xkcd

by **Eutychus** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 5:03 am UTC

Alt text: "This is the reference implementation of the self-referential joke."

I've never managed to get beyond those tinned foods which had a picture of a kid holding a tin on which there was a picture of the kid holding the tin...

by **Eternal Density** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 5:09 am UTC

I will never use self-referential paradoxical irony.

*tries to keep a straight face*

by **djagir** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 5:18 am UTC

Tit riots, RJ?

by **doggitydogs** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 5:18 am UTC

Before confused forumdwellers (and trolls) get here, I shall point out the following:

Spoiler:

* yes, autobiagraphy. :wink:

one sweet ass-autobiagraphy, I may add. :shock:

by **glasnt** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 5:19 am UTC

What happens if you swallow the little book of qualm?

by **kst** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 5:24 am UTC

And to celebrate: http://imgur.com/dwzig

by **thecowgoesmoo** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 5:39 am UTC

I thought acronyms are supposed to be read as single word?

/party pooper

by **VectorZero** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 5:41 am UTC

Bill Bailey makes dirty comments about you stealing his bit.

by **Eternal Density** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 5:45 am UTC

Space.

by **mercuryseven** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 6:19 am UTC

Makes me want to re-read Godel, Escher and Bach again... my favourite book ever

by **sugarhyped** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 6:28 am UTC

I read acronym as anagram and got really confused.
That's pretty awesome.

by **Fex** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 6:42 am UTC

Trust Hofstadter to squeeze eight words into a six word autobiography.

Actually we're lucky it stopped there - if he'd had a few more words he'd probably have found a way to encode a self-replicating loop/entity into his own autobiography, which in turn would have ended up generating its own autobiography, which in turn...

Dammit Hofstadter! You've got me thinking weird thoughts again!

by **Plutarch** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 7:01 am UTC

I saw that it was to be read as 'I'm so meta, even this acronym is meta' but as I don't know what it means to be 'meta' this didn't get me very far. The wikipedia article on 'meta' hasn't enlightened me.

by **thret** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 7:11 am UTC

This may be the best XKCD ever.

Anyone who hasn't read GEB is of course, living in sin.

by **karanj** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 7:15 am UTC

Plutarch wrote:I saw that it was to be read as 'I'm so meta, even this acronym is meta' but as I don't know what it means to be 'meta' this didn't get me very far. The wikipedia article on 'meta' hasn't enlightened me.

Why do I get the feeling I'm risking a "whoosh" here?

Plutarch, meta is the commonly used prefix for self-referential; it says so right in the Wikipedia article.

(In other news, I think I might have to find a copy of GEB now...)

by **Arancaytar** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 7:35 am UTC

Hofstadter once said "The entry [on Douglas Hofstadter, in Wikipedia] is filled with inaccuracies, and it kind of depresses me." You can see the quote here.

You can't tell me that wasn't on purpose.

by **darkoan** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 7:39 am UTC

I don't quite get the alt text acronym. The beginning is obvious, but i'm not sure about the last two or three letters... :lol:

by **lassehp** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 8:33 am UTC

thret wrote:This may be the best XKCD ever.

Anyone who hasn't read GEB is of course, living in sin.

Damn. I just knew I shouldn't have read that book. All that sinning I have missed out on!

/LHP

by **Ghona** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 8:51 am UTC

I sent Hofstadter a letter pointing out an oversight in Godel Escher Bach.

He never got back to me.

The index for self referential really needs to list itself.

by **philip1201** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 9:10 am UTC

thecowgoesmoo wrote:I thought acronyms are supposed to be read as single word?

/party pooper

No, they are not.

by **egreena42** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 9:19 am UTC

I thought GNU was the original self referential joke..

by **SpitValve** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 9:57 am UTC

I was like "InterStellar Medium Estimated Time of Arrival!? What does that have to do with anything?"

by **Plutarch** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 11:48 am UTC

karanj wrote:
Plutarch wrote:I saw that it was to be read as 'I'm so meta, even this acronym is meta' but as I don't know what it means to be 'meta' this didn't get me very far. The wikipedia article on 'meta' hasn't enlightened me.

Why do I get the feeling I'm risking a "whoosh" here?

Plutarch, meta is the commonly used prefix for self-referential; it says so right in the Wikipedia article.

I must be missing somethign obvious here, but… I see how it's used as a prefix, but I still don't understand what it means when used on its own. What does it mean to say 'I'm so meta?'

by **radtea** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 11:54 am UTC

What does it mean to say 'I'm so meta?'

It means you can no longer tell the difference between a sincere question and a very subtle form of nerd-sniping.

by **Ideas sleep furiously.** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 12:05 pm UTC

This comic made me notice something interesting about myself..

I tend to assume that all scientists are dead automatically.

by **fishcove** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 12:24 pm UTC

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1994-05-18/

by **chrth** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 12:28 pm UTC

I humbly admit I failed to finish GEB. My brain simply doesn't work that way. I've read a few Umberto Eco books, tho, does that help my case?

by **PhilHibbs** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 1:00 pm UTC

Did the beta version of this strip say "I'm So Beta Even This Acronym"?

by **dp2** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 1:18 pm UTC

I've heard it argued that at least some of M Night Shyamalan's movies are meta-stories.
The Sixth Sense is a ghost story about ghosts telling (their personal) stories
Unbreakable is a comic book movie where comic books are key to the plot

by **Gerald Fnord** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 1:32 pm UTC

My favourite self-referential moment in pop culture, at least this week-end, is from John Sebastian's song Jug Band Music. Each of the first three verses ends with the line 'The doctor said, "Give him jug band music, it seems to make him feel just fine,"'; before the equivalent point in the fourth and last verse the lyrics are:

He emptied-out his eardrums, I emptied-out mine
And everybody knows that the very last line is,
'The doctor said, "Give him jug band music, it seems to make him feel just fine."'

Breaking the fourth wall, another level of nested quoting, and a self-reference all in one (although the last two go together).

(Of course, a more common but pseudo- self-referential trope in Sixties music was a song about the dance supposedly meant to go with the song: The Twist, The Swim, The Locomotion.)

by **uncivlengr** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 1:39 pm UTC

I read GEB to the point where he starts hinting at the notion that a large portion of the end of a book may just be meaningless filler to disguise the true ending of the book.

There's a limit to how much you can screw with me, Mr. Hofstadter.

by **PhilHibbs** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 1:51 pm UTC

chrth wrote:I humbly admit I failed to finish GEB. My brain simply doesn't work that way. I've read a few Umberto Eco books, tho, does that help my case?

Your brain probably does work that way, but maybe your conscious mind doesn't.

by **Randomizer** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 1:52 pm UTC

For those who don't understand what meta means, this comic may help.

by **dysprog** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 2:07 pm UTC

There seems to be another acronym in the alt text:

This
is
the
reference
implementation
of
the
self-
referential
joke.

TITRIOTSRJ: the 'tit riot' part makes perfect sense but what does the 'SRJ' mean?

by **ChrisAfonso** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 2:09 pm UTC

dp2 wrote:I've heard it argued that at least some of M Night Shyamalan's movies are meta-stories.
The Sixth Sense is a ghost story about ghosts telling (their personal) stories
Unbreakable is a comic book movie where comic books are key to the plot

The most meta movie I can think of is "Adaptation". A screenwriter adapting a book by writing about himself adapting it.

by **AndyTheQuizzer** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 2:13 pm UTC

uncivlengr wrote:I read GEB to the point where he starts hinting at the notion that a large portion of the end of a book may just be meaningless filler to disguise the true ending of the book.

dysprog wrote:TITRIOTSRJ: the 'tit riot' part makes perfect sense but what does the 'SRJ' mean?

I suspect that there may be some relation between the two here.

by **webgrunt** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 2:40 pm UTC

What's "tit riot"?

by **uncivlengr** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 2:41 pm UTC

Yes, because the phrase "tit riot" makes perfect sense.

(semi-ninja'd)

by **SirMustapha** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 2:45 pm UTC

Let's make up cleverness where there is none!

by **o_oll** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 2:53 pm UTC

tit riot self referential joke

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