Comic 715: Googley Eyed

holy lord YES we get another graph comic! I have been waiting for these! And not just any graph comic, a TURBOCHARGED one! with 10 different graphs!

ughhghhghghhhg

i hate these types of "comics". For one thing, I am sick of them. There was the one where he talked about kissing people. There was that one about death. There was that made up one about where people are searching for what. Just a few weeks ago there was that naked games one.

The worst, though, was when we had a comic that proved that "2 girls 1 cup" was a more popular phrase than putting other numbers the the "x girls y cups" formula. HOLY SHIT! it's only like there was a popular internet meme about "2 girls 1 cup" and there WASN'T ONE for "6 girls 5 cups." Why is anyone surprised by this?

The corresponding graphs in today's comic are "[x bottles of beer on the wall," "there are [x]lights," "drink [x] glasses of water a day" and "I got [x] problems." All of these have a common phrase they are associated with where a single specific number is used for X. Of course "I got 99 problems" will be an outlier. That's cause no one has written a popular song called "I got 39 problems"! What's the point? Maybe for "there are [x] lights" the point is that the nerd reference to star trek has permeated the internet enough that 4 is actually an outlier, but still, when your point is "star trek nerds spend a lot of time online" I can hardly care.

Anyway, that only takes us through 4 of the 10 graphs. Let's talk about the other 6. Tell me if you see a pattern:

-Number of girl- or boyfriends
-Age and lack of boyfriends (oddly, no corresponding one for girlfriends, here)
-penis length
-What middle or high school grade one is it
-bra size
-intelligence

Do you see what I mean? It's weirder because he doesn't actually draw attention to it in the comic - these are interspersed with the others. But the point is still: High schoolers, sexyparts, needing a boyfriend. Doesn't that make anyone else...a little creeped out?
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What I really hate about these google comics is that they really, truly, have no point. You'll note that with these comics, Randall never actually tells you what you should think about any of this, never interprets the data he gives you. He just presents it. That's because, I think, he respects the scientific method enough to realize that the data he is showing you is woefully unscientific. Google results vary wildly depending on who is doing them (based on what links you've clicked on before, where you are, etc) and anyway, the number of times something is said online is indicative of very little beyond the number of times that this is said online. It tells you nothing about how people actually use that phrase in real life. Sometimes, if you are very careful, you can extrapolate more from the data, but Randall doesn't even try. He just presents the facts as being interesting on their own, which - sorry! - they are not.

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Actually, not only is the data not interesting, it's not even accurate. People were arguing, quite violently, about this in the comments, so I chose one and decided to check.

I decided to look at one of the more illogical ones, the one that searched for "I'm and have never had a boyfriend." The results were: this comic is crazy wrong! The comic says that the results for 17, 18, and 19 (the outlier and the two data points next to it) are ~450,000, ~700,000, and ~400,000, respectively. My results were as follows:



if X = 17 : 8,790




if X = 18 : 9,940




if X = 19 : 5,910

How on earth did he get into the hundreds of thousands range? I have no idea. I know that some of you are thinking "well try it without quotes" but that a) is pointless, because then each age is likely to turn up in searches for other ages, and b) the results without searches make all the numbers jump up to the millions range (perhaps because of problem a). So I don't know what to conclude from this, besides the fact that Randall is just wrong.

I'm not going to bother with the others because I am lazy. I am sure some are right, I am sure that some are wrong. He's got a lot of numbers there. But it makes me think that Randall just made up some of these, which really is just sad. You can't find lame google searches on your own, so you make up boring results? Quite a good job you've got there. Quite a good job.

you have so much to be proud of

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I totally forgot to link to this the other day, but a certain Suit made of Chainsaws seemed to be taking a direct shot at xkcd the other day. Given that it came the day after the "i know two things with the word ring in them" comic, and that it is basically an "I know two things with the word code in them" comic, I think it's pretty clearly about xkcd in particular. Also, xkcd shirts cost $48.

Comic 668: Deeply Embarrassing

Apparently I was one of the few people who didn't think this graph was all fucked up. Maybe if I look at it real hard I can see that "Deeply embarrassing music" should really be inside the circle it is next to, but honestly, I got the point pretty easily. Far be it from me to dismiss a criticism of xkcd, but I don't really care about that one. How odd.

Leaving that aside, the comic is not too bad. The point is simple - "Pandora plays embarrassing music when people are around" - and simply executed, so it's not likely to make me froth about in a bitter rage, as so often happens (you really should not be near me when I read a new xkcd comic). I didn't find it all that funny - in part because I only listen to embarrassing music, so I am used to this, and also because I tend to listen to Pandora on my own or with headphones (because all my music is embarrassing). Part of me wants to say "why the hell is he making this comic now? Surely he's known about pandora for years, right?" but again, that's not really enough. The worst thing to be said about this comic is that it is oh-so-similar to comic 400, and that's not something I can defend it on. That is just a problem.

Those of you disappointed that I am not more angry today, read on.

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Unrelated to the current comic, but I've been glancing through the xkcd store as it quietly adds new products, and noticed this.

I think that the xkcd store selling shirts entirely based on a joke from the Simpsons movie is pathetic. The writers of that movie worked hard to come up with the script and to take their work and make money off of it is just wrong. I'm not talking about a legal, Creative Commons style debate - I'm just talking about what is being a dick and what is not. (hint: this is being a dick!)

update: No, I don't care that it is being sold to supposedly give money to some charity somewhere. And I also don't care that some comic book once made a similar character in like the 80s or something for a 17 issue kids comic series. the xkcd store fucking quotes the movie. OK? shut up and i hate you all.

Comic 657: Wayward Journeys

I know i usually forget to do this, but I'm making this post now in case you want to talk about the highly unusual comic 657. Yes, I know that if you read this by RSS feed, it makes it more difficult. To you people I say, just check back wednesday night. Also, if you are reading this by RSS you are most likely Rob, in which case i hate you and you should get the hell off my blog.

A few quick thoughts

-Regardless of what anyone says, this comic is very, very impressive, and clearly took a lot of thought and care to produce. I don't want to think about how hard it is. This doesn't excuse any of Randall's earlier lazy comics, but it does show that when he wants to, he can do something intense like this.

-to the always classy sje on the forums: You are a moron, there is only one critic on this site who matters, and that is me, and I read it right, and have seen the movie like a billion times. That clever little "let the voice of one person stand in for the whole website" is lame, and if I were to use it, I might assume that all of the xkcd forums were filled with giant assholes that reveled in the mistakes of others.

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PS i thought of an xkcd comic today and I want to say it now, so xkcd fans can tell me is sucks and then will have to backtrack when xkcd inevitably makes the same joke - it would basically a twitter post version of Fermat's last theorem, saying that 140 characters was not enough to explain it fully. Math reference + Internet Twist = XKCD Gold.

also, how long before we get a logical journey of the zoombinis comic? Maybe Mr. Hat is playing the game and uses all sorts of practical, assholeish tactics to avoid the usual logical rules.

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OK. Now it's time to get down and write about this comic.

This is an impressive comic. A lot of the usual anti-xkcd folks are impressed with it, and I fall into that category as well. Let's break it into two distinct parts, the charts themselves and the joke or jokes.

The charts are cool. Now granted, this sort of thing is not original; the most famous chart in the world (according to some sources), the Napoleon's Forces one, is of this style. It's actually a chart which xkcd has referenced before (incidentally, I could have sworn he referred to it twice. lots of cookies to whoever can find another example). Even the idea of doing it for a story dates at least to Slaughterhouse-Five, as many people have pointed out. But that's really not the point - I don't want to criticize him for that; unlike many other examples it's really completely fine that he's done this. I just want to make sure that all the fans who are like "oh wow he is so brilliant to think of using graphics to see where people move as time goes on!" know that they are dumb.

The Lord of the Rings chart, covering 1000 pages of novel as it does, is of course the most impressive. Particularly if it was done entirely freehand, as I suspect, it would have taken many tries and many drafts, and many consultations of the book. His blog post sheds a tiny amount of light on this (but I warn you - do not click on that animation link at the end....). The Star Wars graph, while clearly simpler, is also impressive on its own. And I guess Jurassic Park as well.

The presentation of the graphs leaves a bit to be desired - on the front page, they are just far too small to make anything of, and the "joke panels," discussed below, are shunted off in the bottom where the eye is not really able read them, let alone concentrate on them. But is there anyone out there who seriously doubts that this will not be turned into a poster, probably before christmas, and that Randall had this in mind when he made it? Any copyright lawyers out there who know if this would constitute fair use or not?

But of course, xkcd is a comic, and so it can't just show you something cool, no matter how cool it is. It has to make a joke. And this comic, I think, tries to make two. First, 12 Angry Men, a great movie but one where nearly the whole thing takes place in one jury room, so the chart version is comically simple. Ha ha, I guess. You wonder why he didn't go even more sparse and do a well known two-person movie, like My Dinner With Andre. Or a single line with The Cube. Whatever.

Then the real joke is the last graph, Primer, a movie so complicated that I've seen it 4 times and still have some key questions about just what is happening. It's not the crazy jumble that Randall makes it out to be (for one thing, like most time travel stories, the time travelers create duplicates of themselves when they go back in time) and it is, in fact, comprehensible. Nonetheless, that is how the movie feels, the first time you watch it. Unfortunately, I couldn't enjoy the joke. So few people know this movie that to me it just felt like Randall the insecure nerd trying to prove that he's heard of this cool nerd movie. Most people who have just discovered it, like me, did so either directly or indirectly because The Onion AV Club brought it a lot of attention this summer. I don't know for sure, but I suspect that Randall just watched it recently, and wants to tell people - like he did with House of Leaves - that he is just as well versed in nerdery as they.

In comparison to the nearly overwhelming impact of the "serious" panels, these last two jokes ("12 angry men is simple" and "primer is complicated") seem pretty pathetic. Why not just skip them entirely and leave us with only the high quality stuff?

Of course, had he done that, there's a good chance I would have said "this is cool and all, but it's not funny. It's not trying to be funny. Isn't xkcd supposed to be a webcomic?" and I would have been right.

That's why Randall Munroe should stop trying to be funny, as I have said a thousand times. By trying and failing, he's just bringing down the quality of the good stuff, like the serious panels in this comic. That's why he needs to scrap the webcomic format entirely and move all his fans over to Randall Munroe's World-Famous Death Defying Amazing Picto-Blog and he should do it as soon as he possibly can.

This was a very cool installment of xkcd. But it only reinforced to me that Randall does have good ideas, and xkcd is not the best channel for them.

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PS here is something interesting - looks like xkcd is now overtly objectifying women for profit. I wasn't expecting that.

Comic 645: Backwards

Are we all ready and wearing our xkcd polo shirts? EXCELLENT. let us begin.

Today was one of those rare days when I just did not get it. My nerdiness failed me. Luckily, I know I am not alone. The first 7 (!) posts on the forum were all from confused people who wanted to simply tell the world, "I don't know what is happening in this comic." and I got more IMs than usual from people asking me why this comic was supposed to be funny. [PS - new favorite forumite: Brad.]

To recap what I have learned since then, the joke is based off of what is called "Reverse Polish Notation" where the operation symbol in an equation is placed after the operands which it affects. So, according to wikipedia, 2 + 3 = 5 -> 2 3 + = 5. Or something like that.

Not understanding the joke upon first reading the comic puts me at a strong disadvantage in terms of fully appreciating it, so I will not try to make a judgment on it. OK that's kind of lie: I'll say this - it looks like just kind of a dumb visual pun based on some obscure page he found while getting lost in wikipedia. Not bad, but just kind of simple and dumb.

BUT. as I said, I am not going to be able to fully appreciate this, so I will leave it to those who did get the joke to tell us what they think.

I can, however say this: While it's nice that Randall is back from his elementary science and math jokes that just exist to make 9th graders feel smart and cool, isn't it a problem of some kind if he has to go back and add a link to the relevant wikipedia page for people who don't get it?

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The fact that Moe hasn't updated since September 14th is a tragedy for all of mankind.
On the other hand, I loved everything about this MSPaint Adventures installment, the music was perfectly chaotic and sugar-rushed, matching the frenetic energy of the animation just right. I still don't think MSPA is funny but am still enjoying it slightly more each day.

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EVERYONE WHO WANTS AN ALORIA GUEST WEEK NEXT WEEK SAY "RETROGRADE"

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LATER UPDATE: golly, I totally forgot that I had submitted some comics to T-Rex Is Lonely! If you do not recall, that is the website where an upstanding gentleman named Gregor gets people to mix and match different versions of Dinosaur Comics panels 1, 2, and 6 (the ones with just T-Rex in them). When done properly, this leads directly to Fun Times and Much Laffs. ANYWAY mine went up on October 5th and October 7th. You know it's the same Carl by looking at my contributor page.