Search found 5592 matches
- Fri Dec 16, 2016 7:25 pm UTC
- Forum: General
- Topic: What is up with the ASCII capital phi?
- Replies: 6
- Views: 3165
What is up with the ASCII capital phi?
Random question of the moment: Consider an extended ASCII character table. http://www.maxi-pedia.com/web_files/images/code_ASCII_OEM.png Row E consists of a somewhat random assortment of greek letters. Right after mu and tau, but before uppercase (?) theta and uppercase omega, we see what looks like...
- Fri Dec 09, 2016 3:52 pm UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1768: "Settling"
- Replies: 50
- Views: 11361
- Tue Dec 06, 2016 9:28 pm UTC
- Forum: Movies and TV Shows
- Topic: Mister Doctor [Strange]
- Replies: 77
- Views: 12299
Re: Mister Doctor [Strange]
Did you catch that the end credits music was literally called "The Master of the Mystic End Credits" ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4uoNAFfvKg I was reminded of Monty on the Run for some reason. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEE8203hmBQ Am I the only one who didn't quite get how the ...
- Thu Dec 01, 2016 6:38 am UTC
- Forum: Movies and TV Shows
- Topic: Doctor Whom
- Replies: 4917
- Views: 616156
Re: Doctor Whom
I caught the special showing of the newly-restored animated Power of the Daleks at the cinema just now. Man, Classic Who is just weird. I was definitely nodding off for a minute during the middle. (What the bork is up with Patrick Troughton's flute?!)
- Thu Dec 01, 2016 6:34 am UTC
- Forum: Movies and TV Shows
- Topic: Mister Doctor [Strange]
- Replies: 77
- Views: 12299
Re: Mister Doctor [Strange]
Am I the only one who didn't quite get how the "mirror universe" was supposed to work? Bit slipshod, that. (It made me think of the "Gloom" in Night Watch/Day Watch, which did it rather better – or maybe I'm only thinking that because of the books .) Also, "Heaven Sent"...
- Tue Nov 29, 2016 6:47 pm UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1759: "British Map"
- Replies: 193
- Views: 29947
Re: 1759: "British Map"
1) Roll-eyes . Do you think that people outside your country recognise immediately the place-names mentioned in TV/films etc. your country produces? Well, anything expected to be consumed outside of the country would probably have a minimal reliance on local geography. Can you name TV/films about B...
- Thu Nov 24, 2016 2:03 pm UTC
- Forum: Gaming
- Topic: Great Steam Deals (And other Online Distribution Systems)
- Replies: 2582
- Views: 442120
Re: Great Steam Deals (And other Online Distribution Systems)
I was so hoping for Hadean Lands, but alas, not today.Zohar wrote:So there's this thing - a bundle of 151 games for $20 for charity.
It is cheaper than it's ever been at the moment – but no, now is the time to buy Undertale and Life is Strange.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/376240/
- Mon Nov 21, 2016 9:33 pm UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1762: "Moving Boxes"
- Replies: 70
- Views: 11356
Re: 1762: "Moving Boxes"
Jorpho wrote:What, no monkey tacos?
peteispo wrote:What, no Bobcats?
Oh, I forgot the other likely possibility:

https://xkcd.com/1123/
- Mon Nov 21, 2016 2:20 pm UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1762: "Moving Boxes"
- Replies: 70
- Views: 11356
1762: "Moving Boxes"
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/moving_boxes.png Alt-text: Later, when I remember that I'm calling movers, I frantically scribble over the labels and write 'NORMAL HOUSE STUFF' on all of them, which actually makes things worse. What, no monkey tacos? Also, I'm a little surprised there's no thread for ...
- Wed Nov 16, 2016 10:54 pm UTC
- Forum: Science
- Topic: Inventing The Intelligence
- Replies: 5
- Views: 2333
Re: Inventing The Intelligence
Reminiscent of https://xkcd.com/675/ .
- Tue Nov 15, 2016 7:10 pm UTC
- Forum: Science
- Topic: V=IR - bad science or am I being thick?
- Replies: 15
- Views: 3978
Re: V=IR - bad science or am I being thick?
The further you go to the top-left, the more reactive the elements are. Clarification: metals in the lower left are more reactive than those in the upper left. Lithium in water will fizz around enthusiastically; sodium will ignite, and it gets more exciting from potassium on down. (Francium is too ...
- Mon Nov 14, 2016 7:09 pm UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1759: "British Map"
- Replies: 193
- Views: 29947
Re: 1759: "British Map"
I'm reminded of reading the original War of the Worlds not so long ago. The story does not hold up very well at all, not in the least because of the names of all these obscure places in the English countryside (i.e. which are slowly being overrun by the invading alien hordes) are quite meaningless t...
- Mon Nov 14, 2016 2:58 pm UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1759: "British Map"
- Replies: 193
- Views: 29947
Re: 1759: "British Map"
What, no Wainscotting?
- Sat Nov 12, 2016 4:11 pm UTC
- Forum: General
- Topic: What sites do you go on when you're bored?
- Replies: 107
- Views: 101695
Re: What sites do you go on when you're bored?
Zohar wrote:Specific subreddits? Find a youtuber you like and binge on their old videos?
Youtube-watching is much too conspicuous at work, even with headphones. Or so I'd imagine.
I have been dipping my toes a little more into the Reddit-waters lately, though. Perhaps that is not such a bad idea.
- Sat Nov 12, 2016 12:19 am UTC
- Forum: General
- Topic: What sites do you go on when you're bored?
- Replies: 107
- Views: 101695
Re: What sites do you go on when you're bored?
I think I'm going to have to give up on 9gag and boingboing for a while. All this doom and gloom is really wearing me down.
Is there a good place to go that explicitly strives to avoid politics?
Maybe I'll just have to forget about the Internet for a while and spend my day actually, y'know, working.
Is there a good place to go that explicitly strives to avoid politics?
Maybe I'll just have to forget about the Internet for a while and spend my day actually, y'know, working.
- Fri Nov 11, 2016 7:46 pm UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1758: "Astrophysics"
- Replies: 52
- Views: 9545
Re: 1758: "Astrophysics"
There's a good joke in here somewhere, but the idea of a building with a giant sign that says "MOTTO:" just doesn't click with me at all. I mean, The Simpsons does this sort of thing all the time without having to swing the proverbial hammer like that. It doesn't even have any of the chara...
- Fri Oct 28, 2016 1:05 pm UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1752: "Interplanetary Experience"
- Replies: 47
- Views: 7489
Re: 1752: "Interplanetary Experience"
By many accounts, the Mt. Everest experience of today is positively dreary – just shuffling along in an overcrowded lineup of rich people. Perhaps that will be the ultimate fate of the true "interplanetary experience"? (I bet there's a good short story plot in there somehow.)
- Fri Oct 21, 2016 3:10 pm UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1749: "Mushrooms"
- Replies: 47
- Views: 7721
Re: 1749: "Mushrooms"
I wonder if this is another one of those cases where Randall uploaded the wrong, incomplete version of the comic.
- Mon Oct 10, 2016 5:58 am UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1743: "Coffee"
- Replies: 77
- Views: 12672
Re: 1743: "Coffee"
The first time I worked in an environment with a communal coffee maker, someone informed me that the correct way to prepare a fresh pot was to just fill up the carafe and pour it back in the top. And hey, the stuff that comes out in the end is still brown, so how was I supposed to know you're also s...
- Fri Oct 07, 2016 8:54 pm UTC
- Forum: Gaming
- Topic: Games you can't remember the title of.
- Replies: 1892
- Views: 451326
Re: Games you can't remember the title of.
Not Companions of Xanth?
- Fri Oct 07, 2016 8:50 pm UTC
- Forum: Movies and TV Shows
- Topic: The worst film you've seen
- Replies: 706
- Views: 228480
Re: The worst film you've seen
I see Phantasm is back in the news, with both a Remastered version and a fourth Kickstarted sequel. I guess it's not necessarily a terrible movie – it has a distinctive vision, which is a whole lot more than a lot of other terrible movies can say. But it was quite mindblowing when I realized the str...
- Thu Sep 22, 2016 3:31 am UTC
- Forum: General
- Topic: Blocking all Images
- Replies: 9
- Views: 3328
Re: Blocking all Images
Way, way, back in the day, Opera used to be extremely convenient, as there was a single button which would toggle between "load images", "hide all images", and "load only cached images" – so you could, say, load up whatever images you need for a particular board layout ...
- Thu Sep 15, 2016 2:57 am UTC
- Forum: Gaming
- Topic: Great Steam Deals (And other Online Distribution Systems)
- Replies: 2582
- Views: 442120
Re: Great Steam Deals (And other Online Distribution Systems)
Bundle Stars is selling this 5-pack of Sentinels of the Multiverse presently.
https://www.bundlestars.com/en/bundle/s ... rse-5-pack
Three bucks is about as much as I'd like to pay for it, but I would like to pay for it. Would anyone else be interested in a copy for $3?
https://www.bundlestars.com/en/bundle/s ... rse-5-pack
Three bucks is about as much as I'd like to pay for it, but I would like to pay for it. Would anyone else be interested in a copy for $3?
- Wed Sep 07, 2016 8:53 pm UTC
- Forum: School
- Topic: Two simple tricks to month long subjects
- Replies: 28
- Views: 8392
Re: Two simple tricks to month long subjects
Cellulose is trivial with regard to human nutrition because cellulose does not do anything in humans. A lack of dietary fiber can be problematic. We learned about that in grade 8 biology. Check out the basic dimensions section of the Wolfran Alpha page on Kinetic Energy Notice that substituting the...
- Wed Aug 17, 2016 9:02 pm UTC
- Forum: General
- Topic: XKCD, where they talk shit about you in a secret subforum
- Replies: 150
- Views: 25954
Re: XKCD, where they talk shit about you in a secret subforum
Ahh, I remember when I started a thread expressing my bafflement at FaiD. Hammer locked it after two pages.
- Wed Aug 17, 2016 7:13 pm UTC
- Forum: School
- Topic: Two simple tricks to month long subjects
- Replies: 28
- Views: 8392
Re: Two simple tricks to month long subjects
But mnemonics are still cool, right?
Lo d hi and hi d lo, E-I-E-I-O...
Lo d hi and hi d lo, E-I-E-I-O...
- Fri Aug 12, 2016 10:27 pm UTC
- Forum: School
- Topic: Freshman Student looking for Guidance
- Replies: 5
- Views: 2969
Re: Freshman Student looking for Guidance
I agree with Mr. LaserGuy. Specialization is not going to make much of a difference at this particular juncture. Also, I'm not sure what sort of research you've been doing, but everything I've ever heard (and let's not forget https://xkcd.com/1052/ ) is that someone with a Physics degree is extremel...
- Fri Aug 12, 2016 10:20 pm UTC
- Forum: School
- Topic: Two simple tricks to month long subjects
- Replies: 28
- Views: 8392
Re: Two simple tricks to month long subjects
EK = ½mv².jewish_scientist wrote:Dimensional Analysis
1) Replace every unit with a variable of the same power e.g. mm^2 becomes x^2
2) Do algebra
3) When in simplest form, do the first step backwards
This always works.
So no. It doesn't.
- Wed Aug 10, 2016 5:34 am UTC
- Forum: The Help Desk
- Topic: Diagnosing a Kaput WD External Hard Drive
- Replies: 19
- Views: 18189
Re: Diagnosing a Kaput WD External Hard Drive
I keep hoping that maybe I'll save the life of a data-recovery business owner some day. Or perhaps marry the attractive daughter of such a business owner. I thought I'd report that a chance to give SpinRite a chance recently presented itself, so I fired up a spare laptop and gave it a try. It seems ...
- Mon Aug 08, 2016 4:13 pm UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1717: "Pyramid Honey"
- Replies: 55
- Views: 11408
Re: 1717: "Pyramid Honey"
I was expecting the proposed phenomenon to be attributed not to the remarkable longevity of honey, but rather to the heretofore undocumented preservation capabilities of pyramid-shaped structures. I'm sure someone somewhere is already ranting about that.
- Mon Aug 08, 2016 4:20 am UTC
- Forum: Books
- Topic: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
- Replies: 1035
- Views: 357053
Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
Hat dug I'm glad I stuck with this. That last arc is frakkin' metal . I could hardly put it down. It's hard to believe a single person wrote this whole thing. I feel a little sad that I could probably never achieve something of this quality, and even if I did, it would probably at best languish in r...
- Mon Aug 01, 2016 2:08 pm UTC
- Forum: Gaming
- Topic: My Pokemanz, let me show you them...
- Replies: 543
- Views: 114223
Re: My Pokemanz, let me show you them...
Apparently Pokemon Global Link is getting shut off in October, which means I'll probably have to finish Pokemon Y if I want to spend all my Pokemiles.
At least Wonder Trade will still work.
At least Wonder Trade will still work.
- Fri Jul 29, 2016 4:51 am UTC
- Forum: General
- Topic: Snappy Comebacks for Impudent Door-Holders
- Replies: 17
- Views: 4778
Snappy Comebacks for Impudent Door-Holders
Door-holding: I hate it. I wish no one ever held a door for me, and I wish I never had to hold a door for someone else; my dislike for this transcends all consideration of age and gender. While at times it goes smoothly, too often this intricate pas-de-deux between two strangers requires too much co...
- Wed Jul 20, 2016 4:56 pm UTC
- Forum: What If?
- Topic: What-If 0151: "Sun Bug"
- Replies: 43
- Views: 14630
Re: What-If 0151: "Sun Bug"
I can't seem to find any good linkage about these "headlight bugs", which I guess explains why Randall didn't include any.
EDIT: Ohh, headlight beetle.
https://naturecloseups.com/posts/headlight-beetle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrophorus_nyctophanus
EDIT: Ohh, headlight beetle.
https://naturecloseups.com/posts/headlight-beetle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrophorus_nyctophanus
- Fri Jul 01, 2016 5:36 pm UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1701: "Speed and Danger"
- Replies: 62
- Views: 8776
Re: 1701: "Speed and Danger"
The last (several) times something like this happened, Randall uploaded the wrong comic and the problem was remedied later in the day.
But it's well past noon EST now. This bodes poorly.
But it's well past noon EST now. This bodes poorly.
- Wed Jun 22, 2016 12:52 pm UTC
- Forum: Books
- Topic: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
- Replies: 1035
- Views: 357053
Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
Well, I'm coming up on the end of Arc 1 at the moment. Can't say I'm enjoying this nearly as much as HPMOR, and if you folks hadn't be going on about it for pages and pages, I might have given up on it by now. But I've come too far now. (It doesn't help that the epub formatting is kind of wonky.) So...
- Sun Jun 12, 2016 5:05 pm UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1692: "Man Page"
- Replies: 51
- Views: 9843
Re: 1692: "Man Page"
So had anyone here actually heard of ANSEL before reading this comic? (I might not even have gotten to the wikipedia page if not for explainxkcd; the search results are swamped by some nvidia widget.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSEL
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSEL
- Fri Jun 10, 2016 4:11 am UTC
- Forum: Serious Business
- Topic: Trolley Problem
- Replies: 349
- Views: 65300
Re: Trolley Problem
It is a rich vein for inquiry. Did someone link to http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/less ... variations or http://existentialcomics.com/comic/106 already?elasto wrote:How did we not come up with this variant ??
- Fri Jun 10, 2016 4:07 am UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1690: "Time-Tracking Software"
- Replies: 29
- Views: 6338
Re: 1690: "Time-Tracking Software"
This ain't bad, but we need the autotune version that follows the tune of the original. I have to agree with you there. I never much cared for the notion of sucking on a chili dog . That is not something you do with a chili dog. And for the longest time I thought "hand between her knees" ...
- Mon Jun 06, 2016 1:23 pm UTC
- Forum: Individual XKCD Comic Threads
- Topic: 1690: "Time-Tracking Software"
- Replies: 29
- Views: 6338
Re: 1690: "Time-Tracking Software"
The digital edit of Star Wars might be asking a bit much, but it seems all too likely that by this comic Randall shall will this Jack and Diane remix into existence.