xkcd Forums Bingo: Weeks 18 & 19

What, you didn't expect this to come back, ever? Let's see, we've got quite a lot to catch up on.

950 - Mystery Solved

You wouldn't expect people to question the science in a comic that's so obviously meant to be absurd, but the xkcd fans did.

951 - Working

Of course they were going to argue about the maths in this thread. But they didn't have to use that stupid JSMath font that causes the entire page to freeze for a while. I hate that.

I... I'm speechless. This post is 2719 words! Some people have way too much free time.

952 - Stud Finder

Goddamn, this is a stupid comic. There was plenty of G5 and O5 from those who didn't get it, those who expected a deeper meaning (this is xkcd after all) and those who over-explained it.

Now let's take a moment of silence to reflect on the depressing fact that the stud finder article on Wikipedia was randallized.

… …

953 - 1 to 10

One fan's opinion on this comic (I hope he was joking):

"Binary jokes are the cutting edge of internet comedy. Nonsensical ones even more so."
Naturally they stopped talking about the comic quite early on, and went on to discuss grading systems and the semantics of binary numbering OH GOD, I DON"T CARE ANY MORE!

954 - Chin-up Bar

Eight page thread, this had better be good!

And the first page was full of the usual xkcd forum tropes. We've got a promising line of three developing already.

The most amusing bit was where some people were offended by the comic. This guy even called it the worst xkcd ever. They were talking about this for the rest of the thread.

By the time I'd started the fourth page, I had three almost-lines forming.

End of sixth page - come on! Just a maths or language post to finish one of those lines off... Aha, found a language post! Which makes the following line:

I1 (I laughed (out loud).) - Plenty of examples. This is the best one.

I2 (Lagnguage/grammar) - someone on the seventh page pointed out the difference between meters and metres, for which we are forever greatful.

I3 (I think this thread is the winner) - Hasn't happened in a while, but here we get a reference to the thread creation process.

I4 (I wish this comic was true!) - a disturbing case considering the comic's subject matter.

I5 (Haters are trolls) - This post gives us a typical fanboy defence to the people who were offended.

On top of that, there were four near-misses. One can only imagine the epicness if we had got a double, triple or quadruple bingo. Maybe another time.

955 - Neutrinos

Oh boy, classic xkcd thread. Lots of boxes ticked. I don't believe it, another bingo!

B2 (I loved the alt text!) - Not a common square, but luckily we had this geologist who totally liked the alt text.

But there was also another geologist who hated the alt text.

I2 (Language/grammar) - This one for pointing out a typo in the alt text.

N2 (LONG post (500+ words)) - Phew, only just! We had this post with 501 words.

G2 (Maths/physics) - Needless to say, the thread was full of it.

O2 (Not funny, but made me think) - Screw it, I'm counting this for O2.


Please direct any flaming about the lack of bingo for over a month into the comment thread below. I have been busy with college and all that. Just doing this has taken me at least three hours.

xkcd Forums Bingo: Week 17

947 - Investing

Yeesh, so much economics in this thread! This generated some long-ass posts, thoroughly covering the N2 square. This one was 1090 words without the quotes.

There was also maths, and a little bit of physics (G2). We're off to a good start with a GOOMHR (N3). And with a G2, O1 and a B5, we have a good run on the diagonal line.

I double-checked though, and I couldn't find I4 or N1.

Oh, and if I had kept the feminism square, this post would have certainly got it.

948 - AI

This thread was interesting. A lot of people came to contest the Burning Man reference. A few people came because they didn't get the joke. And then, some time on the third page they started sharing their Cleverbot chat logs.

And then someone came along and did analysis of the thread. Not kidding.

Didn't get a bingo though.

949 - File Transfer

Oh dear, five pages. I expected this to be a rough one.

And yes, they spent at least 90% of the thread discussing file transfer methods, and hardly any of it discussing the comic. Everyone wants to use something different. The fact that they say it's possible is a direct contradiction of the comic itself, so I'm counting that for O1.

I didn't read most of the posts. But this piece of obnoxious douchebaggery caught my eye.

"There is a significant portion of the Linux userbase that is actively (or passive-aggressively) opposed to making it more user-friendly, because then stupid people would be able to run it, and then how would they be able to tell who has stars on their bellies?

Computing is a privilege, not a right; if you can't compile your own kernel or do everything from the command line, you don't deserve to use a PC or be on the internet. And you certainly don't deserve to run a real, manifestly superior (just like its users) OS."

This guy wrote a 1403-word rant about operating systems.

Fernie is back! I thought he got banned! <3

But of course the best part of the thread is the post I (Ephemeron) left at the end.

xkcd Forums Bingo: Week 16

Three more comics, three more threads. Let's get ready to see the score cards.

#944 - Hurricane Names

944 was quite a good discussion actually. Some interesting points were raised, and I even learned a bit about hurricanes. I really like this post for some reason:

"I'm just dreading the day when hurricanes attain sufficient complexity to become sentient, and demand to choose their own uber-kewl user names."

Then they got on to talking about this 'Cantor Diagonalization', and I lost interest, until I read this:

"You made a Cantor joke. I would go under the knife in order to become capable of having your babies."

Wait, what?

#945 - I'm Sorry

Ohhhh, too much arguing about grammar, and when it is appropriate to say 'I'm sorry'. It is best summed up by this:

"I'm sorry I read this far. Really I am. Oh, and I do not apologize for making those statements."

But only one square ticked? No way, I am not reading that thread again to see if I missed any others.

#946 - Family Decals

Heh, there was a GOOMHR post. I might as well link to it.

Ooh, there's also this:

"Actually, the second car seems to have stickers that look like Randy and Megan; maybe that's just the ransom money her family sent. Heh."

A Megan joke on the xkcd fora. Progress?

Some people want these decals to be in the xkcd store, hence the G3. Not sure if they specifically want the one with the huge stack of money.

Oh boy, we were close to a bingo this time. If only I could find a single post correcting someone's grammar like we had so much on the last thread! Dammit!

xkcd Forums Bingo: Week 15

Ladies and gentlemen, step right up as we ridicule the forums for another week!

#941 - Depth Perception

Oh boy, quite an excited thread for 941.

Our long post (N2) is barely in there with 501 words. We had plenty of I4 and O1. The I4 posts were from people who wanted to try this out in real life. The O1 posts are self-explanatory. Our O2 post comes from someone who doesn't have binocular vision, and found the comic depressing (aww).

We also had the creepiest B1 ever:
"About once a month I decide I want to marry you. This one is the first time I want to marry you so bad I actually jumped through all the registration hoops necessary to propose. The Joni Mitchel pushed it right over the edge. Then my kid walked in and reminded me that I'm already married to somebody else. Dammit."
It also wins B2 and B3 for mentioning the Joni Mitchell reference in the alt text.

#942 - Juggling

Let's see here. Nothing much happened, except we had FIVE instances of O3, each referencing a different comic. This comic seems to remind people of 226, 258, 298, Dinosaur Comics, and of course the Five-Minute Comics that were briefly posted a few weeks ago.

#943 - Empirical

B1 here, N2 there. Strangely, there were none from the bottom two rows. We had I2 with people debating the semantics of the marriage question.

xkcd Forums Bingo: Week 14

Okay, I said 'next weekend', which would have actually been last weekend, since it's now Thursday. I can see you all banging at your keyboards angry at the lack of bingo, so let's see the damn scores already!

938 - T-Cells

Good effort, but not much outside of the usual squares. Let's look at some of the highlights.

B4 came from this guy who wished the comic included a Blade Runner reference. This post wins I2 for making such a trivial grammar correction.

This thread had heaps of O1, exemplified by this post: "Wow. Randall, implying that a lentiviral vector is equivalent to an HIV infection is ignorant and irresponsible. I can't help but feel that you know better."

I really wanted the quote pyramid square (N4), since there were so many close calls with three layers.

The thread also gave us this comedy gem: "They did not stop doing hearth transplants after the first ones that had complications, did they?" "Thank god they didn't. My house has been much warmer ever since we switched to a woodburning stove."

939 - Arrow

I1 was surprisingly prevalent in this one. I'm not giving any examples, so you can use your imaginations or click the '939' at the top of the score and read the thread.

One point of interest is that our B5 came from this post:
"This cheese is cold"

This is a forum in-joke. It originated from a time when a word-filter changed 'lol' into 'The cheese is burning me'. And this later stuck as an expression of satisfaction at a comic.

940 - Oversight*

*I wrote Fitocracy on the bingo card by mistake and now I'm too lazy to change it.

And as you can see the entire thing only scored four squares. Why are the Friday comics always disappointing?

We had B1 and B5 in the same post, a relatively rare occurence. As expected there were a few people arguing over whether sex really was a good workout, giving us O1.

Towards the end of the thread they just started swapping Fitocracy invite codes. Also, one of the Fitocracy co-founders showed up to say how great xkcd was, in this post. I am not even kidding.

xkcd Forums Bingo: Weeks 12 & 13

Welcome, all. Bingo is now even better than ever! I've added new squares and taken some away where they didn't make sense. More about that later, but first, let's look at a semitransparent overlay of the last few dozen bingo cards, so we can see which squares are more popular.

As you can see, there is a skew towards the left hand side. I've fixed that in the new score card, giving a much more even distribution. However I couldn't help but fix a whole lot of other things.

I changed the numbering system from 1-5 and A-E. Now it is B-I-N-G-O and 1-5. This is apparently how a real bingo card works. Thanks to Anon 10:58 for letting me know that.

Here is the new bingo card:


The old 'feminism' square (C4) is gone. It hasn't been used since comic 896. It had to go. B5 and D1 have been merged together to become B4 on the new grid. There was too much overlap between them anyway.

I've introduced new squares for 'Maths/physics' and 'Language/grammar' (G2 and I2 respectively). They are a staple of long discussions, which forumites often get sidetracked into. As the thread grows longer, the probability of one of them being mentioned approaches one.

In return we lose D4, which is now covered almost entirely by 'Language/grammar'. Likewise, B1 has been replaced with I1. The difference is that it now doesn't require forumites to say which bit made them laugh. Simply stating that the comic made them laugh is enough to win the square. Another entirely new square is I4.

Various other squares have been renamed to make them clearer, but their meanings remain the same. Here is a list:
A4 -> G4
C2 -> O3
D3 -> B2 (I only added a pronoun.)
D5 -> G3
E5 -> G5

You'll notice I've also included important information at the top of the score card - comic number, title and the number of squares it ticked (in case you can't count them).

And now without further ado, here are the scores!

933 - Tattoo

Yes! The new score card worked. BINGO! It could have almost been a double bingo. Let's examine it, shall we.

O1 (Disagreeing with the science) - given by Kirby, with the assumption that electrons travel at the speed of light. Protip: they don't. Aaargh, I just said 'protip', aaargh.

O2 (Not funny, but made me think.) - this thread had heaps of it, being the thread for a cancer comic and all. If I had to single out one reply, it would be this. Note that he signed up just to say that, but it doesn't actually count for B1 unless he says that as well.

O3 (Reminds me of another comic.) - thanks, Eternal Density. The comic in question was Shortpacked.

O4 (Red moderator text) - used by SecondTalon in order to prevent the thread from sidetracking into a discussion about circumcision. I wish I was joking.

O5 (Explaining the joke) - thanks, ConMan. She is totally talking about her cancer!

Other squares of interest:

B4 - this guy was hoping for a DnD reference.

I2 - how typical of xkcd forumites to get sidetracked by the pluralization (or lack thereof) of'bicep'. I'm sure this will be a popular square.

N2 - this post (related to the physics argument) clocks in at 757 words. This one beats it with 884 words.

I5 - this post is hilarious, in that it refers to the xkcd forum 'a forum for cancer'.

934 - Mac/PC

Our new I4 square makes its first appearence, here. In this case it was regarding the alt text, specifically the idea of having xmonad as a Firefox extension. G5 and O5 were also related to the alt text. I1 also makes its debut here. And a few people made the point that we don't do everything through a browser (well, Randall does) so we get a healthy dose of O1.

935 - Missed Connections

Eh, not much to say here. On a comic like this, it's inevitable that G5 and O5 will make their appearence. At least from reading the thread I actually understood what the frick it means. (Frick you, spellchecker, frick is a word!)

936 - Password Strength

This is one of those comics where the discussion is about the issues raised, rather than the comic itself. Usually these are low scorers for bingo. But we sure were bound to find something in those ten pages. I2 and G2 make their second simultaneous appearance, even though people stayed mostly on topic with them.

We had N2 with this 933-word post. And yes, someone actually wanted a shirt with 'correct horse battery staple' written on it (G3).

937 - TornadoGuard

We had I3 in all its glory here, with "I declare thee the winner in the thread-starting race." I really thought that square would be more popular, but I've only ever had it a few times. Fairly short discussion though, barely two pages.

And with this post, we are caught up with the bingo schedule for now. The next regular post will be next weekend.

xkcd Forums Bingo: Week 11

I'm back from Iceland with more bingo. You know I couldn't ever leave you guys.

930 - Days of the Week

This comic had a pretty good dose of C1, as a lot of people criticized the graph for being hard to read. But we all know it would have been better with a Happy Days reference for B5. Remember it's people like this that make xkcd the reference-overdosed train-wreck that it is. The comic was clear poster bait, so it's not surprising we get D5 from here (actually quite a rare square). But wait! I think this takes the cake for A2:

The data is discrete and not continuous, it makes no sense to even think of displaying it in a polar chart - even if you wanted to view the data as a continuous progression on distinct days, you would have to allow for the fact at some Thursday "A" is not identical to some Thursday "B", even though they are the same "day", in the same manner by which sin(tau) is equal to sin(2*tau), despite the latter representing a different point around a circle.

931 - Cancer Cancer Cancer

Yeesh, I've never seen a comic with a stronger B4 vibe. To say this comic made a lot of people sad is an understatement. In fact one person signed up just to say it (B2). Someone thought that "out of the woods" might be a Firefly reference (B3) Some people even wanted a "Fuck cancer" shirt (D5).

This is a bit ridiculous. You don't have to be an cancer survivor to post in the comic's thread, y'know:
I do feel a little silly posting in this thread. I don't have cancer. None of my family has had cancer. I am 'mundane' as it were.

This is somewhat disturbing:
So let me join in the resounding chorus of, "Fuck cancer." Fuck it in the face. Then flip it over and fuck it again.

This gave us the rare C5 square:
If only there was some way in which everyone could just pay an amount of money into the healthcare industry, so those that need medical help can do so without having to pay insurmountable fees!

As you can see, I've added to the score card my own tasteful tribute to the sentiment expressed in this comic. I even wrote it in the blood of my enemies. That counts for something, right?

932 - CIA

A wind-down after the last comic. The thread itself only reached two pages.

xkcd Forums Bingo: Week 10

Bingo is early this week, because we're still catching up. Looks like the forums are picking up some momentum now that the link is back. Yay!

927 - Standards

Uhhh... they spent far more time talking about universal standards than about the comic. But this one was the most bingo-friendly we've had yet since I rebooted bingo. I even got the rare B4 square from this post. Note that there's one comic in the near future that's certainly going to get B4. Can you guess which one?

928 - Mimic Octopus

I swear I should have added a square for 'Grammar', since they spent half the thread talking about the correct pluralization of 'octopus'. I'm counting that anyway for D4. My favourite was 'octoplural'. Someone did it right though:

"I conclude that "octopi" is a valid plural, except on the xkcd forums, or anywhere else where it will provoke hours long discussions on pluralization."

929 - Speculation

I feel a bit redundant saying bingo, since it's already written on the image, but 'BINGO!' Yay!

Here's a rundown of the scoring squares:

E2 - Found it in the first post (it was being humorous though).

"YOU ALSO FORGOT THE FIRST ZERO FOR SHAME MAY YOUR FAMILY EVER BE CURSED ~~fatstaff"

A2 - In this post by Joee, half of the dynamic duo that is Glasnt and Joee.

"How is the ball still inflated with a arrow through it?
Yes, this is seriously the first thing that went through my mind"

C2 - I know this one is a bit dubious, but he basically saying that it reminds him of the other Google+ comic.

"Randall must really want us to join Google+. Not the first comic about it."

B2 - He signed up just to explain the joke (A1). For what it's worth the explanation was utter garbage.

"Alright I got a little annoyed that no one's got the main part of this joke so I joined.
The "thunk" sound is the old IRC message recieved tone. BHG is sending them an IRC message to say "I still use it, and it still gets my message accross"."

D2 - Thank you, adanedhel728, for your rant about Facebook, clocking in at 589 words (the quote isn't counted). Exerpt below.

"Now... All of that being said.... The only reason I even came to the forum was to point out that "thunk" was a surprisingly good sound effect."

I hope you've enjoyed bingo this week. Thank you and goodnight!

xkcd Forums Bingo: Weeks 7,8,9

Bingo is back, by the popular demand of SEVEN people (unless those two anons were the same person... whatever). For those unfamiliar with the format, each comic has a thread on the xkcd 'fora'. I read the thread for each comic and mark off a square for every time the forumites say a certain thing. At the end of every week I, do the three comics from the previous week. However, this week we're catching up by doing nine comics.

918 - Google+

919 - Tween Bromance

920 - Youtube Parties

921 - Delivery Notification

922 - Fight Club

923 - Strunk and White

924 - 3D Printer

925 - Cell Phones

926 - Time Vulture

I swear they're never usually this disappointing. In 924 they just sidestepped the comic and spent the thread talking about 3D printers. This just must have been a dull period on the forums, since the forum link was gone for a while. It's back as of 927. Expect more action here next week!

All the old score cards can still be found here.

Comic 934: Lost for Words

Title: Loss; alt-text: Ok, so I'll bet some people just said "That's it, I'm not reading this comic anymore!", and that's fine, I respect that decision. Thank you for reading.

Okay Randall, what the fuck.

At first sight, yep, it's another cancer comic. And there are no words. Now for once I wish it were a comic with too many words, so at least we'd get an explanation for what the hell's going on! The context is not clear at all, as Randall is neither showing or telling. Why is the guy rushing to the hospital? It's hard to tell if Megan is having a cancer or a miscarriage.

On top of everything the comic as a whole shows a dramatic mood-swing from 'hey cancer is fun, derp' to wordless angst. Think about this: two days ago Randall posted a comic that make radiation therapy sound all sci-fi and badass. This is just what happens when a webcomic author decides to insert unnecessary drama into an otherwise lighthearted comic that wasn't that good in the first place. If this doesn't cross the line into Wangst, I don't know what does.

On a slightly positive note, the artwork is slightly better than usual. It still ultimately fails because it's impossible to convey emotion in people who don't have faces!

The forumites are already sucking it up. Comments like this are everywhere.

So sad... so much there is said by so little. I want to cry.

I do not expect you read these comments, but I just want to say to Randall, your comic has been the highlight of my day for the last four years. Just know that no matter what happens, there will always be at least one adoring fan for you to talk to.

I can't help thinking there's another comic that this really reminds me of...

Ah yes, its 383.

And yes, this review is not at all serious.