A review by pentalith5
Assume the Worst: The Graduation Speech You'll Never Hear by Carl Hiaasen
2.0
Had to check this out because I love Roz Chast cartoons. The illustrations did not disappoint, in general, except for one:
This is not how graphs work. It's intuitive at first, right? You see a downhill slope and assume the graph illustrates decreasing expectations over time. But no! Time is on the vertical axis, and expectations are .... also on the vertical axis?
I know, I know. It's a comic. But as a science nerd I just can't with this. If it were done on purpose, for the purpose of making fun of bad information design, I'd say hell yes, but I suspect that Roz Chast just either doesn't know better, or totally does but is relying on the laziness of the uneducated masses to not notice, which, given the subject of the text (keep your expectations of other people as low as possible and never be disappointed), might indicate it was done on purpose just to mess with the tiny segment of the population who actually knows how to plot two dimensional data?? The mind boggles.
As for the text of this tiny booklet, it was just something for my eyes to busy themselves with before heading on to the next illustration. Nothing earth shattering. The last couple sentences were pretty good though, so if you can hold on for the 5 minutes it takes to read the whole speech, it'll leave you feeling mildly pleased. So there's that.
This is not how graphs work. It's intuitive at first, right? You see a downhill slope and assume the graph illustrates decreasing expectations over time. But no! Time is on the vertical axis, and expectations are .... also on the vertical axis?
I know, I know. It's a comic. But as a science nerd I just can't with this. If it were done on purpose, for the purpose of making fun of bad information design, I'd say hell yes, but I suspect that Roz Chast just either doesn't know better, or totally does but is relying on the laziness of the uneducated masses to not notice, which, given the subject of the text (keep your expectations of other people as low as possible and never be disappointed), might indicate it was done on purpose just to mess with the tiny segment of the population who actually knows how to plot two dimensional data?? The mind boggles.
As for the text of this tiny booklet, it was just something for my eyes to busy themselves with before heading on to the next illustration. Nothing earth shattering. The last couple sentences were pretty good though, so if you can hold on for the 5 minutes it takes to read the whole speech, it'll leave you feeling mildly pleased. So there's that.