1Feb/1290

Baby Names

by Jeff

Image text: I've been trying for a couple years now but I haven't been able to come up with a name dumber than 'Renesmee'.

Ok, the punchline for this one is in the image text as Renesmee is the name of Renesmee Cullen, who is the baby born in the book and movie, Twilight to parents Edward and Bella (spoiler alert if you have been living under a rock and don't turn on the internet or TV).  Edward and Bella get Renesmee from an amalgamation of the names of Bella's mother, Renée, and Edward's adoptive mother, Esme.

Randall's point above stands.  All those names are terrible, but not nearly as terrible as the name Renesmee.

Filed under: Movies, books 90 Comments
26Oct/11113

Delta-P

by Jeff

Image text: If you fire a Portal gun through the door of the wardrobe, space and time knot together, which leads to a frustrated Aslan trying to impart Christian morality to the Space sphere.

This comic was posted late and now I'm late and I'm at work so I can't do as much explaining as I usually do, but I'll do my best.  That's also why we have the best comment section on the Internet.

The basic idea of the formula and the comic are based on the books and movies of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in which a giant wardrobe contains a portal to a world known as Narnia. In the comic, someone connects an anchor to the wardrobe and throws it into the ocean which means that a steady stream of water at a velocity of 200 m/s will flow into Narnia.

The White Witch, the antagonist in the books and movies apparently won't know what hit her according to the caption.

The image text references the video game "Portal" in which you fire a portal gun into walls and etc to make "portals" that can open holes in other places so that you may portal through.

The image text also references the fact that CS Lewis wrote the Lion, Witch and Wardrobe books as a thinly veiled allegory of Christ's crucifixion with Aslan, the Lion in the title, playing Christ's part.  (Spoiler alert! Sorry!)

This is a classic xkcd based on the intersection of literature, math and video games.

26Sep/1126

Sharing

by Jeff

Image text: In the new edition of The Giving Tree, the tree uses social tools to share with its friend all the best places to buy things.

The Giving Tree is a book by Shell Silverstein.  Wikipedia has all the spoiler alert you could want. Essentially, the tree gives a boy everything it has throughout the tree and the boy's lives.  Hence "The Giving Tree".

The tree in this comic, has a file share with the eBook "The Giving Tree" in Amazon Kindle format.  (Also, how has Cueball never heard of The Giving Tree?)

But of course, Megan has not purchased the book from Amazon and the tree somehow did not enable lending of the book, so they could not read it.  This comic is a contrast to the book in which the tree gives whatever it has to the child, but in our current times, the tree is not even able to share a book because of DRM.

The last frame is very telling because when the tree cannot share, Megan and Cueball leave the tree very alone, when it is unable to share anything with them.

The image text is also a comment on our current times as every site or new application these days is all about "social" and recommendations to your friends on what and where to buy so the companies can make money on you.

22Jul/1130

Mimic Octopus

by Jeff

Image text: Even if the dictionaries are starting to give in, I refuse to accept 'octopi' as a word mainly because--I'm not making this up--there's a really satisfying climactic scene in the Orson Scott Card horror novel 'Lost Boys' which hinges on it being an incorrect pluralization.

Let's get this out of the way before it starts a flame war on here: according to Merrian Webster Dictionary online, both octopi, octopuses and octopodes (only if you are English) are all the correct plural of octopus.  It is a pretty funny video, I highly recommend watching it, even if you don't care about the plural of octopus.

So, this comic is a reference to a typical fish and sea-life identification chart.  Like this or the US airforce ID chart parody.  So, its basically a parody of a parody referencing the mimic octopus which is, as the name implies, able to mimic other animals.

The Orson Scott Card novel 'Lost Boys' is (from Publisher's Weekly): "A withdrawn eight-year-old in a troubled family invents imaginary friends who bear the names of missing children in this absorbing thriller."

Filed under: Language, Nature, books 30 Comments
21Feb/1111

Major In The Universe

by Jeff

Image text: I hear Steven Levitt is writing a book analyzing A.J. Jacobs' quest to spend a year reading everything Malcolm Gladwell ever wrote. The audiobook will be narrated by Robert Krulwich of Radiolab.

In this comic, several authors are referenced.  Malcolm Gladwell is an American Canadian author who wrote such books as "The Tipping Point", "Outliers" and "Blink". Steven Levitt is one of the co-authors of the book, "Freakonomics" and also the Freakonomics blog on NYTimes.com.

Robert Krulwich is a science corespondent for NPR (National Public Radio, for those outside of the US) and a co-host of the show Radiolab.

AJ Jacobs is a journalist who immerses himself in different ideas and lives them out for periods of time.  For example, he lives a year according to all the moral codes in the bible literally.

The comic is Cueball as a college student, meeting with his adviser or professor trying to decide what to major in.  He decides to major in "The Universe", but when his adviser details the real work required of that major, Cueball scratches his head and tells what he really means.  If you have not read Malcolm Gladwell's books, they all are slightly similar and details Gladwell's different "discoveries" about the world based on things that have happened.  I do not mean to rip Gladwell's books, of which I particularly enjoy.

31Mar/1026

Flatland

by Jeff

Image text: Also, I apologize for the time I climbed down into your world and everyone freaked out about the lesbian orgy overseen by a priest.

Flatland is a short story by Edwin Abbott Abbott. Yes, that is really his name.  In Flatland, women are represented by lines, and the more important a man is, the more sides he has.  The least important male would be a triangle and the priest, in Flatland, has so many sides, he looks like a circle.  So, the image text is a reference to how an xkcd stick figure would look to the members of Flatland.  The text for Flatland is on Wikisource here, if you feel like browsing on your Wednesday morning.

Miegakure is an actual game in development that will allow the player to move in 4 dimensions.  The website is here, with a screen shot that looks eerily similar to panel 2.

And if you didn't realize, Spongebob is a reference to Spongebob Squarepants, the Nickelodeon cartoon about a sponge named Spongebob.  Spongebob is a square (as his name implies) - so that is why the character in the comic is able to draw arms and legs on the square to make him look like Spongebob Squarepants.

10Mar/1010

Single Ladies

by Jeff

Image text: Using a ring to bind someone you covet into your dark and twisted world? Wow, just got the subtext there. Also, the apparently eager Beyoncé would've made one badass Nazgȗl.

The song playing in this comic is "Single Ladies" by Beyonce.  Which apparently had one of the best videos of all time... Anyhow, Gil-Galad was the last high king of the Noldor in Middle Earth.  Galadriel was a queen of the elves in Middle Earth.  Eru was the one god of Middle-Earth who created the Elves and Men, and Aule created the Dwarves, but Eru eventually approved Aule's creations.  So, he sort of created the Dwarves as Eru was the only god to give a spirit to a being, as he did with the Dwarves.

The character in the beret is apparently the bartender in a bar that Sauron frequents.  In the comic, Sauron upon hearing the song by Beyonce in the bar, has the idea to create his magic ring plan which presents the plot of the Lord of the Rings triology of books and movies.

Filed under: LOTR, Movies, books 10 Comments
25Jan/103

Children’s Fantasy

by Jeff

Image text: I was going to be a scientist, but that seems silly now. Magical worlds exist. I've learned a huge truth about our place in the universe. I'm supposed to care about college? I mean, FUCK.

The main character won't just spend the next 70 years with his loved ones suspecting he is crazy.  Everyone will suspect he is crazy.

Filed under: Fantasy, Movies, books 3 Comments
20Nov/093

Prudence

by Jeff

Image text: Moments later, the White Witch rolls up and, confused, tries to tempt the probe with a firmware upgrade.

This comic is a reference to the book The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by CS Lewis and later made into a movie.  The children in the book are playing "hide and seek" in an unfamiliar house when one child hides in a wardrobe.  They then find a entire world known as Narnia behind (or inside) the wardrobe.

The comic is making a play on the Narnia tale, by instead of the child exploring the new world herself, she sends a probe.  This is similar and possibly a reference to the probes that NASA deploys to gather information about new worlds.  It also may be a reference to Stargate, in which the Stargate Command sends a probe to new worlds to gather information about the world.

EDITED TO ADD: The title appears to be a reference to the fact that the child in the comic does not run blindly into the new world, like in the book, but instead she deploys the probe to gather information first, which would be seen as "prudent".

2Nov/095

Movie Narrative Charts

by Jeff

(You absolutely have to click on the image to see it larger.  It is quite detailed and impressive.)

Image text: In the LotR map, up and down correspond LOOSELY to northwest and southeast respectively.

Lord of the Rings is pretty self-explanatory if you have seen the movies based on the series by JRR Tolkien.  It is important to note that the chart is based on the movie, not the books.  Second, is the original Star Wars trilogy.  If you haven't seen those, stop what you are doing right now and go get them.  Third, is the original Jurrassic Park movie.

The joke in 12 Angry men graphic is that in the movie all 12 jurors are all in the same room the entire movie.  They never move and they all always interact with each other, hence their lines stay straight and close to each other.

The last box is a movie called Primer from 2004, which became a cult classic.  It is about accidentally discovering time travel.  The plot is so convoluted and mixed up with the time travel between the original person and the so-called time travelling "double" that it is almost impossible to figure out where each character is at one time...as the comic illustrates.

UPDATE: These charts are roughly a reference to the map by Charles Joseph Minard that details the movements and losses of Napolean's troops on his failed conquest of Russia.

Example can be found here.

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