August 05, 2006

Randall's very blind date. Randall Munroe, physics nerd and creator of the webcomic xkcd (which has been a little NSFW lately), has created a system to determine the best thing ever. Not content to stop there, though, he's putting besthing.info's algorithm to the test by asking the Internet to come up with the best date ever.

Believe it or not, someone's agreed in advance to go on this date with him: Andrea (here's her DeviantArt gallery). Whatever's at the top of this list on August 19th will be Andrea and Randall's next date. If you're interested in stuff like this - namely, webcomic spinoffs that use public input to compile awesome lists - check out the Regret Index and the Things That Don't Exist list, both of which were inspired by Dinosaur Comics.

posted by fighting_engineer 17 years ago
  • At the risk of making certain poeples have fits wear they shake and grimace and they make sounds like a Tourette's victim on crack because I'm daring to post in a thread....... I found this to be ineffefably sad. So many of the choices seem to fall into the wish I could of, should of, didn't categories. For me the choices illustrated the deficiencies of a misspent life. I suppose many monkeys would find this "Which is Better" an easy choice: Taking a long hike on a cool autumn day or People not ruining things online by be perverted and/or stupid. Personally, the walk in Meatworld sounds like the better of the two to me.
  • Berek, I don't have any problem with you personally or anything, but it seems some people do. My suggestion is that maybe you should try to ratchet it back a little. Condense 20 odd comments into one of absolutely surpassing oddness. Treat it like a conversation and chime in as it rolls. Just go easy. Seriously, no offence, but you seem to be getting people's backs up and maybe it would be a good idea to think about slotting into the rhythm of the place.
  • Oh, Berek. We only hate you because we love you.
  • It's true that any one of these sites can get you down temporarily (especially the Regret Index - yeesh, there's some personal stuff on there), but the top lists for the first two are actually really heartening. The Best Things are really inarguably good, and the Best Dates are generally whimsical and fun despite the dozens of "Sex! lolz"-type suggestions I've seen while voting.
  • Those comics are great, fighting_engineer.
  • I am going to play devil's advocate and say that the comics call to "not be afraid" is not really exemplified in the stuff he is putting out there on the net. It is a bit of manufactured uniqueness, and is a bit cliche. It is almost as if doing something unique is the ultimate defining point in American society, but the uniqueness is rather arbitrary. I sort of resent people who make a call to "not be afraid" and yet do nothing long lasting, outside of a blind date and the best thing ever. Maybe I just started on the wrong webcomic page. I am not trying to be a jerk here, but come on, its another webcomic, and two stupid web projects which really don't mean anything.
  • I was doing the picking for a while, and it was fun, but then I was given two suggestions that were both so innappropriate (they involved a crime or hurting someone else) that I didn't know what to do - I didn't want to endorse either of them. Whereas I can endorse building a blanket fort or eating ice-cream anyday. Preferably ice-cream in a blanket fort. I think I didn't spell preferably right. I can never tell. Maybe Wolof will correct it for me. You know how some people can just tell that a word is spelled correctly by looking at it? I'm not one of them. I've written that word a million times, but I could not for the life of my sweet little basil plant tell you how to spell it right now. Maybe I will know tomorrow.
  • This and this both amused me. Oh hell, let's throw this one in as well.
  • You spelled it right, jb. :) #2 found an xkcd strip linked somewhere a few days ago and I linked it in the thread about the Johnston Atoll -- hooray Baader-Meinhof -- and thought the strips were cute, some less than others, but fairly consistently readable. I have yet to play with the dating stuff, though.
  • Glamajamma: here's what the xkcd guy says about the date project in the main link: "So, Internet. Decide what date we'll go on, and participate in a massive test of a decent voting system. Voting systems are pretty important, but a lot of people don't realize their impact. Check out this site for information on my favored method for how we could dramatically improve our elections in the US." So from what I gather, this guy's trying to test out (and turn public attention toward) voting systems in a fun way, and that's potentially a good project with a lasting impact. Don't know whether it's unique, though, or why today's xkcd comic is such a big uniqueness screed.
  • i love the xkcd comics. thanks f_e. i don't agree with his analysis of voting systems*, but it's good that he's promoting some thought. *proportional-based transferable vote systems are demonstrably more representative.
  • New sites by the xkcd guy, in the same vein as Best Thing: The Fairest The Funniest
  • As long as I'm updating this, I might as well include this new link I'm sure you'll enjoy: The Cutest.