Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Comics 977 and 978: Humor Needed

977. I know someone was saying they wanted me to rage about this one but I really can't say anything I haven't said countless times before: Randall is pandering. He's pandering to map nerds. He's pandering to the sort of nerds who wear Vibram Five-fingers because they think of it as hacking for their feet--really, most of these are pandering to some category of nerd or another. It's a list of panderings. I don't personally care enough about maps to, you know, care, so whatever.

978. This one, though, is stupid. I've been making this joke for, oh, several years now--it's not difficult to use Wikipedia to create reality. It's not surprising that this happens, because, despite the fact that your garden variety internet moron will declare that you are really dumb if you link to a Wikipedia article to prove or assist a point, Wikipedia is broadly useful, though not, perhaps, good to rely on.

This is not a novel concept, and he doesn't really do anything interesting with it. "It turns out that Wikipedia cites authors whose source is Wikipedia sometimes!" Yes, and? Did you just now discover this potential?

The alt text is even worse. While I don't doubt that his claim is plausible, his refusal to identify which book and which author just makes it sound like he's making it up. To put it into perspective, it's sort of like if he said "yeah, I totally had this hot celebrity chick over and she let me drink her milk, it was totally hot. She's really famous and you all know her, but I'm not going to tell you which one it is because I value her privacy." Sure, it's technically possible that someone saying this is telling the truth, but it's far more likely they're just telling a lie that you can't go and verify.

68 comments:

  1. FIRST!

    -SAMEFAGS BELOW THIS LINE-

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  2. dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance

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  3. Rob WISHES he could fit inside me.

    (Because he is fat.)

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  4. FOURTH!

    -SAMEFAGS ABOVE THIS LINE-

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  5. Also has anyone else noticed a striking resemblance to our dear friend Jimmy and this man: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Gein

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  6. Someone who really gave a shit about science discourse would name and shame such an inaccurate book... but we are talking about Randall here.

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  7. "...but it's far more likely they're just telling a lie that you can't go and verify."

    What if the put that they'd had a hot chick on Wikipedia? It would fact then surely.

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  8. Do a Mythbusters sucks blog.

    Seriously. Do it.

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  9. He's pandering to the sort of nerds who wear Vibram Five-fingers because they think of it as hacking for their feet

    I loled, and then I googled them to make sure we were talking about the same thing. We were, but they were even more hideous than my memory suggested. =[

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  10. Mythbusters sucks. I've only seen a few episodes. In one of them, they were busting the "myths" in Kill Bill, like "can you actually stand on a sword and kick somebody in the face?", or "can you actually punch your way out of a coffin?". Um, no. It's a fucking fictional movie. Nobody believes that stuff can happen. What's next, mythbusting Lord of the Rings? "Can a ring actually make you invisible"?

    Plus at least 1/3 of the episode is endlessly recapped filler. At the beginning of the show they go over what myths they'll be busting. Before a commercial break they take a couple minutes to give you teasers about the results of their mythbusting. After the commercial break they remind you that some results will be shown before the next commercial break, then they take a couple minutes to recap what they were doing before the commercial break. At this point the take a couple minutes to present some fresh content, then whoops, another commercial break is coming up, time for more teasers.

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  11. Charles Augustus FortescueNovember 17, 2011 at 8:04 AM

    The scroll lock idea was a good example of the kind of thing that this might happen to, though.

    God bless the XKCD fans who are no doubt vandalising the scroll lock page at this moment.

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  12. The map one shows a lot of work for Randall, and is for his fans, really. It's mildly amusing, which is all I think xkcd really aspires to. It highlights what I really think about xkcd: not that it "sucks" but that it's "not for me, if it ever was."

    Whichever of Carl or Rob said it is basically Randall's picto-blog was precisely right, and that has not changed.

    The last one that really, truly sucked for me was the banana equivalent dose one. That was the height of pretentiousness if you actually know anything about bananas and their radioactivity. Which RM doesn't - he was passing something along he just didn't "get."

    If the latest one is consciously self-referential it's okay, I guess. If not, it's actually funny in the laughing at you not with you sense.

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  13. Since Randy has Megan on his mind 24/7 I can name names with a non-she (well, partly) that did exactly what RM's talking about in several papers as well as a report to Congress. Namely, George Mason U's statistics professor Edward Wegman:

    scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/09/the_wegman_plagiarism_scandal.php

    http://andrewgelman.com/2011/09/another-wegman-plagiarism-copying-without-attribution-and-further-discussion-of-why-scientists-cheat/

    http://deepclimate.org/2011/05/15/wegman-and-said-2011-part-2/

    http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2011-05-15-climate-study-plagiarism-Wegman_n.htm

    http://deepclimate.org/2011/10/04/said-and-wegman-2009-suboptimal-scholarship/

    The partly-she part is that the main Wegman student that got pulled into this is Yasmin Said, though Walid Sharabati and Hadi Rezazad (2 other Wegman students) were involved peripherally.

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  14. Mythbusters fell into basically the same trap that XKCD did: they're both pretty much by their very natures things that can't help but appeal to nerds, and long outlasted the point where they were relevant or interesting. In Randall's case it's because he's just not that funny, or at least not capable of being funny on a regular basis. With Mythbusters it's because there's a finite number of urban legends they could test on their show before resorting to "bust a 'myth' from a movie that only an especially impressionable 12-year-old might seriously think was plausible".

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  15. I still find mythbusters amusing in a "run in the background while working on 3d art or programming" kind of way.

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  16. Sorry about the lack of good posting here recently. I've been busy with NaNoWriMo this month so haven't been able to visit and offer my own witty insights.

    I just realised I had better pop by and explain my absence. I'll be back soon, though! Keep watching out for the onset of December.

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  17. Would also like to point out that the latest South Park episode was entirely devoted to this phenomenon. Albeit with the History channel citing itself as a source. I get the feeling Randy saw the episode replaced history channel with Wikipedia and thought 'Gold'

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  18. This latest one is another one of those lame pandering ones. Yes, Randy, we've all run into programming issues and googled them and found someone else with the same problem from years ago and no solutions. And yes, it sucks. If someone from work was complaining about that tendency, I would nod in agreement. But I don't go to a webcomic to have someone say something I agree with. I go there, in theory, to find humor.

    Next xkcd will be a guy holding his arm and a caption: I hate when I hit my funny bone.

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  19. cptnoremac, hitting your funny bone DOES suck. Stop making light, and start making comics.

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  20. guys i'm sleepy goodnight.

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  21. Wow, first wikipedia citations, and now finding unsolved problems on the Internet. Two incredibly tired jokes in a row. Did Randy finally run out of ideas and now he's just going through reddit's top submissions?

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  22. For better or for worse, I've been following xkcd from strip #244... 4 years...

    My god, how fast has my life passed.

    I can't let this go on can I? I have to quit at 1000... But that's 4 years down the drain!

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  23. It's a sunk cost, Anon504. You have to let it go, because there's nothing you can do about it. Only the future is important.

    Captcha: alebs. The second biggest cities in Syria. All of them.

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  24. Look at you, Raven, pulling out the econ 101 terms. You go, girl.

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  25. Ravenzomg!, you seem like the kind of plain girl with slightly low self-esteem but an obvious desire to express herself and make an impression who would be really pleasing in bed. Do you have any more pictures of yourself which would allow me to decide whether this fantasy is worth considering?

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  26. Re 979: More frustrating is when they reply and say "nevermind, fixed it"

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  27. Other thought on 979: And whats the deal with airplane food?

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  28. the latest comic is actually kind of good. the second panel is visually funny even though the dialogue is trite, and nothing feels excessive.

    sort of nice job, randall.

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  29. @Ian I know, right! Billions of people starve to death on the ground even as you eat your fill while flying right the fuck over their sorry asses.

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  30. So guys, what's your favourite map projection?

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  31. The problem with all those map projections is they operate on the false assumption that the Earth is not flat.

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  32. "I know someone was saying they wanted me to rage about this one but I really can't say anything I haven't said countless times before" then don't, just stop.

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  33. "then don't, just stop. "

    why on earth would i do that when i can continue to annoy people by rehashing the same old shit every day

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  34. @Jon Levi: I favour the identity projection.

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  35. Rob
    Rob
    Rob
    Rob
    Rob
    Rob
    Rob
    Rob
    Rob
    Rob
    Rob
    Rob
    Rob
    Rob
    Rob
    Rob
    Rob
    Rob
    Rob
    :-)

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  36. OP = fag
    Rob = OP
    Rob = fag

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  37. @Anon 12:36

    Idiot, don't you realise the world is TRIANGULAR?

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  38. Kitten is actually Raven in a furry suit.

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  39. Jon Levi is actually a serial killer in a woman's skin.

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  40. 979 is probably a rant. Definitely true though.

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  41. Randall
    Randall
    Randall
    Randall
    Randall
    Randall
    Randall
    Randall
    Randall
    Randall
    Randall
    Randall
    Randall
    Randall
    Randall
    Randall
    Randall
    Randall
    Randall
    :-(

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  42. All the anons are actually YOU in a serial killer's skin.

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  43. ok, so imagine if Breaking Dawn was actually called "Breaking Wind." I've got lots of funny ideas like this. Do you think I should apply for a job with Mad Magazine?

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  44. Don't waste your talent there. Start up a webcomic today, my friend.

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  45. Those Vibram Five-Fingers look pretty interesting and I'd actually like to try them out. I just wonder why they don't offer a design which conceals the toe design under a discrete film of leather. Do they really not conceive of a market for people who wouldn't associate prestige with looking like a toy monkey?

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  46. it's hacking for your feet, 6:03

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  47. I hacked my feet once. Thought it would be a good idea to have several nips of vodka to keep warm while chopping wood for the fireplace. I wouldn't recommend it.

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  48. Guys I just got high for the first time in my life, and I have to say

    it was actually pretty cool. I don't know why more people don't do this, and I don't understand why any would criticize this stuff.

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  49. Guys I just got raped for the first time in my life, and I have to say

    it was actually pretty cool. I don't know why more people don't do this, and I don't understand why any would criticize this stuff.

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  50. There's actually a trope for that. It's a shame that Troper Tales is gone, as you would have been able to tell your story there.

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  51. Jon Levi I hope you get raped to death.

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  52. Why is troper tales gone? The more unsavoury tropes were ... interesting to say the least

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  53. jon levi links to awful sites and then confesses his desire to get raped and die

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  54. Believe it or not, to many tropers were getting embarrassed by it.

    To quote one of the tropers on that thread:
    "It discourages new members. You've all seen the creepy stuff in the troper tales archives, and it tends to make outsiders think we're all like that. Thus, a lot of potential members get scared away."

    Oh well, it seems I'll never get to tell the world about my Badass Longcoat.

    For those of us who still want to see it, all the pages have been copied to an off-site wiki that noone visits.

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  55. Let's see how long it takes for Blogger's paranoid spam detector to delete my post again.

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  56. Take that back, Jon. I do NOT visit Troper Tales wiki.

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  57. jon, i admit
    i deleted that one because i hate you

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  58. Seriously Rob you need to post the comics here so I don't have go to the stupid xkcd site to read them. How hard is it to post the images?

    Unrelated: Badass Longcoats are totally sexy.

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  59. it requires about 30 seconds of effort per image, and i'm not willing to spend more than 40 seconds on image linking per post

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  60. What happened to BrotherSisterIncest/Archive? RapeIsLove/Archive? What is this neutered bullshit? Please explain.

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  61. There was a Troper Tales page for Brother-Sister Incest back in 2009, but it was replaced with a piece of text saying "We're not going to talk about this here. Even Evil Has Standards."

    You can still view it here!

    Hey, I found some of the others:
    Rape Is Love
    Parental Incest
    A Date With Rosie Palms (masturbation)

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