Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT: 18-22 Oct 2010 (1776-1780)
Mr_Rose:
The thing about singularities is that people always seem to misunderstand what they're about. Realise this: one of the first singularities (there have been several) humanity experienced was the development of agriculture.
Universal streaming comms and instantaneous access to off-brain knowledge might well be our singularity, but no-one will be sure until a couple generations down the line.
AsinineAxioms:
I don't think there's a need to psychoanalyze any potential deep, hidden meaning of today's strip. As far as I understand it, this comic is simply an allusion to the video game Portal, in which the player is told several times that "the cake is a lie." So the irony here would simply be that Winslow does not realize that the so-called "singularity" that supposedly occurred was actually a fictional event, or more likely, a prank. It would also explain why the word "singularity" is misspelled in the fourth panel, which according to Jeph's newspost, is intentional. :psyduck:
westrim:
--- Quote from: Carl-E on 19 Oct 2010, 14:21 ---Actually, that's a pretty old comic.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: haikupoet on 19 Oct 2010, 14:25 ---No reason to assume they won't. There will be a lot fewer in the future, and most of the ones you will see will look like Mac minis (or thinner), but gamers, media people, and HPC are keeping the desktop form factor alive despite the dominance of laptops in the market because such people need the expandability and interchangeability of parts.
--- End quote ---
I thought my next words made it clear that that wasn't my perspective. It's one of the tenets of belief in the singularity that among many things, desktops will die out in the next ten years or so (yes, I'm intentionally making it sound religious). It wasn't something to (over)analyze.
That said,I do agree with most of your analysis. There will be cyborgs, but they'll be unfortunates that got a limb accidentally lopped off, not willing subjects, for example.
haikupoet:
--- Quote from: westrim on 19 Oct 2010, 16:23 ---
--- Quote from: Carl-E on 19 Oct 2010, 14:21 ---Actually, that's a pretty old comic.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: haikupoet on 19 Oct 2010, 14:25 ---No reason to assume they won't. There will be a lot fewer in the future, and most of the ones you will see will look like Mac minis (or thinner), but gamers, media people, and HPC are keeping the desktop form factor alive despite the dominance of laptops in the market because such people need the expandability and interchangeability of parts.
--- End quote ---
I thought my next words made it clear that that wasn't my perspective. It's one of the tenets of belief in the singularity that among many things, desktops will die out in the next ten years or so (yes, I'm intentionally making it sound religious). It wasn't something to (over)analyze.
That said,I do agree with most of your analysis. There will be cyborgs, but they'll be unfortunates that got a limb accidentally lopped off, not willing subjects, for example.
--- End quote ---
But I loooooove overanalysis :-)
And you know how I know you're right? I don't see too many track and field athletes getting their legs chopped off so they can use running prostheses.
You know what else is fun to overanalyze? Supersoldiers. They gotta retire sometime...
Random Wanderer:
--- Quote from: westrim on 19 Oct 2010, 11:45 ---Nope. I mean, you can ask, but I won't comply I'm fine with people asking questions, but asking questions while clearly showing that you did not put the slightest effort into finding the answer before asking is rightfully ridiculed. If they were asking about the comic, that would be okay. It would also be fine if they asked about it saying "I don't get it and google didn't help. Wth are they talking about?" But this, asking us about a term obviously not native to the comic, is annoying and should be treated as such.
--- Quote from: someone1074 on 19 Oct 2010, 11:27 ---Thank you, Tormuse. Beat me to it.
That giant "GOOGLE IT" is so fucking ostentatious too...
--- End quote ---
But it got your attention, didn't it? I dislike people messing with font sizes/colors (there's someone here that makes every post yellow), but occasionally it's useful for emphasis.
--- End quote ---
But your response was not even suited to the question they were asking. No amount of Google-searching would have answered their question, because it was not "what is a singularity" but "what was the specific event that Winslow and Pintsize are talking about, which happened yesterday, and qualified as the singularity?" So not only were you insulting, you were incorrect, because you were insulting them over asking a question they hadn't even asked.
In short you made a fool of yourself by making a big deal about a topic that no one else was even talking about at the time. That is another reason why one shouldn't resort to outbursts like that. If you don't accept politeness as a reason, at least you should accept self-interest.
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