The Oatmeal

Don't use such URLs for your business or products. You want your name to be short, memorable, and work with social media. Long novelty URLs help micro content sites go viral, just make sure to include some prominent share buttons. The trick is to make many of these novelty websites that relate to your main product, and then link to that in the footers. An example of someone who's used this technique multiple times before is TheOatmeal[0], though the only one I can remember off the top of my head is ThingsBearsLove[1]. [0] http://theoatmeal.com/ [1] http://www.thingsbearslove.com/

The always excellent Oatmeal: We need to have a conversation about wombats https://theoatmeal.com/comics/wombats Possibly NSFW, depending on your W.

As someone who occasionally writes a bit of music, I've had trouble putting into words exactly my feeling around AI generated art. One of the best takes I've seen on it which perfectly captured my feelings was by the Oatmeal: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/ai_art

This is a very good take on the situation and it’s clear the person being interviewed is walking fine lines trying not to offend. Speaking as an outsider looking in, the Chinese perspective in 2025 appears to be composed of pragmatism, heads-down understanding of each person’s (relative) insignificance and how it leads to a need to work hard; belief in the collective ability to win; and now they’re seeing some world leadership, some carefully managed pride. If reading this triggers you, have another read of https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe. The article isn’t propaganda. It’s an interview with a person who understands the fine lines that must be walked to get through to people in a politically charged space at a politically charged time. It’s a really insightful read.

This somewhat intrigues me. An old fashioned and a 4% lager are very different, but you seem to be saying both will give you the same regret the next day? Note that I largely resonate with the idea that aging reduces tolerance to alcohol. Love the Oatmeal's https://theoatmeal.com/comics/hungover. Hasn't quite hit me that hard, yet. Thankfully.

Well. No unskippable ads for shows I don’t care about. No FBI warnings. But, I think theoatmeal sums it up best: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones

This is so common in many types of business, and usually a very difficult point to articulate so thank you for that. It's something to be shown to those ringing the death-knell for programmers, artists, and the like. Those death-knell types seemingly aren't aware of what day to day operations looks like and how AI makes a great tool, but doesn't necessarily deal with the very human factors of whims, uncertainty, reactive business mentalities and the phenomenon that is best summarised by this webcomic: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell In my field they like to call this "hurry up and wait", a nonsensical but fitting description that summarises everything from changing scope to the unjust imbalance of time between the principal and the agent.

I have a great deal of sympathy for anything printer/scanner related. This Oatmeal comic comes to mind [1]. However, I have heard anecdotally that recent university class intakes for CS have been encountering the death of the desktop metaphor as a problem. I'm aware there are more instances of students (who have chosen to do CS) not knowing the first thing about hierarchical file management, folders, etc. It's definitely possible to get through secondary education using only a phone or perhaps a tablet. It's then totally unsurprising when people (other than PC gamers) have very little intuitive understanding of desktop computing. I don't know how much of a problem this really is, as people are generally fast learners, but it's a weird thought as someone who has used a "desktop" (laptops mostly) computer every day since about age 12. [1]: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/printers

> I’ve also never had any luck with this and am increasingly convinced some people aren’t destined to be happy. Roughly everyone. Happiness is an unattainable construct designed to sell you more stuff and experiences. It isn’t real. Contentment, though, now that’s achievable. But it doesn’t get talked about because it doesn’t monetize well. The Oatmeal has my favorite explanation/take on this: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/unhappy

I've always loved this, from The Oatmeal: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/printers

It's quite bizarre to constantly hear Elon Musk talk about free speech and unbanning everyone, and then this ongoing list of left-leaning accounts get nuked. And not just left-leaning. The Oatmeal's Twitter account (https://theoatmeal.com/) was "permanently banned" couple of days ago for no given reason. Activism got it back, but imagine you're not popular. Your account is gone forever just like that. It's pure chaos.

I think this may add value for a discussion on Roddenberry’s legacy. https://theoatmeal.com/comics/plane And the best new Star Trek is Orville, clearly carrying the mantle from TNG.

This here is an absolute classic: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell It was written probably a decade ago but is unfortunately a classic.

Or a human who is tired of his small children picking up literal cat feces from the feral cat who is pooping in their planters. I would recommend looking up Toxoplasma Gondii. You can also enjoy this classic comic to help re-align you on how many birds cats kill: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/cats_actually_kill

Perfectly fits this 10 years old comic classic from Matthew Inman: https://www.theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones

Yeah but they too good at hunting the ones who aren't going to enter my house. They're little psychos[1], but I love my little psychos. [1]: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/cats_actually_kill

We still need to leave a heck of a collection. On a living, evolving planet if all civilizations are gone the signs get wiped out pretty fast in geological time (geology, weather), and in space the signs are usually traveling in the emptiness with little chances of being spotted. The best probes will eventually fail and will just add to the countless objects floating never to encounter anything. I know it sounds depressing but I keep getting reminded of this [0] when thinking of loneliness in the universe. It's the most apt description I came across in recent memory. [0] https://www.theoatmeal.com/comics/oracle

Same here, it omits some of the basic principles of comics. Outlines, contrast, spacing, context. It overly introduces some characters (certificat, compugter, browserbird), but then suddenly there is a regular crab. If you'd look at the Oatmeal[1], even though his style is absolutely chaotic it's still a lot easier on my eyes/mind to focus. I also don't want to be harsh and I love the initiative and the effort, but if it would be a bit easier to read I'd bookmark it and show it to every new trainee. [1] https://theoatmeal.com/comics/mantis_shrimp

But HN seems to be the exception, rather than the norm. Whether that's because of good moderation, or demographic, or something else, I'm not sure. It's certainly easier to get the 'road rage' mentality when writing, than when conversing in person. As well as losing information, communicating through text makes it more difficult to relate to other people as people. It can lead to people behaving in terrible ways that they'd never do in person. Road rage does a similar thing: ordinarily nice and well-balanced people can be enraged by other road-users, but would never have such a response walking down the street. (This was captured rather brilliantly by a comic [0].) I wasn't the only one who was surprised to see that real-names policies (such as on Facebook) fail to get people to behave themselves. [0] https://theoatmeal.com/pl/minor_differences/cutting_off

> There is almost a meme of online platform service providers not understanding their users and their workflows, and rolling out new revisions that hamper or outright remove functionality that those users rely on. True, but there's also a meme of people screaming bloody murder over a redesign for a day, and then being fine with it, e.g. [0]. Some complaints are worth investigating and some are just who-moved-my-cheese griping that can and should be ignored. It can be tricky to tell which is which though. [0]: https://theoatmeal.com/pl/state_web_winter/facebook_layout

Maybe I’m an outlier, but I actually like the unwritten rules better than the written ones. Every interview I’ve ever had I make a point to ask what would be expected. At my MBA program (yes, I’m one of those guys) we had to wear slacks and a button down to class every day. And having worked for NYC firms there are different social expectations. So my question is usually phrased like this: “Hey, I’ve worked in situations where a tie was required and where a tie would get one ostracized. Can you give me a quick heads up on normal office attire?” This usual ends up with some decent back and forth and inevitably I send them the following Oatmeal comic. [0] My point is that if you play it right, you can turn awkward social norms to your advantage. You just have to be willing to ask. [0] https://theoatmeal.com/pl/minor_differences5/suit

It might soon be time for The Oatmeal to add a new panel to his famous "Digg vs. Reddit" cartoon: https://theoatmeal.com/pl/state_web_winter_2012/reddit_digg I love Reddit and have no problem with this move in principle, though I do wish there was at least one social platform that would try to follow the Craigslist ethos and stay "proudly independent." I'm not a big believer in crypto, but Reddit seems like one of the few platforms that would allow a crypto economy to develop and provide an alternative to the dominant money-making models.

My favorite explanation of this effect: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe

The Oatmeal did a great comic on this, which I think illustrates your point perfectly: https://theoatmeal.com/static/unhappy.html

Obligatory shoutout to the Oatmeal's writeup on mantis shrimp. It's still my favorite love letter to a (non-human) species. http://theoatmeal.com/comics/mantis_shrimp

Brilliantly captured here: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/unhappy Also, there's a passage in Meditation by Marcus Aurelius I think would do you well. To paraphrase, if you turn your full attention to the present task, not worrying about the future, and letting the past go, nothing can stop you from living a good life. > Always loved learning new stuff, but don't have enough time to really be immersive in anything. Now when I see an interesting problem in math/physics I can hardly give it an actual shot and it makes me very very sad deep down. I have something for you to do. Take a moment to sit down, and write about the things you knew how to do you first graduated from college, and the things you know how to do now. I'd say from your experiences as a founder and a CTO, you've learned some things that are more valuable than math or physics.

One of my favorite Oatmeal strips: http://theoatmeal.com/pl/senior_year/pe

> I think many people were just so unprepared to hear any argument from an opposing viewpoint that they read into it what they wanted to. also, may be due to backfire effect? Oatmeal did a brilliant job explaining it [0] [0] - http://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe

Very good read indeed. Some key quotes: "managers strive to prevent bears from learning to associate people and human spaces with food by providing bear-resistant food storage and garbage receptacles and enforcing their use." "[...] managers may use techniques called aversive conditioning to teach bears that human spaces are unpleasant. This can include noisemakers, shooting them with beanbags, or capturing and releasing them." This is also very good: http://theoatmeal.com/blog/bears " If they have to enter the pen of a captured animal, such as a bear, they wear a bear-urine-scented bear costume. The point of all this is to disassociate themselves as a source of food or care for the animals. Once released, they want these wild animals to avoid people as much as possible. "