Language Log

Today's xkcd:

Today's SMBC:

Mouseover text: "I actually only made this so nobody will ever invite me to a party again."

Today's xkcd:

Mouseover title: "My other (much harder) hobby is trying to engineer situations where I have an excuse to use more than one of them in short succession."

The current xkcd:

Yesterday's SMBC:

Jeph Jacques' Questionable Content "is an internet comic strip about romance and robots". One current romance features Faye Whitaker, described as "Sexy, snarky, and endearingly combative", and Bubbles, a "Big scary combat AI. Actually quite shy." In the past few strips (starting here), Faye works up the courage to introduce Bubbles to her mother, expecting some issues over Bubbles' gender and species.

After the initial shock wears off, the interaction goes well — but Faye is surprised to hear Bubbles accommodating to her mother's dialect.

It's in the air, apparently — there are two entropy jokes in current webcomics with four-character titles.

A recent Frazz:

Some forms of religious observance have increased during our time of social distancing, especially this one:

Today's Dinosaur Comics:

Today's xkcd:

Today's xkcd:

Today's xkcd illustrates why topic modeling can be tricky, for people as well as for machines:

The mouseover title: "As the 'exotic animals in homemade aprons hosting baking shows' YouTube craze reached its peak in March 2020, Andrew Cuomo announced he was replacing the Statue of Liberty with a bronze pangolin in a chef's hat."