1232-1234: Three Boring Comics

This week's comics were quite uninteresting. I'm sorry if it sounds like I don;t have much to say about them. Form your own opinions in the comments if you have to. And read the review when you're done.

1234: Douglas Engelbart (1925-2013)

Am I missing something here? So the joke is that he's discussing decidedly modern things in an apparently famous tech demo that happened in 1968? There are better ways of doing an Anachronism Stew. I had to look up Douglas Engelbart. He is the guy who invented the computer mouse, among other things. I don't know about the demo, but I'm guessing it was especially ahead of its time, or somehow prophetic of how we use computers today. I feel like I'd be dancing on someone's grave if I bashed this comic too badly, so instead I'm going to damn it with faint praise.

C for humour. D+ for the references that felt shoehorned. D for wall of text. 

1233: Relativity

No, you're butt would not look awesome because:

• There is no 'at the speed of light'. This is one of the first things they teach you in relativity. There is only 'near the speed of light'.
• Your butt would look bigger, but only in proportion to the rest of your body.
• There are obvious practical issues with flaunting your butt when you are speeding past your observer at nearly the speed of light, namely that you'd be too far away to see after a fraction of a second.

I am only nitpicking it this way, because you need to know relativity in order to understand the comic in the first place. And that makes it not work. It doesn't even make sense on its own terms. It's the sort of thing that is funny to middle school students who know a bit about relativity, but not enough yet to ruin the joke. That is the audience Mr Munroe is aiming at.

And he's putting words in the mouth of Einstein. Zombie Marie Curie was bad enough.

C for premise. D for the unclear punchline. F for possessing great scientists.

1232: Realistic Criteria

I feel like he's done this comic before. White hat guy is back to reprise his role as the unscientific strawman. It says nothing new. It's preachy. Can we please move on now? 

D is for deja vu. D for preachiness. D for lack of a punchline.

Comics 1229-1231: Spaced Out

So I have learned today that Blogger's automatic publishing feature sucks. Apologies again to those of you refreshing the page madly 24 hours after the last post.

1231: Habitable Zone

This is one of those comics that makes you chuckle just a bit before you realise the many ways in which it doesn't make sense. Surely the astronomer would know the telescope was pointed back at earth? Surely this is not how they actually discover planets. Surely that would take months of peer-reviewed research?

B for humour and the immediate impact. D for the stupid premise that you notice 5 seconds after laughing at the thing.

1230: Polar/Cartesian

If it's wrong that I thought of slash fiction when I saw the title, then maybe I don't want to be right.

Yeah, I don't know what to think of this one. At first you're uncertain whether the graph is cartesian or polar. But as time goes on, you slowly realise that it is cartesian. But the circle-ish curve gives it the appearance of a polar graph, hence the initial uncertainty. Now that I think about it, there really isn't much to it.

C- for humour - it took a little while to understand, and the pay-off isn't great. B for absurdism. Yes, self-referential graphs fall under the category of absurd in my opinion. And B+ for alt text, which is similarly absurd. A for effort, because I genuinely believe Randall thought about this one. F for failing to label the horizontal axis.

1229: Screensaver

So at first I thought this was a reference to some game. Just as I was writing this review, I noticed it was actually a reference to the Starfield screensaver from Windows. What can I say - it's been a while since I've seen it, and I'm an idiot who doesn't read comic titles. So I am probably the last person in the world to get the joke.

In all honesty it's brilliant. It's clever a twist on something we're familiar with that's original and well tolf. Now that I think about it, I'm sure I've noticed how some stars stay really close to the middle for a long-ish time. But it's not something you'd automatically come up with yourself after seeing that screensaver. That, to my my mind, makes it original.

I'm not even going to discuss the idiocy of staring at a screensaver for 20 years, because I believe that is part of the joke. Furthermore I know a screensaver would not actually do that unless it was deliberately programmed that way, but it's wish fulfilment - I'm sure we'd all like to see this happen.

A for originality. A+ for wish fulfilment (even if it's just a small one). C for topicality - yeah I'm gonna let the harsh marks slide because Windows 3.1 was already fifteen years old when he started xkcd. There is no way he could have possibly made this comic topical. A for execution - the comic timing is just right. B for artwork - I can't help but feel I'd understand it sooner if it was more obvious that  we were looking at a computer screen.

Comics 1226-1228: I Go To Extremes

1228: Prometheus

The third xkcd of the week is pretty damn good, albeit not enough to redeem the other two. It makes a point, makes it concisely, with just the right amount of subtlety. Now obviously I'm biased because it's a point that I agree with. But it caters nicely to the xkcd crowd. The artwork carries the point perfectly. There is plenty of good stick figure body language. The little splash of colour is a nice touch. And the caption below works well as a second punchline, without explaining the joke. This is a rare good xkcd. You heard it here first - well - last.

A for the concept. A+ for execution. A- for the alt text, because it was only tangentially related to the comic, and I feel it was good enough to make into its own comic.

1227: The Pace of Modern Life

Oh shit, I forgot how bad this one is. It would actually make a point if the quotes were gathered from a wide range of history, rather than just an arbitrary 44 years. And it really should make its point alott more concisely than that, and the quotes should be linked together. Instead it manages to be preachy without even saying anything.

Furthermore, the bits he's emphasised in black are not the specifics, or the generalisations. They seem to be highlighted pretty arbitrarily.

F for artwork, since there isn't any. F- for humour*. F-- for actually going somewhere And F--- for wasting our time. And yes, the guy who's already spent an hour writing this tat, is complaining about timewasting.

I also think it scores Over 9000 on the Ravenzomg Scale Of Wordiness, though I'd have to check with the hell-bird herself for that one.

1226: Balloon Internet

Am I missing something here, or is the balloon just annoying the guy by giving him internet? Is that the entire joke?? Really??? There is so much wrong with this comic - let's make a list

• I can't tell if the balloon is supposed to be really small or really far away.
• And if it's giving him free internet, he should be fucking grateful.
• If it's giving him internet that looks free but isn't, then he has a right to be annoyed, but the comic fails to make this clear.
• The guy isn't even on the Internet. He's reading a fucking book.
• Why would he drop the book if there was internet nearby? I don't think he can sense radio waves with his nose.
• Unless the balloon is audibly shouting the word internet. But that's too dumb for words. That can't really be what this comic is about.
• Oh God, it is.
• The balloon really is tiny, and it is literally creeping up behind him to shout 'INTERNET' in his ear.
• This would serve no purpose for the team controlling the balloons. It's not even funny in a classhole-ish way.
• Is internet supposed to be an onomatopoeia? I don't fucking know anymore!
• The first three panels are copy-pasted.
• The alt text has almost no relation to the actual comic, and is 100 times better than said comic.
• He's sitting on a giant arse. And now you can't un-see it.

The saddening potential is what this comic could have been. No I don't mean he could have conveyed the point by drawing it better. Scrap all five panels. We're starting again.

In case you don't know, the context of the comic is an actual project by Google to develop balloons that bring internet access to rural areas, so it was a rare opportunity to be topical. And the idea of getting internet coverage from a balloon is pretty damn cool. Already I'm thinking of airships, steampunk goggles, and sysadmins fighting it out in the sky with crossbows, and Google's hidden sky fortress.

Randall has explored these themes before with his depiction of Cory Doctorow, which would have been a perfect match for this context. Internet balloons are the stuff of classic xkcd. He had every reason to bring that character back, and he wasted the opportunity. At very least he could have made a cloud computing pun. But instead we get a little balloon that shouts internet for no reason.

I have nothing more to say to this, except: G

I think I'm going to call it a night.

*Don't you fucking dare correct me, yanks.

1223-1235: Holy fuck, that's alott of comics

Sup haters. Sorry for the lack of reviews. I forgot about it one week, and then I couldn't face my mistake. To make it up to you, I will post three comic reviews per day until I am caught up with xkcd. We British are good at apologising, so sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry.

I'm trying out a new grading system where I give different grades to different parts of the comic. Let me know if it works.

As always, hover over the comic to see you alt text. If you're on a mobile device, then get a real computer for fucks sakes.

1225: Ice Sheets

Yes, we get it. Ice sheets are thick. Is there supposed to be an environmental message here? A+ to whatever textbook he stole this from. F for humour. F- for the essay-length alt text

1224: Council of 300

I like that this comic appears to belie Randall's self-important belief that he is the first person to view a video that will become popular in the future. At least that's the only way the premise makes sense. Alt text belies that he clearly didn't know where he was going with this one, since it's far too long and rambley, bit like this review - B for its unintentional meaning. F for wasting the observational humour goldmine that is 301+ Youtube views. No really, I mean that.

1223: Dwarf Fortress

I am not sure what is the context where this conversation can happen. Can someone please explain the Dwarf Fortress reference? I think I get the point he's making - luckily there is a caption to hamfistedly explain the joke. C for concept. F for execution

1220-1222: So Bad it's Meta

Hover over the pictures for the alt text.

1220 - Randall is being meta by pointing out how much he hates meta-ness. It would be good if it was actually funny. But no. D

1221 - Ugh, it's not that I don't understand the references here. It's just not even funny when you do. It's not even anything. This comic has no right to exist. It's wasting precious pixels on my screen. F-

1222 - I think I understand what he's getting at (Randall, get out of my head!) But it seems so needlessly negative, and yes, smug. Randall presents a problem, but offers no solution. How the mighty have fallen, since 267. D-

Bingo time!

Oh boy, we haven't done this in a while. It would be a most special thread for this inaugural bingo. So let's have a look at the 2-page obnoxiousness-fest that is the thread for 1221.

B1 (I signed up just to say...) - This square comes courtesy of new user A42, who made this post:

"I made an account here just to say, EEEEEEEEEE, Randall referenced A Wrinkle In Time!"

...which also counts as a B2 and a B3.

I2 (Language/grammar) - We had a long and pointless flame-war about the dot that appears after an abbreviation like Mrs. (yes, really!) It was m_dow who fired the first shot.

N3 (Get out of my head, Randall!): Yes, it is.

G4 (Off-topic argument) - that argument about grammar was indeed off-topic.

O5 (Explaining the joke): Too many examples to link to. But for a comic like this, it was inevitable.

See you next week with more bingo.

xkcdsucks vs xkcd-sucks meta-review

By popular demand* here is the definitive unbiased comparison between xkcd's leading hate-blogs.

xkcdsucks (A.K.A. "No-hypen")

The lead 'reviewer' on this blog can't even be bothered to pump out shitty one-line reviews once a week, leaving the comment threads to wither and die. Once a comment thread turns 2 weeks old, that's it. It can't be posted in anymore. It's clear that people only prefer it out of habit, and failing to update their bookmarks.

F-

xkcd-sucks (A.K.A. "Hypen")

Updated every week with content from yours truly. I may even do other features, like Forum-watch and Bingo if there's demand for it. Best of all, if I stop posting for any reason (although really there's not much chance of that happening), the comment threads will work indefinitely.

A++++

*One guy requested it, and I think he was joking

1208-1219: Picking up where Rob left off

We're evacuating to this site as the new xkcd-sucks blog, because Rob has decided to stop posting.

Tell your cuddlefish friends. We can make this happen.

And without further ado...

1208 - harmless nerd porn. C+

1209 - Makes no sense until you read the caption. D

1210 - This is Randall being cynical, hypocritical and preachy all at the same time. D-

1211 - I agree with what he's saying. It's just that it comes across so preachy. C-

1212 - It annoys me that the distances are not to scale. Alt text saved it. C-

1213 - I think I know what joke Randall's trying to make, but it's difficult to understand. D

1214 - I've played GeoGuessr, and this never happens. F

1215 -  Maybe before we rush to adopt xkcd we should consider the consequences of blithely giving this webcomic such a central position in our lives. D+

1216 - Alt text is better than the actual comic. B-

1217 - This is a good joke for once, and actually told well. A

1218 - I've seen LotR, but the joke fell flat because it took me too long to figure out what was going on. So Randall, your pandering comic even fails at pandering. F

1219 - No Randall, I can not imagine something about something and make it funnier. F 

HYPHEN IS BACK BABY!