xkcd

Gork , in xkcd #2912: Cursive Letters

Lowercase m, n, u, v, and w are confusing as shit when placed next to or near each other.

Successful_Try543 ,

Especially when people are writing 'garlands'.

peto ,

Vacuum is another good one, or anniversary.

megane_kun ,
@megane_kun@lemm.ee avatar

You got me writing 'vacuum' and 'anniversary' in cursive, and got so conscious about how I write it that my speed crawled to a stop and my handwriting got even worse than what I started with, lol!

In casual writing, I separate out v, w and other letters that are trickier to write in full cursive. Same goes with t, i, j so that I can do the crosses and dots before moving on.

All those seems to have done the job of making my cursive a bit easier to read. All hell breaks loose when I need to write really fast though.


EDIT:
stupid formatting, lol!

peto ,

Irreverence.

megane_kun ,
@megane_kun@lemm.ee avatar

I tried writing them so that I can post this. I might have failed in making them both cursive and legible, lol!

That very last line is my attempt at writing at speed. 😅

https://i.imgur.com/kYioUoU.jpeg

peto ,

Man, this must be what it feels like to be a teacher, all the time. It's cool though, much better than I can manage.

megane_kun ,
@megane_kun@lemm.ee avatar

Lol~‌ Thanks.

I grew up at a time when cursive is a requirement--not just for one class, but for all classes in primary school. I remember our teachers checking our notebooks and making comments on our handwriting. All our compositions and essays were required to be in cursive, and they check for penmanship, keeping margins and all that. It was a whole lot of effort for something that I rarely get to use in higher levels. I switched to print in HS, when cursive is no longer required.

Successful_Try543 ,

I didn't mean the word, but the way some people write the letters 'm' and 'n' with the bows downwards, so that the look really similar to 'w' and 'u'.

megane_kun ,
@megane_kun@lemm.ee avatar

Oh, yeah! Sometimes context helps, but if you can't even read a single word, you're just out of luck!

maynarkh ,
Gork ,

Good god.

muntedcrocodile ,

Can ia solve this problem?

Shareni ,

Cyrilic cursive uses dashes in the same way Latin uses dots. Try writing "minimum' without them, and you'll get the same results.

pythonoob ,

This is the first I'm hearing about dashes. What do you mean?

Shareni ,

You know how и and п have the same shape, but п has a dash on top? You can put the dash on the bottom to easily differentiate и and ш from м and л.

ilovededyoupiggy ,
@ilovededyoupiggy@sh.itjust.works avatar

So Donald Trump has been signing his name in Russian this whole time? It all makes sense now!

https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/3c3bf451-4f4e-42a9-a6b9-2bbd74e7378e.jpeg

TimewornTraveler ,

this feels like a shitpost and i wont fully believe it until - i dunno when.

Successful_Try543 ,

No, that's true. However, putting lines under e.g. the ш makes it a bit more readable.

megane_kun ,
@megane_kun@lemm.ee avatar

I remember coming across a similar comment chain, and someone brought out cursive Hanzi, and everyone lost their minds.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/3d/e5/67/3de56754b6857353ffee589906ba6ca4.jpg

feedum_sneedson ,

I am going to show this to my Chinese teacher to see if it's in any way legible. Because honestly, I can't see that being readable by anybody.

cuerdo , in xkcd 2879: Like This One

I am a metaphysicist studying meta jokes

Crackhappy ,
@Crackhappy@lemmy.world avatar

But you didn't like it.

Crackhappy ,
@Crackhappy@lemmy.world avatar

I was going to tell you a time travel joke.

somethingsnappy ,

You did, ans it was great. See you in 1986.

Crackhappy ,
@Crackhappy@lemmy.world avatar

When you told me to tell you to not time travel, I never expected it to come in the form of a lemmy post.

Crackhappy ,
@Crackhappy@lemmy.world avatar

Danger, danger close. Don't listen to this duckless. You know what I mean.

satanmat , in xkcd #2951: Bad Map Projection: Exterior Kansas

That is so amazingly bad on the eyes

quink , in xkcd #2932: Driving PSA

That, to me, looks like an intersection I would never want to turn left on in the first place in anything but the most deserted area.

Lesrid ,

Which is the delusion that the US's traffic engineers based all of their decisions on 60 years ago.

"This'll be fine hardly anybody lives out here"

ilinamorato ,

It's compounded by the delusion that the US's traffic engineers base all of their decisions on now.

"It'll be fine, it's been here for 60 years."

marcos ,

It doesn't work when nobody lives around either.

The only way this can work is if both all cars are from the 30s, only able to move at 50 km/h, and nobody lives around.

TexasDrunk ,

Yep, same. I'll bust a right and flip around a street up the road.

meowMix2525 ,

Yeah this is the only legal way to turn left in a road with a median like this in michigan. You have to turn right to turn left.

lugal , in xkcd #2898: Orbital Argument

Sometimes, both can be wrong. Both orbit the moon

Teppic ,
@Teppic@kbin.social avatar

...whoosh.
In no logical sense does the sun orbit our moon. The earth does however indeed orbit the moon (or technically they both orbit a common centre between the earth and the moon).

Deceptichum ,
@Deceptichum@kbin.social avatar

Are you saying that in no way shape or form, does the moon and its affect on the earth and earth-moon barycenter not influence the solar barycenter?

Id accept no way worth caring about, but as an absolute?

Teppic ,
@Teppic@kbin.social avatar

You seem to be saying that the earth-moon barycente can be logically referred to as just 'the moon' ?

Deceptichum ,
@Deceptichum@kbin.social avatar

The earth does however indeed orbit the moon (or technically they both orbit a common centre between the earth and the moon).

Heres you referring to the Earth moon barycenter as just ‘the moon’

Teppic ,
@Teppic@kbin.social avatar

You've got me there, but by logical extension you are now saying the celestial body the ISS orbits is ...the moon?

lugal ,

I've talked to the man in the moon and he said the sun rises and sets on the moon like it would if the sun orbits the moon. Same for the earth. Both orbit the moon. Face it.

RobotToaster ,
@RobotToaster@mander.xyz avatar

The Earth–Moon–Sun three body problem is apparently something that has been studied quite a bit in physics.

lugal ,

And of cause there are 3 camps and alot of disagreements but essentially, the majority of scientists argue, like me, that it is the moon which is the center. You can always cite some fringe scientists arguing otherwise, that doesn't change the general consensus.

gandalf_der_12te ,

you are the barycenter of your own opinion

yo opinion so massive she needs a crane to get out of bed.

lugal ,

I'm not sure about that but for sure I am the center of my personal narrow Overton Window

kn0wmad1c , in xkcd #2893: Sphere Tastiness
@kn0wmad1c@programming.dev avatar

How do we know the moon isn't tasty? Isn't it made of cheese?

blackluster117 ,
@blackluster117@possumpat.io avatar
Sotuanduso ,
@Sotuanduso@lemm.ee avatar

If so, it's a very sharp cheese. Do not eat, you'll cut your tongue.

LazaroFilm , in xkcd #221: Random Number (9 Nov 2007)
@LazaroFilm@lemmy.world avatar

I prefer using a whole wall of lava lamps for a random number.

MNByChoice ,

Seems like the place to share. Ages ago a group epoxied a webcam and used the random flashes (from cosmic rays?) as their source of randomness.

rmuk ,

I think what they're referring to is a company - I think it's CloudFlare - who use a bunch of physical randomness generators to seed their commercial random number generator. One of those seeds is a webcam pointed at a load of lava lamps.

https://youtu.be/1cUUfMeOijg

huquad , in xkcd #2881: Bug Thread

Fixed it! Thanks guys!

never heard from again

NeighborOfTheBeast ,
EmoDuck ,

I found a solution. This should work: dead link

anarchy79 ,
@anarchy79@lemmy.world avatar

I find people are actually pretty good about this online, i come across a ton of 2 comment posts consisting of user asking for help with a problem answering themselves with the solution they found while waiting. It's become better.

Turun , in xkcd #2946: 1.2 Kilofives

Bro,we have an international standard for this. To count things you need to use the unit of mole. This town has 9.96323e-21 mol of people in it.

Deconceptualist , in xkcd #2907: Schwa
@Deconceptualist@lemm.ee avatar

I bet these sentences sound super weird if you try to pronounce them without using any schwas.

teft ,
@teft@lemmy.world avatar

You would probably just sound like a non-native speaker. I assume it would be similar to weak forms and how weak forms are usually absent from non-native english speech.

NoRodent ,
@NoRodent@lemmy.world avatar

As a non-native speaker, I was kinda confused at first by this comic because in my head the vowels definitely didn't sound all the same. But I personally consider pronunciation of vowels in English to be one of the greatest mysteries in the universe, so no wonder.

Catoblepas ,

As a native English speaker and Spanish learner, consistent vowel pronunciation is so incredible. 🥺 Just looking at a word and knowing how to pronounce it… amazing stuff. Kind of wild that in some languages you don’t have the ‘curse of the self educated’ (randomly mispronouncing words you’ve only read, not heard spoken).

WoahWoah ,

Yeah that blew my mind about Spanish. I was like, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN ALL THESE VOWELS ALWAYS HAVE THE SAME SOUND??? YOU ARE ALLOWED TO DO THAT!??"

Then I started trying to learn to conjugate verbs and I was like ohhhhh, ok, so fuck me.

watersnipje ,

I was BAFFLED to learn at 35 that “awry” does not rhyme with “glory”.

WoahWoah ,

Non-native to where? These aren't all schwa in all English-speaking nations. They're not even all schwa in all US dialects.

Language is crazy.

bstix , (edited )

Great.. now it reads like Apu from Simpsons.

NoIWontPickAName ,

Do you mean Apu?

Abu was the monkey in Aladdin

bstix ,

Yes.

KSPAtlas ,
@KSPAtlas@sopuli.xyz avatar

Sounds like you're still learning english

PrinceWith999Enemies , in [What If?] Would a Submarine Work as a Spaceship?

I feel like the battleship Yamato in the documentary Star Blazers has already demonstrated that it is completely viable to launch a naval vessel into orbit and have it perform with excellence.

Just as a note, though - nukes in space work completely differently than nukes in the atmosphere.

SkybreakerEngineer ,

Nukes in space are basically contact weapons. Wave motion guns are far more effective

LazaroFilm ,
@LazaroFilm@lemmy.world avatar

They mention that in Red Rising (or one of the following books)

SatanicNotMessianic ,

I think they also have an EMP effect that can damage ship/sat electronics.

But, like the internet, a sub is a series of tubes. You have a big horizontal tube that the people and the engine lives in, and you have vertical ones where the things that blow up cities live.

I mean, there are optional smaller horizontal tubes, but I feel like if you’re going to launch a sub into space it really ought to be one of the big ones. Maybe it’s just a Freudian thing.

Potatos_are_not_friends , in xkcd #2890: Relationship Advice

Old people when they talk to young people

OpenStars ,
@OpenStars@startrek.website avatar

Get out now while you can - except give me grandkids first!

brbposting , in xkcd #2946: 1.2 Kilofives

It's sad there is only one Randall Munroe because he is irreplaceable.

https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/a099668a-ba42-4f6a-8d1d-cf608e12ce17.jpeg

Glad he’s young! As long as he outlives me, it'll all be okay.

9point6 ,

I'm just now realising he's much closer to my age than I thought, may there be many decades of xkcd to come

brbposting ,

I should email him and ask if three days a week is infrequent enough to avoid burnout. That’s pretty often to maintain such an incredible level of quality. (Tom Scott had enough after 10 years.) But maybe since it’s his full-time gig, it’s optimal - he can spend most of the week reading cool stuff that gives him tons of good ideas and he actually wouldn’t want to publish any less frequently.

Yearly1845 ,

I mean Randall has been doing the comic since like 2004 or something so I feel like if he was going to burn out, he would have by now. At this point him burning out would just be him retiring.

Revan343 , (edited )

I used to frequent the same IRC channels as Randall; I always got the impression it's a case of "do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life"

Edit: semicolon

brbposting ,

Hell yeah

Puttaneska , (edited ) in xkcd #2943: Unsolved Chemistry Problems

They told me at school that ‘p’ meant ‘negative log’. So ‘pH’ means ‘the negative log of the concentration of Hydrogen ions in moles/litre’.

pH 1 is 1 x 10^-1^ (strong acid)

pH 7 is 1 x 10^-7^ (neutral)

pH 14 is 1 x 10^-14^ (alkaline)

(Chemistry was a long time ago, though)

Speculater , (edited )
@Speculater@lemmy.world avatar

The xkcd breaks it down for us, basically we don't know because the person who coined the term never specified what it was. It's either: puissance, potens, or potenz. Which means potency in French, Dutch Danish and German, the three languages the scientists published in.

Dagwood222 ,

I was taught it meant 'potential' but that was 6th Grade in the US, so I guess it was all a lie.

Bumblefumble ,

Dutch and Danish are not the same language. So yeah, the Danish scientist published in Danish, not Dutch.

Speculater ,
@Speculater@lemmy.world avatar

Oh shit, my bad lol.

nodiet ,

Can the term potency also be used to refer to the exponent in English? Because that is what is meant by the terms in the other languages and I haven't come across that usage of the word potency in English

Speculater ,
@Speculater@lemmy.world avatar

I think that's accurate, the exponent is what it's referring to, but the pedantic types are worried about what the p literally means.

Puttaneska ,

Thank you. I think the decades-old chemistry-class flashback distracted me from thoroughly absorbing the full post!

Wizard_Pope ,
@Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world avatar

You're missing a 4 in the alkaline line

Puttaneska ,

Thank you (4 now added!)

Sam_Bass , in xkcd #2942: Fluid Speech

I get as far as the third panel. Anything beyond that is drunk speak

Zagorath ,
@Zagorath@aussie.zone avatar

I thought the same at first, but then I tried actually saying it out loud. "Yeah, I'm just gonna go to the shops". And I actually think Munroe has it right here, at least for my accent. If I had been asked to say it and carefully analyse it myself, I probably wouldn't have noticed at all that I was eliding more than "going to" to "gonna". And if I had noticed, I still probably would have analysed it as (and I'm using Hangul here because frankly I don't know how to spell out the vowel in the Latin alphabet in a way that actually makes sense) 근 (basically "gun", but with a lazier vowel). But it's definitely been elided down to a single syllable.

The key thing is that this only happens when putting it into the middle of a full sentence. If it's the only word I say, it stays "gonna".

edit: wait 🤦‍♂️. I can use IPA. I'd have analysed it as /gən/ But realistically, Munroe's /gә̃/ is probably more accurate.

grue ,

I can only get to /gә̃/ if I make an effort to say it faster than I ever actually talk. Otherwise, it definitely always has that "n" sound in there.

RememberTheApollo_ ,

Yeah, “gon’” seems about the most efficient form of “going to” that would be recognizable.

Going to > gonna > gon’

I guess if you’ve lived anywhere where speech has drifted a little hillbilly this version is just daily speech rather than any need for speed.

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