Notes

Posted byRandall 272 Comments on Notes

I had a lot of fun putting together today’s comic. Anyone who likes strange charts like this should check out Edward Tufte’s The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. It’s long been one of my favorite books. Thank you to my friend Tina for color advice, and to my brother Ricky for some Lord of the Rings detail corrections.

Also thank you to Olga and Noam for the lovely animated version of comic #442.

272 replies on “Notes”

  1. @Repton:

    Thanks, I was mistaken about that. I unfortunately haven’t had the chance to go back and re-read the books in a long time. The movies (while by definition long) are still a lot less time-consuming. I’ve watched them a fair bit over the last few years and they definitely dominate my memory.

    I also notice the Arnold-Muldoon thing got fixed. If that was based on my comment I’m glad I could help. If not, then nevermind.

    Also, to anyone commenting about nitpicking:

    Minor mistakes in something like this is inevitable, and I’m sure Randall knows that. Today’s comic (and the whole series for that matter) is far beyond any level of awesome I could ever conceive. I think anyone commenting is doing so because of how utterly impressed they are with it.

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  3. @ Margaret Killjoy

    my response is “Go Big or Go Home” if he wanted to perform an undertaking of this magnitude, he should have done it 100% perfect, because when you only go 90%, even if its 90%, people will still complain about the %10.

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  4. Very impressive, but I dare you to try Memento or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, or if you’re really up for a challenge, a three dimensional plot of any show that involves a few different things traveling at relativistic speeds, with the third dimension graphing the objects’ “speed” of time flow relative to the main character.

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  8. Awesome! Based on memory or sitting and rewatching/fast-forwarding?

    Love to see someone try to do one of all the Terminators + Sarah Connor Chronicles.

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  9. So i saw the lotr chart and nearly cried for joy. then i realized it was of the movie and not the book and i maybe died a little. (i suppose these should be labeled as movies so book nerds like myself don’t assume things)
    anyway i saw the comments in your livejournal and wanted so bad to respond, but i dont have an account. anyway to spare everyone here the 3 paragraph essay on themes and meanings in LOTR, I would like to say that many, many people don’t know what they are talking about and everyone should read the books again or for the first time. and anyone who considers themselves true tolkienite needs to read his letters.

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  10. That comic was awesome, one of the best ones, but you should have made it based on the book

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  11. Can this please, please, please be a poster?

    I am not a poster kind of person. My college dorm walls were bare of disposable, easily torn mass-produced artwork. I completed my bachelor’s degree in a dearth of beauty because I shunned the poster’s destructability.

    But despite all this, I feel that my walls are — not simply naked, but incomplete, unfinished, even nascent without this image adorning them.

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  12. Poster, poster, poster, poster… please?

    On a side note, I’ve just received my signed copy of xkcd vol. 0 last week!

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  13. Absolutely fantastic. I’m still in the process of picking my mind up off the floor. Please make a poster. Pretty please?

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  14. Did you really spend all of halloween making this???

    Although its a great comic– its the greatest day ever to check out scantily clad girls…

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  16. LOOOOOVE :DD

    Wonder what an Enderverse one would look like. (Not a movie, but still.) Please please please maybe? 🙂

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  17. one of my favorite xkcd’s of all time. it’s a shame you didn’t include ghost Yoda and ghost Obi-Wan, but I know that would have been hard to represent. also I’m think R2 went along for the ride the second time Luke saw Yoda on Dagobah, but again it was awesome overall. I wouldn’t have had the patience for LotR

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  19. I must say that it must have been a bit daunting to undertake a project of this magnitude, but I really think you did a good job. Still my inner nerd is sad to see that wormtongue and Saruman “die” at the flooding of Isengard… they come back later in the book, after the ents let them out thanks to the sweet-talking of Saruman. Also, Frodo and Company definitely meet Aragorn before weathertop…

    Still, I love the part where the dead join Aragorn, it’s a nice touch. 🙂

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  22. I would love a bit larger version of this where I can read the data.. Did you build this in larger format and shrink it for the comic, or is the comic the original size? If you have a large format, can you post it for us?

    PS. If you want a challenge, make one for LOST. I find that time travel really seems to convolute matters.

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  23. @Jim: you can click the comic for the larger version (or do you mean larger yet?)

    Randall: we won’t stop applauding until you come back to the scene, with a poster in hand :-).

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  24. genius.

    primer had me rofl. 😉

    i find that your brain works extremely similar to mine, and i really enjoy your expressions 🙂

    keep it up

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  27. So i saw the 12 Angry Men chart and nearly cried for joy. then i realized it was of the movie and not the radio play and i maybe died a little. (i suppose these should be labeled as movies so thespian nerds like myself don’t assume things)

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  29. I feel a need to publicize that I was #314 in liking that video. I don’t know why (the publicizing part, that is) :/

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  30. Amazing creation. I love it, and Primer made me LOL.

    One nit pick: Saruman doesn’t die in the flood, Gandalf breaks his staff and sends him out into the world as a miserable ‘powerless’ wretch, but he goes to the Shire as “Sharkey” and gets petty revenge on the hobbits, which sets up the entire ending with the ‘scouring of the shire’.

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  32. Never commented here before. This was a masterpiece of Tufte-friendly design and one of the best XKCDs ever. Bravo, dude.
    I think the LOTR rivals Napoleon’s march graphic. Just beautiful and informative.

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  33. One problem with the Star Wars one: I thought that Obi-Wan said to Luke: “The Force will be with you… always”. Either the old man is lying, or The Force is playing hooky on your chart.

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  34. Hey, do you think that’s supposed to be you in today’s Questionable Content?

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  35. Outstanding! It takes both of my side-by-side 21″ monitors to view the entire width of the graphic. Probably the best ever use of this dual monitor setup. Also, I watched Primer and my brain exploded, so cheers for that.

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  37. Having just attended one of Tufte’s seminars, I immediately knew where you had gotten your data modeling idea. Excellent job. Frankly, he ought to incorporate your example into his future seminars. You should be self-promoting and contact him. 😉

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  38. Love it, love it, love it!!!!! Make a poster and I’ll have a reason to give you more money!!!

    Also, the Nazgul dissapear near only near Arwen and Frodo, not the entire collection of hobbits and Aragorn. If you recall, Arwen and Frodo leave the rest of the hobbits and Aragorn behind to ride to Rivendell. Just before arriving at Rivendell, the Nazgul attempt to cross the river and Arwen drowns them in the Bruinen River. After they are “killed,” the rest of the hobbits, Aragorn, Elrond, etc. etc. are reunited in Rivendell.

    All in all, good work.

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  40. Your latest achievement is simply fantastic! The 12 Angry Men graph is truly amazing, and the patience necessary to go through and map out the LoTR trilogy (original or extended editions?)… You’re my hero! And in regard to the Star Wars graph; the inclusion of Luke’s hand (after being removed during the first duel with Vader) would have been extremely hilarious. Maybe if you put that in with the poster version?

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  44. @ People who keep linking to that Primer timeline:

    Sorry, but it is generally considered to have several fundamental flaws. The most significant of which is the merging of Abe’s failsafe trip, and Aaron’s second failsafe trip(or rather the timelines created by both of them). There are many flow on issues from this error, and other separate ones as well. Note that while this error can easily be proven, for sake of brevity i will not do so here. Jump on the IMDB forums if you want the proof.

    I would be interested to see Randal’s serious attempt at one of these charts for Primer, but using it as the punchline was probably the best way to go. Even after the years since it was released, there is still huge amounts of contention and confusion surrounding what actually happens in the film.

    Braedon

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  45. quite weird I just got this book yesterday. I really haven’t been impressed with it. It just seems to be a collection of weird graphics rather than any comprehensive ideas which is what I had been hoping for.

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  46. I just got a little nitpick with thw star wars graph: the Emperor appears briefly in “Empire strikes back”, as an hologram, of course, but he talks to Vader about Luke being the son of Anakin. Yeah, goddam nitpicker I am…

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  47. Not that I thing it’s anywhere as good as LOTR/Star Wars/Jurassic Park, but I really wish someone made a graph like that for Heroes all the way from season 1 to now (and keep it updated) cause.. well.. what the hells is going on there?

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  49. This was fantastic…your comic is a NEVER MISS and thank you for getting me through the week!

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  50. I’m having a good laugh at all the people here saying “If you want a REAL challenge try XXXX” haha.

    Seriously just look at the very last frame, then go rent Primer, then come back and tell me how Granger got involved in the first place, also will Abe be able to keep himself from discovering what he already knows and then using the failsafe to pre-empt himself? 🙂

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