Xkcd: Mythbusters and Zombie Feynman

http://xkcd.com/397/

by rglovejoy • 18 years ago

24 36 18 years ago

xkcd.com

andr• 18 years ago

1) Write a script to automatically submit every XKCD and TechCrunch post on News.YC.

2) ???

3) Karma profit!

tim2• 18 years ago

Blame the system.

ROFISH2• 18 years ago

Can you really blame the system? This site is about submitting awesome links. The second you start limiting sources in anyway, is the second you start limiting awesome.

technoguyrob• 18 years ago

Can we hardcode no-karma for any posts with "xkcd" in the title? I honestly think that's really fair. People might want an XKCD once in a while on the front page if it's really good, and comment on it, but I don't think the submitter should get credit since we all read XKCD anyways.

P.S. Notice I'm not proposing we set no-karma for xkcd.com related entries. Sometimes a thoughtful and non-comical (literally) entry from the xkcd blag is posted.

tac-tics• 18 years ago

The good XKCDs deserve karma. Many of them are rather dull comics, but today's is pretty golden.

ivankirigin3• 18 years ago

xkcd can actually be quite good. Most of his comics don't reach the top.

Today's comic is actually similar to recent posts on being creative and another Feynman quote on good problems. I wouldn't be surprised if the latter inspired today's comic. This means xkcd is part of the serious hacker conversation on the internet.

xkcd != LOLcats

Tichy3• 18 years ago

Um, was that a real Feynman quote? I highly doubt it, there was no Mythbusters during his lifetime, or was there?

I hate people who think it is OK to put their own stupid quotes into the mouths of famous people to give them more leverage...

Zev• 18 years ago

I think you took the original comment the wrong way; no one said xkcd was bad. Just that every comic gets posted to every social news site every time.

Tichy3• 18 years ago

Why stop at xkcd, try digg and reddit... All those news sites should be synchronized. Presumably they eventually will be.

ROFISH2• 18 years ago

But now you're saying that the best links are available on all the sites...

brb, got some coding to do. ;)

phaedrus• 18 years ago

+1 for bashing string theory in the last frame of the strip! Haha!

jamesbritt2• 18 years ago

What, no bongos?

rglovejoy• 18 years ago

The bongos were only a small part of what made him Feynman.

When The Feynman Lectures were published, a picture of him playing the bongos appeared in the preface. Feynman was a bit mystified as to why they used that picture, but he let it slide.

A few years later, a Swedish publisher wanted to use the bongo photo in an encyclopedia article about him. Feynman was pretty upset by this, saying:

"The fact that I beat a drum has nothing to do with the fact that I do theoretical physics. Theoretical physics is a human endeavor, one of the higher developments of human beings - and this perpetual desire to prove that people are human by showing that they do other things that a few other humans do (like playing bongo drums) is insulting to me.

I am human enough to tell you to go to hell." (letter to Tord Pramberg, 4 January 1967)

jamesbritt2• 18 years ago

OK,but one of his books, perhaps Surely You're Joking, had an offer to buy a cassette that had a mix of him telling his stories, and him playing bongos.

Both pretty cool.

dood2• 18 years ago

I think experimentation is hard-wired into the brain (its partly how we're able to learn so much so quickly as children), but rigor isn't. So is Mythbusters' approach to experimentation without rigor a net win? I spend probably a third of each episode wondering about that. Its very frustrating, but then something blows up, so generally it works out ok.

ivankirigin3• 18 years ago

Mythbusters is close to correct, which is good enough.

They actively involve their community, which goes the rest of the way. If there is a serious lack of rigor, their audience will point it out, and an experiment will be rerun.

dood2• 18 years ago

I sometimes think the lack of rigor is serious: most Mythbusters' viewers could probably create similarly rigorous experiments if they had the inclination, what is lacking isn't so much holding beliefs to experiment, but interpreting the validity and applicability of experiments.

Some of Mythbusters' experiments are reasonable enough, but a lot of others are a little too sloppy for my taste, teaching a lazy habit of confirming beliefs by constructing plausible narratives.

microcentury• 18 years ago

I wouldn't be too convinced it's that close to correct... Usually the set up a handful of experiments, get as close to the original situation as they can (which is often not that close - sometimes they're basing their experiments on movie events and guessing metrics), and give it a go a few times. But that said, the show is about entertainment rather than hard-core scientific vigour, so I'll continue to watch and enjoy :-)

stcredzero• 18 years ago

Sometimes their basic science has been lacking. (Compressed air jet-boat was supposed to work by "pushing against the water"?) Though they have been improving, I've noticed.

bkrausz• 18 years ago

From http://xkcd.com/about/

How do I write "xkcd"? There's nothing in Strunk and White about this.

For those of us pedantic enough to want a rule, here it is: The preferred form is "xkcd", all lower-case. In formal contexts where a lowercase word shouldn't start a sentence, "XKCD" is an okay alternative. "Xkcd" is frowned upon.

pchristensen• 18 years ago

C'mon guys, I complained about the xkcd "manual RSS feed" we have here, but this one was good and relevant. Let the pain and backlash die down, then let's submit the appropriate ones. Lots of them get 2-3 upvotes, this one got 24. The system IS working.

Xkcd: Mythbusters and Zombie Feynman

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