1045: "Constraints"

[itsa_wallaby]

http://xkcd.com/1045/

Title-text: [title-text similiarly alphabetized]


(Edit: Sorry I keep screwing up guys!)

[scotty2haughty]

stuck in my head forever.

[iabervon]

A bit contrived. Doesn't everybody find guidelines help ideas? Just keeping lengths minimized never opens possibilities. Quite reversely, since the users verily will Xerox your zeitgeist.

[suso]

If you like clever and funny tweets and Linux commands you can use, check out @climagic.

[Number3Pencils]

The title-text actually says "similiarly" instead of "similarly".

[qvasi]

A bit contrived. Doesn't everybody find guidelines help ideas? Just keeping lengths minimized never opens possibilities. Quite reversely, since the users verily will Xerox your zeitgeist.

+1

[JWA1010]

Douglas Hofstadter would find this comic amusing....

[AndyClaw]

Fix the typo or a cute kitten dies. Either that or a part of my inner being.

[yaliceme]

A bit contrived. Doesn't everybody find guidelines help ideas? Just keeping lengths minimized never opens possibilities. Quite reversely, since the users verily will Xerox your zeitgeist.

+1

+2

[Eternal Density]

Understand this, I don't.

[Linux0s]

Woha!

[mconor]

Understand this, I don't.

yeah same here...

[Eutychus]

Understand this, I don't.

Zoom your x-ray, wide-angle vision up to see Randall's quirky positioning of nouns; merely look keenly, just investigating how getting fiddly etymological deployment can be awesome.

(I'm no good at this)

[18chai]

Failing to give yourself a challenge in writing a reversely-alphabetized epigram would be "The Path Of Least.... Contention?"

[SpringLoaded12]

It took me a minute to realize what she was saying was self-demonstrating.

Here's a fun one: http://bash.org/?406381.

(In case you didn't notice, each word is one letter longer than the previous one.)

[Waladil]

Panel 2: Brevity is the soul of wit.

[glasnt]

It took me a minute to realize what she was saying was self-demonstrating.

Here's a fun one: http://bash.org/?406381.

(In case you didn't notice, each word is one letter longer than the previous one.)

Came here to post this.

Instead, I'm just here to say what's in my sig.

[obarey]

Here is the explanation:

Spoiler:

The second panel is an epigram with reverse alphabetization. Check the order of first letters.

[penguinreference]

Panel 2 has 135 characters (inc. spaces, punctuation). Might be intentional.

[Red Hal]

A budding poet? Three frames were too many here, two would have sufficed. Constrained language rules, especially in prose, can unleash ideas.

[hwillis19]

Here's a fun one: http://bash.org/?406381.

(In case you didn't notice, each word is one letter longer than the previous one.)

And it has a far happier outcome than than http://xkcd.com/276/

[sonalita]

Panel 2: Brevity is the soul of wit.

I see you miss the point of the whole comic. Look closely at the first letter of each word in the statement in the second panel. Do you see a pattern? A pattern relating to the statement being made?

[daumbay]

Understand this, I don't.

Zoom your x-ray, wide-angle vision up to see Randall's quirky positioning of nouns; merely look keenly, just investigating how getting fiddly etymological deployment can be awesome.

(I'm no good at this)

It took me 2 readings, your explanation and 5 more readings to finally understand the strip.

[Chrisfs]

I figure the 'w' in working is pronounced in the German style, as a 'v'

[chiggerfruit]

Ooh this one was very good. Reminds me of the "I'm so meta even this acronym" comic.

[Hamsvlekiss]

Oh . . . that's it?

[da Doctah]

What's scary is that it's possible to get into a groove where you actually produce sentences like that without thinking about it. It happens to people who compose a lot of haiku.

And back when I was reading Edmund Spenser's "The Faerie Queene", I found myself thinking automatically in iambic pentameter.

[VectorZero]

I figure the 'w' in working is pronounced in the German style, as a 'v'

Why? That's not required.

I found myself thinking automatically in iambic pentameter.

Oh joyous day, you passed the test. You're hired.

Incidentally, I really liked the title-text

[OliverJXavier]

Constraints are used by artists to inspire creativity. Igor Stravinsky wrote:

My freedom thus consists in my moving about within the narrow frame that I have assigned myself for each one of my undertakings. I shall go even further: my freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful, the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint, diminishes strength. The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self of the chains that shackle the spirit.

[Igor Stravinsky. Poetics of Music in the form of six lessons. Harvard University Press, 1947.]

[Red Hal]

What's scary is that it's possible to get into a groove where you actually produce sentences like that without thinking about it. It happens to people who compose a lot of haiku.

*cough*

[sonalita]

I figure the 'w' in working is pronounced in the German style, as a 'v'

It's the words that are reverse dictionary sorted - there's also 3 words that start with E but they're all in reverse dictionary order still.

[radtea]

Zach, your xylophone wasn't tuned so Reggie quit putting on new music, leaving key jobs incompletely handled, giving fans excessive downers caused by arrogance.

Form is liberating: http://greenteadoodles.wordpress.com (beautiful images frequently juxtaposed with formal poetry.)

[meerta]

Two rather off-the-wall xkcds in a row. I like it.

[Shidoshi]

This is beautiful (and alphabetized).

[Alfonzo227]

I now find myself very carefully reading everybody's comment to see if they've done something clever.
A note to others doing the same: this is not one of those comments.

A +1 to all the clever comments, that's why I love xkcd and all its fans.

[BlitzGirl]

Backward:
Vacate my head, cartoonist!

Forward:
Depart from my noggin, Randall!

[lens]

A treasure trove of constrained writing: http://www.cadaeic.net/
- Pilish - each word in a piece has the same number of letters as the corresponding digit of Pi
- A poem of 109 letters, related to the periodic table
- Anagrams
- Palindromes...

[BrianB]

Alt-text: [title-text similarly alphabetized]

Here, let me correct that for you...

Title-text: [title-text similarly alphabetized]

Even Randall told you what it's supposed to be called. Now, everyone get with the program!

[Plasma Man]

I could actually feel my mind being blown when this clicked for me. Excellent.

[Nylonathatep]

I wonder if Randall is also working under these constraints when he draw xkcd comics.