XKCD Isn't Funny - #1381 - MARGIN

I once wondered, as I sat in front of my computer, listening to UK garage, what percent of all XKCDs would have been able to fit on Twitter. While I doubt I'll ever be bored enough to check, anyone counting can add this to their list. I checked, and the text in this comic is exactly 140 characters as written. That alone takes a lot of points off, considering there's not even a doodle to add to it.

A problem with text-based communications is that it's really hard to realize when someone's being sarcastic or lying unless they play it up, and even then it doesn't always work*. When reading this, my interpretation went something like this:

Person: "Holy crap, a proof that information is infinitely compressible! I shalt write it in my biology textbook. Damn, there's only one margin I can put it in, and it's too small. Oh, wait. I could just compress the proof!"

I checked explainxkcd since obviously ":(" wouldn't make sense at the end of that chain of events. This comic is apparently actually a parody of Fermat's Last Theorem. The problem is, there's nothing in the comic that points this out. Someone who had just learned about FLT might get it, but as someone who hadn't heard about FLT until I had to write this post, this comic just didn't make sense to me.

As with many XKCDs, the idea isn't terrible, but the execution is. If we'd been shown a stick figure dude reading out FLT to a friend and saying that he'll pull a joke on everyone just like Fermat, that would have been a decent setup. If we'd been shown the stick figure slowly realizing his idea wouldn't work, with his friend calling him an idiot, that would have been a decent punchline. As it is, we get neither.

I seem to be ending a lot of my reviews by complaining about the small thing that bugged me more than it should have, and I see no reason to stop yet: Only pricks write out emoticons on paper (proof: I do it.).



*I was once E-friends with someone that used "Mhm" to mean "Yes", and up to that point I'd only ever seen it used to mean "Yeah, sure, whatever buddy." so there was a hi-LAR-ious miscommunication between the two of us.**

**She ended up being a really terrible conversationalist anyway. Whenever I told her something she was doing annoyed me, she'd do it again and think she was being funny. She was a bitch about everything too. Just a really awful person to talk to in general.