XKCD Author's Unpublished Book Has Already Become a Best-Seller 129
destinyland writes "Wednesday the geeky cartoonist behind XKCD announced that he'd publish a new book answering hypothetical science questions in September. And within 24 hours, his as-yet-unpublished work had become Amazon's #2 best-selling book. 'Ironically, this book is titled What If?,' jokes one blogger, noting it resembles an XKCD comic where 'In our yet-to-happen future, this book decides to travel backwards through time, stopping off in March of 2014 to inform Amazon's best-seller list that yes, in our coming timeline this book will be widely read...' Randall Munroe's new book will be collecting his favorite 'What If...' questions, but will also contain his never-before published answers to some questions that he'd found 'particularly neat.'"
Re:Don't get it (Score:5, Informative)
That's the comic, not What If? - which is all about things like how much power you'd need to illuminate the shadow of the moon or what happens to the Earth's geography if you drain the oceans of water.
Re:Don't get it (Score:5, Funny)
And What If? follows Mythbusters in the sense that once the question is answered, he keeps pushing until something blows up.
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Yes, it is called "having fun with it". If he didn't, it would be pretty boring.
I was pretty hooked after reading the first one I ever saw, which was about what would happen if a pitcher could throw a baseball at a signficant fraction of the speed of light. I thought it was pretty hilarious to see see the breakdown.
A simple "a huge explosion destroying the ball park and leaving a crater" would have answered the question, but, it wouldn't be very much fun, and wouldn't have anyone looking to buy his book.
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which I question.... by the time the first matter which used to be the ball reaches the batter, the ball no longer conforms to the definition of a baseball by the rules of the game. I think the pitcher would be guilty of illegally modifying the ball.
As such, according to a quick review, looks like the pitcher should be given a warning, and the pitch called as a ball.
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Which is why I pre-ordered the book, to get it while it's still good.
I love the early Mythbusters, compared to them the recent ones are lame. Everything has its time and when it's done, then it's done.
Re:Don't get it (Score:5, Interesting)
Is XKCD overhyped and overrated? Sure it is... like pretty much everything else with a certain level of popularity in the geek crowd. Even so, I often find XKCD funny, sometimes thought-provoking or profound, and generally interesting. And it's often applicable to everyday situations (hence the many "oblig XKCD" references here on
Re:Don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
Just about anything good eventually becomes over-hyped.
Actually I don't think anything is described as exactly as good or as bad as it actually is. People either rain praise on something they like, or trash talk something they don't, and it's usually overdone.
Personally, I like xkcd. Yes, it's not consistently ground shattering. The average day to day comic tends to range somewhere from meh to mild chuckle. But for something you get 3 days a week, that's actually pretty damn good.
Then occasionally he goes all out and actually _does_ build something that lives up to hype, which then of course itself gets overhyped like everything else, so he really can't win.
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Conjecture: everything that has been told by Xkcd has already been said at least once by someone on Slashdot prior to it.
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Conjecture: everything that has been told by Xkcd has already been said at least once by someone on Slashdot prior to it.
By the number of "obligatory xkcd" posts we see a lot of what is said on Slashdot has already been said on xkcd. .... this could be circular!
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If only Slashdot's comment form allowed input of stick-figures, it might be the case that we wouldn't need Xkcd...
Re:Don't get it (Score:5, Funny)
If only Slashdot's comment form allowed input of stick-figures, it might be the case that we wouldn't need Xkcd...
------->O
|Fuck| \|/
| You | |
------ / \
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You swear a lot for someone with such a tiny head...
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People with tiny heads tend to swear a lot.
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I presume you tried to use ascii art to make a stick figure.
However, using the fonts that are installed on my computer, that actually looks horrible.
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It looks terrible either way.
Re:Don't get it (Score:5, Funny)
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Conjecture: everything that has been told by Xkcd has already been said at least once by someone on Slashdot prior to it.
Simpecture: everything that has been said at least once by someone on Slashdot, Simpsons already did it.
Re:Don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
That is some pretty wide open conjecture. I have personally been reading and commenting on slashdot for more than a decade and I have skipped or missed entire articles full of comments. Slashdot has contained comments on everything from Natalie Portman to Hot Grits.
Conjecture: Most everything said on slashdot today has already been said by someone on Slashdot prior to it.
Range too small (Score:5, Funny)
Slashdot has contained comments on everything from Natalie Portman to Hot Grits.
As I understand it, there is nothing between Natalie Portman and Hot Grits. Kinda like Brooke Shields and her Calvins.
Re:Don't get it (Score:4, Insightful)
Hell - even I have my off-days when I don't manage to do any earth shattering. I am my biggest fan, but even so, I'm not always amazed at myself.
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I'm not a big fan of xkcd, but I love the what-if series immensely. It's pretty much the highlight of Tuesdays for me... when I'm not out invading and destroying villages anyway.
Re:Don't get it (Score:5, Funny)
For productivity reasons, you should have constructed your critic without details, so you could reuse the reply in many other cases.
For example: "I don't like it. Therefore, it's stupid. And people who like it are stupid too."
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No, he actually built a critic to make critiques.
Re:Don't get it (Score:5, Interesting)
The fact that it was badly-drawn (*) and not actually that clever in itself- so much as giving its oft-maligned (**) target audience an excuse to feel superior to others- didn't seem to matter.
As I once commented elsewhere [blogspot.co.uk]:-
Compare that to User Friendly. Aside from its "moderately-promising 14-year-old still showing too much influence from the Teach-Yourself-Cartooning book" drawing style, User Friendly has always relied on its geek-friendly subject matter and viewpoints to flatter the audience and obscure the fact that it's neither creative nor funny.
Here's a good example:-
http://ars.userfriendly.org/ca... [userfriendly.org]
There's nothing creative about this. The "news" was a real-life item reported in many tech outlets about a year back. The strip itself is just a lazy excuse to let the audience laugh again at that story- it adds nothing to it except an audience-pandering but uncreative aside.
xkcd has a long way to go before it gets *that* lazy.
(*) XKCD isn't exactly detailed in the artwork stakes either, but that comes across as an intentional style, whereas User Friendly just looks like a wannabe of better-looking cartoons.
(**) This is before it was (allegedly) cool to be a geek.
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User Friendly feels extremely dated now, but that's not because it was a bad comic back then, but because it was trying to capture the geek mindset of the time. It's a bit like Dilbert, a comic that only really makes sense when you've spent enough time in a megacorp's big cubicle farm. The main difference is that User Friendly came from an upbeat world that, frankly, does not exist anymore, so today it just can't be funny.
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DIlbert often highlights the funny / depressing work side of my life. (Control systems engineer) e.g. http://dilbert.com/strips/comi... [dilbert.com] recienlt just about made me choke on my coffee.
Where as XKCD appeals to my geeky nature, though also applicable to work situations sometimes e.g. https://xkcd.com/927/ [xkcd.com] but there are so many others that come up in ever day life for those of us that are geeky
Re:Don't get it (Score:5, Funny)
Oh my god, it's you! Hey everyone, it's the guy whose opinion is also objectively true!
I've got a list of questions I've been saving for you, now where did I put it...
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Re:Don't get it (Score:5, Funny)
The True Scotsman called, he wants you to know that you're a terrible human being.
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We're all Mad here.
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I'm Spartacus.
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I'm Spartacus.
no, I'm Spartacus
We are Spartacus? What happend to Legion?
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Obligatory xkcd (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sure that's good news for Randall (Score:2)
How many dead tree books does Amazon sell now?
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I'm more gobsmacked that people would spend money on any kind of vile utterance by that revolting pile of shit Rush Limbaugh. At least Rob Ford isn't published and his nation is limited to a bunch of suburban rubes.
I'm sorry to say... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not smart enough for some of the XKCD strips...
Re:I'm sorry to say... (Score:5, Informative)
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Ran out of mod points, which is **very** lucky for you. Otherwise I would have modded you -100: Wasting my time is an utterly funny way. Not because I fail to understand XKCD most of the time, but because you lured me into yet another way to see the huge number of comics.
Damn you.
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OB www.explainxkcd.com [explainxkcd.com], It's 'cause you're dumb ;)
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That's one of the best praises it could receive.
Re:I'm sorry to say... (Score:5, Funny)
Hell, I'm not smart enough for Garfield.
Re:I'm sorry to say... (Score:5, Funny)
Hell, I'm not smart enough for Garfield.
And I'm clearly not smart enough for the Family Circus... I never even got one.
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Hell, I'm not smart enough for Garfield.
And I'm clearly not smart enough for the Family Circus... I never even got one.
Not me!!
Re:not smart enough for Garfield (Score:2)
Well, the existentialism of this variant of it is rather tough!
http://garfieldminusgarfield.n... [garfieldmi...rfield.net]
More questions (Score:4, Interesting)
I wished he scientifically answered the following hypothetical questions:
1. What if patents were abolished.
2. What if copyright were abolished.
3. What if programmers ran Congress.
Re:More questions (Score:5, Informative)
Those aren't changes for which practical data or experimental models exist, so he's unlikely to ever cover them.
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Those aren't changes for which practical data or experimental models exist, so he's unlikely to ever cover them.
On the third point, you are correct, perhaps. But the first two were the natural state before the invention of those legal fictions. There is certainly material to work from.
Re:More questions (Score:4, Insightful)
That's not science: it's uncontrolled historical data. Not xkcd's thing.
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True, but it wasn't generally a very pretty state. For #1,well, look at all the Da Vinci drawings. They all had mistakes in them because he knew people would steal it and try to build it.
For #2, what happened was the US was the biggest pirate around because copyrights were enforced on a country level. Prior to that, well, books were only for the wealthy and scholars - most people d
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Are you saying he is not constructing any models in this book, and is merely filling in numbers?
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He's using the tools of physics, if that's what you mean.
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1. Economic and political upheavals, from vast and dangerous to slightly annoying. Some few posisitve things, too.
2. As previous, though running from worrying to delighted consumer response. Many more positive results than above.
(Better to ask what the results would be if they were overhauled, made saner and brought back closer to their original intent rather than being designed for keeping certain business models afloat).
3. Proufound disruption and even worse performance due to ignorance of practical polit
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If programmers ran Congress the country would go under as no one would ever agree on minute details on a bill. You thought the current 2 parties never agreeing was bad. Now imagine every individuals never agreeing with each other...
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Foolish American, legislatures are supposed to debate every minute detail of every bill. The process exists to discourage them from agreeing to pass laws that ruin our lives. If the voters elected a bunch of photogenic celebrities who all agree with each other, the country would go under.
Re:More questions (Score:5, Funny)
holy shit [xkcd.com]
guys [xkcd.com]
government is complicated. [xkcd.com]
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What if deals with hypothetical physics questions.
Thanks for the Slashvertisement (Score:1)
His name is Wednesday? (Score:2, Troll)
Wednesday the geeky cartoonist behind XKCD
I thought his name was Randall.
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Wednesday Randall Munroe is ashamed of his girly first name.
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Hopefully the lack of any sensible editorial control on this site won't be duplicated on http://soylentnews.org/ [soylentnews.org]
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ahh memories of the old slashdot where you lost your place on a page when trying to post a comment or read a post that was displayed as just a subject line.
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Javascript posting/expanding is coming, apparently. Personally I wouldn't have gone live without it in place (with fallbacks, obviously). It's not like it's hard to implement.
Abject Objective Subjectivity. (Score:2)
Proving once again that "best" does not exist.
Being beaten only by... (Score:2)
Currently at #1: Rush Limbaugh's self-insert U.S. history fanfic.
I swear to you I am not making this up. [amazon.com]
Perhaps Randall should pass on publicizing this particular honor.
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It's like "Wishbone" with American historical mythology instead of "the classics"
That's actually pretty clever.
I, Libertine (Score:1)
Shep did this even one better back in the 50s.
Wow! (Score:2)
Frequently Bought Together: (Score:1)
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Dunno about you but when I go shopping I might well buy, say, a bag of potatoes as well as a DVD. It doesn't mean they are linked at all. I just needed potatoes and saw a DVD I wanted.
There's an inherent problem that if you cater for a wide enough range of products, most correlations between them will be essentially random. Sure, you can spot trends, but the problem is finding the threshold where a trend is genuinely a trend and not just, say, two new products that people buy because they were both in th
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I enjoy both XKCD and Frozen. so... maybe there's something there that we just don't understand. Of course, my wife and I use the same Amazon account, so if you ever get a Debbie Macomber book suggested to you next time your order a 12V power supply, you'll know why.
A bit off topic, but Netflix used to be good at that: suggesting things that you didn't know you would like. Too bad all they suggest these days are TV shows.
Re:importance of being popular (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:importance of being popular (Score:5, Interesting)
I would love to hear how that was supposed to work. Were human beings programmed to irrationally love things created by people called Randall Munroe, or are you arguing that he owns some sort of mind-control ray?
Re:importance of being popular (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember kids, don't fail, or you'll have to spend your time complaining about people who didn't.
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Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is: never try.
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So why don't you?
Unless he is not quite so talentless as you make out?
The What-If stuff is well written, informative and funny. It may even be accurate (I'm not smart enough to judge this). His comics are hit and miss (as are every body elses so...), but you know what they are popular and that is not down to his name, it is down to the fact the struck a cord with the readership.
That & (Score:2)
Exploits of a Mom is probably the funniest thing in a web comic ever... :)
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Well, yes, there are some xkcd readers who are pseudointellectual idiots who want to impress each other. But there are also all the other readers.
Re:importance of being popular (Score:5, Funny)
Exactly, he's just trading on his name. He would never have gained that many readers if he hadn't already been famous for... er... I'll get back to you.
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Why is his name special?
Because it's just like Elbereth [wikia.com] except of scaring monsters away, it attracts nerds instead.
The only problem here is finding a tablet that you can stand on without destroying it in the process. Maybe one per foot? (Or do I just need to lose weight?)
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