5Oct/1149

Subliminal

by Jeff

Image text: Once you see it, you can't help seeing it every time. Until your body finishes metabolizing the mushrooms.

This comic is about the Fedex logo and how there is a subliminal/hidden arrow in the logo.  Megan in the comic cannot see it, instead seeing a wild scene including Guy Fawkes, Willie Mays and an assault vehicle.  The implication being in the image text that Megan is affected by hallucinogenic wild mushrooms.

Guy Fawkes was the British revolutionary who was one of the main characters in the fictional graphic novel and movie "V For Vendetta".  Willie Mays was a American baseball player for the San Francisco Giants who made a famous over the shoulder catch in the World Series.  Some consider it to be the best defensive play of all time in baseball.

Filed under: Color, Drugs, Sports 49 Comments
25Jul/1135

Speculation

by Berg

Image text: 'I was pretty good at skeet shooting, but was eventually kicked off the range for catching the clay pigeons in a net and dispatching them execution-style.'

Hello all, Berg here.

You might remember my goings-on from last summer around this same time, when Jeff went on sabbatical. As he has once again been lured away by the siren song of vacation, I'll be filling in for him this week. Let's get started, shall we?

I am perhaps the worst person on the planet to try to explain today's xkcd, as I don't use Google +, IRC, or even Facebook (Though I do have a profile, I've never logged in. It's a long story). Luckily, I think there's only one real joke here, and it occurs in the fourth and fifth panel. That, I can handle.

The conversation in the first three panels is fairly banal- it's a quick rumination on the nature of social networking platforms, and a brief reflection on their evolution. Whether or not everybody switches over to Google+ or stays on Facebook is of no matter, as evidenced by the fact that AOL and IRC still both have devoted (if dwindling) followings.

And then, Black Hat shoots a crossbow bolt through the basketball.

It's a symbolic gesture. When Black Hat says he's not the 'catch' type, what we're really meant to take away from the comic is that Black Hat will do what he wants to do, regardless of what his friends are doing. They're shooting hoops, he's on his phone. They're playing catch, he's got a crossbow. In the image text, we hear of another instance of him playing by his own rules at a skeet shooting range. Given how good his aim with the crossbow is, it's a bit surprising to hear he was kicked out.

The point is that Black Hat doesn't care about universal acceptance. Black Hat cares about Black Hat. The fact that he's not the catch type symbolizes that while statisticians may portray social networkers as a sort of hive mind that will gravitate towards one platform over another, at the end of the day that hive mind is made up of innumerable individuals, many of whom will share Black Hat's easily summarized world view: My way.

Thanks for reading, guys! I'll be here all week while Jeff cruises around the Pacific Northwest. See you in a few days!

28May/1115

Sports

by Jeff

Image text: Also, all financial analysis. And, more directly, D&D.

Sorry this explanation is late peeps, I'm out of town and lost track of what day it was.

This comic is making a comment that most of the outcomes of sporting events are random and it is quite right.  Lots of items in sports are very random.  Whether a line drive falls for a hit to win the game or goes right to a fielder is random.  Whether a fumble in football bounces left and goes out of bounds so the offense can keep the ball or whether is stays in bounds so the defense can run it back for a touchdown to win the game is random.  Whether a game winning 3 pointer in basketball bounces off the rim and hits the backboard and goes in or out is random.  I think you see my point here.  And as a huge sports fan, I certainly don not think that the comic is taking a shot a sports here, I think it is just stating the truth.

Financial analysis tries to analyze the same type of randomness, with some very small obvious markers in there.

And of course, D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) role playing game is random because it relies on the throwing of multi-sided dice to determine the outcomes.

Filed under: Sports 15 Comments

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