Comic 879: Randall learns about masturbation

Alt-text: 'That was definitely not in my top three wishes.' 'Who said anything about YOUR wishes?'

Patient R was brought in two months ago after one of his acquaintances (M) complained about his 'obsession' with her. The obsession was characterised by a high frequency of attempts to contact her, initiating inappropriate conversations about breasts and breast milk, and a compulsive desire to draw her image. R continues to deny such accusations and has failed to come to terms with his aberrant behaviour on any conscious level, but his art therapy is providing multiple breakthroughs. His latest offering is given with this report.

R writes an internet comic about 'romance, sarcasm, math, and language', one that is surprisingly popular despite it's highly amateurish artwork. Those without prior knowledge of his condition can be forgiven for not seeing the true purpose of his comic, which was an attempt to impress the object of his desire. The woman in question identifies strongly with the 'nerd' subculture and thus R's comic is filled with such references. He frequently draws M into his comic as a highly intelligent, dominating figure in his life, a genius that can do no wrong and to which he is entirely subservient. Early comics about M tended to be romantic in nature, but gradually became more focused on sexuality, and depicted M talking about and engaging in various erotic acts.

We believe his latest comic provides a great insight into R's psyche. There can be no denying the overtones of sexual inadequacy permeating this strip - a mere two 'rubs' of the lamp is all that is needed to achieve his empty satisfaction. Although R curiously insists on not drawing facial expressions (perhaps a sign of mild sociopathy?), the dejection and disgust of the figure in the last panel is obvious. Still, he does not drop the lamp as that would entail rejecting his sexual needs entirely, and R is unwilling to do so no matter how abhorrent he finds them. The 'alt-text' supports the idea of R's simultaneous rejection and embracing of his deeper desires.

Such interpretations are entirely obvious, but the position of the lamp at the figures chest in the middle two panels, and its odd nipple-like structure in the final panel, also suggest a subconscious acceptance of his lactation fetish as a real sexual desire. His conflation of semen and breast milk, however, is causing him much confusion, and if left unattended could lead to runaway feelings of self-loathing.

It is our opinion that R needs to 1) accept his lactation fetish as part of his identity, and 2) accept the real motives behind his webcomics. Once these breakthroughs are made, R can begin the process of healing his ego, thereby rendering his obsessions superfluous.

BINGO TIME!

And what do we have this time?

Well, not a shabby effort at all. I even almost gave the centre square to Ann's 'unspit', but I don't want to make it too easy.

Comic 878: Randall learns about recursion

Alt text: I don't know what's more telling--the number of pages in the Wikipedia talk page argument over whether the 1/87.0857143 scale is called "HO" or "H0", or the fact that within minutes of first hearing of it I had developed an extremely strong opinion on the issue.

Well, I don't mind this comic too much. All nerds love recursion, no matter how often it is used. He's made an effort with the artwork, and the majority of it is passable - the only qualm I have is with the changing height of one of the guys. The subject matter is a little dated maybe, but then it probably has a nostalgia hit for some. The alt-text is practically an admission of guilt in terms of his sources, and it's a bland 'internet-arguments-are-retarded' joke, but I don't find it offensively bad.

In fact, the only real problem I have is with the definition of the 'Matroyska limit'. Randy knows his maths, so he could have given the right formula (max. no. of recursions =  floor{log₈₇(d/3 x 10^-9)}, where d is the size of the area to be modelled, assuming that a 30 Å model is smallest that can be built), rather than the inaccurate 6x limit. I don't honestly know why he didn't bother with that. Maybe it would have looked shit, but that hasn't stopped him before.

Actually, the Fight Club reference is mildly annoying as well, although it's subverted enough not to piss me off completely.

All in all, a solidly mediocre comic. Didn't make me laugh or think, didn't make me rage.

In other news, I can't read Rob's last Dreamers Often Lie post without thinking he's talking about Randy. Normally the two blogs seem quite separate entities, but this time...

REDDIT WATCH: 0%. Nothing on Reddit, so I'm assuming he read Professional Mole's tangential rant about Inception.

BINGO TIME!

I suppose we should ignore my obvious cheat-post, but I would like to point out that I got bingo in one sentence.

  Slightly better than recent efforts. Let's hope Rob gets back to trolling again.

Comic 877: Randall learns more biology.

Alt text: The best hugs are probably from hagfish, which can extrude microscopic filaments that convert a huge volume of water around them to slime in seconds. Instant cozy blanket!

My initial reaction to this comic was twofold – the first was regarding that ‘science takes the beauty out of life’ argument. I hear it a lot from atheists disparaging the religious, but I can’t think of an example of an actual religious person saying that. Maybe examples abound, but it’s always come across as a strawman argument to me. A quick google search sides this possibility, and I can’t be bothered to check any further. So I was rolling my eyes at this old religious ‘argument’, but then he subverted the normal reply of finding something generally regarded as beautiful to fling in the believer’s face. He still comes off as a bit pompous, but not nearly as badly as I thought he would given the first panel.

The second reaction was to the information about the mould itself. It struck me as something vaguely interesting, but closer inspection makes that interest turn into annoyance as you realise Randall is again talking about things he doesn’t really understand. Why is Megan running around with a microscope? Who does that? Is she holding the mould directly, or is it in a Petri dish? I can’t tell from the shitty artwork. Where are the slides she is talking about? Why mention the zinc-resistance? Why does he think that blonde girl will see it move? I was highly skeptical about that, and Wiki suggests that you would have to watch for about 50 seconds to see it move. There is no way she has sat and watched it for that long, and there is no way that the movement lines around the mould are meant to signify such slow undulation.

In fact, a trip to a certain Wiki page clears all this up. It becomes horribly clear that Randall has read that one page and lifted all the information he thought he understood out of it. That certainly explains his odd belief that the mould would quiver like a jelly. His research consisted of a look at one goddamn Wiki page.

So the bit I thought would annoy me didn't, and the bit I thought was quite interesting turned out to annoy me. Spectacular work there, Randy.

I can't bring myself to check where he got the alt-text. It's probably Wiki as well.

If you would like to learn a bit more about dog vomit slime moulds than Randall could be fucked to do, try this page. It’s all pretty damn interesting.

REDDIT WATCH: Searching for ‘mold’ in Reddit turned up this. That is an astonishing coincidence, is it not? If this had a higher profile or any comments, I would put this much higher on the ‘inspiration’ scale, but I can’t really rule out a bias in my search. ‘Inspiration’ rate: 50%

BINGO TIME!

Hmmm.

 
Bingo is in definite need of an update in the absence of Rob's fanfics.

Comic 876: Randall learns about fucking nothing at all

Alt text: Socrates could've saved himself a lot of trouble if he'd just brought a flashlight, tranquilizer gun, and a bunch of rescue harnesses.

Fucking hell, it appears normal service has resumed with a vengeance. And here I was hoping that Randy might improve. Where the fuck to start with this one? There’s just too many things wrong. I don’t know where to start!

Okay, okay, ‘artwork’ first. This is the third appearance of that fucking desk/computer/swivel chair ensemble, although he’s replaced the flatscreen monitor with a CRT one. Why did he do that? And where is that telephone located? Is it meant to be a telephone box? He can’t be ringing from home, because who has a phone that nowadays? Also, there’s no reference to anything newer than The Republic. I fucking swear, he’s got a stack of buffer comics piled up for when he can’t think of anything relevant. He must be running low if this one made it.

Oh God, the actual content. It’s the very dregs of teenage pop-philosophy, executed in the most horrifically inept way, just so he can make a joke about sending a search-and-rescue team to Plato’s Cave. That was the joke he wanted to make, and this is how he decided to do it.

Think about that for a moment, before we move on.

The first panel is fairly innocuous. It’s a guy in some mystic whitespace land, holding a phone oddly, saying he is trapped. There is even a little twist in the phone cord. For Randall, it’s practically a masterpiece.

Then that second panel. She guesses that the ‘splotches of light’ of light are his ‘eyeballs’? What? What the fuck? How…? How is the brain ‘seeing’ anything? Why can it see the eyeballs? How the fuck did she work that out? I’ll tell you how she worked it out, Randall needed her to work it out, so she fucking did! Webcomics, eh? How fucking easy are they?

But then we dig deeper. We’re through the confusion and into wince-inducing life ‘advice’ when she explains to us that she is talking to a ‘brain’, and that he isn’t trapped and he should ‘experience reality’.  Maybe you could also tell us how beautiful sunsets are, Randall, you lazy fucking hack.

And we hit the bottom, the true failure of the comic. That punchline, prefaced by some Matrix shit. And worse, she refuses to help him out of Plato’s Cave. A cave that is a metaphor for the philosopher’s duty to society, a duty to fucking help people get out of the cave and see the truth. And because Socrates and Plato were mystics to the core, they believed the material world to be the cave, and their spiritual Realm of Forms to be ‘reality’. Randy has got it completely back to front.

So Randy, you wanted to make a joke about Plato’s Cave.

Do you even know what the fuck it is about? Do you?

And fuck that bland, worthless piece of shit alt-text. Just fuck it.

REDDIT WATCH: And fuck Reddit. I don't even care where he got this. Fuck everything.

Artist's Corner:
Capn once again sends a picture my way, with no credit this time so I'm assuming it's his.  

So I get that there's an apartment on fire and a guy is calling room number 911. Beyond that I have no idea what is going on. Anyone have an explanation, or is Capn trolling me in some obscure fashion?

BINGO TIME!

We have a first! Someone has got the middle square, and it's Capn, who makes up for his terrible comic with the tasteless "Flacial: a slow-moving money shot." But is it enough to get bingo?

No, it isn't.

Comic 875: Randall learns... comedy?

Alt text: 2017 called, but I couldn't understand what they were saying over all the screams.

Well, fuck. This appears to be a reasonable comic. He's taken an old joke format, and modified it in an unexpected way. Hell, it's even on-topic and relevant. The artwork is as shitty as always - that is the worst excuse for a t-shirt I have ever seen, I have no idea what is meant to be on the floor (decapitated cat?), and I'm sure he's re-using the chair and desk from recent comics, but there's an actual joke involved. Also, the guy calls Megan an asshole, and that's not something you see very often. The alt-text isn't great, but it's passable.

Perhaps this is to do with his recent radiation chart, where he has collaborated with someone better than himself to make a fairly good, informative poster, even if it is a little rough around the edges. Has someone kicked him out of his little rut and forced him to interact with the world? Or is this just a random blip?

Whichever it is, I can't bring myself to hate this one. It's still lazy and terribly drawn, and I didn't laugh, but I smiled a little. Just a little.

REDDIT WATCH: This comic was very likely inspired by the recent radiation chart, so nothing from Reddit. 'Inspiration' factor: 0%

BINGO TIME!

Another failed attempt at cheating. 

How are you failing at this? I've even been quite generous and included the loud-typing rant as a square. Anyway, were it not for that cheaty-post this would have been the worst effort yet. I may have to update it to take into account the recent lack of Megdall fanfic.

EDIT: Hah! Missed the fact that cheaty-post was actually a limerick. It was pretty good as well! Still no bingo though.

Comic 874: Randall learns about time management

Alt-text: I never trust anyone who's more excited about success than about doing the thing they want to be successful at.

You know, if anyone else had posted this comic it would not be so bad. It's still the most boring way of making the joke - once again it's a guy sitting at a computer, but I suppose the gradual focus in on his schedule is a better technique than Randall normally tries. It's almost like he has realised his comics can include a third dimension. Sure, the guy is floating above his seat, and again we can't see the screen because that would be too fucking difficult to draw, but these things are just farts in the breeze compared to the steaming shitpile that forms the main point of contention.

Who the fuck does he think he's kidding?

That schedule is so fucking obviously based on Randall's schedule (except that he obviously doesn't get up at 7am), and there is absolutely no hint of irony or self-deprecation. This comic is from a guy who has to turn off his computer every time he finishes something just to avoid getting distracted, and then wrote a comic about how productive he was. This is a guy whose life revolves around making badly-drawn stick figure comics three times a week! Is that what he gets excited about? If instead of drawing his comics, he wrote a blog every morning and then fucked around the rest of the day, he would be at least tripling his workload!

Normally I would take those involved in the 'self-help' industry as acceptable targets. The vast majority of them are peddling utterly worthless turds and who knows? Maybe they are all lazy fucks. But Randy, the guy who made it big in the field of lazy fuckery, has absolutely no right to complain about them.

Finally, I am trying to understand where Randy gets his 'ideas' and Reddit seems a likely source for a lot of them. I am therefore starting Reddit Watch, where we carefully and scientifically check how likely Randall was 'inspired' by the site.

REDDIT WATCH: Was the productivity comic brought about by Reddit's recent downtime? Possibly, but the connection is a little tenuous (pun). 'Inspiration' factor: 40%.

BINGO TIME!

Nothing about lactation? Wow.

  At least there was a plethora of fat jokes.

Comic 873: Randall learns about emotional manipulation in games

Alt-text: Wait, that second one is a woman?  ... wait, if that bothers me, then why doesn't ... man, this game is no fun anymore.

I'll start off by saying that this comic isn't offensively bad. It's bland, and it realises its premise in the most mediocre way possible, but it isn't tear-your-eyes-out terrible.

What bothers me most about it is just how old and abused the concept is. The idea of humanising the faceless hordes that populate games and films has been explored so many times. Just to list off a few: the extended version of the first Austin Powers movie; the first Doctor McNinja comic; the dickwolves fiasco over at Penny Arcade; the protagonists of Terry Pratchett's Guards! Guards!; Oblivion, a game almost designed around the premise of humanising the NPC population; and, in particular, the No Russian level from Modern Warfare 2. That's just off the top of my head, using fairly well-known examples, and they are all far better executed than this comic.

What is odd about the comic is the particular example Randy uses. Why does he say 'FPS' when FPS games tend to try harder than most to make the NPCs acceptable targets? How many of them use robots, zombies, aliens, demons, Nazis, terrorists or sociopath gladiators as the enemy (actually, I think that covers every FPS)? Why not target strategy-based wargames like the Total War series, or sandbox games like Manhunt or GTA, where slaughtering people by the bucketload is fairly standard? And why just 'FPS'? Why not a particular game?

I have the horrible feeling that Randall wrote this using the No Russian controversy, an issue that blew up over a year ago, as a reference. If that is the case, then there are two possible conclusions here. One is that he is over a year behind in his pop culture references, and he is playing catch-up. This seems unlikely to me, at least compared to the second option, which is that Randy has already written a year's worth of comics and is peeling them off one by one and sticking them on the site. It would explain the constant dated feeling of his comics, and the reason he doesn't notice all his blatant errors. It explains his refusal to improve the artwork, and how rushed they all seem. It explains the drop in overall quality as compared to the early days.

It explains fucking everything.

EDIT: Aaannnnd having read the xkcdsucks comment thread, I realise Randy is probably just copying Reddit posts. Well, fuck it, I still think my theory has a basis. There must be a way of testing the 'Reddit stealing' and 'comic stack' hypotheses. Maybe by trying to predict what the next comic will be?


BINGO TIME!

Just for Mike.

I think it may be impossible to get bingo if Rob doesn't right a Megdall fanfic...

Comic 872: Randall learns about Fairy Tales

Alt-text: Goldilocks' discovery of Newton's method for approximation required surprisingly few changes.

I'm just gonna skip over the whole 'original first panel' disaster with the dialogue as Rob has covered it. Just assume I mentioned something funny about Randy not getting do-overs.

I'm trying to follow Randall's thought pattern on the creation of this comic. Was it simply 'I know, let's mash up some maths with some fairy tales, that'll be hilarious!' Am I missing how the most of the maths references are actually relevant? Or did he come up with one idea, and force the rest?

I ask this because the 'Three Little Pigs' one kind of makes sense, if you assume Randy is referencing a convergent series. It's possible to imagine a story of an infinite number of little pigs building houses to avoid getting eaten, each iteration getting closer and closer to survival without ever quite making it. It's not a great comedic idea, especially given the delivery here, but there is a logic behind it (and it's remarkably similar to an earlier, much better one-panel joke).

The other references are completely nonsensical. Okay, it is possible to imagine the prince in Cinderella using factor analysis to narrow his search for Cinderella down, but it's a stretch and not even slightly fucking funny. Why not use demographics to show how freakishly tiny Cinderella's feet must have been if only she could wear the slippers? That's probably a comic in itself.

But no. Randy just uses it to shoehorn the word 'eigenvector' in there, just like he shoehorns in that topology reference in the grasshopper story. That one is outright nonsensical. Randy could have written about the grasshopper turning into an isosceles triangle and it would have made as much sense as a joke, but then his grotesque, toadying, teenage-nerd fans couldn't enjoy a feeling of superiority that everyone else pities them for. Reading the forums is like listening to a guy brag to his friends about how many blow-up dolls he has fucked, and all his friends are trying to one-up him.

Oh God, there's two more references? What the fuck do inductive proofs have to do with Snow White? Why (n-1) dwarfs? Using 'Little Red Riding Hood' would make a tiny bit more sense here, but it doesn't change the essentially half-arsed, bullshit nature of the 'joke'. The Goldilocks reference in the alt-text actually makes sense, and is slightly funnier than anything in the actual comic. Slightly.

I delved into the forums as well, and discovered about half of the them love this comic. I swear I fucking hate his brown-nosing, maths-fetishist, lickspittle fans more than I do Randall. They are the reason xkcd has become what it has.

And just to end on a completely different note than normal, I recently went to see the film Paul with a creationist friend. That was fucking awkward.

BINGO TIME!

Bingo appears to be collapsing under Rob's continued actual-review assault.

 
But the cuddlefish are keeping quiet. Watching. Waiting.

Comic 871: Randall learns about altruism

Alt text: I usually respond to someone else doing something good by figuring out a reason that they're not really as good as they seem. But I've been realizing lately that there's an easier way to handle these situations, and it involves zero internet arguments.

Well, it seems Rob has awoken for the springtime and written two actual, timely reviews in a row. I assume he has moved his laptop into his walk-in fridge, so he can reach the 14 comic-sized hams he has as a snack without drowning in a river of his own sweat.

Well fuck it. I’m still writing a review.

My first impression of this made me think this was a not great, but not terrible, advert for charitable giving. Haha, asshole guy is buying games instead of listening to Megan! Haha, what an asshole! I don’t want to be an asshole like him! But then I read the alt-text, and I wonder whose side we’re meant to take in this comic, because maybe the point is that Megan is being preachy and annoying.

That alt-text suggests Randy has been in an internet argument, or has at least read something about charitable giving that has upset him. My guess is that he has read this article about using 'dead children' as a currency unit, or something similar. It’s quite preachy, but it makes a pretty good case for itself.

If Randy is for some reason pissed off with this argument, he doesn’t make a good case for himself in the comic. In fact, he doesn’t make a case at all. If it was a funny, ironic or insightful non-case-making, like Tim Minchin’s Fuck The Poor (seriously, watch it if you haven't yet), I could forgive it. But of course it doesn’t.

There’s no joke. There’s no social commentary. There’s no maths or geek references or anything really. It reads like a particularly shitty and half-arsed Cyanide and Happiness strip with the swear words removed.

Given that the comic links to a malaria prevention charity, maybe we should be charitable, ignore the alt-text and assume that it is merely a mediocre poke at our lack of altruism.

Finally, if Randall the Ultimate Rationalist wanted to give something to charity, why didn’t he link a website that dedicates itself to finding the most efficient charities around? Like this. 

BINGO TIME!

Almost forgot it.

Well, despite spirited cheating from cptnoremac, Mike and Capn, there is still no bingo. Guys, your incompetence delights me.

Comic 870: Randall learns about advertising

I remember the exact moment in my childhood when I realized, while reading a flyer, that nobody would ever spend money solely to tell me they wanted to give me something for nothing. It's a much more vivid memory than the (related) parental Santa talk.

I almost liked this one. I almost fell for it. I mean, who doesn’t like to bitch about advertising? It is a natural, almost instinctive, reaction, like despising humanity. It is good and right to hate those who will bullshit us.

Which is, of course, why we must hate Randall Munroe.

Look at the phrase in the first panel, “Up to fifteen percent or more”. When have you ever seen that phrase in an advert before? Try googling it. Notice how there aren’t any fucking adverts in there. Hell, a lot of them are people trying to be helpful. Compare it to googling “up to * percent off”, if you want. So why do we find nothing? Because no worthwhile advertiser would make that fucking mistake. If you want to laugh at the innumerate, go ahead. Don’t try getting us to tag along by conflating them with a rightly hated demographic.

Oh fucking hell, that second panel. Question to all of you: how many times did you have to read the sentence in that panel before it made sense? The wording is horrific. Sometimes I wish Randall would take a liberal-arts course, so he could learn to write like a human fucking being. Unfortunately he thinks learning about something completely relevant to what he does for a living is less important than pretending he is still a scientist.

And finally, why precisely did he write ‘negative slope’? I am honestly baffled by it. Does he think that needs explaining, or that it wasn’t clear from the picture? Or did he do it just so we could say he fucked up every single panel? Although, from reading the forums I discovered some people got ‘confused’ because the dependent variable should be on the y-axis. Strange, seeing as fixing this would not change the shape of the graph, and Randall has described the relationship in case you couldn’t work it out. Oh wait, I forgot they are all desperate to prove what intellectual giants they are over there. Cunts.

On the plus side, ad-blockers are apparently hiding the comic because it is named ‘Advertising.png’. Irony will never be the same.

In summary, I am an intellectual giant and I hate each and every one of you.

BINGO TIME!

Well fuck. Bingo is completely ruined by Rob actually writing a review.

Also, it appears that the phrase 'up to X% or more' is used in adverts. I've never seen it, but enough people have done so to make the point. That's the closest to a retraction I'm willing to make.

Introducing... xkcd sucks comment thread bingo!

Ever had a feeling of deja vu when you venture into the xkcd sucks comment thread? Tired of seeing the same old shit over and over? Play XKCD Sucks Comment Thread Bingo! Cross off a square when a comment matches it! Notice that you will never get that middle square! Get five squares in a row and you win the knowledge that the empty drudgery of your existence is destined to end in futile, pointless horror!

Hurrah!

Artist's Corner:

A wonderful parody of the Nolan diagram, as made by Jon Levi:

And of course by 'wonderful', I mean putrid and contemptible in a way I never thought possible.

Comic 869: Randall learns to use a smartphone.

Alt Text: "They have to keep the adjacent rack units empty. Otherwise, half the entries in their /var/log/syslog are just 'SERVER BELOW TRYING TO START CONVERSATION *AGAIN*.' and 'WISH THEY'D STOP GIVING HIM SO MUCH COFFEE IT SPLATTERS EVERYWHERE."

Well, we have an upgrade in artwork. Hurrah! Randall has discovered the ‘fill’ button in GIMP, or whatever hideous Linux-based MS Paint clone he uses, and covered his scribblings in dark grey slabs. That must have doubled the amount of time he normally takes over his comics and clocked in at over six minutes! Most of the actual line work is par for the course though, apart from that first panel. That is the work of a ten year old, I am sure of it. Actually the fifth panel is pretty terrible too. And the last panel has some serious perspective issues. Does Randy have nieces or nephews? Do they help him out sometimes?

As for the actual content, Randy is complaining about servers automatically redirecting smartphone browsers to mobile-friendly versions of their sites. I personally haven’t had this trouble, because browsing the internet from a phone is a terrible experience only done by Twitter/Facebook junkies, fanboys desperate to prove how awesome their particular phone brand is, and other assorted rejects from respected society whose lives are wholly dominated by the internet. In other words, Randy has once again demonstrated a deep understanding of his disgusting, fetid fanbase.

As a final spit in the face, Randy doesn’t even get the interaction between server and browser correct. Firstly, since when does a server initiate contact? The browser sends a packet of information first, including details of where it came from and what it is, and then the server responds. Secondly, the server does this every time you click a link, so that constant interaction is completely standard. Third, he fucks up even his own retarded version of client/server interaction by changing the order of server questions in the first and last panels.

Despite all this, his fans will bathe in this stream of piss as if it is ambrosia spilt from heaven. I hate them, I hate Randy, and I hate Rob for not mentioning any of this.

Peace out.

BINGO TIME!

 
So close again! There could have been a double bingo there if only someone had mentioned the thread's 4chan-ness, or if there were a non-impossible central square.

Comic 868: Randall learns political science

Alt-text: Also in the right quadrant are NFPA-compliant chemical manufacturers and Sir Charles Wheatstone. Sharing the top with the internet libertarians are Nate Silver and several politically-active kite designers.

You know what? I don’t care that this comic is a chart. A chart can be good if done right. I don’t even care if it’s lazy and easy to do, I would forgive it if it were insightful or funny.

Can I skip past the bit where I say this comic wasn’t funny or insightful? No? Okay.

This comic wasn’t funny or insightful. What the hell was this meant to be? A parody of Nolan diagrams? Perhaps if he were laughing at the fact that libertarians had made a diagram that puts their own beliefs at the top, I would accept it was parody, but this comic is devoid of any such commentary. Observational humour on the habits of internet libertarians, then? Seriously? That’s the best he’s got against them? Diamond-shaped diagrams?

Maybe I’m missing something here. I’m from the UK, you see. To me, baseball is cricket for people too stupid to understand why surprise chinaman googlies are useful against left-handed tailenders, and the word 'libertarian' translates to ‘bourgeois traitor who will ruin our glorious Health Service’. Thankfully the internet has at least made me aware of Republicans and Democrats. I know, for instance, that Bush was a strategically shaved hillbilly chimp repeatedly slamming a big, red ‘KILL FOREIGNERS’ button, and Obama is a Muslim Marxist Black Panther Antichrist with a false birth certificate.

But still I have questions. Do baseball fans actually use diamond-shaped diagrams? Do libertarians use any diamond-shaped diagrams other than Nolan charts, and do they use them a lot? Are Republicans and Democrats not allowed to like baseball? Are ‘Republican’, ‘Democrat’ and ‘Libertarian’ the only political opinions allowed over there?

Was ‘politically-active kite designers’ worth putting in there?

And isn’t the Nolan chart a fucking square anyway?

BINGO TIME!

And again so close! No-one was amused by The_Autodidact's hate? For shame, people! On the plus side,  there was a 'Rob is REALLY fat' joke before a 'Rob is fat' one! Wonders will never cease.

Comic 867: Randall learns biology

Alt text: Birds are Aves, which is part of the clade Theropoda, which is in Saurischia, which is in Dinosauria. Those birds outside our windows are dinosaurs. We can clear out the rest of our brains because we now have the best fact.

It's clear from this comic that Randy has discovered phylogenetics and evolutionary biology. Good for him! It's about time he widened his knowledge base beyond maths, physics and out-of-date pop culture.

Unfortunately for Randy, he only found out about phylogenetics and failed to research it to any depth. There are a number of rather telling clues to this:

1) He says that lizards should be folded up into ornithology. Why not any other reptiles? Because Randy believes that lizards and reptiles are entirely interchangeable words, that's why.

2) He is making a reference to the contention between paraphyletic and monophyletic classifications, but he has picked 'herpotology' as the battleground, a discipline that has obvious reasons for studying the groups they do.

3) Notice how you need little to no knowledge of evolutionary biology to understand this comic? The geek references are spoonfed to us this time. 

4) He acts like the whole 'birds used to be dinosaurs' is new, groundbreaking knowledge, rather than something first proposed in 1868 and known to any fucking child who took more than a passing interest in Jurassic Park. You know, geeks. How has this little tidbit of info passed by someone so goddamn obsessed with raptors?

Kudos to him for passing up the opportunity to draw a close-up diagram of genital herpes, but he again frustrates us by taking a fairly funny idea (cladistic insults) and giving it a terrible, half-baked execution. Why two conferences? Why not one with an audience member supplying one side of the debate? 'Assholes' and 'douchebags'? Why not science it up a bit, give the Latin names or use something more creative?

Because he's a lazy motherfucker, that's why. Like Rob.

BINGO TIME!

Ooh! So close! If only there were a 'Robdall' in there somewhere.