It's a very fine line. Personally I enjoy a few posts like this, but I your point is good. The problem is that posts like these tend to move the otherwise excellent signal to noise ratio somewhat downwards, and worse it encourages more submissions in the same category. But then again, I'm sure we all enjoy a laugh every now and then.
Actually, centrifugal force is one of a number of topics on which my (mostly very good, thanks IB!) high school teachers told me something that was technically true or close to true (my teacher may have used the technically-correct word "fictitious") but not really very illuminating without a lot of explanation/background. There was no wikipedia then, and animated GIFs still seemed like a really good idea, so we (or at least I) just stayed slightly confused.
I think this one is my favorite. While we're both commenting on an allegedly superfluous link, care to link to some you prefer?
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Just thinking: When I was a kid, there was no wikipedia. If you wanted to know about something, you had to wait for your parents to drive you to the library and hope they had a relevant, understandable, authoritative book (good luck). Now in my 20s, I can get at least a foothold in almost any imaginable topic--only a couple clicks away. What generation has seen something like that happen?
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 23.6 ms ] threadHard choices...
Actually, centrifugal force is one of a number of topics on which my (mostly very good, thanks IB!) high school teachers told me something that was technically true or close to true (my teacher may have used the technically-correct word "fictitious") but not really very illuminating without a lot of explanation/background. There was no wikipedia then, and animated GIFs still seemed like a really good idea, so we (or at least I) just stayed slightly confused.
All of which is to say, this comic (though old now) did prompt me to learn something. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifugal_force
> I've seen better XKCDs
I think this one is my favorite. While we're both commenting on an allegedly superfluous link, care to link to some you prefer?
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Just thinking: When I was a kid, there was no wikipedia. If you wanted to know about something, you had to wait for your parents to drive you to the library and hope they had a relevant, understandable, authoritative book (good luck). Now in my 20s, I can get at least a foothold in almost any imaginable topic--only a couple clicks away. What generation has seen something like that happen?