# ­xkcd thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** comic-strips\ **Created:** [May 28, 2020, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574 "2020-05-28T00:57:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 184
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2024, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3663 "2024-11-13T22:29:46Z")
Not only does Flatland not really put much thought into the worldbuilding of a 2-D world, but the misogyny is so thick as to be utterly stifling. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2024, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3664 "2024-11-13T22:53:30Z")
Yeah. I found it interesting to read as a teen, but the misogyny was incredibly striking. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2024, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3665 "2024-11-13T22:56:32Z")
> [@markn\_1](#): > > I also recommend the much more elaborate and carefully thought out novel _[The Planiverse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Planiverse)_, which goes into elaborate detail about how physics, biology and technology could work in a 2-dimensional world. Seconded, I recall it as being pretty good. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2024, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3666 "2024-11-13T23:18:41Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > The upcoming _America Clipper_ mission has a spork. That would make the sample acquisition a bit more challenging. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2024, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3667 "2024-11-13T23:21:18Z")
When will it be dis-[splayd](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splayd)? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2024, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3668 "2024-11-14T05:07:04Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > but the misogyny is so thick as to be utterly stifling. I read the first couple dozen pages, and the classism is way more striking to me. The misogyny is just that typical Victorian stuff about the delicate (but dangerous!) women-folk. But it’s rather amusing how they put everyone on an explicit scale with class equivalent to side-count, with isosceles triangles at the bottom (and scalene so deformed as to be non-persons), with the higher classes being squares, hexagons, etc… But it’s a satire anyway. We aren’t meant to _sympathize_ with the world. I guess it seems a little over-the-top now, but that’s a function of having progressed a bit since then. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2024, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3669 "2024-11-14T14:20:29Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > But it’s a satire anyway. Yeah. I read it many decades ago but even then I read it as a satire of the misogynism and classism of the mores of its time. While it was wonderful illustrating how we of three spatial dimensions would interact with objects of greater dimensions, the concept was more to mock our silly hierarchies. The physics, biology, and technology of two dimensions was not its point. At least as I recall, but again, it was a long time ago read. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2024, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3670 "2024-11-15T19:59:25Z")
> **[The Future of Orion](https://xkcd.com/3012/)** > > Dinosaur Cosmics ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2024, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3671 "2024-11-15T23:08:41Z")
It doesn’t even depend that much on the star movements-- If you draw the new lines on the current star positions, it still looks fairly tyrannosaurian regal. ---
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2024, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3672 "2024-11-15T23:52:27Z")
I mean, are we going to pretend that _any_ constellations actually look like the things they’re supposed to be? ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2024, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3673 "2024-11-16T00:17:38Z")
The Big Dipper kinda looks like a Dipper. But that’s not a constellation, so I guess that doesn’t count. Well, Crux, the Southern Cross, definitely looks like a cross. ---
**Author:** ![N9IWP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/n9iwp/32/3154_2.png) [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2024, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3674 "2024-11-16T00:45:20Z")
Many of the the HA Rey depictions do an OK job, but the problem is many possible groupings and pictures can be made. Brian ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2024, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3675 "2024-11-16T01:07:27Z")
> [@Wheelz](#): > > I mean, are we going to pretend that _any_ constellations actually look like the things they’re supposed to be? You could check out other cultures’ constellations that don’t hew to the Babylonian/Greek tradition Europeans inherited via Ptolemy. ---
**Author:** ![Misnomer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misnomer/32/14897_2.png) [@Misnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misnomer)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2024, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3676 "2024-11-17T14:48:57Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > A _tréma_ or a _cédille_ is unquestionably a diacritical mark, but how is it an accent? I was using “accent” generally. I momentarily forgot where I was. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2024, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3677 "2024-11-19T05:46:41Z")
> **[Kedging Cannon](https://xkcd.com/3013/)** > > The real key was inventing the windmill-powered winch. ---
**Author:** ![Chelonaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@Chelonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chelonaut)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2024, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3678 "2024-11-19T08:55:17Z")
A schooner without foresails like here would be badly balanced. At least completely unable to tack, and probably tend to leeward even with agressive rudder. But at least you have a good excuse to fire your cannon all the time. ---
**Author:** ![Chelonaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@Chelonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chelonaut)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2024, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3679 "2024-11-19T10:04:10Z")
Wait no, I got that reversed. With mainsails only it will tend to windward. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2024, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3680 "2024-11-19T12:16:35Z")
I have to say of all the obscure vocabulary I have, I _really_ never expected to see any form of “kedge” in an xkcd. That was the surprising thing to me about this episode. It’s also funny (and no doubt deliberate) that of all the Olde Tymey sailing ship designs, he drew one of the ones _most_ capable of sailing to windward. @Chelonaut’s completely legitimate quibbles about lack of foresails aside. Of course if they did have conventional jib(s) rigged off the bow and bowsprit, that would interfere w the cannon. He had to leave empty foredeck space in the third panel to draw the teeny people firing the cannon. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Chelonaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@Chelonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chelonaut)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2024, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3681 "2024-11-19T12:37:59Z")
Judging by the shallow angle of the kedging chain, they’re sailing (well, kedging) over very shallow ground. Common wisdom when anchoring smaller vessels is to have attached chain+rope = 5 x depth of water. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2024, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/3682 "2024-11-21T02:42:09Z")
It might not have had a mast in the front, but it DID have a boom. Oh, and also, > **[Arizona Chess](https://xkcd.com/3014/)** > > Sometimes, you have to sacrifice pieces to gain the advantage. Sometimes, to advance ... you have to fall back. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574.md?page=183) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574.md?page=185)