2011-02-13
Explanation
This comic depicts a couple's argument that escalates through the lens of statistical analysis. The wife accuses her husband of thinking she is ugly, citing that they only have sex with the lights off. He dismisses the evidence as inconclusive, but she builds her case further: it is always at night, and according to a scatterplot she has prepared, their intimacy coincides with power outages, lunar eclipses, and days when he has had his eyes dilated -- all situations involving darkness or impaired vision.
Cornered by the data, the husband finally admits "Okay, fine! You look like crap." She then scolds him for using statistical analysis on their relationship, asking how many times she has told him not to do that. His deadpan final answer -- "496" -- reveals that he has, of course, been keeping count of that too. The comic satirizes the nerd archetype who cannot stop quantifying everything, even when the data leads to conclusions that are socially devastating to share.