"One-Sided" Discussion

[ungeniusman]

You know, it wouldn't surprise me if good Mr. Burnanke did have a crossbow. He seems to be a rather odd fellow...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npP73QIApFE&fmt=18

[phlip]

Wakka: Very nice.

However, I'm unsure as to the validity of adding the height at various points, quantised by seconds...

I think a much more valid approach would be to treat it like a probability density function... take the area under the curve, and divide it by the area of the small hump at "my second relationship" which, as you say, clearly represents 1 instance.

A quick and dirty approximate count in The GIMP gives around 11k pixels total under the curve, of which there's about 20 or so under the peak on the right... or, in total, about 500 total instances of confusion.

[WakkaWakka]

HOLY CRAP YOU'RE SO NERDY ITS FREAKIN AWESOME WILL YOU DO MY TRIG HOMEWORK

Actually, there are a lot of liberties taken with the data, like assuming a resolution of 1 second monitoring and recording of instances. If this resolution is decreased to two seconds the number of instances drop dramatically. However, if the recording was done by words till the realization (and my assumptions about the peak recognition are correct), then the number of instance are probably higher...

wait, I mean... I'm not nerdy.

[Ctta0s]

Wakka: that was beautiful. Maybe we should have a graphs page where we can analyze all of Randall's graphs in such a methodical manner... hrmm...

[TheoGB]

i hate that...and then the person gives you a funny look...
happens to me and people with bluetooth headsets too

Yeah, it's that look of annoyance and disgust that gets me angry. HEY! YOU'VE CHOSEN TO LOOK LIKE A CROSS BETWEEN A BORG-OBSESSED STAR TREK FAN AND A SCHIZOPHRENIC VICTIM OF CARE IN THE COMMUNITY! WHERE DO YOU GET OFF GETTING ANGRY AT ME FOR NOT REALISING THIS?

[WakkaWakka]

However, I'm unsure as to the validity of adding the height at various points, quantised by seconds...
I think a much more valid approach would be to treat it like a probability density function... take the area under the curve, and divide it by the area of the small hump at "my second relationship" which, as you say, clearly represents 1 instance.

A quick and dirty approximate count in The GIMP gives around 11k pixels total under the curve, of which there's about 20 or so under the peak on the right... or, in total, about 500 total instances of confusion.

Yes, that would work. I was assuming that the slope was just an artifact of putting an equation over a small data set, but the area under the curve could certainly be probability.

Maybe we should have a graphs page where we can analyze all of Randall's graph in such a methodical manner... hrmm...

You ideas intrigue me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Please provide a algorithms/methodologies to quantify "tastiness" and "difficulty to eat".

[phlip]

Well, I figured that if we're going to take the height of that small peak as representative, then we may as well take its width as representative as well (and it's a lot narrower than your 1 second grid)... and then we may as well take its shape into consideration too... and at this point, we may as well go with the integral and be done with it.

[WakkaWakka]

Well, I figured that if we're going to take the height of that small peak as representative, then we may as well take its width as representative as well (and it's a lot narrower than your 1 second grid)...

Agreed.

and then we may as well take its shape into consideration too... and at this point, we may as well go with the integral and be done with it.

Now all we need is the recording accuracy (in words or seconds) and verification of the 150 WPM.

[ThemePark]

The idea of it was that he had an entire relationship without realizing that the other person was just talking on the phone.

That's even funnier than what I got out of it... (I skipped the phone part, and just imagined it was a really one-sided relationship.)

I find this never happens to me (the occasional "HI!" or "NAME!" shouted out causes me to turn...), since I hardly ever respond even when people talk to me. They have to make it clear that I'm the intended recipient before I managed to realize that they're right beside me...

Same here (the part in parenthesis), especially so if it's a beautiful young girl I have never seen before, but who looks in my direction and says hi with a smile on her face. That can certainly lift my spirits, until I realize she's talking to the guy behind me.

Also, there just moved a guy with the same name as mine into my dorm, and at my new school one of my teachers also has my name. Imagine the confusion for me when somebody calls my name.

[Ctta0s]

You ideas intrigue me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Please provide a algorithms/methodologies to quantify "tastiness" and "difficulty to eat".

I can give you units!
Tastiness: endorphins produced when eating.
Difficulty to eat: calories burned when eating (including effort prior to actual consumption necessary to begin consumption, such as cracking a shell, etc.).

Now of course we'd need to normalize the data somehow. I propose we either divide by the number of grams of fruit or look at our data on a per minute basis.

As to quantifying them, I feel like someone will have to do a test with one of the listed fruits so we have somewhere to start from. Alternatively, internet research may be able to fill the void...

P.S. God I'm tired. I feel like that's far less grammatically correct than it sounded when I typed it.
P.P.S. I just typed "tiped" (thank you spell-check).

[ThemePark]

You ideas intrigue me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Please provide a algorithms/methodologies to quantify "tastiness" and "difficulty to eat".

I can give you units!
Tastiness: endorphins produced when eating.
Difficulty to eat: calories burned when eating (including effort prior to actual consumption necessary to begin consumption, such as cracking a shell, etc.).

Now of course we'd need to normalize the data somehow. I propose we either divide by the number of grams of fruit or look at our data on a per minute basis.

As to quantifying them, I feel like someone will have to do a test with one of the listed fruits so we have somewhere to start from. Alternatively, internet research may be able to fill the void...

P.S. God I'm tired. I feel like that's far less grammatically correct than it sounded when I typed it.
P.P.S. I just typed "tiped" (thank you spell-check).

Done.

http://xkcd.com/388/

[Red Hal]

You ideas intrigue me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Please provide a algorithms/methodologies to quantify "tastiness" and "difficulty to eat".

I can give you units!
Tastiness: endorphins produced when eating.
Difficulty to eat: calories burned when eating (including effort prior to actual consumption necessary to begin consumption, such as cracking a shell, etc.).

Now of course we'd need to normalize the data somehow. I propose we either divide by the number of grams of fruit or look at our data on a per minute basis.

As to quantifying them, I feel like someone will have to do a test with one of the listed fruits so we have somewhere to start from. Alternatively, internet research may be able to fill the void...

P.S. God I'm tired. I feel like that's far less grammatically correct than it sounded when I typed it.
P.P.S. I just typed "tiped" (thank you spell-check).

YOU IDIOT! Can't you see what you've done!? You've given wakka wakka (A well-known velociraptor name) the perfect formula for working out whether or not he(or she, I can't tell from here) and the rest of his (or her) race should invade! Up until now they have held off as they couldn't finish the cost/benefit analysis. Now there's nothing, NOTHING holding them back.

They're not talking about fruit, they're talking about US!!!
/sobs

[6453893]

I'd love to see when his second girlfriend finally hung up and looked around.
"Okay, I'll call you back tomorrow, okay, yes, okay, bye! *Click* Wha-Wait. Where am I? Who are you? What do you mean we have a daughter?"

[WakkaWakka]

They're not talking about fruit, they're talking about US!!!

Interesting, the most nutritious humans tasty fruits are quite often the easiest to catch eat.

[Just Tom]

I'd love to see when his second girlfriend finally hung up and looked around.
"Okay, I'll call you back tomorrow, okay, yes, okay, bye! *Click* Wha-Wait. Where am I? Who are you? What do you mean we have a daughter?"

that's awesome

[Cimorene07]

Awkward AND creepy example: one time I was in an 'off' part of town and thought this guy was shouting at me...turns out he just talks really loudly and incoherently on the phone. How does "I thought the guy I thought was talking to me was a total creep" factor into the equation?

[libra]

Bernanke?

Why would someone want to put a crossbow in the hands of the incumbent Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve?

And is there a contamination of Feds we should be aware of? I mean, other than the usual greed, corruption and hedonistic excess that is.

[aleflamedyud]

They're not talking about fruit, they're talking about US!!!

Interesting, the most nutritious humans tasty fruits are quite often the easiest to catch eat.

All we want to do is what, again?

[Cryopyre]

The funniest thing is this has probably happened to all of us. You'r standing in line and someone says "Hey, how are you doing." And you reply, thinking How refreshing, someone being very polite and social. Then, you see his bluetooth and you turn around, tearing up.

[EsotericWombat]

Did anyone else notice where the graph came from? Because I'm almost certain that Randall got it from the second panel of this strip. Which in turn was I think possibly inspired by xkcd.

[fenrir_darkwolf]

This is why bluetooth headsets should be banned .

[Ping]

I dont think I'll ever get this graph.

As the length of a conversation goes on, the amount of times a conversation happens decreases?

That has nothing to do with each other. @_@

I give up on this comic.

Edit:

I have to imagine it with numbers, so looking at WakkaWakkas graph, what I get from it is, this occurrence would have to happen 12 times so randall could finally have a 1 second conversation?

The graph is seriously messed up, or obviously, I'm not smart enough to understand it.

[BwaHaHa]

I'd love to see when his second girlfriend finally hung up and looked around.
"Okay, I'll call you back tomorrow, okay, yes, okay, bye! *Click* Wha-Wait. Where am I? Who are you? What do you mean we have a daughter?"

that's awesome

Although I do agree that the scenario is awesome, I think Randall is referring to his actual second relationship. In which case, it's kinda sad...

[Shadowman615]

Reminds me of a joke:
A man is sitting on the toilet at a public stall when suddenly, the man in the neighboring stall says, "Hey, what's up?"
"Er, not much," he replies.
"How are things going over there?"
"Um, Okay, I guess..."
"What are you up to today?"
"Well, I'm probably just going to get some shopping done and go home."
"Wait, can I call you back later? There's some jackass answering all the questions I'm asking you!"

[ThemePark]

I dont think I'll ever get this graph.

As the length of a conversation goes on, the amount of times a conversation happens decreases?

That has nothing to do with each other. @_@

I give up on this comic.

Edit:

I have to imagine it with numbers, so looking at WakkaWakkas graph, what I get from it is, this occurrence would have to happen 12 times so randall could finally have a 1 second conversation?

The graph is seriously messed up, or obviously, I'm not smart enough to understand it.

The longer conversations Randall has had, the less often it has turned out to be a conversation with someone who was actually on the phone talking to someone else.

[zinder]

I dont think I'll ever get this graph.

As the length of a conversation goes on, the amount of times a conversation happens decreases?

That has nothing to do with each other. @_@

I give up on this comic.

Edit:

I have to imagine it with numbers, so looking at WakkaWakkas graph, what I get from it is, this occurrence would have to happen 12 times so randall could finally have a 1 second conversation?

The graph is seriously messed up, or obviously, I'm not smart enough to understand it.

It's more of a probability thing. Most of the time, when such a conversation is occurring, Randall figures it out within only a few seconds. If you carry on the 'one-sided' conversation past a certain point, it becomes awkward. It's pretty rare, though, that he carries such a conversation on for too much longer than the awkward zone boundary... except for that one time where he thought he was in a relationship, and the entire thing was an incredibly long phone call, and Randall didn't figure it out for ages (or, alternatively, he thought of it as a relationship after only a minute or two... there is no indication of the size of the break in the X axis).

[dstrorm]

Hey, this looks like yesterday's Foxtrot!

http://www.gocomics.com/foxtrot/2008/09/14/

Stop stealing other people's ideas, Randall!

[rgsteele]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfJb1E3fnHs

That is all.

[EsotericWombat]

Hey, this looks like yesterday's Foxtrot!

http://www.gocomics.com/foxtrot/2008/09/14/

Stop stealing other people's ideas, Randall!

Wow! It's like we were thinking the same thing, except that I said it first

[dstrorm]

Hey, this looks like yesterday's Foxtrot!

http://www.gocomics.com/foxtrot/2008/09/14/

Stop stealing other people's ideas, Randall!

Wow! It's like we were thinking the same thing, except that I said it first

Well, would you look at that... I scanned the board looking for another link to it, but obviously didn't look hard enough. Sorry. In the future, I'll try to refrain from stealing other people's ideas.

[Falcon4]

I feel so stupid. Maybe my mind doesn't work the way this graph wants it to work. But I can't seem to put "how often this happens" (and hence the line) into a meaningful context to get the joke. I can't see how "how often this happens" changes over "length of conversation"...

Just as I'm trying to formulate a way to describe my incompetence, I think I may have figured it out... this should have been a bar graph, not a line graph...
(edit: and I lolled a little)

[pyroman]

HOLY CRAP YOU'RE SO NERDY ITS FREAKIN AWESOME WILL YOU DO MY TRIG HOMEWORK

Actually, there are a lot of liberties taken with the data, like assuming a resolution of 1 second monitoring and recording of instances. If this resolution is decreased to two seconds the number of instances drop dramatically. However, if the recording was done by words till the realization (and my assumptions about the peak recognition are correct), then the number of instance are probably higher...

wait, I mean... I'm not nerdy.

clearly a real nerd would have used calculus.

[oblivimous]

On a whim, I typed "Bernanke" into Google News. Headline #1:

Paulson, Bernanke Brave `Raptors,' Resist Lehman Aid (Update1)

full article at http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... refer=home

Do raptors fear crossbow?

[Random832]

I feel so stupid. Maybe my mind doesn't work the way this graph wants it to work. But I can't seem to put "how often this happens" (and hence the line) into a meaningful context to get the joke. I can't see how "how often this happens" changes over "length of conversation"...

It's not over the length of one conversation, it's over the set of possible lengths that a conversation can have.

[Joshua W. Burton]

A blogger (I won't name him, for reasons that will shortly become evident) pointed me at this cartoon today, with a sneer about polyamory. He took "second relationship" to be a term of art, and interpreted the high-awkwardness blip as a "coming out" confession on Randall Munroe's part. The blogger finds it "easier to deal with furries" than with "poly freaks," and finds the alleged confession regrettable.

A cursory Google search will probably find this source, but I personally find the whole thing so squirrelly that I would rather not embarrass the blogger further. For my own part, I don't know anyone with the alleged fetish/lifestyle/whatever, don't find it offensive or disturbing, <i>emphatically</i> don't think it's any of anyone's business if Randall doesn't, and would hate to be misinterpreted as asking an improper personal question that doesn't concern or interest me. What I <i>am</i> asking, to Randall and to anyone reading this, is:

<i>Do you find the blogger's reading ("second relationship" implying two or more open and simultaneous relationships) remotely plausible or warranted?</i>

Me, I find it a wild, ludicrous stretch -- and the smutty imputation frankly makes me squeamish in a way that the implied sex, true or false or indeterminate, does not. Purely <i>as a matter of language</i> -- again, leaving the underlying sex out of it, please! -- how say ye all?

[oblivimous]

From the linked article:

"The raptors test the fence for weak spots,'' said Vincent Reinhart, a former director of the Federal Reserve Board's Division of Monetary Affairs

We should send him a shirt.

[Ctta0s]

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Also, I think that blogger is totally nuts. Completely. I don't think that reading of the comic is accurate, based on how the comic was presented and based on previous comics. So yea, he's crazy.

[Falcon4]

It's not over the length of one conversation, it's over the set of possible lengths that a conversation can have.

That's exactly what failed to be immediately obvious to me... since one conversation was in the comic, I thought one conversation was being graphed in the line. Hence why I think it should have been a bar graph

[Robert'); DROP TABLE *;]

It took me a moment to work out what the blip meant, but once I did, everything clicked into place.

Hence why I think it should have been a bar graph

Can you drag bar graphs out infinitely?

[Kebrel]

i'd have to agree the "my second relationship" part definitely makes the comic. good show randall!

I wonder how that 'relationship' ended?

She ran out of minutes, during the proposal.