I'm cool with the idea that not everyone likes xkcd. So at Strelnikov's suggestion, I wandered over to xkcdsucks (hoping to find something akin to Marmaduke Explained). There I found the assertion:
"And, as it turns out, knowing math isn't particularly useful to your garden variety human."
Which is the kind of celebration-of-ignorance that should make every CM-er (whatever their feelings about xkcd) openly weep.
"Is Randall really saying that all physics majors end up as engineers? He does know that many different subdisciplines of engineering have their own majors (which he conveniently neglects here? Is there some problem with being an engineer? Give that his objection to lit is that it won't get you a job, it seems odd that he would think a career with starting salaries >50K is just as bad) and that no employer (or for that matter, graduate admissions committee) seeking an engineer will be inclined to take a physics major over an engineer. Maybe because he worked at NASA, and saw physicists doing things other than pontificating about string theory, and was like "oh you end up doing more ENGINEERING than PHYSICS" not really comprehending how physics works, or how a physics major at an aerospace concern may be subtly guided towards assisting with designs, or how "engineer" is an extremely broad category whose overlap with "physicist" vanishes at the limit of low dumbassery.
I am a scientist. Randall does not speak for us. Randall, you do not speak for us."
This is something everyone does, and it's fucking stupid. So AWWWWWWW JEAH. It's the breakdown:
--Most people do not end up employed in the major they choose. College is not job training. If it were, most people would be majoring in "data entry." Randall himself is a good example of this (which begs the question, why the hell is he lecturing us on choosing a major? He's a grown man who makes stick figure doodles for a living. Where does he get off telling me a literature major is useless?) --The job market for EVERY discipline is pretty much dismal. Most people in "sensible" disciplines who are crowing "should have gotten a real degree ENGLISH MAJOR LOLOLOLOLLLLL" are either undergraduates who don't actually know what they're doing after they graduate, old guys who got jobs before the market started to suck, or people who have jobs unrelated to their degree, but think their choice of degree somehow made them stand out. --Like I said before, Randall doesn't have a real job. He thinks "every major is terrible" because every major requires learning skills, then applying them to the real world for more than two years before you give up and start selling t-shirts. It's like Zach Weiner and his "publish or perish" comic: where the fuck do webcomic authors get off scolding the rest of us for making poor career choices? Maybe he and Randall wouldn't be so big if they had to sack up and get a job that makes them put on pants, and where you can't drink NyQuil all day until you pass out jerking off to a netflixed episode of She-Ra on just any old Tuesday.
Which is not to mention that half of these are not problems with the major, but dumb shit that's just there so it can rhyme/just barely scan. Chemistry? High on methylacetate? Methylacetate doesn't get you high, and are chemistry majors know to collect stamps? Is this a periodic table joke? Fuck you Randall. Reply Replies
Anonymous May 7, 2012 11:17 PM
also fuck Richard Feynman. How an arrogant, sociopathic sex-addict became someone we're all supposed to admire because he could take a few integrals is baffling to me. Fuck you, Feynman.
"A frame by frame list of mistakes in Randall's song:
1. Philosophy is major plus sense, not sans sense; 2. Maths, goddamn Americans; 3. On the contrary, a good business major is probably one of the best ways to get ahead; 4. Stamp collectors? Methylacetate? This frame is complete nonsense; 5. Isn't the very definition of a geek someone who wants to learn rather than merely "get a job"? 6. HAHA HISTORY IS LAME SO IS ART SO ART HISTORY IS LIKE THE WORST (also a future art history course will inevitably critique xkcd); 7/8. Hee hee "underwater basket-weave" so quirky! 9. Found Wikipedia Bufo_fowleri page, meaninglessly connects its eating to studying biology; 10. A true discipline ignores all others, eh Randall? 11. "Too unbearable" being like "too pregnant"; 12. TERRIBLE kinda rhymes with GENERAL!!!!! Also I like the way Americans go into uni not knowing what they're studying... kinda; 13. Can't or can? 14. Theology is not "religion", goddammit Randall you fuck; 15. The one thing Randall remembers about CS is having difficulty matching brackets in LISP 101. His mistake was writing source in Paint; 16. No, Randall, it's not virology that'll guarantee you never get a hug. Of course Randall draws the woman as hugless so that they'll be all OH RANDALL SO UNDERSTANDS ME I WANT HIM TO DO ME WITHOUT A CONDOM; 17. Not if you know what you're doing; 18. Being a paraphrase of a quote (which Randall of course dishonestly puts in quote marks), it's still the wittiest frame so far; 19. Feynman was a bit of a dick, and no undergrad degree promises you the career of one of the disciplines heroes. What are you, 12? 20. No it doesn't. This isn't even funny. 21. Well, you study history so you know how to do again what's been done before - but your way of looking at it is true too. 22. The most powerful people I know, i.e. those in good positions in the civil service, have all studied History or variations thereof. 23. What plan? I thought he had no plan? You can't just put in some idea vaguely associated with your message if it doesn't follow. 24. As 12. 25. Why? Because of astrological connotations? I thought it was only politicians who went full retard over "lunatics"; 26. "agorophobiac"; 27. *too* ophiophobic, because a syllable was missing; 28. 1) GE is not a major; 2) "I can't stomach GE" is not funny; 29. Yeah, no need to try otherwise! Lol college is a stepping stone to comic writing! 30. What? You're just putting random words together, Randall. 31. True. 32. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to find out the usual terms for the study of the study of some discipline. "Meta-academic" doesn't feature. Of course, META is one of those PANDER things; 33-34. Econ discussed above; 35. "Sophie's choice" is the choice given by a camp guard of which of your son or daughter you will choose to die at a concentration camp. The comparison borders on offensive. 36. See 12, 24.
In short, every single fucking frame falls short. Contrast with the original which is accurate, clever, funny and scans perfectly. If you think Randy's work is good then you simply have low standards. Looking at the way America's going, it's probably hard to find anyone geeky who doesn't have low standards, whence "dismal" xkcd's popularity."
I hate cutting and pasting other people's words, but everybody else took Rob's math comment as the snark that it was and focused on what Randall Munroe drew, which was a none-too-clever satire on college utilizing (damaging) a good song by Gilbert and Sullivan. I'm not trying to stomp on Rosencrantz andor Guildenstern, just pointing out that even an Internet stick figure cartoon has critics and that within those critics are people who dole out the harshness toward the maker of that Internet stick figure cartoon.
I dunno, I think the people who bitch that XKCD isn't always accurate are the same ones that would complain that being hit with a line-drive wouldn't REALLY undress Charlie Brown and that Snoopy couldn't really sleep on the top of a dog house. And let's not even go into how Calvin and Hobbes makes fun of a severely mentally ill boy!
The XKCD in question isn't his best work, but I thought parts of it were rather funny.
I agree with MAM. It's not MEANT to be serious social critique, it's a cartoon? You know, exaggeration, picking up on current tropes (e.g. reference to underwater basket-weaving, that's the top competitor to Hamsterology on academic blogs as a discipline-pseudonym), meant to be FUNNY?
Cartoons and cartoon characters are not real opinions... and sometimes they're not even true (I maintain that studying pre-school education or early childhood studies makes you far more likely to carry viruses and therefore be a poor hug target than virology - kid viruses are free-range!)
But I guess it's easier to go for xkcd rather than ask some of the difficult questions about politics, economics and the place of the academy...
I'm with Strel on this one. I didn't find it funny, or accurate.
I just applied to 4 jobs over the weekend--jobs for which my lit major prepared me quite well, and my 16 years of teaching writing will also serve me well. They're jobs which specifically require the kinds of skills you get if you study lit.
It's not a joke anymore, these days. Not when the humanities are under attack EVERYFUCKINGWHERE as being "useless" and "a waste of time/money."
While a little more direct than the Explain Marmaduke site (which I only just saw today), there is an explain XKCD site (http://www.explainxkcd.com/) which points out the less (and sometimes more) obvious jokes in the strip.
Strel, you've convinced me.... that all the rest of the comments were just as bad as the ones before I stopped reading.
"Is Randall really saying that all physics majors end up as engineers?" - No. No he's not.
"I am a scientist. Randall does not speak for us. Randall, you do not speak for us." - Why not add a "God Damn You to Hell!!" just for good measure? It'll make you feel better.
Seriously, I'm OK with people not liking xkcd, just as I'm sure you're OK with me thinking Gilbert and Sullivan give the island of my forbears a bad name. (Tom Lehrer nailed them with his "full of words and music and signifying nothing!") So maybe I'm biased in favour of anybody who parodies G&S.
By a curious coincidence, I just came across a site called "R&Gsuckdeadmuskoxen.blogspot.com", where you can read all about how Tom Stoppard is an illiterate hack. Some Flava:
"I cannot BELIEVE Stoppard would use a retracting stage knife in the climactic scene of his most famous play! Doesn't he know how DANGERUS those things are? Of course I guess when you don't want there to be any explanations for anyone, you're not big on accountability." Dick!
"I am a scientist. Randall does not speak for us. Randall, you do not speak for us." - Why not add a "God Damn You to Hell!!" just for good measure? It'll make you feel better.
Or even better, "From Hell's heart I stab at thee, for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee!" OK, I confess I feel that way about the comic "Momma" so maybe I shouldn't throw stones.
I'm not a Gilbert and Sullivan fanboi....their music is a nice break when you've been listening to Beethoven, or Wagner's "Ring Cycle", or Bach, or the "Leningrad" symphony, or Mahler, or old Merzbow records, or John Lee Hooker albums, or the Beastie Boys*, or Run-DMC singles, or Laibach, or old Bossanova records, and so on.
____________________________
* R.I.P. Mr Yauch. R.I.P. Jason William Mizell, aka Jam Master Jay. It's been ten years.
The one about chemistry means "methamphetamine." It also refers to Rutherford's claim that all science is either physics or stamp collecting. As an astronomer, I take exception to that: some stamps can be quite valuable.
As far as the one about astronomy goes, I'm just flattered to be included. There are only about 300 astronomy majors in the entire U.S.A., fewer even than nuclear engineering majors.
I cannot for the life of me figure out how all those commenters thought that the cartoonist was offering up a serious critique of the college curriculum.
www.xkcdsucks.blogspot.com has Randall Munroe's number.....they ripped the crap out of this one.
ReplyDeleteI'm cool with the idea that not everyone likes xkcd. So at Strelnikov's suggestion, I wandered over to xkcdsucks (hoping to find something akin to Marmaduke Explained). There I found the assertion:
ReplyDelete"And, as it turns out, knowing math isn't particularly useful to your garden variety human."
Which is the kind of celebration-of-ignorance that should make every CM-er (whatever their feelings about xkcd) openly weep.
If you want Marmaduke analysis (and hard-hitting Mary Worth news), the Comics Curmudgeon is very funny (http://joshreads.com/).
DeleteYeah, I died a little reading this.
DeleteTypical snowflake responses I've heard range anywhere from "the computers do all that for us" to "that's what the wife is for".
Rosencrantz, you didn't read the comments.
Delete"Is Randall really saying that all physics majors end up as engineers? He does know that many different subdisciplines of engineering have their own majors (which he conveniently neglects here? Is there some problem with being an engineer? Give that his objection to lit is that it won't get you a job, it seems odd that he would think a career with starting salaries >50K is just as bad) and that no employer (or for that matter, graduate admissions committee) seeking an engineer will be inclined to take a physics major over an engineer. Maybe because he worked at NASA, and saw physicists doing things other than pontificating about string theory, and was like "oh you end up doing more ENGINEERING than PHYSICS" not really comprehending how physics works, or how a physics major at an aerospace concern may be subtly guided towards assisting with designs, or how "engineer" is an extremely broad category whose overlap with "physicist" vanishes at the limit of low dumbassery.
I am a scientist. Randall does not speak for us. Randall, you do not speak for us."
- "Anonymous" May 11, 2012 2:54 PM
Or:
Delete"Anonymous May 7, 2012 11:04 PM
This is something everyone does, and it's fucking stupid. So AWWWWWWW JEAH. It's the breakdown:
--Most people do not end up employed in the major they choose. College is not job training. If it were, most people would be majoring in "data entry." Randall himself is a good example of this (which begs the question, why the hell is he lecturing us on choosing a major? He's a grown man who makes stick figure doodles for a living. Where does he get off telling me a literature major is useless?)
--The job market for EVERY discipline is pretty much dismal. Most people in "sensible" disciplines who are crowing "should have gotten a real degree ENGLISH MAJOR LOLOLOLOLLLLL" are either undergraduates who don't actually know what they're doing after they graduate, old guys who got jobs before the market started to suck, or people who have jobs unrelated to their degree, but think their choice of degree somehow made them stand out.
--Like I said before, Randall doesn't have a real job. He thinks "every major is terrible" because every major requires learning skills, then applying them to the real world for more than two years before you give up and start selling t-shirts. It's like Zach Weiner and his "publish or perish" comic: where the fuck do webcomic authors get off scolding the rest of us for making poor career choices? Maybe he and Randall wouldn't be so big if they had to sack up and get a job that makes them put on pants, and where you can't drink NyQuil all day until you pass out jerking off to a netflixed episode of She-Ra on just any old Tuesday.
Which is not to mention that half of these are not problems with the major, but dumb shit that's just there so it can rhyme/just barely scan. Chemistry? High on methylacetate? Methylacetate doesn't get you high, and are chemistry majors know to collect stamps? Is this a periodic table joke? Fuck you Randall.
Reply
Replies
Anonymous May 7, 2012 11:17 PM
also fuck Richard Feynman. How an arrogant, sociopathic sex-addict became someone we're all supposed to admire because he could take a few integrals is baffling to me. Fuck you, Feynman.
and...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_major "
[These two post presented unmodified.]
Finally, here is some bitter British list-rage:
Delete"A frame by frame list of mistakes in Randall's song:
1. Philosophy is major plus sense, not sans sense;
2. Maths, goddamn Americans;
3. On the contrary, a good business major is probably one of the best ways to get ahead;
4. Stamp collectors? Methylacetate? This frame is complete nonsense;
5. Isn't the very definition of a geek someone who wants to learn rather than merely "get a job"?
6. HAHA HISTORY IS LAME SO IS ART SO ART HISTORY IS LIKE THE WORST (also a future art history course will inevitably critique xkcd);
7/8. Hee hee "underwater basket-weave" so quirky!
9. Found Wikipedia Bufo_fowleri page, meaninglessly connects its eating to studying biology;
10. A true discipline ignores all others, eh Randall?
11. "Too unbearable" being like "too pregnant";
12. TERRIBLE kinda rhymes with GENERAL!!!!! Also I like the way Americans go into uni not knowing what they're studying... kinda;
13. Can't or can?
14. Theology is not "religion", goddammit Randall you fuck;
15. The one thing Randall remembers about CS is having difficulty matching brackets in LISP 101. His mistake was writing source in Paint;
16. No, Randall, it's not virology that'll guarantee you never get a hug. Of course Randall draws the woman as hugless so that they'll be all OH RANDALL SO UNDERSTANDS ME I WANT HIM TO DO ME WITHOUT A CONDOM;
17. Not if you know what you're doing;
18. Being a paraphrase of a quote (which Randall of course dishonestly puts in quote marks), it's still the wittiest frame so far;
19. Feynman was a bit of a dick, and no undergrad degree promises you the career of one of the disciplines heroes. What are you, 12?
20. No it doesn't. This isn't even funny.
21. Well, you study history so you know how to do again what's been done before - but your way of looking at it is true too.
22. The most powerful people I know, i.e. those in good positions in the civil service, have all studied History or variations thereof.
23. What plan? I thought he had no plan? You can't just put in some idea vaguely associated with your message if it doesn't follow.
24. As 12.
25. Why? Because of astrological connotations? I thought it was only politicians who went full retard over "lunatics";
26. "agorophobiac";
27. *too* ophiophobic, because a syllable was missing;
28. 1) GE is not a major; 2) "I can't stomach GE" is not funny;
29. Yeah, no need to try otherwise! Lol college is a stepping stone to comic writing!
30. What? You're just putting random words together, Randall.
31. True.
32. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to find out the usual terms for the study of the study of some discipline. "Meta-academic" doesn't feature. Of course, META is one of those PANDER things;
33-34. Econ discussed above;
35. "Sophie's choice" is the choice given by a camp guard of which of your son or daughter you will choose to die at a concentration camp. The comparison borders on offensive.
36. See 12, 24.
In short, every single fucking frame falls short. Contrast with the original which is accurate, clever, funny and scans perfectly. If you think Randy's work is good then you simply have low standards. Looking at the way America's going, it's probably hard to find anyone geeky who doesn't have low standards, whence "dismal" xkcd's popularity."
- Anonymous May 11, 2012 2:13 AM
I hate cutting and pasting other people's words, but everybody else took Rob's math comment as the snark that it was and focused on what Randall Munroe drew, which was a none-too-clever satire on college utilizing (damaging) a good song by Gilbert and Sullivan. I'm not trying to stomp on Rosencrantz andor Guildenstern, just pointing out that even an Internet stick figure cartoon has critics and that within those critics are people who dole out the harshness toward the maker of that Internet stick figure cartoon.
DeleteI dunno, I think the people who bitch that XKCD isn't always accurate are the same ones that would complain that being hit with a line-drive wouldn't REALLY undress Charlie Brown and that Snoopy couldn't really sleep on the top of a dog house. And let's not even go into how Calvin and Hobbes makes fun of a severely mentally ill boy!
DeleteThe XKCD in question isn't his best work, but I thought parts of it were rather funny.
I agree with MAM. It's not MEANT to be serious social critique, it's a cartoon? You know, exaggeration, picking up on current tropes (e.g. reference to underwater basket-weaving, that's the top competitor to Hamsterology on academic blogs as a discipline-pseudonym), meant to be FUNNY?
DeleteCartoons and cartoon characters are not real opinions... and sometimes they're not even true (I maintain that studying pre-school education or early childhood studies makes you far more likely to carry viruses and therefore be a poor hug target than virology - kid viruses are free-range!)
But I guess it's easier to go for xkcd rather than ask some of the difficult questions about politics, economics and the place of the academy...
This just makes me want to go study some more Galois Theory, just to piss off the masses.
DeleteI'm with Strel on this one. I didn't find it funny, or accurate.
DeleteI just applied to 4 jobs over the weekend--jobs for which my lit major prepared me quite well, and my 16 years of teaching writing will also serve me well. They're jobs which specifically require the kinds of skills you get if you study lit.
It's not a joke anymore, these days. Not when the humanities are under attack EVERYFUCKINGWHERE as being "useless" and "a waste of time/money."
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWhile a little more direct than the Explain Marmaduke site (which I only just saw today), there is an explain XKCD site (http://www.explainxkcd.com/) which points out the less (and sometimes more) obvious jokes in the strip.
ReplyDeleteStrel, you've convinced me.... that all the rest of the comments were just as bad as the ones before I stopped reading.
ReplyDelete"Is Randall really saying that all physics majors end up as engineers?"
- No. No he's not.
"I am a scientist. Randall does not speak for us. Randall, you do not speak for us."
- Why not add a "God Damn You to Hell!!" just for good measure? It'll make you feel better.
Seriously, I'm OK with people not liking xkcd, just as I'm sure you're OK with me thinking Gilbert and Sullivan give the island of my forbears a bad name. (Tom Lehrer nailed them with his "full of words and music and signifying nothing!") So maybe I'm biased in favour of anybody who parodies G&S.
By a curious coincidence, I just came across a site called "R&Gsuckdeadmuskoxen.blogspot.com", where you can read all about how Tom Stoppard is an illiterate hack. Some Flava:
"I cannot BELIEVE Stoppard would use a retracting stage knife in the climactic scene of his most famous play! Doesn't he know how DANGERUS those things are? Of course I guess when you don't want there to be any explanations for anyone, you're not big on accountability." Dick!
You should check it out.
"I am a scientist. Randall does not speak for us. Randall, you do not speak for us."
Delete- Why not add a "God Damn You to Hell!!" just for good measure? It'll make you feel better.
Or even better, "From Hell's heart I stab at thee, for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee!" OK, I confess I feel that way about the comic "Momma" so maybe I shouldn't throw stones.
I'm not a Gilbert and Sullivan fanboi....their music is a nice break when you've been listening to Beethoven, or Wagner's "Ring Cycle", or Bach, or the "Leningrad" symphony, or Mahler, or old Merzbow records, or John Lee Hooker albums, or the Beastie Boys*, or Run-DMC singles, or Laibach, or old Bossanova records, and so on.
Delete____________________________
* R.I.P. Mr Yauch.
R.I.P. Jason William Mizell, aka Jam Master Jay. It's been ten years.
Awesome. I loved it.
ReplyDeleteKids, kids, it's a joke. Ha-ha. Ha-ha?
ReplyDeleteThe one about chemistry means "methamphetamine." It also refers to Rutherford's claim that all science is either physics or stamp collecting. As an astronomer, I take exception to that: some stamps can be quite valuable.
As far as the one about astronomy goes, I'm just flattered to be included. There are only about 300 astronomy majors in the entire U.S.A., fewer even than nuclear engineering majors.
Once upon a time, I majored in lit. Even earned a degree. I laughed at this cartoon.
ReplyDeleteI think a healthy sense of humor is the key to my sanity.
@MA&M lol - how did I miss that yesterday.
ReplyDeleteI cannot for the life of me figure out how all those commenters thought that the cartoonist was offering up a serious critique of the college curriculum.
ReplyDelete