Comic 21: Science joke. You should probably just move along.

This review is dedicated to the one guy who follows this blog on Feedspot. You know who you are...

It's been a while since I've reviewed a classic. And the comic requested by Anon 12:27 is even older than Xkcd itself (the first 50 or so comics were posted on forums before Randall moved them to their own site).

Comic title: Kepler

Alt text: Science joke. You should probably just move along.

Yes, it actually says that.

And I think this is indicative of an earlier, more self-conscious, Randall. He knew his jokes were esoteric and geeky. And he accepted that as one of his flaws. B for self-consciousness. Now that he is surrounded by his echo chamber of fans, he falsely recognises it as a strength. If you don't understand the joke, then you aren't a true fan.

I'm going to step forward and confess that I don't understand the joke here. I have been skim-reading the Wikipedia article on Johannes Kepler, and I still don't understand the joke. I did learn a few things about Kepler, such as the fact that he developed new theories on planetary motion, and developed a platonic solid model of the solar system. So that's neat, right? Xkcd has caused me to learn something.

Wrong! I should not have to do research to understand a punchline, ever. Now don't get me wrong. I am scientifically curious, and I subscribe to a lot of educational Youtube channels. But I enjoy that knowledge for its own sake, not because some self-important nerd-god told me to learn it.

Let's use an analogy here. If your parents punish you by forcing you to read a boring textbook, and that textbook ends up being quite interesting, then it is to the credit of the people who wrote that book. In this analogy, the textbook is Wikipedia, and Randall is my dad.

So the few facts I learned about Johannes Kepler are to the credit of the anonymous volunteers who write Wikipedia, not to the shmendrik who sent me there in the first place. I would give him a grade at this point for standalone value, but it's become a dead horse at this point, so I'll just give him U for Ungradable (the bottom mark in British exams).

Nevertheless, there seems to be a widely held opinion among webcomic fans:

The added bonus, for me, is that looking up new information like that is just as enjoyable as reading the strip itself.

~ Aaron Diaz, author of Dresden Codak

Let me just say that I disagree. But what's the alternative you say? We only make lowest-common-denominator jokes about farts and reality television? No. I say the context of the joke should explain the idea of the thing it is about.

To difficult you say? Feh! Here is an example of an Xkcd that does it right. Yes, the 'sudo make me a sandwich' one. Who here can honestly say this one is difficult to understand? It is obvious from the context that sudo is a command that forces something to obey you, probably a piece of computer jargon that overrides all settings to give you admin permissions for that action. And the best part is that it was all conveyed in four lines of dialog. And I should point out that if you wanted to find out more about what sudo does, then you are free to do so.

I had to go to explainxkcd to find the actual meaning of comic 21, and it was a disappointment.

According to Kepler's Second Law, "A line joining a planet and the Sun sweeps out equal areas during equal intervals of time." This looks like wiping a wipe on the floor. 

In the comic, the janitor Kepler also sweeps the same area, although in this case "area" is used in the sense of "surface" (of floor) rather than in the purely mathematical sense.

Really? It's not even the same meaning of the word area. Is that supposed to be a pun? Well it sucks. F for humour.

Also, why the fuck did he draw all these early Xkcds on squared paper? Did they not have plain paper at NASA? F- for lack of effort. See me after class.

Comic 1314: Condescending Stranger

This review is dedicated to Anon 9:11 in the previous comment thread, who requested it.

Comic title: Photos

Alt text: I hate when people take photos of their meal instead of eating it, because there's nothing I love more than the sound of other people chewing.

Oy, I knew we were in for a rough ride when we saw White Hat in the first panel. When did we see this figure in a comic where he wasn't playing a strawman? And I use the word 'figure' instead of 'character' because he is not a character, despite some people's claims that he is.

Let's have a show of hands here (sound off in the comments section if you like) - who thinks Xkcd has characters, in the sense that The Simpsons has characters?

If you said yes, then you must agree to the implication that White Hat in 1314 is the same White Hat who appeared in 915 and 973. And what is his defining trait in all of these? He is a self-righteous asshole, a snob with opinions, or at least he is portrayed that way. He is the example that you, the audience are not supposed to follow. White Hat's character concept was never supposed to be anything more than a strawman, and so the writing suffers for it.

Good writing is supposed to tell a story, not to tell people what to do. In the words of author Philip Pullman: "Thou Shalt Not is soon forgotten, but Once Upon a Time is forever." He would do well to follow his own words, given that The Amber Spyglass was basically a religious flame-war in book form. But our Mr Munroe has probably never even heard of words to that effect.

Let me say right now that I largely agree with the message being spoken in this comic. I find it does take away from the moment to faff around with exposure settings when you just want to enjoy a pretty sight for what it is, but the payoff is that you get to keep a record of it forever. I get that, and yet the comic rubs me the wrong way because it's being preachy. Somehow, the hatless man comes across as the bigger asshole here. He has unwittingly become the very thing that he is fighting, the condescending stranger, the schmuck with opinions.

But why should you listen to me? I am, after all, a schmuck with opinions.


Obligatory grades: B for the artwork in the first panel. D- for the artwork in every other panel. F* for wall of text. F*** for the preachiness. DETENTION for Gizmodo repost.

Comic 1308: So this is Christmas

Alt text: Merry Christmas from xkcd!

You ever played one of those dumb little maze games? You know, this sort of thing:

This is the comic equivalent of that. The challenge is easy. And the reward is not even worth considering. The only reward for the maze is the fact that both exists are now connected by an unbroken line of pencil (or pen, if you dare). The reward for this comic is that you know it's a picture of people sitting around a fire at Christmas.

As such, I'm going to give it a B for standalone value. You'd have to be very ignorant of the properties of electromagnetic radiation to not realise that they are the light spectra of a log fire and the lights on a Christmas tree (on the left and right respectively).

Not exactly revolutionary. I'd much rather this be a comic where Beret guy is having an good old fashioned Christmas argument with the two other people in the comic, who I presume are his parents. That would be entertaining at least. The only thing original about this comic is the way the message is obfuscated by some faux-nerdy scribbles.

But let's play devil's advocate for a second. The fact that you can see a Christmas scene even though there isn't one there is kind of neat, right? Right?? In the immortal words of Luggage: "Somehow, I feel that this is the strongest xkcd yet. It's in my head." And I must agree that there is value in art that requires a little bit of interpretation.

This is not that. This actually reminds me of something Randall said a while back...

"Communicating badly and acting smug when you're misunderstood is not cleverness."

F* for hypocrisy. Please cut off your own arm before you think of writing another comic like that.

Thank you Anon 6:54 for requesting a review of this comic. I have decided I would like to do more of this, so here's how it's going to work in the future:

The first commenter (OMG FIRST!) gets to choose the comic for the next review. It can be any comic number, as long as I haven't reviewed it before. I cannot guarantee the review will be negative, nor can I guarantee any sort of schedule. Oh, and any further requests will be ignored until I post that review, lest the comments end up looking like the comments section on Epic Rap Battles.

Died in a Blogging Accident: Sneak Peek!

UPDATE July 2014 – Died In A Blogging accident can now be found here!

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Happy Christmas to all you goyim. Since you're checking the blog on Christmas Fucking Day, I assume you have no family, or you are one of the chosen people. Either way you deserve a present. Allow me to give you a preview of chapter 3

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Thank you for your interest, but this preview was intended only for viewers over the Christmas period, and has now been removed. If you want to see chapter 3, please wait until it comes out in the summer. See you then! And keep tweeting #DiaBA!

COMING SOON TO XKCD-SUCKS

#DiaBA

Comics 1299-1305: Who Will Remember Us?

Comic 1305: Undocumented Feature

Click here, or anywhere on the image, to see the full-sized version. Trust me, it's worth it. I will wait.

I just, wow, this Xkcd hits home in so many ways. A many-panel skyscraper of a comic, reminiscent of the the glory days of SMBC. The artwork is effective and to the point. But what really make me want to re-read this comic is the story it tells.

I think the subject matter of this comic is something we can all relate to. This comic is fictitious, but it captures the experience of so many online backwater communities. It ends with a punchline about Facebook and an alt text about Youtube, but that is only to emphasise the contrast between those sites and the little misfit communities that we create ourselves.

And yes, Xkcd-sucks is one of those communities, whether you spell it with a hyphen or not. Look in any comment thread and you will see the friendships we have built. We were just trying to troll each other, but in was in fact the trolling that helped bring us together.

Furthermore, this comic is an important reminder that all online communities will eventually die. You don't have to be particularly observant to see that has already began to happen. No-hyphen doesn't update anymore. The comment threads are closed. And that has not produced the huge influx of activity to this blog that I expected.

People leaving No-hyphen are not going elsewhere to hate Xkcd. They are just leaving, for the same reasons that Rob is no longer posting. Their hate is turning to apathy. It's no longer fun to hate Xkcd.

With that in mind, I have decided to stop reviewing Xkcd. This blog will be retired, and Xkcd-sucks will die.

So in light of everything I have said, I will give this comic the grade it truly deserves, complete with something I have been waiting to say in earnest for all these years: A* for Randall Get Out Out Of My Head.

That does not mean the previous six Xkcds are exempt from criticism. These will be the last reviews I write, so I might as well make them count.

Comic 1304: Glass Trolling

B- for trolling Google Glass. It's something that deserves to be trolled, but the troll was not original. F for the fact that obnoxious Xkcd fans everywhere are going to copy this comic, because of course they are.  Just imagine a million of them uttering 'OK Glass' commands while they needlessly chatter at their smartphones. Worst of all, there already is a feature on Nexus phones that's pretty much the same thing, except you say 'OK Google Now'. And with this comic being the bad influence that it is, people might actually start using it. Randall, do you even know what you have inflicted on humanity with this simple PNG image? Instead of mocking the stupid trend of talking to electronics, you have helped perpetuate it!

D for artwork, and for not even going to the effort of drawing a second person. DETENTION for Gizmodo repost.

Comic 1303: Profile Info

Nice idea, but there are so many ways in which it wouldn't work.

It wouldn't work for social networks, which is where we would most want to use this trick. How dumb would it look if every single comment you made on Youtube was signed 'John If-you-see-this-name-in-an-ad-give-the-product-a-one-star-review-smith'?

F- for failing to think things through any more than I thought through this grade.

DETENTION for Gizmodo repost.

Comic 1302: Year in Review

This comic failed to make a point. F- for lack of a point. Is the joke supposed to be that a newscaster talks about something completely irrelevant while on air. Whilst it's something we'd all like to see a newscaster do, it doesn't actually make for a good joke, because it's unoriginal as fuck. F-- for unoriginality.

And the worst part is that it's trying to be all zany and random, and it just fails dismally, because it's just what we expected. F for building up an expectation, and going nowhere with it.

C- for the alt text, but it was almost unrelated to the comic.

Comic 1301: File Extensions

I fail to see a joke in this one. I fail to see any way to apply this comic to my own experiences. You have to be scraping the bottom of the observational humour barrel to come up with stuff like 'oh yeah, pdf files are much more trustworthy than ppt files.

It doesn't even make sense on its own logic. I regularly convert my lecture slides from .ppt to .pdf to make them easier to read on a Mac. But that doesn't change their trustworthiness. Normally logic shouldn't matter, as it's just a comic. But when it fails to impress me in any other regard, logic becomes its only redeeming value. And the weak logic of the broad sweeping statements about file types, which is incidental to the content they contain, is the best thing about this comic. Doesn't that say a lot.

Oh yeah, Randall. Aren't your comics always in PNG format?

F for lack of logic. F- for lack of relevance. F-- for lack of a joke. DETENTION for Gizmodo repost.

Comic 1300: I Don't Own a TV

The following review is a tribute to Rob Mason, and his timelessly brevitic style of reviewing eveything.

Nobody cares. F

Comic 1299: Galilean Moons

This comic is just... what? This comic is awful beyond mere description of words. To wit one William Monty Hughes, "Words fail me [...] but I shall not fail words." So let's review this astronomical turd of a comic.

Why would one of the moons be so happy about escaping the girl's orbit, and orbiting the guy instead... unless it was planning to suck him off. Hey, that reminds me of my first ever comment. Nostalgia aside, it is so hard to see what this comic is on about. I had to turn to Explain Xkcd to help me in my final review, and the grades I had to give are:

*Deep breath!*

Q for bad artwork. R for failing to include show the moons' motion. S for not even including a dotted circle to show the orbit. T for the impossible-to-comprehend joke about orbital resonance. U for lack of standalone value due to it being a joke about orbital resonance. V because it's not even funny. W because apparently Galilean moons moons a don't do anything but say the same thing repeatedly. X because even if the moons somehow had the power of speech (and I reiterate: why the fuck?!) it would make no sense for one of them to shout "MOOOOOOON!" It's like the most annoying Pokemon with none of the good things about being a Pokemon. Y because not even the forums liked it. Z for making moons look like the astronomical equivalent of crabs.

Overall grade: Z*, that's a ZED-FUCKING-STAR (pun not intended thank you very much - a moon is not a star), the worst grade I have ever given. You know what that means?

100 BELT LASHINGS, one for every comic I have ever reviewed, for the WORST COMIC I HAVE EVER REVIEWED. 

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And before I go, DOUBLE DETENTION for Gizmodo repost. Fuck you Gizmodo! FUCK YOU IN THE THUNDERBOLT PORT! AND FUCK EVERYTHING TO DO WITH FLAT DESIGN. ALSO WHOSE IDEA WAS IT TO PUT DRM ON A FUCKING USB CABLE?! FUCK YOU STEVE JOBS!!!!!! OY VEY.

*Ahem*

Before I go, I'd like to talk seriously for a moment. If comic 1305 is anything to go by, this community will soon be forgotten, even by those who participated in it. And that makes me truly deeply sad. But though we may go our separate ways and never even tell anyone that Xkcd-sucks was a thing, there is one thing that we will never lose: the fun we had from the comics we bashed and the friendships we made. Even if no one remembers it, it still happened. It was good while it lasted, and no one can take that away from us.

You know, I was never into MMO gaming, and Chat-rooms and BBSes were slightly before my time. So this was the closest I have been to a tight-knit online community that I felt I really belonged to. And you guys have been best, even the Anonymous, especially the Anonymous. The last few years have been the best of my life.

Feel free to share your best memories of hating Xkcd in the space below. Try to put this blog out of your mind when you see your families this Christmas. I wish you good luck, farewell, and have an easy feast.

And I never did finish that story...

Comics 1295-1298: Xkcd Sucks at Programming

What's this you say? Four comics in one review! But Jon, it's not an exact multiple of 3. To that I say, who gives a crap?

Comic 1298: Exoplanet Neighborhood

Well, let's start with the good. Randall get an A+ for the algorithm that makes the circles spaced out evenly. That kinda neat, and it must have been fun to do. Everything else on the other hand.

D for graphic design. This is basic stuff here. Don't depict planets as dirty brown discs. He has made this mistake before in 1071. Speaking of 1071, it's hard to see how that isn't a rehash of that comic. There are more planets, for one thing. The shape of the comic is rectangular rather than circular.

So what's the difference? Is it meant to show how more planets have been discovered since that comic was made. No. Read the text carefully: "Constructed from statistical data on typical planet sizes and orbits."

Oh, so they're not even real planets. It's just based on what we think might be out there. Yeah, I'm betting this comic will end up looking really dated in a few years when higher resolution telescopes prove that there are far more planets than this F for using damned lies and statistics in lieu of data.

Our models of planet formation are flawed. They don't even properly explain the origin of our own solar system. So applying that logic to other stars is flawed at best. Bear in mind that there is an observer bias in favour of large planets, because large planets are easier to spot. Small planets will probably be found to vastly outnumber gas giants when we get higher resolution telescopes. If our own solar system is anything to go by, then most gas giants will also have planet-sized moons.

So to sum up, F- for general scientific dickery.

F-- for being a poster. He probably made the background white to save on ink costs. Stingy bastard. Just look at how much better it looks with a black background. And all I did was invert the colours (and correct one of the spellings).

Oh, and F--- for forgetting to include an alt text, then hastily adding an alt-text-for-the-sake-of-an-alt-text a few hours later. Don't think I didn't notice.

Comic 1297: Oort Cloud

B for referencing a current event. Not everyone has heard of Comet Ison, but the comic is just about readable without that knowledge, so A- for standalone value.

Does the time scale used in the comic bug you? Because it bugs me. Most comets have orbital periods in the hundreds of years, if not thousands. Certainly it would take at least that long to reach the Oort Cloud.

Fun fact: the Oort Cloud is far away, like really far. If it take light 4 hours to reach Neptune, what we traditionally regard as the 'edge' of the solar system, then you'd be looking at at least 4 months to reach the Oort Cloud. And since the comic does nothing to even imply this vast distance, that's a big fat F for having no sense of scale.

This sounds like nitpicking, but think about this. It would not have hurt the comic at all if there was a '3000 years later' caption between the 2nd and 3rd panels. It would have actually improved the joke somewhat. The idea of two friendly comets picking up a conversation after 3000 years is a funny one. F- for missed opportunity.

Now it's time for the nitpicks. D for failing to show motion, and D- for the stilted dialog.

This is another clear-cut case of comic that he should have run by an editor, because it was actually a good idea, but good execution would have really enabled it to shine like a dying comet in the sun's corona.

Comic 1296: Git Commit

We get it, Randall sucks at programming. This is not how you are supposed to program. As Ars Technica (the wise old sage of tech journalism) will tell you, you are supposed to write code that other people can understand.

F for making a joke out of 'I suck at programming.' But wait. There's more to it than that. It's a great big GOOMH* moment to Xkcd readers who are also programmers. In fact, I imagine it's the sort of thing that pgrogrammers encounter all the time when they make small incremental edits to their code. It's probably stating the bloody bleeding obvious to these people, so no joke. F** for stating the obvious, but they'll still appreciate the GOOMH anyway, because it's Xkcd.

C- for standalone value, as half the comic's readership will probably be scratching their heads and wondering what a 'Git Commit' is, if it's not obvious from the context (it isn't).

Comic 1295: New Study

Randall shakes his fist at the TV like a bitter old man bemoaning the fact that radio is ruining music. The viewer sighed at yet another Xkcd comic complaining about TV news stations appeared on his Feedly dashboard. This comic gets a D for just being boring. D+ for artwork, which is a little on the lazy side, but at least the guy doesn't have a floating head.

Of course, we all know that Randall wishes that everyone would get their science news by reading the science-themed Xkcds, then googling some of the terms they mention so they can understand the punchlines. If Randall got his way, he'd replace science news with science homework. Fuck you, Randall.

*In case you're a new reader, it stands for 'Get out of my head'.
**It's not asterisks. It's two stars, you fuckers.