tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714810984552499396.post894090971952933263..comments2024-03-17T05:03:46.056-07:00Comments on xkcd sucks: Comic 765: HomeopatheticCarlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01074589998141327538noreply@blogger.comBlogger276125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714810984552499396.post-80970762470744316682010-07-30T20:26:24.562-07:002010-07-30T20:26:24.562-07:00are you saying that because it might mean ".....are you saying that because it might mean "...but it's also not selected against" ? It seems to me that the point of this comic is to joke that homeopathy is genetic but can't get passed on because its adherents use it in an attempt to get pregnant but it fails (because homeopathy doesn't work) so they can't pass on their genes. It's not true, but as you pointed out, humor can make some exaggerations. Within the world of this comic though, the point is quite clear that homeopathy is genetic. Otherwise, what's the point?Carlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01074589998141327538noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714810984552499396.post-48742992002816579172010-07-30T14:14:53.247-07:002010-07-30T14:14:53.247-07:00The comic say that belief in homeopathy isn't ...The comic say that belief in homeopathy isn't selected for. That's different than claiming it's genetic. (It might have been stronger to say "vulnerability to belief in homeopathy isn't selected for, but never mind.) So the comic does not specifically imply that belief in homeopath has a specific genetic basis. <br /><br />Besides, nobody believes that homeopathy actually advocates diluting sperm to "cure lack of pregnancy." It's an analogy. Most of the commenters on this site don't seem to have much familiarly with humor, or much of a sense of the topic, so I'll explain: a common trope in humor is to show the ridiculousness of one fairly common belief or practice by comparing it to a similar, obviously ridiculous belief or practice.Erik Nilssonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04617547518410944634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714810984552499396.post-83096816449914111932010-07-23T00:33:50.982-07:002010-07-23T00:33:50.982-07:00oh shit wrong comment thread DISREGARDoh shit wrong comment thread DISREGARDrshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15828938843801425383noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714810984552499396.post-3028737542192766032010-07-23T00:33:15.526-07:002010-07-23T00:33:15.526-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.rshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15828938843801425383noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714810984552499396.post-33341187803218519822010-07-21T20:43:15.910-07:002010-07-21T20:43:15.910-07:00i am allergic to the outside air. so i can't d...i am allergic to the outside air. so i can't do that thing.Carlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01074589998141327538noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714810984552499396.post-11262631061033776992010-07-21T14:37:05.911-07:002010-07-21T14:37:05.911-07:00arrogant carl, nobody will remember the semen-thin...arrogant carl, nobody will remember the semen-thingy. it's clearly about homeopathy. your truth is not the only one, not even the common one. so you are a bit like all these homeopaths. i always thought the internet is a possibility to get known to each other a bit better and get a bit more open and educated, more tolerant against each other. provoking and trying to be funny is clearly not your thing. go for a walk into the woods and think about your being. maybe it helps.starbucknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714810984552499396.post-46313236867418562422010-07-20T04:20:48.476-07:002010-07-20T04:20:48.476-07:00A Carvel ice cream cake, I hopeA Carvel ice cream cake, I hopeGryffilionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14326158632676811873noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714810984552499396.post-77876178166549585402010-07-17T15:27:30.273-07:002010-07-17T15:27:30.273-07:00Yes I have nothing better to do on this particular...Yes I have nothing better to do on this particular saturday afternoon/early evening than read an xkcdsucks thread, I'm fat and lonely in my parents basement blah blah bliggety blah.<br /><br />Gryffilion, you get a 10/10 for the flawless inclusion of a patton oswalt quote. My hat, it is off to you. Enjoy your sheetcake of victory.Veshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06095687089196127511noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714810984552499396.post-33261570863867501692010-07-16T18:17:48.618-07:002010-07-16T18:17:48.618-07:00And, once again, my triple posting confirms that t...And, once again, my triple posting confirms that there are people who should not be using a computer and I might in fact be one of themGryffilionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14326158632676811873noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714810984552499396.post-75508994126001755152010-07-16T18:14:54.827-07:002010-07-16T18:14:54.827-07:00Alas, I'm late to the party again, and Rob has...Alas, I'm late to the party again, and Rob has already made the points I want to make. I hope I can be forgiven for any redundancy I may offer up.<br /><br />@Bish:<br /><br />There is a wide chasm of incomprehension here that I'm going to do my best to bridge. First of all, XKCD is not a geek comic. It is the thought process and expression of a <i>poseur</i>, a geek Seth MacFarlane anxious to gather whatever table scraps of love and affection he can via the cheapest of comedic tools--reference. <br /><br />"As for your second point (ignoring the notion that criticism is its own reward - come on dude, lighten up)."<br /><br />I'm imagining someone telling H.L. Mencken, or Oscar Wilde, or Robert Benchley, or any critic of the 20th century--and before--to "lighten up." I'm imagining how boring literature--and life--would be without the brilliant, savage wits of men who roundly damned the world about them. "Lighten up," indeed. Without tone, body language, or volume to serve as a frame of reference, how can can one possibly assume anything about a state of mind of someone they <i>do not know</i> on the Internet? <br /><br />"Consequently, I have resolved to go forth and multiply, on the basis that - even if I can't bring myself to agree with them - I'd rather waste my time reading my friends gushing on about xkcd than read you lot bitch and whine about it."<br /><br />I don't really have much to say to that--except, perhaps, "I'm sorry" to the part about preferring to read your friends gushing about XKCD. <br /><br />"Yeah it sucks, we get it. "<br /><br />No. No, you really don't. If you think that all criticism is written with fangs bared and foam on the upper lip, then you truly do not get it, and, in the words of Patton Oswalt, you are going to miss everything cool and die angry.Gryffilionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14326158632676811873noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714810984552499396.post-76068881360501808032010-07-16T18:14:54.828-07:002010-07-16T18:14:54.828-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Gryffilionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14326158632676811873noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714810984552499396.post-31872880221725151272010-07-16T18:08:53.101-07:002010-07-16T18:08:53.101-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Gryffilionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14326158632676811873noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714810984552499396.post-72720061956391003272010-07-16T15:18:28.858-07:002010-07-16T15:18:28.858-07:00"Consequently, I have resolved to go forth an..."Consequently, I have resolved to go forth and multiply, on the basis that - even if I can't bring myself to agree with them - I'd rather waste my time reading my friends gushing on about xkcd than read you lot bitch and whine about it."<br /><br />What does this even mean? "I have resolved to have children for some dumbass reason"?Ann Apolishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08566528013026340201noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714810984552499396.post-12579233368689789862010-07-16T15:07:53.061-07:002010-07-16T15:07:53.061-07:00bish: your post might (heavy emphasis on 'migh...bish: your post might (heavy emphasis on 'might') have a point if anyone here were genuinely outraged.<br /><br />you are still ignoring that criticism is its own reward. which is to say:<br /><br />MAKING FUN OF SHIT IS FUN.<br /><br />MST3K knows it. everyone who's ever hosted a bad movie night knows it. people who've read terrible fiction or played terrible games for the express purpose of making fun of them know it. I've never laughed so hard in the theatre as when I watched Hitman, which was an abysmally terrible movie on all fronts.<br /><br />it's fun. and one of the most popular and easiest ways to make fun of something is to get angry at it. it's not a real anger--it's not keeping anyone up at night, or distracting them, or causing their blood pressure to spike or giving them unhappy thoughts. it's fun. it is an amusing way to kill time a couple times a week.<br /><br />I've always wondered why it is that people are always so quick to assume that the people here are angry, or that their anger is sincere and indicative of some form of psychological disorder. I usually chalk it up to projection.rshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15828938843801425383noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714810984552499396.post-41512067924927325202010-07-16T14:16:36.085-07:002010-07-16T14:16:36.085-07:00Gryffilion--
On your first point, congrats: you&#...Gryffilion--<br /><br />On your first point, congrats: you've just spawned my new all-time-favourite internet definition of arch snobbery. <br /><br />If something's populist but not to your taste, do you take up a similar stance of outrage on a backwater blog, or do you just shrug your shoulders and get on with your life? If the answer was the former, then perhaps you need to develop a sense of perspective. If it was the latter, what makes xkcd so much more infuriating? Is it possibly that you dislike seeing any aspects of the geek subculture develop into more populist reference points, thereby narrowing the framework within which you can express your own geekier-than-thou personality? Or just that it's a dumb strip and has been for a while? Either way, again, a sense of perspective might cure the rage.<br /><br />As for your second point (ignoring the notion that criticism is its own reward - come on dude, lighten up); your inferred dig at mouth-breathing cuddlefish (presumably like myself - no matter that I was merely making the point that the comic is crap, and hardly merits such bile, and not in fact offering any defence for its outright crappiness) invites an unpleasant war of words which I've entirely failed to rise above... But you can rest assured I only happened to wind up posting here because a friend had posted up the homeopathy strip on facebook, and I was curious as to whether there was indeed a Homeopathy Monthly, and how they'd elected to spell echinacea. The inevitable google led me here, and the experience of reading such wit as your own wasted on an undeserving comic drove me to ponder these key points:<br />a) I don't much like xkcd<br />b) you guys REALLY don't like xkcd<br />c) I quite like my friends<br />d) my friends quite like xkcd<br /><br />Consequently, I have resolved to go forth and multiply, on the basis that - even if I can't bring myself to agree with them - I'd rather waste my time reading my friends gushing on about xkcd than read you lot bitch and whine about it.<br /><br />Yeah it sucks, we get it.bishnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714810984552499396.post-5549072792340574742010-07-16T09:23:15.915-07:002010-07-16T09:23:15.915-07:00Wikipedia to the rescue!
Prescriptivism, from the...Wikipedia to the rescue!<br /><br />Prescriptivism, from the article on Linguistic Prescription, "can refer both to the codification and the enforcement of rules governing how a language should be used". In other words, a prescriptivist would say that words or phrases (like, for example, say... "strawman") mean exactly one thing, or at least that the definition(s) areset in stone, and anyone who uses it otherwise is "wrong".<br /><br />Descriptivism, from the article on Linguistic Description (notice a pattern?), is "the work of objectively analyzing and describing how language is spoken (or how it was spoken in the past) by a group of people in a speech community". A descriptivist would say that language is fluid, and words mean what the people speaking them understand them to mean; therefore, there is no one "right" definition for words.<br /><br />I think I've represented it fairly.<br /><br />Also, on an unrelated note, wouldn't it be "hahses"?Alsworthnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714810984552499396.post-56320411567796333922010-07-16T03:13:24.089-07:002010-07-16T03:13:24.089-07:00What's a prescritavist?
What's a Descript...What's a prescritavist?<br /><br />What's a Descriptavist?<br /><br />And why does everyone hate them?<br /><br />I don't understand this thead <b>AT ALL</b><br /><br /><i>My Hard Science Degree does not help me here!</i><br /><br />Captcha- haness, what people from boston put on their horsesIm Confushttp://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc61/blarneystoned/confus.jpgnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714810984552499396.post-38266060052696040372010-07-16T02:23:48.098-07:002010-07-16T02:23:48.098-07:00(a) that has nothing to do with logic
(b) who said...(a) that has nothing to do with logic<br />(b) who said I wanted to be taken seriously?rshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15828938843801425383noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714810984552499396.post-38992683737858770502010-07-16T02:21:00.243-07:002010-07-16T02:21:00.243-07:00""2) While descriptivism is all well and...""2) While descriptivism is all well and nice, I'd prefer if "colloquial use" stayed away from unique words and phrases. Much as with "begging the question", we don't have anything else that means the same thing as "straw man" in this context and, unlike "begging the question", context doesn't make the intended usage entirely clear. This is one case where damming up the fluid usage might actually be beneficial."<br /><br />tough shit."<br /><br />Funny... I might say the same to you about the existence/quality of xkcd, yet here you are bitching about it. Your logical skills astound me.<br /><br />Also, seriously Rob, get rid of the picture. It's hard to take you at all seriously with this douchey guy staring at me as I type.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714810984552499396.post-5106461507858156452010-07-15T23:17:27.312-07:002010-07-15T23:17:27.312-07:00"2) While descriptivism is all well and nice,..."2) While descriptivism is all well and nice, I'd prefer if "colloquial use" stayed away from unique words and phrases. Much as with "begging the question", we don't have anything else that means the same thing as "straw man" in this context and, unlike "begging the question", context doesn't make the intended usage entirely clear. This is one case where damming up the fluid usage might actually be beneficial."<br /><br />tough shit.rshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15828938843801425383noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714810984552499396.post-31260926677314476942010-07-15T23:14:57.618-07:002010-07-15T23:14:57.618-07:00Original "are you sure you know the definitio...Original "are you sure you know the definition of straw man" anon here, explaining things a better:<br />1) I normally don't bother correct colloquial uses on the internet except for a small number of pet peeves, but Carl's use of "I think that is the definition of a Straw Man, no?" as well as his straw man argument for it being a straw man were too much to pass up<br />2) While descriptivism is all well and nice, I'd prefer if "colloquial use" stayed away from unique words and phrases. Much as with "begging the question", we don't have anything else that means the same thing as "straw man" in this context and, unlike "begging the question", context doesn't make the intended usage entirely clear. This is one case where damming up the fluid usage might actually be beneficial.<br /><br />(Since I know people are going to attack 2 more than 1, I just want to make it clear that 1 was the primary reason and 2 was just a nudge)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714810984552499396.post-47296903193285269822010-07-15T18:05:41.142-07:002010-07-15T18:05:41.142-07:00While you were out we found out why XKCD actually ...While you were out we found out why XKCD actually sucks and how it can easily be improved. In a word, "comizahl". I'm pretty sure I don't need to tell YOU, my dear Carl, how to implement that.<br /><br />Captcha: cyllyn. "Colleen" if I was Welsh or something.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714810984552499396.post-63268199182331571212010-07-15T18:00:03.967-07:002010-07-15T18:00:03.967-07:00i hope nothing important is happening here because...i hope nothing important is happening here because i am sure not paying attention.Carlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01074589998141327538noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714810984552499396.post-31834626143459460282010-07-15T17:43:39.388-07:002010-07-15T17:43:39.388-07:00Plus, I'm quite positive there are many people...Plus, I'm quite positive there are many people who read what is said here, leave with a tainted impression of XKCD and never happen to comment about it either here or on the XKCD forums. Happened to a good friend of mine, he found this blog before me. Said he didn't like it, because it left a bad taste in his mouth. Not entirely because Carl was calling Randal a Talentless Hack, but because he couldn't argue with what Carl had written.<br /><br />Captcha: Tallike - Not quite tall... Tallike.Rinnonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15762967955629382937noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6714810984552499396.post-31121343381190120482010-07-15T16:47:30.068-07:002010-07-15T16:47:30.068-07:00Bish--
It's funny how such a "little&quo...Bish--<br /><br />It's funny how such a "little" comic manages to end up lovingly fellated on the Facebook pages of all of my more easily-pleased geek friends.<br /><br />Oh, and criticism is its own reward. Without this blog, we'd have to go out and find the mouth-breathing cuddlefish who get on here to yammer at us. It's ever so much nicer when they all come to us instead.Gryffilionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14326158632676811873noreply@blogger.com