Woodland Wanderings

Chapter 5 needs to have a beautiful woman as the central antagonist AND as the secret boss. We are not doing this spamtenna shit again

they hate me for my flat facial expressions and inability to contribute to conversations

I love seeing stores and cafes that display and sell shitty local art. Everybody on the planet should be making shitty local art. Everyone in the community should get to see what shitty local art everyone else is making. Eventually you will find something and be like hold on. This weirdly speaks to me. I've never seen anything quite like this, whether because of this person's idiosyncratic style or strange choice of subject matter or what. And suddenly your favorite piece of art is a collage painting done by a woman who waits tables during the day and does roller derby at night and uses the excess flyers and paper menus from both places of work to make amateur art on the weekends and you realize this is such a bizarre combination of circumstances that has produced something so striking to you, how lucky you are to live in a world where this got to exist and you got to see it

not this again...Randall Munroe is an ENGINEER who writes about ENGINEERS. This is an ENGINEER writing about what he knows. Can a cobbler not write about how much thought went into the shoes they make without talking about the cow farmers who made the leather and the laborers who tanned it? Can a chef not post about their food without an essay about ethical sourcing of vegetables?

while i see the point you're making, i think it *should* be encouraged, in any profession, to at least think about the other workers earlier on in the supply chain? It's probably unreasonable to ask every single chef post come with an essay about ethical sourcing of vegetables, but i don't think it's out of line to point out that this comic exemplifies how manufacturing and natural resource extraction workers, especially from third world countries, are not even thought of while looking at the final project. This isn't a problem specific to engineering.

it's an extremely engineer thing to not think about anyone even remotely unlike yourself, it may not be a problem specific to engineering but it's definitely endemic and munroe being an engineer is an active contributer to the tone deaf nature of the comic. also if you have to work late drawing a curve in cad software you should probably switch careers

Tbh engineers especially should think not just about designing the thing, but the full life cycle from manufacturing to disposal. So many industry problems arise simply from engineers focusing just on designing something that theoretically meets the requirements, while not putting a single thought into how it might be manufactured or what happens when it needs to be repaired.

immortality is a disability. to me

the nature of your body has changed in a way you don't understand. there will always be a "before" and an "after." why did this happen? and why did this happen to you? you're searching for a reason. you're searching for a meaning. is this a punishment? is it a divine gift in disguise? is there a cure? do you want a cure? all your friendships seem to drift inevitably away from you. will people ever see you again as the age you actually are? will you ever be able to interact with the world again like how you used to?

but. and this is crucial. you should hit your immortal characters with normal disabilities too