decides to up the ante with such horrible case of PPD. Subverting the expectation of something funny with something unfunny doesn't work except as a meta-joke, and we already have the "why did the chicken cross the road" joke for that.
And heck, since I'll have to go to the site anyway because people won't stop discussing the new comic, let's see it...
What is this, I don't even...
Okay, I get it. It's just... a bit pointless. I need to think about it better.
@Fernie Canto, RE: 831
ReplyDeleteThere is a whole world of biologists, of which I am a part, that hopes for night time rain on a regular basis because of all the frogs and salamanders it draws out. I routinely get frustrated at weather forecasts that call for rain and then, for some reason, the rain never hits where I'm planning to look for amphibians. Just pointing out that there are actually people out there that do this...
pffft, biology? That's not REAL science, it's all just applied physics.
ReplyDeleteSorry everyone, but I just had a goomhr moment for realz. We just came out of a 3 day snowstorm where I was compulsively checking the radar!
ReplyDeleteShitty comic though.
"Is it bad news? What are my risk factors?"
ReplyDeleteHas he ever had a conversation with another human being? If so, how could he possibly think this represents the way people talk?
Biology anon, I wasn't talking about people that expect rain for all variety of reasons why someone would expect rain. *I* expect rain when it gets excessively hot and dry. The thing is people who expect COOL and AWESOME thunderstorms because thunderstorms are COOL and AWESOME and all thunderstorms are necessarily COOL and AWESOME. The way the comic is made makes it look like Randall thinks everyone is like that, and therefore would relate perfectly with it and find it funny, in the "oh that SO happens to me all the time!" sort of way. The comic does not depict a character who particularly enjoys thunderstorms, but expects YOU, the reader, to relate to it. I HATE that.
ReplyDeleteBesides that, it's not even a very funny or good idea -- just the same old "haha computer people are clever and fuck around with YOU" gimmick.
Captcha: coloc. Must be the name of a very distant Polish relative of mine.
P.S. I agree with the folks who are annoyed by the implication that everyone's checking the weather radar in hopes that a big storm is coming. It's a thunderstorm. I'm not 6, so they're not all that exciting. They're usually an annoyance.
ReplyDeleteWhen I'm checking the weather radar I'm wondering "is the rain gonna slow down any time soon so I can run to my car?" or "Okay, how long is this snow going to continue? Will I have to set my alarm early in the morning to shovel?"
I'M GOING TO DRUNKEN REVIEW EVERYTHING
ReplyDeleteWait there are people who think thunderstorms are awesome and great? What the FUCK? I admit I'm kind of a pussy but when I see a "Severe Weather Alert" on Yahoo I freak the hell out (I'm paranoid about tornadoes, traumatic experience as a kid). I'm usually refreshing the weather radar in hopes that the thing that happens in this comic actually DOES happen, and the storm misses us. It doesn't happen very often.
ReplyDeleteBut oh I guess liking thunderstorms is part of that UNIQUE AND QUIRKY shit that xkcd fans like to be so they're probably "GOOMH RANDALL I LIKE THUNDERSTORMS TOO." Fuck them.
I don't think Randall is saying everybody likes (or should like) thunderstorms; the dot on the map is a "character", not a stand in for the reader (although the caption implies that all his readers refresh weather radar frequently). It's a minor point though. Randall does make the equally obnoxious claim that EVERYBODY believes thunderstorms have declined in frequency and that MP3 players aren't truly random.
ReplyDeleteNope, I haven't noticed that thunderstorms are less frequent now than when I was younger. I grew up in Western Oregon and live in Missouri now. Did Randall even stop to think for a minute that Boston might have fewer thunderstorms than Virginia? Apparently not.
Thunderstorm frequency map
Also, anecdotes aren't data. Maybe Randall's friends notice these things, but they aren't UNIVERSAL. I'd guess his current friends/acquantainces are mostly people who moved to Boston for school from other parts of the country. Coastal MA/NH/ME has fewer thunderstorms than almost anywhere else in the country (besides the Pacific coast).
Anecdotes are data if you're looking at rare events.
ReplyDeleteWho feeds you this crap?
Except he wasn't talking about something rare, his exact words were "universally believed".
ReplyDeleteI don't believe MP3 players are truly random. Besides, I've been able to predict the next song tons of times! (Although, perhaps this is saying more about my music collection.)
ReplyDelete831 is completely pointless. I read it several times trying to figure out if I had missed something, but no, turns out that it just wasn't even a joke. I don't even know what to call it.
ReplyDeleteI'm still not even sure what he's saying... the people at the "weather offices" are keeping track of random people refreshing weather data? O... kay... Is... is that supposed to be the funny part? I honestly don't know.
Also, I would hardly call what he says in the alt-text "universally believed"; pretty sure I've never once heard anyone say that before. Now, I know that I experience fewer thunderstorms than I did when I was younger, as I now live in a place that gets fewer thunderstorms. But according to Randall, maybe I'm just imagining that! (hint: I'm not.)
It wouldn't surprise me in the least if MP3 players had a built-in formula that made it more likely to choose certain songs based on how often/not often they're played or something.
ReplyDeleteDrunkloria must rise from her alcoholic coma to properly savage the awful shitpile that is comic 831.
ReplyDeleteGODDAMMIT RANDY
@ Schust
ReplyDeleteiPods used to go off of solely random-number generation, but people would still get certain albums or songs repetitively just by chance, and were complaining, so Apple added a smarter shuffle that picks songs that haven't been played as often, although it is less-truly random. I'm sure other MP3 player manufacturers have had similar experiences.
OT: 831 is a fucking abomination and needs to be annihilated so I can sleep at night.
Coming from the Icy North, I actually quite enjoy storms in the summer, secure in the knowledge that there isn't any serious "risk" involved in them beyond getting wet/getting struck by lightning if you're a moron.
ReplyDeleteBut no, if it's winter, storm ---> panic ---> stock up on canned food ---> shiver in corner until it's over. Fuck childish excitement, there is a chance we'll all die again, like in '98.
@Filthslayer: Odd... my iPod actually plays another song by the artist if I listen to the whole song [as opposed to skipping] rather than shuffling randomly, on some sort of "you liked that you'll like this" basis I always assumed. But hell, maybe my iPod just sucks at random, but to the effect that it does its job quite well? I don't know, I have no idea how coding works on any level. You could tell me it's built along the same lines as DNA and I might believe it [well not now [unless that is true...?]].
Captcha: legrail. So that's what the rail is for.
"Is it bad news? What are my risk factors?" would have been better if it had been after "At some point, your parents had sex." But not by much.
ReplyDelete1+1=3?
ReplyDeletemoar like 2+2=5
HOW ORWELLIAN
The SanDisk player I own has a terrible shuffle algorithm. Yes, of course it is only pseudo-random. What on earth does this have to do with cognitive bias??
ReplyDeletePolitely Disagrees the joke is definitely that this guy is upset at realising his parents had sex. It's not funny though.
ReplyDeleteThere seem to be pretty much exactly the same amount of thunderstorms now as I remember there being when I was young.
ReplyDeleteI still don't get this comic anyway. How would the people at the weather offices control the weather? Or are they drawing the whole thing in real time? That doesn't sound very likely or possible. It makes no sense to me.
Also who even looks at weather radar sites except for actual weather-hobbyists, let alone refreshes it, let alone refreshes it constantly? I'll just look at the fucking weather forecast if I want to know what the weather is going to be like.
"Also who even looks at weather radar sites except for actual weather-hobbyists, let alone refreshes it, let alone refreshes it constantly? I'll just look at the fucking weather forecast if I want to know what the weather is going to be like."
ReplyDeleteExcept the weather forecast is like 'possible showers in your general area' while the weather radar actually shows you what's going on. It's a lot more useful, especially in the short term.
I like that in XKCDland, people get excited about extreme weather happening near them, whereas here in the real world, it causes people to have to spend five hours driving home from work because people are idiots and always forget how to drive in the snow in the 7 months between April and December... And it seems that a lot of the people in this thread are not particularly fond of severe weather either and are wondering why Randy's trying to pander to his audience that way. I think it's that children, who have no real responsibilities, can be carefree and unaffected by storms et al., and that's either how Randy is, or how he sees himself.
ReplyDeleteAnd some adults DO get excited by snow. I'm one of them. It's probably because I was chronically snow-deprived as a child.
ReplyDeleteAlso who even looks at weather radar sites except for actual weather-hobbyists, let alone refreshes it, let alone refreshes it constantly?
ReplyDeleteYou forget: Randall makes his living off of these comics, and has the rest of his time free. Now we know how he spends just some of that time.
We've done all the DNA checks
ReplyDeleteAnd the answer is likely to vex
Each available test
Has conspired to suggest
That at some point, your parents had sex
I did experience more thunderstorms as a child, because the area I grew up in had severe thunderstorms all summer. Now I live in an area that doesn't, but guess what? Visiting my parents in the summer= thunderstorms. It's not some mystery, Randall.
ReplyDeleteI approve of that limerick.
ReplyDeleteOh dear, someone's stumbled on Edward Lear...
ReplyDeleteNice limerick. Way better than 830.
ReplyDeleteFor all you people complaining about "maybe there WERE more thunderstorms back then for this reason and that reason and the other reason," that's really not what Randall is going for. I believe his point is that thunderstorms are a bigger deal for kids, so we remember them more vividly. Back in the day, we'd have to get raincoats and umbrellas and recess was inside and lightning would scare us and thunderstorms were a big deal! But now, unless the power goes out or you have to travel in it, most thunderstorms could pass by without the average adult even noticing, since most of us work indoors. This means that not only do we experience them less, but they affect us less as well. Therefore, it seems like there were more big storms when we were kids.
That doesn't make the comic any better, though.
Almost every point in the alt-text is wrong.
ReplyDeletePeople thinking there aren't as many thunderstorms at their current age? This has a decent chance of being true, if an individual moved from a region with a lot of thunderstorms. Conversely, there is a high chance that an individual knows it's not true, such as if he's moved into a thunderstorm-rich region.
Next, the bit about music players having bias. This is often considered to be completely false, and many people have complained about anyone who believes this to be true, so it is not at all a "universal belief". But in point of fact, some brands of MP3 player do have bias. For example, rapidly turning on an iPod Shuffle 2 will reset the random number seed it uses for Shuffle mode, so it can give the same sequence of songs repeatedly. I demonstrated this to a friend by ensuring that Shuffle mode was on, and giving him a list of the next 25 songs to appear on his iPod.
So not only did Randall produce an unfunny comic (after such a nice winning streak!), his precious science was wrong as well.
Jesus Christ you people are fucking stupid, except Gamer 2k4.
ReplyDeleteEdward Lear: not until he came back did I realise how much I had missed him. God bless you.
ReplyDeleteI actually liked the Computer Problems comic but I've gotta agree though, this comic sucked ass.
ReplyDeleteI resent the accusation that I am a slut, ScottMcTony
ReplyDeleteI disagree with.... Well, everything about this website. XKCD has made me laugh on almost every occasion (with the exception of the early stuff). Though i do not agree with you, I will not call you "stupid" or other derogatory terms like other people do. I abhor internet hazing, and people who encourage such thing. That said, I think Rob is an intelligent individual with whom i can politely disagree. XKCD is just funny in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteWell your opinion is stupid.
ReplyDelete"That said, I think Rob is an intelligent individual with whom i can politely disagree."
ReplyDeleteDid you ever even read a single thing he wrote? Calling Rob polite is like calling the ocean dry.
@Anon 9:07, you sound like a rare individual, virtually extinct on the internet. Part of me wonders if your politeness isn't highly evolved trolling! (Hmm actually that sounds like a comic idea, though to go anywhere except xkcd it would need a punchline...)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, since we have you as a resource perhaps you can be of use. What could possibly have made you laugh on 631 or 714 or 811 or 808?
XKCD 831 was a colour comic, guys, so Randy will be a little late with Friday's update because of the physical drain it took on him. So no getting angry, because he's totally justified.
ReplyDeleteCaptcha: matineri. Some sort of fancy breakfast place, right?
@Raven, I can't figure out whether you correctly predicted that b/c of outside info or what. It's kinda freaky.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of which, 832 is yet more evidence to support the theory that Randall haphazardly throws shit together at the last minute. This comic is so not funny, lacks originality, and doesn't redeem itself at all by being useful(which seems to be the implied justification).
Who actually needs this chart, though? It makes me think that Randall actually believes that he's so smart, resourceful, etc. and the rest of us are retarded enough to lose at tic-tac-toe without his help.
It's almost as if lately there's a Randall quota for humor, which monday's comic filled completely. The result of which is the utter lack of it in the other two strips for the week.
Scratch that, the funny one was 829 which was last friday. Still, there's gotta be something to that...
ReplyDeleteThe new one is fun, but i cant see the red due to being colorblind. Youd think that randys survey would have informed him of a better color scheme
ReplyDeleteX _ _
ReplyDelete_ _ _
_ _ _
Anyone care to play?
Captcha: sumpop--sump pump pop?
no
ReplyDeleteX _ _
ReplyDelete_ O _
_ _ _
And the only remotely (using that word loosely) good thing about it was the Wargames riff.
X__
ReplyDelete_O_
__X
Rob continues to prove as much of a worthless hack as Carl.
ReplyDeleteOk, so you thought Wednesday's comic was bad, huh?
ReplyDeleteLessee, most people realise that Tic-Tac-Toe is a very boring game and it's very easy to never lose if you're not a kid anymore and can see the good "strategies". It's already been solved decades ago and already in 1947 a computer could always beat a human. Also that kind of fractal chart has ALREADY BEEN DONE, but Randall didn't bother to check it out. So we have a useless, insulting, poorly drawn poster bait that's only there to show how Randall is SMARTY-SMARTY-SMART and you are NOT.
ALSO, as the people on the alternate universe (i.e. xkcd forums) are pointing out, there are quite a couple of errors on the chart. RANDALL SCREWS UP EVEN TIC-TAC-TOE! WHAT THE FUCK???
Fucking god, isn't that a confusing, convoluted and nigh useless piece of crap!
ReplyDeleteI'll give it to him: the strategy is optimal(or looks so). It's in fact a foil to a strategy I came up with when I was 15 and thought it was optimal. But I guess that's the only thing this comic gets right!
Because for some reason he chose to waste his time doing shoddily by hand what could be done better, faster and cleaner with a vector based drawing software. And nothing that'd look "cool" in his stylish suckiness, no. It's just Os and Xs! Os and Xs!!!
And it's so fucking confusing! The only good this does is make a tic-tac-toe game longer than it needs to be! Which brings me then to the obvious reason this was made...
This is nothing more than utter pandering to his "nerd" infograph obsessed audience! I never get people who seemingly need to make things more complicated than they already are. But sure as heck his GOOMHbas will swarm to the shop as soon as this is made into a poster(anyone has any doubts about it?). A tic-tac-toe guide. Neat.
This was a waste of time. Of Randall's time and my time. And I bet this will pop up in my Twitter timeline soon enough.
GODDAMNIT, RANDALL!
ReplyDeleteOkay, people, I know you probably didn't do that, but I just had to check how the optimal strategy works if two players play optimally. It'll tie, obviously, right?
Well, guess what: RANDALL SIMPLY FORGOT TO COLOR AN X RED! The seventh play is simply indistinguishable because Randall forgot to color the X red. And it's exactly the one for the dobule optimal playthrough. I.e., the one people will most probably try to play.
So here you have it, people: Randall Munroe attacks again, screwing up the simplest things!
And yes, I feel like a dork.
832 is a pretty good candidate for writing a program to generate. There wouldn't be any mistakes that way either!
ReplyDeleteShame Randall isn't a programmer or anything like that.
Hey. I suddenly sort of want this comic, in poster form.
ReplyDeleteHoly shit, this was the worst XKCD ever. That's a pretty difficult feat, considering that I know about 631 and 794. This comic has no joke, took something I already know in written form, and expressed it in an unnecessarily complicated manner. And, if Professional Mole is right, he even got it wrong.
ReplyDeleteMy verification code is "fuming". How appropriate.
Fuck my colourblindness-crippled X chromosomes, I don't know what is going on. I said COLOUR but I see NOTHING! I'm just trusting that he did a thing here, although that big-ass X in the corner looks different at least?
ReplyDeleteThis will probably be a poster available in the lobby, soon, and I will punch anyone I see that [will have] bought it.
A thread JUST yesterday on reddit had a guy saying he did exactly this. in the programming section. which i'm sure randall reads.
ReplyDeletehow about we come up with our own unoriginal ideas from now on, hm randall?
Oh, that sniveling son of a...
ReplyDeleteHE COLORED THE X NOW. But I'm sure I tried to play through and it wasn't colored. I can even recreate the image based on that, and I suspect the newly colored X is ticker than the rest of them.
And any notice of "woops, I screwed up"? Of course not, this is Randall Fucking Monroe!
Oh, cool, now he corrected all the errors. Without not even a mention of the screw ups. That's how much he cares!
ReplyDeleteBut the forums point out even more errors than I found. Again, that's how much he cares!
CAPTCHA: bully. ...wait, what?
i'm not sure if it's my colorblindness or the lines are just so thin that nobody can tell red from black in this comic.
ReplyDeletehowever this 'comic' was obviously made only for turning it into another shitty poster for the fanboys. randall seems to need the money.
this also gives a deep insight in randalls character. he needs to control everything, even childrens games that only work because you don't think about them too much. he can't accept any randomness and needs strict rules for everything. thats also the reason why he continues to publish his shitty comic three times a week.
he needs to do all this because he was propably raped in the ass by his father when he was a child.
If Randall really is screwing this up, that's the reason people are supposed to archive the comic like Rob suggested.
ReplyDeleteBut, just for fun, do a Google image search for "tic tac toe fractal chart" and you'll see someone do it better, and RIGHT.
There is an optimal strategy for playing tic-tac-toe... I think I knew that when I was three. It's at least mildly visually interesting, though.
ReplyDeleteIt's perhaps interesting that it's surprisingly difficult to lose (really lose, not draw) a game of Tic-Tac-Toe against an opponent who is also deliberately trying to lose. I know this because it was a puzzle in the final episode of Telltale's Sam & Max Season 1. A game which, unlike this comic, is awesome.
who the fuck doesn't start with the centre square.
ReplyDeleteanybody with a brain can force a win if you start in the corner but can only force a draw replying to a centre square
Honestly, I thought it was a pretty decent pictoblag. Apparently it's been done before, but I had never seen it. It got the, "Huh, that's neat." reaction from me, which is a lot more than XKCD usually gets.
ReplyDeleteSo randall made another poster.
ReplyDeleteIs it up for pre-order yet?
Actually, the changes are in green, not blue... Blue looked like shit.
ReplyDeleteAgh, why is blogger fucking with my mind?
ReplyDeleteOkay, so, since blogspot sucks, I'm going to try this again:
ReplyDeleteI took this (http://www.mediafire.com/?z75p2mikmu6udhu) out of my cache (dated Fri 10 Dec 2010 02:11:09 AM CST) and compared it to this (http://www.webcitation.org/5usc42jr3) and posted the differences (in green, not blue) here: http://www.mediafire.com/?qrn74v0ihr5vhl0
Thanks for the heads up gamer.
ReplyDeleteThis is much much cooler, and I was very happy to see that when I went to the page it was inspired by something that wasn't xkcd related.
http://ted.mielczarek.org/code/ticfractoe.html
At first I thought: cool picto blog bro. But now it is obvious that it was done before and done better. It would be really classy of Randall to indicate that as such and proclaim innocence to a independently shared coolish idea. But the weather patterns in hell indicate otherwise.
And now I saw a date on that inspired piece for the JavaScript version:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.stonybrook.edu/philosophy/fractal/2Tic.html
http://www.stonybrook.edu/philosophy/fractal/index.html
y halo thar '97
Triple post threat:
ReplyDeleteI hate typing out full-ass anchor tags.
The new xkcd is very abstract, with all those heads surrounded by large Xs.
ReplyDelete"It's already been solved decades ago and already in 1947 a computer could always beat a human."
ReplyDeleteThe optimal strategy for tic-tac-toe is simple, and anyone who plays optimally will do no worse than a draw; a computer can't beat a human that has any idea what they're doing.
Also I have no idea how to read that chart.
Jesus Christ on a crutch did 832 ever suck. It's full of mistakes, it's blatant poster-bait, it's shoddily drawn, it's horribly unintuitive, and most of all it's not original in the slightest.
ReplyDeleteand the fanboys are still sucking randy's cock over it. what the fucking fuck.
Damon, I'd go with the computer if the contest just keeps going until somebody loses. 48+ hour tic-tac-toe marathon? Humans will make mistakes.
ReplyDeleteDamn... I went on the XKCD forum... how do I cleanse myself of this?
ReplyDelete@Ves
ReplyDeleteI'm too lazy to look at the chart for more than about 3 seconds. Care to point out the mistakes?
if Randall were really the Comp Sci GENIUS he claims to be, he should have just coded something to draw fractals, not shoddily draw them by hand.
ReplyDeleteGotta say, I found the "your parents had sex" line hilarious. There's really no explanation needed... unless y'all are so incredibly well-adjusted that you've never been bothered by the idea of your parents doin' the do.
ReplyDelete@Anon 10:23
ReplyDeleteMaybe at around age 13. At 26, not so much. Is this further evidence that Randall is aiming his comic at a middle school age audience?
@Anon at 10:15 Dec 10
ReplyDeleteActually, a player who starts in the corner and isn't retarded cannot actually lose, only draw.
(I spent a boring french lesson working out every possible move then thrashing my friends)
"as you all know, I detest opinions in all their forms"
ReplyDeleteyou forgot to add, "except my own, so here's some xkcd hate and tea party hate"
your reviews are funny but at least be honest with yourself
X O _
ReplyDelete_ O _
_ _ X
I actually prefer Randall's tic-tac-toe fractal to the other ones that exist (though I'll refrain from remarking on his 'originality'). It's hand drawn, but the bit of irregularity makes it more appealing to me...it goes without saying that the one for X is more interesting, the O chart is kind of boring. It's also not that hard to read.
ReplyDeleteI mean, yeah, if you're just trying to make a tic tac toe fractal, it's not the best way of going about it (and I'll take y'all's word for it that he made a mistake), but shockingly enough, I find it visually appealing.
I'm probably missing something important though, because I'm just a dumb arts student who can't get Randall's science jokes and can't understand the analyses here.