Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

[KillianHawkeye]

WTF am I even reading right now?

[Wraith]

WTF am I even reading right now?

It's a logical fallacy called the American Comedy Reversal, which really hit it's peak in the early 2000's but has a much longer history on either side of the decade.

The premise of the fallacy is that something "funny" is typically caused by something being "unusual or unexpected" - a surprising twist on words, or an exaggerated situation brought to a logical but implausible conclusion - and assumes therefore that something "unusual or unexpected" must therefore also be "funny". See also: Paulie Shore, Adam Sandler, Noel Fielding, the internet circa 2005, the concept of 'lolrandumb' and any kind of 'stoner humour' perpetuated cheaply by Hollywood.

In other words, I haven't a fekkin' clue.

[Cikomyr2]

It's a logical fallacy called the American Comedy Reversal, which really hit it's peak in the early 2000's but has a much longer history on either side of the decade.

The premise of the fallacy is that something "funny" is typically caused by something being "unusual or unexpected" - a surprising twist on words, or an exaggerated situation brought to a logical but implausible conclusion - and assumes therefore that something "unusual or unexpected" must therefore also be "funny". See also: Paulie Shore, Adam Sandler, Noel Fielding, the internet circa 2005, the concept of 'lolrandumb' and any kind of 'stoner humour' perpetuated cheaply by Hollywood.

In other words, I haven't a fekkin' clue.

In my opinion, it was a pushback against what I would call "Formulaic Comedies" that plagues the cultural landscape of the time before.

The concept of randomness and unexpected/improvised behavior was a breath of fresh air at the time. It also coincided with the raise of TV reality shows that centered its appeal on alleged improvised behavior

[Wraith]

In my opinion, it was a pushback against what I would call "Formulaic Comedies" that plagues the cultural landscape of the time before.

On the one hand, this is specifically why I said 'American' comedy reversal. Elsewhere, we had Monty Python's Flying Circus as far back as 1969, followed by a revival of similarly chaotic nonsense in the late 1980's - The Fast Show, The Young Ones, A Bit of Fry & Laurie, etc. While I don't claim encyclopedic knowledge of US TV, it's hard to bring to mind something similar until the late 90's/early2000's.

Partly you're right, it's because they're cheap to make ("lolbutts" doesn't need an academy award winning writer, hopefully) and because of the rise of reality TV changing fashions and tastes. I have also often wondered if it's to do with nostalgia. The 80's was a chaotic time for many forms of media, and the teenagers who grew up on it then became adults and eventually worked themselves into positions of authority where they could devise and commission shows like the ones they grew up with. That's how we ended up with a She-Ra TV show in 2021 and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie in 2014.

On the other hand, I just made the whole thing up as a vaguely humorous non-sequitur to answer KillianHawkeye. I have no idea if its a real thing, its certainly not by that name, but in principle it answers for a lot of things

[halfeye]

On the one hand, this is specifically why I said 'American' comedy reversal. Elsewhere, we had Monty Python's Flying Circus as far back as 1969, followed by a revival of similarly chaotic nonsense in the late 1980's - The Fast Show, The Young Ones, A Bit of Fry & Laurie, etc. While I don't claim encyclopedic knowledge of US TV, it's hard to bring to mind something similar until the late 90's/early2000's.

Monty Python's flying circus were great, but they weren't by any means the first. On radio there were the Goons and before them ITMA (never heard it myself, and I don't think Milligan was a fan), round the Horne, the navy lark, on film the first Carry On was made in 1958.

[Max_Killjoy]

It's a logical fallacy called the American Comedy Reversal, which really hit it's peak in the early 2000's but has a much longer history on either side of the decade.

The premise of the fallacy is that something "funny" is typically caused by something being "unusual or unexpected" - a surprising twist on words, or an exaggerated situation brought to a logical but implausible conclusion - and assumes therefore that something "unusual or unexpected" must therefore also be "funny". See also: Paulie Shore, Adam Sandler, Noel Fielding, the internet circa 2005, the concept of 'lolrandumb' and any kind of 'stoner humour' perpetuated cheaply by Hollywood.

In other words, I haven't a fekkin' clue.

See also, any Discord channel, forum thread, or other venue dedicated to memes.

[Delicious Taffy]

Y'all's a buncha nerds.

[Vinyadan]

Sam and Emmet are the first QC characters I find interesting in years. I hope we get more of them.

[mythmonster2]

The last couple strips have felt classic QC, just characters in a workplace throwing around banter and screwing around.

[Gez]

Emmett's mom reminds me of how GAFA moguls ban phones.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

Are Canadians really that clueless about Imperial units? (That's "traditional units" to some people - in the UK, we call them Imperial, cause they were codified by Palpatine.)

I was born at the time the UK started moving from Imperial to metric - but we still use the old measurements for colloquial stuff, like personal weight and height (in stones* and feet and inches), distances between locations (in miles), beer (in pints of course), and so on. We use grams and kilos and litres for shopping. Bizarrely, we measure fuel efficiency in miles per gallon, but buy fuel in litres (or at least other people do that, I drive electric nowadays).

My friend's kids don't understand inches and pounds, cause they grew up with centimetres and kilograms - but feet and miles are still so commonly used that everyone has a rough idea of what they are.

* A stone seems to be a particularly British mass - it's 14 pounds, and I had to go look it up - British folk of a certain age will give their weight in stone and fractions of stone: "I'm 12 and a half stone" = 175 lb = 80 kg (ish)

[VoxRationis]

More than just the unit conversion itself, the question arises of how Emmett ignored unit-less bodily feedback about heat in spite of being on the verge of collapse. That sort of insouciance towards the elements is typically associated with wilful stubbornness for the sake of virtue ("I won't let the team down," "I can't let the boss think I'm lazy," etc.), yet Emmett wasn't doing anything and wasn't trying to live up to any expectations of performance.

[Delicious Taffy]

Are Canadians really that clueless about Imperial units?

I get the impression from YouTube that they're at least aware of the backwards Imperial system, but maybe Canadian Kids These Days don't have the intimate off-hand knowledge of it that's expected of an American.

[Mechalich]

Fahrenheit to Celsius is the big one that confuses people, because the conversion is a royal pain in the a** and doesn't have any sort of clear correspondence. It's also the rare conversion where the Imperial unit, for the portion of the scale commonly experienced by humans, actually has greater precision than the metric one.

Many of the other ones are far more intuitive. As long as you keep the numbers small a meter is roughly a yard and a kilogram is roughly two pounds and an inch is roughly 2.5 centimeters. You can do these conversions in you head and while the numbers will be off, they'll still be within the right ballpark.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

Fahrenheit to Celsius is the big one that confuses people, because the conversion is a royal pain in the a** and doesn't have any sort of clear correspondence. It's also the rare conversion where the Imperial unit, for the portion of the scale commonly experienced by humans, actually has greater precision than the metric one.

Many of the other ones are far more intuitive. As long as you keep the numbers small a meter is roughly a yard and a kilogram is roughly two pounds and an inch is roughly 2.5 centimeters. You can do these conversions in you head and while the numbers will be off, they'll still be within the right ballpark.

Estimating F to C isn't too hard if you know the rough-n-ready formula for most human-experienced temperatures: (F-30) / 2 ~ C
e.g. 90 F converted to C: 90 - 30 = 60; 60 / 2 = 30; so 90 F is about 30 C
- as the real answer is 32.22 C, you're in the right area

And back the other way: (C * 2) +30 ~ F
e.g. 16 C converted to F: 16 * 2 = 32; 32 + 30 = 62; so 16 C is about 62 F
- as the real answer is 60.8 F, it's still about right

Still kinda works for freezing temperatures - e.g. -10 C: -10 * 2 = -20; -20 +30 = 10 F (real answer 14 F)
e.g. 0 F to C: 0 - 30 = -30; -30 / 2 = 15 C (real answer 17.7 C)

Thank you, thank you - I'll be here all week!

[Wraith]

The last couple strips have felt classic QC, just characters in a workplace throwing around banter and screwing around.

It's nice when there are 4 people in a room all talking to each other, rather than 3 people in a room with 2 talking to each other and the third making completely ignored comments off to one side.

Are Canadians really that clueless about Imperial units? (That's "traditional units" to some people - in the UK, we call them Imperial, cause they were codified by Palpatine.)

I seem to be about the same age as you, so I don't want this to come off as "kids these days, get off my lawn" kinda thing, but Emmett is 14-15 years old - the conversion to metric pre-dates her birth by about 37 years. It could potentially pre-date her grandparents' birth!

It was pretty redundant even when I was growing up. I mostly learned Imperial units in my 20's when I was working as a butcher; anyone more than about 5 years older than me exclusively used Imperial weights out of habit and I had to learn what they wanted, and THAT was well over a decade ago. Anyone 5 years or more younger than me has never had to think about them, except when listening to their grandparents' rambling, and even I have had no reason to learn how to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius (212 degrees is a ridiculous number for boiling water!)

[eee]

Y'all's a buncha nerds.

Compliments will get you nowhere.

[Max_Killjoy]

I used to be more in favor of changing over to metric, but the way the current US system is denigrated, often with the country and people catching some of the derision in the process, has eroded my support for such a change.

Anyway, no wonder Emmett is overheating, they're wearing a heavy shirt under that sweatshirt.

At 80F, I'd be miserable in just the heavy shirt on my upper body, let alone layered and hooded.

[Willie the Duck]

More than just the unit conversion itself, the question arises of how Emmett ignored unit-less bodily feedback about heat in spite of being on the verge of collapse. That sort of insouciance towards the elements is typically associated with wilful stubbornness for the sake of virtue ("I won't let the team down," "I can't let the boss think I'm lazy," etc.), yet Emmett wasn't doing anything and wasn't trying to live up to any expectations of performance.

I'm thinking the sweatshirt (and particular the hood in which they could hide most of their face) is some form of social armor.

Anyone 5 years or more younger than me has never had to think about them, except when listening to their grandparents' rambling, and even I have had no reason to learn how to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius (212 degrees is a ridiculous number for boiling water!)

Right, but freezing and boiling of water (at sea-level atmospheric pressure, etc.) are arbitrary thresholds to begin with.
Speaking as someone from the US, I recognize the benefit of the metric system. However, that benefit is in the convenient additive quality of base ten numbers*, not the exact size of the units or from where they might have come**.
*anyone who has done a carpentry project where you have a 10' space, with one foot, three and three-eighths inches of moulding extending from one side and two feet, six and seven-sixteenths inches from the other, and having to figure out how long to cut your piece to complete the wall will recognize how much easier it would have been with decimalization.
**The meter, as I understand it, was originally 0.0000001x the distance from the equator to the North Pole, also a number which retroactively looks like a nice round number but is also arbitrary.

[Cikomyr2]

Are Canadians really that clueless about Imperial units? (That's "traditional units" to some people - in the UK, we call them Imperial, cause they were codified by Palpatine.)

I was born at the time the UK started moving from Imperial to metric - but we still use the old measurements for colloquial stuff, like personal weight and height (in stones* and feet and inches), distances between locations (in miles), beer (in pints of course), and so on. We use grams and kilos and litres for shopping. Bizarrely, we measure fuel efficiency in miles per gallon, but buy fuel in litres (or at least other people do that, I drive electric nowadays).

My friend's kids don't understand inches and pounds, cause they grew up with centimetres and kilograms - but feet and miles are still so commonly used that everyone has a rough idea of what they are.

* A stone seems to be a particularly British mass - it's 14 pounds, and I had to go look it up - British folk of a certain age will give their weight in stone and fractions of stone: "I'm 12 and a half stone" = 175 lb = 80 kg (ish)

Speaking as a Quebecois, F temperature are usually only relevant for cooking (150+ degree range) and pool water. Not weather or room temperature; strangely. Even then, I never really memorized the pool water key temperature in F, I only use C.

For mass, we use metric except for weighting people (rough rule).

For distance, we use metric except for weighting people

errr.. yhea, that seems to be the common denominator. The main leftover use of Imperial units are the day-to-day uses, where as the rest of our society transitioned away from Imperial toward Metric, and we just don't learn silly things like Faranheit.

[Gwynfrid]

Speaking as a Quebecois, F temperature are usually only relevant for cooking (150+ degree range) and pool water. Not weather or room temperature; strangely. Even then, I never really memorized the pool water key temperature in F, I only use C.

For mass, we use metric except for weighting people (rough rule).

For distance, we use metric except for weighting people

errr.. yhea, that seems to be the common denominator. The main leftover use of Imperial units are the day-to-day uses, where as the rest of our society transitioned away from Imperial toward Metric, and we just don't learn silly things like Faranheit.

As an immigrant to Canada (Ontario), I had to acquire some understanding of Imperial units, much to my dismay... I think this "system" is objectively more complex and only justified for the sake of tradition, but being the newcomer, it's on me to adjust to local customs. Folks still use Imperial for day to day stuff, even officially, like the doctor will take my measurements in feet, inches, and pounds. The same goes for construction, like wood, tools, etc. Produce is sold in pounds. And anyway, the exposure to US media (this factor might be somewhat less prevalent in Québec?) means it's quite impossible to ignore Fahrenheit, miles per gallon, and other outdated ways of measuring stuff. For a Canadian to be wholly clueless about feet vs meters stretches credulity, imo.

[Wraith]

**The meter, as I understand it, was originally 0.0000001x the distance from the equator to the North Pole, also a number which retroactively looks like a nice round number but is also arbitrary.

Originally yes, but here's the clever part - when they* realised it wasn't accurate, the definition was changed. It's now based on a universal constant, the speed of light. I forget exactly how it was worked out, something about how far a photon can travel in the smallest observable amount of time, or something.

The point is, an inch is based on the supposed width of a man's thumb, and a foot is 12 of those because 3,000 years ago some Italian guys really liked the number 12. I will hear no more complaints about the metric system being the arbitrary one!

* You know - 'Them'. The kind of people who do that sort of thing.

[Manga Shoggoth]

Originally yes, but here's the clever part - when they* realised it wasn't accurate, the definition was changed. It's now based on a universal constant, the speed of light. I forget exactly how it was worked out, something about how far a photon can travel in the smallest observable amount of time, or something.

I was curious enough to look it up, as I know the definition has changed since my degree, but apparantly in order:

• One ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole along a great circle (so the Earth's circumference is approximately 40000 km).
• A prototype metre bar (the actual bar used was changed in 1889).
• A certain number (1,650,763.73, according to my SI Physical Databook) of wavelengths of a certain emission line of krypton-86.
• And currently defined as the length of the path travelled by light in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.

Sources: Wikipedia and my old Data Book

I do feel sorry for the person who had to count out 1,650,763.73 wavelengths - At least measuring 1/299,792,458 of a second doesn't take so long...

[Willie the Duck]

Originally yes, but here's the clever part - when they* realised it wasn't accurate, the definition was changed. It's now based on a universal constant, the speed of light. I forget exactly how it was worked out, something about how far a photon can travel in the smallest observable amount of time, or something.

Yep. Not sure if I consider it clever or not, but certainly necessary. Looks like they finally have the kilogram not being defined in relation to a specific object, which I know was a long process.

The point is, an inch is based on the supposed width of a man's thumb, and a foot is 12 of those because 3,000 years ago some Italian guys really liked the number 12. I will hear no more complaints about the metric system being the arbitrary one!
* You know - 'Them'. The kind of people who do that sort of thing.

We're going around in circles. My point was in response to your point about 212 being a ridiculous number for water boiling. Regardless, you should check out the derivation of the scale for Fahrenheit if you want arbitrary (because we all worry about the effect of Salis Armoniac on water freezing ability, like, all the time).

As to a foot being twelve inches, it has the advantage of being evenly divisible by more numbers. That actually makes a lot of sense in any situation where you spend more time dividing things than summating them, and the number is unlikely to go over 1. And that later part is where metric is clearly and admittedly superior. That Celsius starts at water freezing, and goes up to 100 at water boiling (two arbitrary points, and ones where them being at exactly 0 and 100 aren't inherently useful for any specific purpose) isn't.

[Gez]

Say what you want but the imperial system without the imperial system you wouldn't be able to know that one ounce is 52.5 groats.

There's twelve inches in a foot, but only four in a hand. Therefore, there are three hands in a foot; as every anatomist knows.

Also, a hundredweight is 112 pound, meaning that a single weight is 1.12 pounds. Logical.

[The Glyphstone]

But what's a henweight?

[Wraith]

We're going around in circles.

No worries, at this point I'm mostly using it as an excuse to make puns rather than specifically trying to argue a point. It's all good.

That Celsius starts at water freezing, and goes up to 100 at water boiling (two arbitrary points, and ones where them being at exactly 0 and 100 aren't inherently useful for any specific purpose) isn't.

I suppose the idea is that everyone learns Base 10 because they started out with 10 fingers to count on. And since a temperature scale of 1-to-10 doesn't cover very much in terms of range, why not makes it (ten times ten) 1-to-100? There's logic at work - dumb logic based on the limitations of weak human flesh - but it's there.

Also, a hundredweight is 112 pound, meaning that a single weight is 1.12 pounds. Logical.

I'm thinking stupidly hard to try and find a way to squeeze in a "That's just gross!" punchline, but I can't see the way to it. Goddammit.

But what's a henweight?

About 10 drachma an hour.

[Manga Shoggoth]

But what's a henweight?

About 10 drachma an hour.

No - that's a Grecian Urn.

A Henweight is the force imparted by a single ANSI standard hen on the floor of a standard coop, since - as everyone knows - a weight is a form of force. Henweighs are a little more complicated, and I leave them to the wisdom of the forum.

[DavidSh]

Based on my experience with dogs, I suspect wolves actually have a greater spectrum of emotions than just the "chomp" and "awoo" that Emmett lists.

[Keltest]

Based on my experience with dogs, I suspect wolves actually have a greater spectrum of emotions than just the "chomp" and "awoo" that Emmett lists.

Yeah, sometimes my dog feels "floomph" too. Usually when she tries to usurp my bed.