A while ago, xkcd published this comic:
I’ve been wanting to make my own versions for a while, and since this week’s element can be used to treat cancer, I figured it was time to make these:
But of course, it all depends on what you mean by cause:
The amounts are almost certainly wrong. I just skimmed these documents.
But, although it may be in poor taste, when I think about that comic I can’t help thinking of this song by The Arrogant Worms (note that the lyrics on their website seem to have been transcribed by an automatic speech-to-text program or non-native English speakers on Mechanical Turk. Listen to the song if you want to know what it says.)
As The Most Hardcore Wormfan of All pointed out in a comment, this should really say ‘Things Mike McCormick talks about, by year:’
This was another week when I didn’t even deal out all of the cards, and started working on something on Saturday that I’d been thinking about for a while. The card which I figured gave me an excuse to do it was Lutetium, which is used in cancer fighting.
Do you know what else is used in cancer fighting? Protons and carbon ions, accelerated to high energies. I work on control systems for an accelerator that will do that. Here you can find slides and video of a CERN summer student lecture about that from 2011. There’s a more recent one from this year, but it looks like there’s only a video from part 2 and not part 1.
The font is Humor Sans (not Comic Sans! I never worked for the ATLAS experiment) and the harsh straight lines in my first remix were a bad idea.
Creative Output 
#1 by mtgordon on August 12, 2012 - 3:18 pm
I loved the “cause” panel. 🙂
The good news about baby poo is that unless one keeps popping out babies at regular intervals, one eventually no longer has to deal with baby poo, and one gets back to dealing with philosophy, traffic problems, and politics.
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#2 by Angela Brett on August 12, 2012 - 7:58 pm
Three of them are about causes; you mean the proximate cause one?
I imagine there’s also a ‘???’ section when the kids leave home. Or maybe that happens as soon as they’re toilet trained. (I interpret it to be sort of a ‘What did I ever talk about when there was no baby poo? Nothing else seems important any more. I can’t even remember what nihilism is.’)
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#3 by mtgordon on August 12, 2012 - 8:17 pm
Oh, proximate causes, of course. I plead lack of caffeine.
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#4 by The Most Hardcore Wormfan of All on August 12, 2012 - 9:19 pm
Nah. It’s pretty much only Mike that talks about baby poo. Chris and Trevor are slightly classier. (Only slightly.)
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#5 by Angela Brett on August 12, 2012 - 9:31 pm
Ah, thanks for that information. I actually wanted to put the name of whichever one had just had a baby when that song came out, or whichever one sang the lead on and/or wrote the song, but I’m ashamed to say I didn’t know which one it was. I thought it might have been Chris since he has a whole album of songs for kids.
There’s a lot of room in my head for obsessing over music and knowing the names and roles of people in music groups, and knowing songs on every topic including baby poo, but apparently not enough of that was devoted to The Arrogant Worms. I tend to be better at knowing who’s who (and whose poo?) in a band if I’ve seen them live, and I haven’t seen The Arrogant Worms live. 😦
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#6 by Alice on August 12, 2012 - 10:11 pm
This is incredible!
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#7 by Angela Brett on August 12, 2012 - 10:22 pm
No, *you’re* incredible. 😀
Thanks.
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#8 by The Most Hardcore Wormfan of All on August 13, 2012 - 2:00 am
Aww, I wasn’t trying to be a twit or anything. Just making a joke. It doesn’t matter if you’ve seen them live or not, the Worms are awesome!
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#9 by Angela Brett on August 13, 2012 - 7:34 am
Oh, I absolutely didn’t take it as you trying to be a twit; I genuinely wanted to know who it was that talked about poo. 😀 And I can confirm that you are the Most Hardcore Wormfan of All, because you even read random blog posts that happen to mention the Worms.
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