So yes, I will obviously be talking about Elon’s dumbass lawsuit against Media Matters. @akivamcohen.bsky.social and @questauthority.bsky.social have already done great threads on it but I am gonna talk about anyway. But first, I want to talk about Up Goer Five. xkcd.com/1133/ - ThreadSky

kathryntewson.bsky.social • 464 days ago

So yes, I will obviously be talking about Elon’s dumbass lawsuit against Media Matters. @akivamcohen.bsky.social and @questauthority.bsky.social have already done great threads on it but I am gonna talk about anyway.

But first, I want to talk about Up Goer Five.

https://xkcd.com/1133/

Comments

durfkludge.bsky.social•464 days ago

Oh hell yeah I love Thing Explainer

canray.bsky.social•464 days ago

Is this the "Super Duper Rocket" that the US Space Force was supposed to get?

cpgorski.bsky.social•463 days ago

1969's greatest hits ( :

kathryntewson.bsky.social•463 days ago

It’s Saturn 5. We’ve had it for a while.

canray.bsky.social•463 days ago

Yeah, still want to know if this is the "Best People, Best Missiles, Super Duper Rocket" that the US Space Force is supposed to have. ;-)

malcweir.bsky.social•463 days ago

It is the only rocket ever built that has taken people to the moon, so it probably retains it's Super Duper status, at least until the next design comes along...

canray.bsky.social•463 days ago

I guess folks missed that news report.

kathryntewson.bsky.social•463 days ago

Maiden voyage was in 1967. You tell me.

canray.bsky.social•463 days ago

Never mind, was a joke, and obviously fell flat.

hollyanderson.bsky.social•463 days ago

Do you know what else fell flat, is Elon’s rocket 👯👯👯

kathryntewson.bsky.social•463 days ago

Ah! Sorry, I didn’t get it. My bad.

ri.oldfolkshome.org•463 days ago

And which we’re apocryphally unable to build anymore.

rmd1023.bsky.social•464 days ago

Okay fine I'll get a fucking account on this fucking thing to observe your silliness.

unchi.org•464 days ago

you're WELCOME

kathryntewson.bsky.social•464 days ago

HI REGIS

rmd1023.bsky.social•464 days ago

HI KATHRYN

kathryntewson.bsky.social•464 days ago

MY MENTIONS ARE OVERFLOWING

I MAY NOT GET TO SPACE TODAY

egen.bsky.social•463 days ago

Welcome!

evanprellberg.bsky.social•464 days ago

Thank you for reminding me of this gem. You follow xkcd long enough, you forget a lot.

kathryntewson.bsky.social•464 days ago

Up Goer Five is an XKCD comic in which the author, Randall Munroe, describes the Saturn 5 rocket using only the thousand most commonly used words in the English language. Amusingly, “thousand” isn’t one of them, so he has to say “ten hundred.”

kathryntewson.bsky.social•464 days ago

(He later expanded this concept into a book called Thing Explainer, which is amazing and which makes an outstanding gift for the precocious child on your holiday shopping list.)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0544668251

kathryntewson.bsky.social•464 days ago

Much of my job, really, is Up Goer Five; I spend a lot of time trying to explain complicated concepts to people without using any of the vocabulary I would ordinarily use, because it’s confusing to them. Either law stuff to clients, or tech stuff to courts.

I’m pretty good at it.

yoboseiyo.bsky.social•464 days ago

i for one always feel much smarter and better informed after reading your explainer threads. ❤

alttag.bsky.social•464 days ago

A huge chunk of my career is explaining tech stuff to simpletons (often read: rich college students), so if yall ever want tech gibberish to plain human translation, please hit me up.

(Really considering a document if we ever have the Title I/Title II FCC fight again.)

kathryntewson.bsky.social•464 days ago

But it does mean that sometimes when I’m trying to explain, for example, how a bad actor is spoofing a return on a software call, or why the opposition’s evidentiary objections are nonsense, I can kind of sound like this.

kathryntewson.bsky.social•464 days ago

I love Up Goer Five. This is my favorite part of the panel; it has become a phrase of regular use in my household. “How’s the report going, buddy?” “I am having a bad problem and I will not go to space today.”

astridsdream.bsky.social•464 days ago

Ahahah, we also use “not going to space today” like that in our house, fantastic.

Excellent lawsuit explainer, thank you so much!

jacobtaber.bsky.social•464 days ago

Why was the first stage full of whale oil?

kathryntewson.bsky.social•464 days ago

With that in mind, here is my lawsplainer thread on Musk v. Media Matters, et al., using only the ten hundred words people use most often. I am allowing myself an exception in the form of proper nouns because otherwise I would die. You can play along here. https://splasho.com/upgoer5/

stinaleicht.bsky.social•464 days ago

My favorite too.

torbjornbjorkman.bsky.social•464 days ago

After all the years of periodic revisits I'm still rolling on the floor laughing when I get to that

pinkgodzilla2.bsky.social•464 days ago

And yet easily translatable to Hindenburg, hydrogen, and “Oh the humanity.” As was funny gas to helium to displacement as lighter than oxygen thus pushing O2 downward toward nozzle feed lines, and etc., etc..

clevelannah.bsky.social•464 days ago

This is such a spectacular skill. I tend to go on as if everyone is on the same page as me or I over correct and explain things so simplistic it feels patronizing.
I also highly recommend Thing Explainer as well

phoenixwomanmn.bsky.social•463 days ago

I have a tangential relationship with ASL and a lot of Thing Explainer Speak looks oddly like written ASL.

elsieyork.bsky.social•464 days ago

Familiar to me. I did it for teaching 11-18 year olds. Such a challenge sometimes! Had to teach new vocabulary as well as explain.

dkbell0.bsky.social•464 days ago

The most commonly borrowed book in my classroom library

kalidestroyer.bsky.social•464 days ago

A book that teaches kids not to use their hard-earned vocabulary because it might make stupid people feel stupid.

joberama.bsky.social•463 days ago

You could have a 45,000-word vocabulary and still be virtually incomprehensible if you don't know how to match your communications to your intended audience. Understanding where your readers/listeners are *and meeting them there* is absolutely key to being broadly understood.

botsnack.bsky.social•463 days ago

Have you ever read XKCD or what if?

jesterbrc.bsky.social•464 days ago

My 8 year old didn't feel that way. He loved both books.

electricland.bsky.social•463 days ago

What’s interesting about Up Goer Five is how hard it is to explain *and understand* things using only the 1000 most common words! That’s a *tiny* vocabulary.

electricland.bsky.social•463 days ago

I also do a lot of plain-language work; it isn’t only about vocabulary, although that’s part of it. A lot of it is about document design, organization, and sentence structure. Fun fact is that *everyone* benefits from plain-language material, even experts.

electricland.bsky.social•463 days ago

A lot of people (academic authors, for instance) feel like they “have to” use complicated, impenetrable language in order to sound smart. I’ve heard tales of papers getting rejected because they’re too accessible and easy to understand, which is ridiculous.

kathryntewson.bsky.social•464 days ago

Gotta say, that has not been my experience.

andrewparker.bsky.social•463 days ago

Being able to meet people at the level of knowledge or vocabulary they’re at is a useful skill.

If the goal is effective communication, shared vocabulary is more important than “hard-earned vocabulary”. If that’s not the goal, it’s just intellectual masturbation using an audience.

ingot.bsky.social•464 days ago

One of my absolute favorite coffee table books.

word-geek.bsky.social•460 days ago

We bought the poster. It hangs in our kitchen.

I am an editor. My husband is a techie, and dyslexic

shinjischneider.bsky.social•463 days ago

This try to make people pay you Money is so very stupid that it reminds me of a known man who gets Money for making other peoples voice in movies who tried to make the women he touched in ways they did not want to be touched for speaking the truth to give him Money.

kathryntewson.bsky.social•463 days ago

This asking is very much like that asking in a lot of big ways.

oberg.org•463 days ago

oh no, is up-goer-five speak going to become a thing? like klingon or esperanto?

kathryntewson.bsky.social•463 days ago

It’s been a thing! Not like those things tho. A different cooler thing.

cunobaros.bsky.social•463 days ago

It always reminds me of Poul Anderson's Uncleftish Beholding, which illustrates what English without loan words from French, Latin, Greek or other non-Germanic languages might look like.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncleftish_Beholding

guiltypanacea.bsky.social•464 days ago

TY. Your take is essential

patman.bsky.social•464 days ago

Thank you for this thread. I loved reading it. I was a bit bummed last night, reading that he was suing them in Texas, but your calm and straightforward reassurances have lifted my spirits. I feel like I'm lifted up to space. (In a good way.)

wastelandrover.bsky.social•464 days ago

I regret that I have but one like to give to this.

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