2015-11-17

XKCD Isn't Funny - #1588 - Hardware Reductionism

My MRI research shows a clear correlation between the size of the parietal lobe--the part of the brain that handles spatial reasoning--and enjoyment of 3D Doritos®.

This comic kinda reminds me of the comic that started the whole XKCD-hateblog thing, #398. It's almost not really criticizable, but it's got one tiny flaw that ruins it. It's kinda like that one Dara Ó Briain routine about how 2012 could have been the greatest movie of all time with a one-word change. It's not that drastic, but still.

If we talked about phone hardware the way we talked about brain hardware, we'd say things like "Researchers have finally discovered the connection between the button and taking a screenshot" or "Isn't it incredible what this software is capable of?". The comic should be captioned "if phone hardware was like brain hardware", because that is what is being portrayed.

Points are also deducted for not having a second panel captioned with "If we talked about brain hardware the way we talk about phone hardware". It doubles the entertainment value and you don't even have to think of a new joke really. It almost writes itself.

The Ghost Of Carl Wheeler further commands me to mention that this is yet another joke about blurring the line between humans and technology, and that this theme has been thoroughly explored in earlier XKCD strips to the point where it becomes boring.

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