
Cartoon Laws of Physics - davesailer
http://www.dgp.toronto.edu/~karan/courses/csc2529/cartoonlaw.htm
======
tossaway1
> familiar principle of 32 feet per second per second takes over.

I took high school and college physics courses (in the US) and have spent 15+
years developing physics-related software and I don't recall ever hearing
gravity expressed in ft/sec^2. I can't gauge whether this "familiar" principle
is itself a joke or if there are places where gravity is taught as 32 ft/sec^2
rather than 9.8 m/sec^2...

~~~
qwertyuiop924
Where did you get taught? I've heard it as 32 ft/sec^2 since I was a kid...

~~~
mrexroad
Strange. Since high school, I've always heard m/s^2. United States, mid
Atlantic region.

~~~
santaclaus
US, high school in the south, 9.81 m/s^2 for life! I have never heard any
physics in feet...

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seanmcdirmid
There is also always this gem of a paper on applying cartoon physics to user
interfaces:

[http://www.cc.gatech.edu/classes/AY2009/cs4470_fall/readings...](http://www.cc.gatech.edu/classes/AY2009/cs4470_fall/readings/animation.pdf)

~~~
clydethefrog
Great article! Makes me wonder if there are any cases of user interfaces
having animation smears [1] as motion blurs.

[1] [http://animationsmears.tumblr.com](http://animationsmears.tumblr.com)

~~~
wolfgang42
Old Macs weren't powerful enough to draw fancy zoom effects. Instead, classic
Mac OS, at least through System 7, would draw a series of rectangles[1] (third
and fourth pictures) from the icon you double-clicked to the location of the
window to show it opening.

[1]:
[http://toastytech.com/guis/macos1.html](http://toastytech.com/guis/macos1.html)

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dmicah
The link states "Authorship Unknown," however the author is Mark O'Donnell,
this was originally published in a 1980 issue of Esquire magazine.

------
qwertyuiop924
Yet another classic example of Internet humor at work. In this case, the
classic formula of describing something decidedly non-intellectual in an
intellectual manner. Never gets old.

~~~
hammock
Old-school internet humor. Writing-based (as opposed to visual), and with a
lot of in-depth thought and time going into it. That you used to find on BBS
and the like. Where can you find it today?

~~~
qwertyuiop924
Through miscellanious old sites and The GNU Humor collection. It's hard to
_find_ new material: it's out there, but the signal:noise on the internet
sucks, so you have to be really lucky.

Oh, and BOFH is still going strong. So go read that if you haven't yet. The
official archives are down, but there are mirrors, of you want to read
'95-'99.

------
cyberferret
Even as a kid I always wondered why the heck Acme Inc. seemed to offer lines
of credit to just about anyone, including homeless coyotes living in the
desert.

Their sheer range of product offerings was also astounding, as was their
apparent complete lack of after sales support and user training for said
products.

They also seemed to have an incredible logistics team able to get huge and
complex items out to the middle of nowhere in record time. Never once did the
coyote have to wait a long time for delivery, or have to converse with
shipping support reps to see why his package was never delivered.

~~~
johncolanduoni
So Amazon is just Acme with good customer support and less credit?

~~~
cyberferret
LOL - I was looking for a corollary between Acme Inc. and Amazon but couldn't
find one. You nailed it! :)

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forgettableuser
Those who enjoyed this may also enjoy Chuck Jones' 9 (or 11) Rules for Writing
Road Runner cartoons:

[http://mentalfloss.com/article/62035/chuck-jones-rules-
writi...](http://mentalfloss.com/article/62035/chuck-jones-rules-writing-road-
runner-cartoons)

Excerpt:

1\. The Road Runner cannot harm the Coyote except by going "meep, meep."

2\. No outside force can harm the Coyote -- only his own ineptitude or the
failure of Acme products.

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empath75
Reminds me of the Steve Jackson RPG _Toon_

[http://www.sjgames.com/toon/](http://www.sjgames.com/toon/)

~~~
DonHopkins
Dynamix's computer game Sid and Al's Incredible Toons [1] [2] is a wonderful
cartoon-physics based game, the sequel to The Incredible Machine [3] [4], a
Rube-Goldbergesque game like Mouse Trap [3].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_%26_Al%27s_Incredible_Toon...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_%26_Al%27s_Incredible_Toons)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-7LgrEUOL4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-7LgrEUOL4)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incredible_Machine_(series...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incredible_Machine_\(series\))

[4]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl1LvFDgCio](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl1LvFDgCio)

[5]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouse_Trap_(game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouse_Trap_\(game\))

------
DonHopkins
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------
Shivetya
I always attributed VI to be that the movement during the fight exceeded the
speed of sight.

~~~
lloeki
For some reason this reminded me of Discworld's Ambiguous Puzuma:

 _A big cat with a unique black and white check coat, the ambiguous puzuma is
the Disc 's fastest animal. Due to the Disc's standing magical field, which
slows down light to approximately the speed of sound, the puzuma can actually
achieve near-light-speed. Therefore, seeing a puzuma in motion means it isn't
there. Puzumas commonly die from complications caused by Sangrit Heisenberg's
Uncertainty Principle; they lose concentration because they cannot
simultaneously know who they are and where they are, frequently causing them
to crash into an obstacle. Many males also die from ankle failure caused by
excessively running after females who aren't present._

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flora_and_fauna_of_the_Discwor...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flora_and_fauna_of_the_Discworld#Ambiguous_Puzuma)

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bitwize
"As speed increases, objects can be in several places at once."

Neatly explains why ninjas in anime are able to create shadow copies of
themselves by moving really fast.

All of these are the sort of thing traded frequently in email and USENET in
the 90s.

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tempodox
This article should have a warning sign. I almost fell out of my chair with
laughter. Insta-add to my Instapaper.

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craftandhustle
Loved it — just wished there were links to YouTube clips with examples from
classic cartoons.

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digi_owl
> The threat of skunks or _matrimony_ often catalyzes this reaction.

Gave me a good laugh.

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acqq
Duh. So unfunny and uninsightful, at least for anybody who did watch the old
cartoons.

I'm sorry I've attempted to read it. Now I need a dose of Loony Tunes to wash
the feeling away.

~~~
ozzmotik
i wish i could express just how much i disagree with your sentiment. i think
it's a rather elegant attempt at conveying the humorous laws of reality in a
classic cartoon existence. But hey, I guess not everyone can find it funny.

~~~
acqq
As I've first read Murphy's law and some other humorous "laws", there was an
impression of the author making an insight and then formulating it in a
minimalistic way typical for the real scientific laws, which is what makes the
laws interesting and funny on two levels at once: there's an "a-ha" moment and
the "similarity" to the "real" laws.

As I've seen enough cartoons, for me this list appears just to be a clumsy
description of some gags. It fails on the appearance of insight and it fails
on the appearance of the real-law minimalism. That's why it's not funny. YMMV,
I see there are people who like it.

