xkcd

[Rodin]

Earliest I can remember was the 1988 election, because my kindergarten class held a mock election to get us interested in democracy. I voted for Bush because I thought his name was funny. I was still so politically oblivious in high school that I almost voted for his son because I voted for Bush in kindergarten (seriously, that was the only reason). Fortunately, I was about two weeks too young.

[Radar]

Aside from random parliament speaches, the first major event I remember seeing news of was the Budapest Memorandum I guess - denuclearization of Ukraine was a pretty big event, if you lived nearby.

[Rodin]

I tend to have a pretty high score on today's game. My score is currently relatively low, but that's only because I moved a couple years back. In my last place, I eventually learned that pancake syrup does eventually go off if left in the pantry for long enough. Not harmful, but it tasted weird enough that I checked the date and was shocked to find it had expired 5 years prior.

Undisputed winner in our family is my grandmother, who had just the situation in the comic. When we cleared out her pantry after she passed in the mid 2000s we found cans of beans from the 1980s in there. I'm amazed the cans didn't launch themselves out and go hopping down the road.

[137beth]

I tend to throw out items pretty quickly once they reach their expiration date: usually less than a month after they expire. So, my score is probably zero.

[Radar]

Food items that get forgotten the most are self made (pickles, jams and so one), since usually you make a lot of them in one go year after year, so some really old ones can be sitting there in a far corner of the pantry unnoticed. It is hard to judge the score on those, since they do not have a set expiration date.

From bought things, I would look more into medicine rather then food, since a typical cabinet or box for drugs is often full of unfinished stuff, which is rarely ever needed, but it should be kept just in case anyway. Due to the sheer number and diversity of packings (aerosoles, tubes, bottles of various shapes and sizes, blisters...) it is impossible to keep it well organised, so it is very easy to overlook some items, which outlived their usefulness quite significantly.

Kind of a fimilial record would be a bottle of vodka way over 30 years old - it is still sitting there at my parent's home, since at that point it is a bit of a memento of Ye Olden Days. It is hard to count that though, since everyone always knew it was there.

And to the whole discussion, I dedicate this song (some spoilers for Cowboy Bebop, if anyone did not see the series; if you did not, do consider watching it - it is amazig).

[Rockphed]

Our best was two years over and we were thirty at the time so, about 7?

[John Campbell]

I think I remember the 1996 US election.

{scrubbed}

[Peelee]

The Mod on the Silver Mountain: I think it's time for a topic change; the "earliest news you remember" is getting dangerously close to political discussion.

[Rockphed]

I'm pretty sure this isn't how it works, but then I don't know that many meteorologists. I wonder if this is better or worse than having an alert for "the weather service took the day off, you're on your own".

[Lethologica]

I'm pretty sure this isn't how it works, but then I don't know that many meteorologists. I wonder if this is better or worse than having an alert for "the weather service took the day off, you're on your own".

Substantially worse, but it's not exactly being put to the test anyway.

[Quild]

I don't find the "Unpopular Positive Opinion Challenge" that hard.

Resident Evil (2002) totally works for me.
I've introduced my mate to "How to lose friends and Alienate People (2008)" this week and we had a really good time.

[Max_Killjoy]

I don't find the "Unpopular Positive Opinion Challenge" that hard.

Resident Evil (2002) totally works for me.
I've introduced my mate to "How to lose friends and Alienate People (2008)" this week and we had a really good time.

Suicide Squad? It gets a lot more flack for being a horrible movie than I think it deserves.

[Lethologica]

Unpopular Positive Opinion Challenge isn't that hard, but 'not that hard' is still way harder than Unpopular Negative Opinion Challenge.

[georgie_leech]

Anyone know how to search Rotten Tomatoes by date? Because I have no idea which movies I like that are usually hated

[Radar]

The only difficulty I had with this challenge was that I mostly know older movies and relied on whatever was on TV. That being said, I was quite surprised that movies like "Hudson Hawk" were considered this bad by the reviewers. Sure it is silly and the plot is contrived, but it was ment to be like this. You can not expect seriousness, if the main villian explains his goal by standing on a table and shouting "World domination!" with outstreached arms.

[Mechalich]

Unpopular Positive Opinion Challenge isn't that hard, but 'not that hard' is still way harder than Unpopular Negative Opinion Challenge.

I think it would be a lot harder if you cranked the tomatometer rating down just a little bit further. There are a lot of respectably solid movies with strong appeal to genre fans in the 40-50% range for science fiction and fantasy. I mean Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom qualifies (48%) and that movie made 1.3 billion dollars. A lot of people liked it.

Personally, I pick Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (48%), which I think is a fine film even if it's not knocking anyone's socks off. I'd also back Night at the Museum (the first one, 42%), cheesy though it may be at times, I think it's a solid family-friendly comedy.

Anyone know how to search Rotten Tomatoes by date? Because I have no idea which movies I like that are usually hated

If you go to 'browse all' you can adjust the tomatometer to a distinct range (30-50% for instance) and pick you genres. You'll have to scroll backward in time, but it goes pretty fast. For instance, apparently there are only 217 fantasy and sci-fi films recorded with a 40-50% rating.

[Rockphed]

So without an exhaustive search, the movie most likely to work for me is "John Carter of Mars", but it got a 52%. I just don't watch that many movies.

[Max_Killjoy]

The only difficulty I had with this challenge was that I mostly know older movies and relied on whatever was on TV. That being said, I was quite surprised that movies like "Hudson Hawk" were considered this bad by the reviewers. Sure it is silly and the plot is contrived, but it was ment to be like this. You can not expect seriousness, if the main villian explains his goal by standing on a table and shouting "World domination!" with outstreached arms.

Hudson Hawk is hilarious... but I think people saw that Bruce Willis was in a movie about international thieves and world-domination conspiracies, and expected something else.

[georgie_leech]

If you go to 'browse all' you can adjust the tomatometer to a distinct range (30-50% for instance) and pick you genres. You'll have to scroll backward in time, but it goes pretty fast. For instance, apparently there are only 217 fantasy and sci-fi films recorded with a 40-50% rating.

If only I had a consistent genre preference to help narrow it down

Going chronologically, apparently the most recent film I unironically enjoyed that got <50% both by critics and the wider audience is Silent Hill: Revelation. I'm certainly not going to pretend it was a good movie, or one of my favourites, but the bizarro plot somewhat worked for me, and a few of the scenes were definitely spine-tingling. That manikin room found its way into my nightmares for a while.

[Vinyadan]

I like how he had to almost explicitly exclude The Room.

Red Faction Origins, anyway. Although it only has the audience score (24%), and no tomatometer.

[137beth]

I like how he had to almost explicitly exclude The Room.

Red Faction Origins, anyway. Although it only has the audience score (24%), and no tomatometer.

Why is The Room excluded?

[Keltest]

Why is The Room excluded?

I assume he's referring to the "not its-so-bad-its-good" bit.

[Vinyadan]

I assume he's referring to the "not its-so-bad-its-good" bit.

Indeed I am.

[georgie_leech]

Oh XKCD, never change your strange, experimental ways.

[Lord Torath]

Disappearing Sunday Update is still available. See it before it disappears with the Monday Update!

Or, you know, not. It's just an ad for Randall's new book How To. Not sure if Explain XKCD will archive it for future viewing.

[Fyraltari]

Disappearing Sunday Update is still available. See it before it disappears with the Monday Update!

Or, you know, not. It's just an ad for Randall's new book How To. Not sure if Explain XKCD will archive it for future viewing.

They should archive it and then have that archive disappear after a day.

[RowenMorland]

They should archive it and then have that archive disappear after a day.

Eventually every archive disappears after 'a day'.

[Max_Killjoy]

Squirrel!

...

[Lord Torath]

Everyone hear about the Tardigrades on the moon from the crashed Israeli lunar lander ? Makes me think of the Planetary Protection Officer.

[Rodin]

Everyone hear about the Tardigrades on the moon from the crashed Israeli lunar lander ? Makes me think of the Planetary Protection Officer.

Maybe we're all descendants of the microbes from a probe sent out by the denizens of Omicron Persei VIII.