1436: Orb Hammer

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Orb Hammer

Title text: Ok, but make sure to get lots of pieces of rock, because later we'll decide to stay in a room on our regular orb and watch hammers hold themselves and hit rocks for us, and they won't bring us very many rocks.

Explanation

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Transcript

Person 1: You know that glowing orb in the night sky? Person 2: Yeah? Person 1: Let's go hit it with a hammer until little pieces break off, then bring the pieces back and lock them in a closet. Person 2: Sounds good! Text under panel: The Apollo program was weird.

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Discussion

Although the alluded-to Mars Rover missions are on-going (most particularly Curiosity, and the long-running Opportunity), could the most immediate reference instead be Rosetta's Philae Lander, scheduled to land on its destination well within a month from the date of comic publication? (Although technically it's a drill, not a hammer, And it's not a sample return mission at all, unlike the likes prior Stardust/Hayabusa missions, or conversly the ultimate "hitting it with hammer"/non-return nature of Deep Impact.) 141.101.98.247 14:52, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

(Also, "testing for life", at least directly, has only been a specific aim of certain Mars sampling missions. But perhaps that's enough (possibly misplaced) pedantry. Just don't personally know specifically how to improve the current write-up.) 141.101.98.247 15:11, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

203: Hallucinations doesn't exactly use "simple" language. 199.27.128.207 23:31, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Comparing with the word list

I compared all the text with the cited word list list, to see what was missing:

glowing orb 

neither word found, though one could write "heavenly ball", or, as noted, earth or moon (or sun).

yeah 

not listed, nor is "yes" (odd). Perhaps "agree"?

let's 

"let" is listed (as in allow), but the contracted word is "us, which is not listed.

them 

not listed, though all the singular variants (him/her/it) are.

closet 

maybe "cupboard" or "small room" or "little room"?

apollo program 

formal names don't need to be listed

weird 

maybe "really strange"

I'm guessing Randal wasn't targeting the word list explicitly. Divad27182 (talk) 16:34, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

The simple language/technical field idea is also touched on in 444: Macgyver Gets Lazy Quetzalcoatl (talk) 15:31, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

There is a community portal discussion of what to call Cueball and what to do in case with more than one Cueball. I have added this comic to the new Category:Multiple Cueballs. Since there is really only one Cueball that "talks" it may be OK to keep him listed as Cueball. Just made a note that the other guy also looks like Cueball. --Kynde (talk) 15:03, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Sorry if this is the wrong procedure, but I've never edited anything beyond fixing grammatical mistakes. I've edited the page to get rid of the "double Cueball problem". Why don't we just leave it at this for this page and mark it as "completed". 108.162.216.89 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

That's fine (with me) for this page, but we'd appreciate input here. Djbrasier (talk) 01:36, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

I disagree. There is no reason to suggesdt that these guys who get this idea was from Nasa. This comic just describes the Apollo program with unexpected words. The transcript should describe not assume. Have deleted nasa reference and reinstated Cuecall-like guy.--Kynde (talk) 19:47, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Surely humour was correct? --141.101.98.248 10:48, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree. Rule #1 is "Don't be a jerk.", and discriminating against valid spelling on the basic of national origin certainly seems like "being a jerk" to me. -452 (talk) 14:45, 18 April 2015 (UTC)