XKCD: It's more than a comic

This map confusifies my headbrain D:

It's an upside-down (but right-side-up for Australia) map.

No, each continent/island is individually upside-down yet otherwise unmoved. Everything's all screwed up geographically, as pointed out by the alt-text.

edited 18th Mar '15 3:45:48 AM by Clarste

Upside down and also left to right.

Yeah basically

edited 18th Mar '15 3:56:56 AM by Adannor

Well, rotated 180 degrees.

So essentially it whooshed through at least two people's heads.

edited 18th Mar '15 4:31:13 AM by entropy13

My thought was that the Americas and Africa really do look way better right-side-up, even though currently they're balancing on tippy-toe.

So, Portugal would be having very close contact with Japan. Interesting...

The only thing that's really missing is the rest of the Caribbean. It would be kind of hard to keep it where it is now since Alaska is in the same place.

edited 18th Mar '15 7:35:34 AM by tclittle

Also, Maritime Southeast Asia gets to be closer to Europe too LOL. While Continental Southeast Asia is now where Europe once was.

I'd get a nice and toasty Equatorian climate. Sign me up. Or don't, rather, it's 32 degrees Celsius here and I can barely stand it.

And about the What If, consider that he starts above the tallest building, so conceivably he could conserve enough energy to get back to the top.

He's nearly reaching the terminal velocity already, more height wouldn't do much good.

Starting higher than the top of the building is cheating, though.

Does Clarste and Adannor really not know the "joke" on Australia that it's already "upside down"? So flipping it (as in the comic) makes it the right side up instead?

Well, I didn't know it at least.

I know. And I didn't mention it because it's obvious.

I either don't get it or it's incredibly unfunny so I don't see the point. And even if you assume Australia is upside-down in some vague way, the map still isn't correct for an Australian because everything else is out of place. My understanding of this conversation is that you made a bad joke that undermines the much funnier XKCD joke.

Was there an actual joke to the comic? I thought it was just neat and slightly disorienting, rather than funny.

The "joke" is that "the world turned upside down map" usually refers to rotating the entire map as a whole.

However the alt-text points out the interesting changes to geopolitics it presents.

edited 18th Mar '15 10:00:44 PM by TParadox

But it's a joke made in the strip itself, not by us here.

The Australia joke? Nope, I see no trace of it in the comic.

..Okay, I misremembered the comic and thought it was actually unflipped in it and that entropy13 was pointing it out.

I'm slightly disappointed that Randall didn't explore a little further on the flagpole question in terms of how long (well, or short, more likely) a fall would leave you still able to grab the flagpole and swing around it.

I also think it would have been interesting to cheat a little and allow the person to start a little above the point they're supposed to rise up to later, to explore whether it's feasible to do the "grab as you reach the top of your trajectory" thing. (This might even be possible without such "cheating" for sufficiently short fall distances, because you don't actually have to rise exactly as high as you started - you just need to rise high enough so that with your arms outstretched above your head, you can grab the ledge/roof you fell off from.)

I'd bet that as far as short distances go, actual athletes would do it as a regular trick in performances.

edited 19th Mar '15 7:02:49 AM by Adannor

The What If? specifically discusses parallel bar athletes as the pinnacle of human capabilities along the lines of grabbing and swinging on flagpoles.