

The Business of XKCD - arn
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/26/business/media/26link.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
non advertising income
======
arn
I found it interesting for a few reasons

\- makes money on merchandising rather than ads

\- generates a lot of traffic (80 million pages views/mo)

\- he thinks only a couple of dozen web comic authors actually make a living
off of it.

\- believes this sort of niche comic is only successful because of the
internet. in that he never could have gotten published traditionally. (that
being said "tech/geek" isn't really a small niche for internet audiences)

~~~
hugh
What irks me: he's supposedly doing xkcd full time now, and he can't manage
five comics a week instead of only three? I mean, it's not like they take a
long time to draw.

~~~
jcl
This reminds me of a letter-to-the-editor I saw in a computer magazine years
ago, asking why computer books cost so much when the materials that go into
them only cost a couple dollars.

In the case of XKCD, the limiting factor is not how fast he can do the artwork
but how frequently he has good ideas. That frequency may not increase with
free time... In fact, it may even decrease, since he might have less
experiences from which to draw inspiration.

------
timr
dupe: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=199967>

~~~
sc
Even Reddit tolerates dupes, for the most part, when separated by some time.

If it's old to you, don't vote it up. If it's new to you, great.

~~~
SwellJoe
Whether they are tolerated or not, encouraging them lowers the signal to
noise. I come to HN for tightly focused stuff--and I come here often, so
repeated old stories are just noise.

Purely selfish, but I'd rather folks do a quick search to be sure older
stories haven't already been submitted. This one was on the front page here
and at Reddit. It's a good story, but it's been covered.

~~~
timr
Even if you're not willing to do a search, it's a pretty safe assumption that
a month-old New York Times article on XKCD will have been well-covered on a
hacker news site.

~~~
sc
And yet, a good 20 voters thought otherwise.

Bottom line is: voting me into oblivion isn't going to make searching this
site any easier, or change the way HN deals with dupes.

~~~
SwellJoe
_voting me into oblivion isn't going to make searching this site any easier_

I didn't vote you down. Things that are worth commenting on (whether to agree
or disagree) are not eligible for downvotes, as far as I'm concerned.

------
maurycy
I've never really enjoyed xkcd. The title says "This Is Funny Only if You Know
Unix". I think that actually this is funny _because_ you know Unix. Barrier to
entry and understand the strips is low, yet gives an unique feeling of being
special because you know others do not understand the joke.

~~~
mattmaroon
<http://mattmaroon.com/?p=329>

~~~
thaumaturgy
Ah, I see you devoted some space on your blog to a thinly veiled ride on the
xkcd hate-wagon (and filed it under "pointless words of wisdom", natch).

As soon as I realized that you were seriously citing Scott Adams as an
authority on Funny, I knew we wouldn't find the same comics entertaining. You
read a whole "5 or 10" of the xkcd comics, and you are a self-professed member
of the target audience, so you afford yourself the expertise to declare it
"not funny at all".

And, you know what? You're absolutely right.

xkcd isn't always funny. Sometimes -- some might say, often times -- it isn't
funny at all. It certainly doesn't strive to deliver the same tired punch
lines that so many other comics have.

Aside from being something that I can often identify with, xkcd is charming.
In that sense, it strikes me in much the same way that Calvin and Hobbes did,
or Pogo. Sometimes, the best comic isn't that one that leaves me laughing,
it's the one that leaves a smile on my face, or a temporary reminder of a more
innocent way of seeing things, or a peculiar wistfulness.

Those aren't effects that I've ever been able to credit to Scott Adams, and I
don't think he could pull any of 'em off if he tried. If you can't see past
your hunger for one more punch line, then I don't think you really "get" xkcd,
either.

I like xkcd when it's thoughtful instead of cheap, and I'm even amused by yet
another spin on 'Twas The Night Before Christmas, as are many other literate
nerds.

(P.S.: When you put those "marks" around a word, those are quotes, not
parentheses.)

------
zandorg
I found on XKCD cartoon glorifying some event in 20th century history - but
showing a lack of education in that it was basically wrong. As if reading
books is a crime against being a geek, and cartoons are somehow okay to be
illiterate.

~~~
smanek
Which one? I don't remember anything like that ...

And, I'll bet you dollars to dimes that most math/science geeks know more
about the soft sciences (Economics, Psychology, History, Philosophy,
Literature, etc.) than the other way around.

Most math/science people I know have read a fair amount of Dostovesky, Freud,
Jung, Friedman, Wittgenstein, Derrida, and uncountably many other authors and
social scientists.

I challenge you to find more than a handful of English or History majors who
are familiar with the works of Turing, Galois, Knuth, or Euler.

It isn't polite to say, but not all academic disciplines are created equal.
Some fields are just _harder_ than others and tend to attract smarter people
than others. Math, physics, and other hard sciences are simply more difficult
than literature or history.

I would feel comfortable saying that anyone who understands Einstein's field
equations is capable of understanding deconstructionism with relative ease. I
don't think anyone would seriously make the opposite claim.

~~~
walterk
> I challenge you to find more than a handful of English or History majors who
> are familiar with the works of Turing, Galois, Knuth, or Euler.

The thing is, advanced works of mathematics and computer science are almost
completely irrelevant for people not working in these disciplines, whereas the
humanities and social science arguably have applicability for anyone who
considers him or herself a citizen. And in fact, these "English or History
majors" are very likely to be versed in, not the _works_ , but the insights of
many mathematicians whose contributions are taught in high school and college
mathematics courses, albeit without attribution.

Some people wind up majoring in the humanities and social sciences because
they can't cut it in highly mathematical disciplines, sure. But it's also true
that many of the mathematically adept are also weak in the humanities and
social sciences.

As for Einstein's field equations and deconstruction, I can't claim to have
studied the former (nor am I aware of why I should have), but I suspect you're
overlooking the extent to which understanding them requires a considerable
background of non-intuitive knowledge and an understanding of symbolic
conventions in a way that understanding deconstruction doesn't. So pointing
out that the set of folks who understand deconstruction that could understand
Einstein's field equations with relative ease is likely to be much smaller, at
least in proportion, than the other way around, doesn't imply much about how
smart the two sets are on average.

Incidentally, the number of sci/math types who cling to the Sokal Affair as an
excuse for believing much of contemporary humanities theory is gibberish
suggests that an understanding of things like deconstruction probably don't
come as easily to them as you might think.

At the end of the day, I really don't understand what disciplinary elitism
gets you, other than an inflated sense of self-importance. What matters isn't
what one is capable of understanding (except to college admissions staff), but
rather what one does.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Your example of Einstein's field equations is a terrible one; I've got a Ph.D.
in math phys and I don't understand them very well. How about just the laws of
thermodynamics, basic probability, statistics and logic, and perhaps the
basics of how computers work? Basic economics would be gravy.

These are all very relevant to the world we live in today.

By the way, the whole Sokal affair is forgotten in the sciences. I first
learned about it when a random passerby (an english prof) made an unkind
comment about Sokal when he saw the name on a (physics) paper I was reading.
Admittedly, this was at NYU (the epicenter). But this was also 11 years after
the prank.

Also, engineers can pick up deconstructionism relatively quickly:

<http://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/decon.html>

~~~
smanek
Yeah, you're right about my example - several of those you listed would have
been better. Hell, basic conservation of energy would be a good start.

