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Actually: I don't find the cartoon funny in the slightest way, nor do I have a major issue with the way the ball is drawn.
Or does the word "socks" has a second meaning, I'm not aware of?
@mina Not everyone finds everything funny, 'cos that's the way people and humour work. I can offer explanations for both, but they will probably be unsatisfying.
Having said that:
The cartoon is making fun of how soccer players go down and writhe on the ground over the smallest touch, and sometimes, as shown on video replays, no contact at all. As a former referee I find that infuriating, and while I empathise with the cartoon's author, I don't find it funny.
The picture of the football is, as shown, inaccurate and bordering on mathematically impossible[0]. So people who are into math outreach and popularisation find that irritating. Most people just don't care, but if if *could* be done correctly, why not do it?
So that's some of the context. If you made it this far then thank you for reading, and I'm happy to answer questions.
Though I appreciate that by now, most people wouldn't care, even if they did at the beginning.
1/n
CC: @divbyzero
@mina Footnote:
[0] It is actually possible, but only if you create a monstrously distorted pattern that isn't at all symmetrical. What's drawn is definitely not how actual soccer balls appear in real life, it's just a lazy scrawl that most people find convincing, despite being wrong.
2/n, n=2
CC: @divbyzero
@ColinTheMathmo @mina Right, the black patches on traditional soccer balls are pentagons and not hexagons. It is mathematically impossible to extend this pattern of all hexagons to the full soccer ball.
As for whether it is funny... meh. I "get it," but I don't find it particularly funny. New Yorker cartoons sometimes have that type of humor where they go for a clever and surprising twist on reality—with mixed success on how funny it is. For me they sometimes yield the reaction, "that's funny" (said with an internal deadpan voice) rather than a laugh, "hahahaha."
@divbyzero @ColinTheMathmo @mina I don't get hugely annoyed by the oops-all-hexagons football drawings, but I do have to draw the line at this abomination I saw last week:
@divbyzero @ColinTheMathmo @mina anyway I think the issue might be that AI is somehow even worse at footballs than it is at hands, there are some incredible biblically-accurate soccer balls on image search now
@ColinTheMathmo @divbyzero @mina Nah, it's a riff on the idea of "biblically accurate angels", which tend to be not attractive humans with wings and halos so much as horrifying eldritch monsters covered in eyes and wheels and wheels covered in eyes
@andrewt Ah ... gotcha. I was thinking "biblical" as in overwhelming.
So yes ... "biblically-accurate", in that sense.
CC: @divbyzero @mina