4 ms·

Calvin and Hobbes Search Engine

96 points by Arubis 4y ago

sp332 4y ago
This page is great and I've used it for years. One thing to note is the underlying data (from gocomics) is not always accurate, and sometimes you will end up on a comic that does not match the search. Sometimes you can find the one you're looking for by browsing about a week out in either direction. If you email Yingling about it with the correct date or URL, he'll update the database.
gk1 4y ago
> Your search returned no results.Remember that it searches for the EXACT phrase you typed! (And dates must be of the format MM/DD/YYYY) Requiring an exact search is fairly prohibitive. For example I searched for "feeling frustrated" and got the above error, despite 100% certainty there are strips about feeling frustrated. You (or someone) could update this to search by semantics and not by keyword, using a combination of SBERT (or similar model) + a vector database: https://www.pinecone.io/docs/examples/semantic-text-search/ https://www.pinecone.io/docs/examples/semantic-text-search/
- marginalia_nu 4y ago
  I think this is serious overkill, like you can get a way with simple stemming.
  - leobg 4y ago
    Or lemmatization and BM25. Often better than SBERT in my experience when using it out of the box.
  - snapdeus 4y ago
    I believe there is built in stemming in this search. I searched the key word "commit" and some results were returned with the word "committed" My guess is this guy just set up a simple DB query on the search form and left it at that. That's what I've done in the past for simple text search. I know that at least mongodb comes with built in full text search and stemming. What he really should do is set up elastic search but that's a big pita to learn all that
- dakial1 4y ago
  Felt the same way. Some off the shelf algorithms would do wonders here. More sophisticated ML to tag (image and themes) would be awesomely overkill.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Or allow people to tag strips, etc.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    shudders at the thought of what "people" would contribute
racl101 4y ago
Cool! Wish there was one of these for Archie comics.
- bombcar 4y ago
  I use one for Penny Arcade: https://pipefour.org/pa/ https://pipefour.org/pa/ https://inducks.org https://inducks.org covers the Disney Duck universe (think: Carl Barks, Don Rosa, et al) but it isn't full-text, mainly metadata.
teddyh 4y ago
See also: http://www.ohnorobot.com/ http://www.ohnorobot.com/
fzliu 4y ago
I remember this from a while back - good to bring back memories. This may be a bit excessive, but using CLIP (https://towhee.io/image-text-embedding/clip https://towhee.io/image-text-embedding/clip) or some other multimodal learning model in conjunction with Milvus (https://milvus.io https://milvus.io) could make for a search engine that takes the graphics into consideration as well. Not sure how well it would work for comics, but it could make for a pretty unique weekend hack.
aargh_aargh 4y ago
Thanks, you insensitive clod!
ComputerCat 4y ago
This is so cute! I have all the collections and absolutely love Calvin & Hobbes. Definitely brings back some memories!
acheron 4y ago
I use this all the time to pull up C&H references. Here’s a favorite one I found by searching for “townsfolk” (in fact one of two strips that has that word): https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1992/10/06 https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1992/10/06
- damagednoob 4y ago
  I quote this one pretty regularly: https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1989/01/02 https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1989/01/02
- flanbiscuit 4y ago
  I found my favorite one right away by searching "snowmen" and clicking on the first result: https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1988/02/28 https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1988/02/28
jkingsman 4y ago
If anyone else is looking for the dataset, it appears here: http://www.s-anand.net/comic.calvin.jsz http://www.s-anand.net/comic.calvin.jsz
- irrational 4y ago
  I don't think this is correct. For instance, if I search for Susie, it finds Susie comics even when she isn't mentioned by name. For instance, the first comic with her has this information Script Here comes that new girl. Hey Susie Derkins, is that your face, or is a 'possum stuck in your collar? I hope you suffer a debilitating brain aneurysm, you freak! She's cute, isn't she?? Go away. Description Calvin sees the new girl coming and yells a question asking if that's Susie Derkins' face or if a possum is stuck in her collar. He then yells that she should have a debilitating brain aneurysm. Hobbes says she's cute, to which Calvin wants Hobbes to go away. None of which is in the dataset you listed.
0xbadcafebee 4y ago
Looked up "munch", seems like script doesn't match comic for a couple of 'em
sharps_xp 4y ago
i’ve been thinking of doing something similar but for anime and with semantic search (ie., “rudeous getting punched”) but i have concerns about DMCA notices. I also know that search engines have a different set of rules for copyright liability but i couldn’t make sense of them since IANAL. I might just make it for myself and call it a day.
optimalsolver 4y ago
Calvin & Hobbes & Dune (Calvin & Muad'Dib): https://calvinanddune.tumblr.com/ https://calvinanddune.tumblr.com/
- Arubis 4y ago
  This is incredible; thank you!
irrational 4y ago
Outstanding. I wish it could display the actual strips, but I understand why it cannot. I can't even imagine how much work it must have taken to compile the metadata for this.
forrestbrazeal 4y ago
I immediately searched "Weltanschauung", and was not disappointed.
madcaptenor 4y ago
Looked up "amendment", which I thought of after I had COVID last Christmas. It finds 6/16/90 (https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1990/06/16 https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1990/06/16) which is what I was looking for.
dang 4y ago
Related: Calvin and Hobbes Search Engine - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26119380 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26119380 - Feb 2021 (163 comments) Calvin & Hobbes Search Engine - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1600211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1600211 - Aug 2010 (27 comments) Calvin & Hobbes "Search Engine" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1600151 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1600151 - Aug 2010 (5 comments)
unfunco 4y ago
I searched for "Somehow, it's always right now until it's later." and it found nothing, I checked on http://www.s-anand.net/comic.calvin.jsz http://www.s-anand.net/comic.calvin.jsz and it's "Somehone, it's always right now until it's later." – it's not very forgiving.
ChrisArchitect 4y ago
(2010) Some discussion from back then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1600211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1600211

96 points by Arubis 4y ago

This page is great and I've used it for years. One thing to note is the underlying data (from gocomics) is not always accurate, and sometimes you will end up on a comic that does not match the search. Sometimes you can find the one you're looking for by browsing about a week out in either direction. If you email Yingling about it with the correct date or URL, he'll update the database.

gk1 4y ago

> Your search returned no results.Remember that it searches for the EXACT phrase you typed! (And dates must be of the format MM/DD/YYYY) Requiring an exact search is fairly prohibitive. For example I searched for "feeling frustrated" and got the above error, despite 100% certainty there are strips about feeling frustrated. You (or someone) could update this to search by semantics and not by keyword, using a combination of SBERT (or similar model) + a vector database: https://www.pinecone.io/docs/examples/semantic-text-search/ https://www.pinecone.io/docs/examples/semantic-text-search/

marginalia_nu 4y ago
I think this is serious overkill, like you can get a way with simple stemming.
- leobg 4y ago
  Or lemmatization and BM25. Often better than SBERT in my experience when using it out of the box.
- snapdeus 4y ago
  I believe there is built in stemming in this search. I searched the key word "commit" and some results were returned with the word "committed" My guess is this guy just set up a simple DB query on the search form and left it at that. That's what I've done in the past for simple text search. I know that at least mongodb comes with built in full text search and stemming. What he really should do is set up elastic search but that's a big pita to learn all that
dakial1 4y ago
Felt the same way. Some off the shelf algorithms would do wonders here. More sophisticated ML to tag (image and themes) would be awesomely overkill.
bombcar 4y ago
Or allow people to tag strips, etc.
- dylan604 4y ago
  shudders at the thought of what "people" would contribute

racl101 4y ago

Cool! Wish there was one of these for Archie comics.

bombcar 4y ago
I use one for Penny Arcade: https://pipefour.org/pa/ https://pipefour.org/pa/ https://inducks.org https://inducks.org covers the Disney Duck universe (think: Carl Barks, Don Rosa, et al) but it isn't full-text, mainly metadata.

teddyh 4y ago

See also: http://www.ohnorobot.com/ http://www.ohnorobot.com/

fzliu 4y ago

I remember this from a while back - good to bring back memories. This may be a bit excessive, but using CLIP (https://towhee.io/image-text-embedding/clip https://towhee.io/image-text-embedding/clip) or some other multimodal learning model in conjunction with Milvus (https://milvus.io https://milvus.io) could make for a search engine that takes the graphics into consideration as well. Not sure how well it would work for comics, but it could make for a pretty unique weekend hack.

aargh_aargh 4y ago

Thanks, you insensitive clod!

ComputerCat 4y ago

This is so cute! I have all the collections and absolutely love Calvin & Hobbes. Definitely brings back some memories!

acheron 4y ago

I use this all the time to pull up C&H references. Here’s a favorite one I found by searching for “townsfolk” (in fact one of two strips that has that word): https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1992/10/06 https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1992/10/06

damagednoob 4y ago
I quote this one pretty regularly: https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1989/01/02 https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1989/01/02
flanbiscuit 4y ago
I found my favorite one right away by searching "snowmen" and clicking on the first result: https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1988/02/28 https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1988/02/28

jkingsman 4y ago

If anyone else is looking for the dataset, it appears here: http://www.s-anand.net/comic.calvin.jsz http://www.s-anand.net/comic.calvin.jsz

irrational 4y ago
I don't think this is correct. For instance, if I search for Susie, it finds Susie comics even when she isn't mentioned by name. For instance, the first comic with her has this information Script Here comes that new girl. Hey Susie Derkins, is that your face, or is a 'possum stuck in your collar? I hope you suffer a debilitating brain aneurysm, you freak! She's cute, isn't she?? Go away. Description Calvin sees the new girl coming and yells a question asking if that's Susie Derkins' face or if a possum is stuck in her collar. He then yells that she should have a debilitating brain aneurysm. Hobbes says she's cute, to which Calvin wants Hobbes to go away. None of which is in the dataset you listed.

0xbadcafebee 4y ago

Looked up "munch", seems like script doesn't match comic for a couple of 'em

sharps_xp 4y ago

i’ve been thinking of doing something similar but for anime and with semantic search (ie., “rudeous getting punched”) but i have concerns about DMCA notices. I also know that search engines have a different set of rules for copyright liability but i couldn’t make sense of them since IANAL. I might just make it for myself and call it a day.

optimalsolver 4y ago

Calvin & Hobbes & Dune (Calvin & Muad'Dib): https://calvinanddune.tumblr.com/ https://calvinanddune.tumblr.com/

Arubis 4y ago
This is incredible; thank you!

irrational 4y ago

Outstanding. I wish it could display the actual strips, but I understand why it cannot. I can't even imagine how much work it must have taken to compile the metadata for this.

forrestbrazeal 4y ago

I immediately searched "Weltanschauung", and was not disappointed.

madcaptenor 4y ago

Looked up "amendment", which I thought of after I had COVID last Christmas. It finds 6/16/90 (https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1990/06/16 https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1990/06/16) which is what I was looking for.

dang 4y ago

Related: Calvin and Hobbes Search Engine - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26119380 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26119380 - Feb 2021 (163 comments) Calvin & Hobbes Search Engine - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1600211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1600211 - Aug 2010 (27 comments) Calvin & Hobbes "Search Engine" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1600151 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1600151 - Aug 2010 (5 comments)

unfunco 4y ago

I searched for "Somehow, it's always right now until it's later." and it found nothing, I checked on http://www.s-anand.net/comic.calvin.jsz http://www.s-anand.net/comic.calvin.jsz and it's "Somehone, it's always right now until it's later." – it's not very forgiving.

ChrisArchitect 4y ago

(2010) Some discussion from back then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1600211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1600211