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Yay snow!

wrong time of the year here

Please no, we're too close to the Equator for that

If it'll cut down on the bugs this summer, I guess. 🙄

Please no, it's too cold for me.

Well, it'll make a fine excuse for more hot chocolate/cider/tea/coffee/etc

other

[Gyrre]

Huhn. Been awhile since I've made one of these.
I've no idea how many comics we'll get this week, so '????" en lieu of any definitive end number.

[Tova]

Wrong time of the year here, and it never snows here regardless.

It probably would cut down on the flies if it did snow, I suppose.

I guess I want to click on every single one of the options, honestly.

Yes, all of them.

[sitnspin]

I wish we'd had that service fee policy in place when I was a barista.

[Tova]

Classic QC Monday comic. Friday introduces a bit of drama, a bunch of people weigh in with all the terrible mistakes that have been made on both sides, and then on Monday it's all easily resolved in two and a half panels, with plenty of room left over for a gag.

[Gyrre]

Hmmm. Maybe I should have included an option about terrible winter drivers.

Before I moved where I live now, I ran railroaders up here for crew transport. One winter some dink managed to get their stuck on the far side of an overpass support pillar. Roughly where that degree sign (°) is in the rough text diagragm below. Dude's back bumper was touching the far side of the column.

  .                         
/.  \| ___|___ |°/. \

[Gyrre]

Wrong time of the year here, and it never snows here regardless.

It probably would cut down on the flies if it did snow, I suppose.

I guess I want to click on every single one of the options, honestly.

Yes, all of them.

I'd have to delete the poll for that.

[Tova]

Nah, I honestly wasn't actually requesting the option to select every option in the poll. All good. 

[Gyrre]

Nah, I honestly wasn't actually requesting the option to select every option in the poll. All good. 

I mean, multi-option polls were kind of my thing, and there are only two votes so far.

[sitnspin]

Weird how when people actually communicate things get resolved much more easily.

[Tova]

Yeah, solid communication skills would kill an awful lot of romcoms.

[St.Clair]

and sitcoms, and probably a few dotcoms.

[Farideh]

The amount of times that I yell at a screen/book to 'can you guys just talk to each other!'... The 'misunderstandings and hijinks due to lack of proper communication' trope has really worn out its welcome, IMO.

[sitnspin]

90% of all movie and television plots would be ruined if people in them behaved even remotely like actual humans act. Wacky hijinks aren't as much of a thing in real life because for the most part, people don't run around like aliens pretending to be human based on third hand knowledge of how humans think and behave

[BenRG]

Today's lesson: Always check the price list because you never know if you are actually asking for a billable service. I admit that this is an extreme example but it isn't as if CoD makes a policy of hiding their cost of their customer emotional health services!

[St.Clair]

90% of all movie and television plots would be ruined if people in them behaved even remotely like actual humans act. Wacky hijinks aren't as much of a thing in real life because for the most part, people don't run around like aliens pretending to be human based on third hand knowledge of how humans think and behave

Consider what this implies about screenwriters.

[Tova]

Probably not what you think it says, I would daresay.

[oddtail]

90% of all movie and television plots would be ruined if people in them behaved even remotely like actual humans act. Wacky hijinks aren't as much of a thing in real life because for the most part, people don't run around like aliens pretending to be human based on third hand knowledge of how humans think and behave

Consider what this implies about screenwriters.

Not much. Comedy has been a funhouse mirror of reality, I'd guess, pretty much for as long as comedy's existed. Or at least, more precisely, comedy removed from reality has always been an option.

[Gyrre]

90% of all movie and television plots would be ruined if people in them behaved even remotely like actual humans act. Wacky hijinks aren't as much of a thing in real life because for the most part, people don't run around like aliens pretending to be human based on third hand knowledge of how humans think and behave

Consider what this implies about screenwriters.

I'd argue it's more a reflection of the producers.

[John Allenson]

Hurray for Aurelia giving a real apology.  Hurray for Claire having perspective.

About snow, While I don't LOVE snow ... this is Canada in December.

[Mavadotar]

Honestly until I read Bubble's speech... bubble, I read that as the Legend of Zelda chest opening fanfare.

[Farideh]

I did think 'Also sprach Zarathustra'. The comic made me giggle, it's very random today.

[Tova]

90% of all movie and television plots would be ruined if people in them behaved even remotely like actual humans act. Wacky hijinks aren't as much of a thing in real life because for the most part, people don't run around like aliens pretending to be human based on third hand knowledge of how humans think and behave

Consider what this implies about screenwriters.

I'd argue it's more a reflection of the producers.

I'd argue it's much much more of a reflection of your personal movie and television preferences.

[snubnose]

White christmas. Something I dont see often here in Germany. Well, in my childhood it was different, but that was like 40 years ago.

Remember, climate change doesnt exist and its not caused by mankind. - Your friendly oil industry.

90% of all movie and television plots would be ruined if people in them behaved even remotely like actual humans act.

Why, yes. Thats called "bad writing".

I'd argue it's more a reflection of the producers.

That, too, but really unbelievably stupid writers are a problem too.

Hollywood has a lot more money than they have talented writers. Or producers. Or directors. Or actors.

[Farideh]

Even when I still lived in Western Europe, I never saw a white Christmas. Now that I'm on the Southern Hemisphere, I still don't.

[sitnspin]

Screenwriters write what sells or they go hungry, producers decide what sells. We'll never know how many good screenwriters there are that never get their work shown.

[Scarlet Manuka]

It never snows here, but I wish it would.

It would take a true miracle for it to snow at Christmas time, however. This year our city's forecast for Christmas day is currently for 42°C (108°F).

Our area of the city is slighty worse, too:

------- Wed  Thu  Fri  Sat  Sun  Mon
City    32     35   38   42   41   40
Us      33     39   43   43   43   42

The only kind of white Christmas we get is white-hot.

[Beast_Reborn]

Screenwriters write what sells or they go hungry, producers decide what sells. We'll never know how many good screenwriters there are that never get their work shown.

Well, ultimately, consumers decide what sells. There's certainly a place for extremely realistic fiction, but most people don't actually want to see real life duplicated too closely in art. Real life often fails to be funny, exciting, and/or emotionally moving.

If there's anyone who doesn't understand the new strip, this is recommended viewing.

[Tova]

Okay, so while Hollywood is obviously confected, I just wanted to throw in an opinion that the suggestion that people in 90% them don't behave "even remotely like actual humans act" is maybe an overstatement, maybe even hyperbole. I mean, there's usually a remote resemblance.  Sometimes even a reasonable resemblance.

Sometimes it's deliberately entertaining nonsense, sometimes it's constructed so they can tell a story in 2 hours, sometimes it's (as people in the industry are sometimes wont to say) a lie to tell a deeper truth.

But also, there's a unstated assumption that realistic writing is better writing, and to that I would say, well, it depends. On one hand you don't want to lose your audience's willing suspension of disbelief, but on the other, 100% realism could be seen as... well, dull.

Of course, realism is a legitimate genre of film, and if that's your preference, then power to you. But that's stepping into subjective territory.

To get back to QC itself, I wouldn't call the behaviour of QC characters terribly realistic. There's a lot of stuff in QC that is real, for sure. But there are some aspects that are not terribly realistic as well.

Warning blah blah blah

There's certainly a place for extremely realistic fiction, but most people don't actually want to see real life duplicated too closely in art. Real life often fails to be funny, exciting, and/or emotionally moving.

Yeah, as I said, only put somewhat better than I managed. 

[snubnose]

Why realistic fiction ?

This new tv show Arcane for example, a fantasy story based on a computer game, was good at this. Everyone has comprehensible motives for what they do. Even the villains are the heroes of their own plot.

Thats good storywriting right there.

It was also really good in many other respects. For example the combat was very realistic (ignoring of course fictional elements like strength items).

[Tova]

Everyone has comprehensible motives for what they do. Even the villains are the heroes of their own plot.

Thats good storywriting right there.

Those are both fine and good elements of storytelling, but a film with characters whose motives are not at all easily comprehended, and villains who are their own worst enemy, do not necessarily in and of themselves unrealistic or bad films make.

[Gyrre]

Thought it was a bit long for a LoZ reference.

EDIT: typo fix

[cesium133]

It never snows here, but I wish it would.

It would take a true miracle for it to snow at Christmas time, however. This year our city's forecast for Christmas day is currently for 42°C (108°F).

Our area of the city is slighty worse, too:

------- Wed  Thu  Fri  Sat  Sun  Mon
City    32     35   38   42   41   40
Us      33     39   43   43   43   42

The only kind of white Christmas we get is white-hot.

Reading the table before the text, I interpreted those temperatures as being in Fahrenheit. That would be reasonable Fahrenheit temperatures in the U.S. for this time of year, but in Celsius? Wow.

[Tova]

I can well remember the experience of first watching 2001 as a kid with my family because we thought there was something wrong with the TV or player when we were confronted with this alien-sounding music and a black screen until the MGM logo finally appeared.

[DaiJB]

"Let it snow?"...I wish... I live in a southern hemisphere (i.e., xmas in summer) city that has broken records for the duration of its heatwaves...

So - "Other" - because it's just not ever gonna happen...

[hedgie]

Sadly, if your summers are anything like those here in California, the “white Christmas” you get would probably be ash.

[snubnose]

No new comic ? Weird.



I'm european. I can read Celsius and Kelvin. Fahrenheit, nope. Have to ask Google for that. Also feet, stone, whatever. That all means nothing to me.

Recently saw a video about one inch sensors and the author complained there was no actual relation to one inch about the sizes of these sensors, for historic reasons dating back to tube based light recording devices. I had no clue because inch as a measurement means nothing to me, either. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw-KNmq5WRM

And yes on the southern hemisphere its currently summer. It is known.

Those are both fine and good elements of storytelling, but a film with characters whose motives are not at all easily comprehended, and villains who are their own worst enemy, do not necessarily in and of themselves unrealistic or bad films make.

Its okay/cool/realistic if your characters have layers, or are mysterious in some ways. However in many cases its just that the script authors have no idea about the motivation of their characters, instead of keeping them intentionally ambiguous between different possibilities, and thats plain bad.

Being his own worst enemy fits quite well to the villain in Arcane, actually.

[hedgie]

Most people I know who can work comfortably with both are either those from the UK/Canada who were in the right age range during the changeover, or US folks who work in the sciences.

[dutchrvl]

I do love snow and winter in general, but we just managed to finally buy our first home and I suspect my opinion of snow might change rather abruptly once I fully realize I have to take care of snow removal, worry myself about snow on the roof, etc.

[Penquin47]

Other - I hate snow, but I live in Farmland USA and if we don't get snow, we don't get corn or cotton and the cattle go hungry.  I will suffer through it for the sake of the land/cows.

[Roborat]

Wouldn't a cube have 8 elbows, not 4?

[Tova]

As usual, I got confused for a moment then realised there must be a

NEW COMIC

This is silly. But having said that:

Wouldn't a cube have 8 elbows, not 4?

4 elbows and 4 knees, surely.

[Pilchard123]

If you triangulate the surface of a cube, you end up with 12 isosceles right triangles, each of which has two legs (assuming that an edge can be said to be made of a leg from both adjacent triangles). None of those legs have any bends in them - indeed, none can have any bend in them or else it would not be the leg of a triangle - so I would argue there are no knees or elbows, but at the apex of each triangle there is a pelvis.

[pwhodges]

Most people I know who can work comfortably with both are either those from the UK/Canada who were in the right age range during the changeover, or US folks who work in the sciences.

The UK at least has only changed to metric in a half-arsed way, retaining miles, for instance, and with common casual use of pounds or feet and inches. 

But as a engineering student in the late 1960s I was made to work with both sets of units, sometimes together (e.g. an experimental setup with some Fahrenheit thermometers and some Centigrade (as we called Celsius at the time).  In the electricity and magnetism part of the course, we had to buy new textbooks halfway through when they changed the units the course was taught in (which in this case also altered which units were considered fundamental as opposed to derived, and hence many of the basic equations).

[hedgie]

I honestly do know Brits who talk Celcius when it’s cold and Farenheit when it’s hot.  And of course, how does anyone even think about how many miles per litre their car gets?  The pint (and I don’t mean the US one) is perfect where it is, though.  Enough more than a half litre to be enough, and when a litre is just too much beer.

[Farideh]

Being Dutch, I'm metric and Celsius all the way.

Re. the comic: d'awww!

[Is it cold in here?]

I'm glad they're talking about the issue of Faye's inevitable decline. They will have to think about her mortality.

[Tova]

My weird confession for the week (maybe year) is that Bubbles used to remind me of Is it cold in here? but today reminds me of Farideh.

[BenRG]

Today's strip reminds me that I'm pretty sure  that Bubbles long ago started work on a Faye chassis #2 into which to put her girlfriend's brain when her current meat chassis wears out. At some point, she'll remember the concept of 'consent' and actually ask Faye's permission. However, I also think that she's puzzling over what is the right time to bring it up.

[John Allenson]

Maybe there are different words for this.

Bubbles and Faye don't exist in our reality.  The banter in this strip is unrealistic for us.  Within their own reality, these are completely realistic options.

The second is the type of reality I want in stories.  They should be internally consistent.  Actions should have consequences.  Physics might have some exceptions but should still work.  That's why I loved Into the Spiderverse and hated Bladerunner 2049.

[JimC]

I'm finding it a bit disappointing that the AIs are getting more and more humanlike in behaviour.  Its Niven's principle - there are minds that think as well as you do, but differently, so its a little sad that they are teding to think exactly the same as the human characters.