explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1583: NASA Press Conference

2018-11-13T16:22:00Z

108.162.241.142: Removed citation requirement for Mars not being a thing ruined by getting wet

{{comic
| number = 1583
| date = September 28, 2015
| title = NASA Press Conference
| image = nasa_press_conference.png
| titletext = Why are we spending billions to ruin Mars with swarms of robots when Elon Musk has promised to ruin Mars for a FRACTION of the cost?
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a reference to the press conference held by NASA on 28th September 2015, (the same day this comic was published), which confirmed the existence of liquid water at the surface of Mars. The comic was posted before the NASA press conference was held, although speculation about the announcement had already occurred.

The "questions" portion of the press conference is derailed by [[Beret Guy]], acting as a reporter for a network known only as "The News". He first comments he is holding a microphone so he is "real loud now." He then asks how the data about Mars relates to data in other fields like medicine and sports. This may seem like an intelligent question upon first glance, but it is in fact nonsensical. Afterwards he asks if Mars has been "ruined" by getting wet, or if Mars will be okay when it dries out. Some things, e.g. indoor furniture, can be damaged by water, but Mars is not one of those things. When asked if he has any other questions he asks why {{w|Luke Skywalker|Luke}} was being hassled at the {{w|Mos Eisley Cantina}} in {{w|Star Wars}}. Although this may be somewhat space-related, NASA is not an organization that explains films, whether or not they are space related. The other reporters forget their original questions and join in on the irrelevant discussion, much to the dismay of the NASA scientist.

This is probably meant to mock previous NASA press conferences, where reporters have asked inane questions that reveal their total ignorance of the field.

The title text refers to Elon Musk, who suggested [http://edition.cnn.com/2015/09/11/us/elon-musk-mars-nuclear-bomb-colbert-feat/ nuking Mars] as a faster way of warming it up to make it habitable.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is standing behind a lectern with the NASA logo on it.]
:Cueball: That concludes the press conference. Any questions?
:Cueball: Yes, you, from... it just says "The News"?

:[Beret Guy is standing in a crowd holding a microphone.]
:Beret Guy: Hi! I have a microphone so I'm real loud now.
:Beret Guy: How does this Mars data compare to data from other fields? Like medicine? Or sports?

:Cueball (offscreen): That question makes no sense.
:Beret Guy: If there's water on Mars, is it ruined?
:Beret Guy: Or will it be okay when it dries out?
:Cueball (offscreen): Any ''other'' questions?

:[The shot zooms out, showing that Cueball and the lectern is standing on a podium and also the crowd comes in to view.]
:Beret Guy: What were those guys hassling Luke in the Mos Eisley Cantina trying to accomplish? I felt like I was supposed to understand that.
:Cueball: Anyone ''else?''
:Ponytail: That's now my question, too.
:Megan: Were they just picking a fight?
:Ponytail: If so, why did...

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Elon Musk]]

873: FPS Mod

2018-09-24T23:56:49Z

108.162.241.142: Undo revision 163241 by 108.162.246.191 (talk) more like "made it sexist"

{{comic
| number = 873
| date = March 16, 2011
| title = FPS Mod
| image = fps mod.png
| titletext = Wait, that second one is a woman? ...wait, if that bothers me, then why doesn't... man, this game is no fun anymore.
}}

==Explanation==
FPS stands for {{w|First-person shooter|First Person Shooter}}, which is a type of video game (like ''{{w|Halo (series)|Halo}}'' or ''{{w|Duke Nukem}}'') in which you are looking at the world from the first person perspective of the character you are controlling. [[Randall]] notes in the caption that no one liked his FPS mod (short for "modification" of the FPS game), and in the title text it is clear that [[Cueball]] who played this modified version no longer enjoys the game.

FPS games are controversial for their (supposed) quality of encouraging violence such as killing (especially other human beings). One point of the controversy is that, while virtual enemies are just pixels on a screen, real enemies have actual lives, emotions, and the like. In the games, there is a disconnect between the act of killing and its emotional cost, thus leading to the controversy that FPS games encourage wanton killing (or violence in general) to solve problems instead of considering the other party. Randall makes reference to this by adding a mod that gives biographical snippets of the enemy you shoot in the game, thus giving Cueball the perspective of the enemy he just shot, and causing emotional consequence and remorse by removing the disconnect between pixel and life.

The comic can also be a reference towards making games more realistic. Giving the enemies a life above being mere targets definitely makes the game more realistic, but such a game would not be that enjoyable. This has been explored previously in [[772: Frogger]].

The title text talks about how gender is portrayed in games. For some people it is more emotionally affecting to kill a woman, as women are considered biologically "weaker" than men by many societies, and societal norms state that men must protect them. Gender equality is a highly debated topic with many different viewpoints, where one's conscious reasoned views may sometimes stand at odds to subconscious feelings. When a player becomes aware that killing women bothers one more than killing men, it exposes an inconsistency in the player's own logic, one that's very uncomfortable to confront.

In the 1993 post-apocalyptic novel'' {{w|The Fifth Sacred Thing}}'', the eco-pacifist residents of San Francisco defeat an invading army using a similar tactic. Rather than engage in armed defense, the family and friends of each dead San Franciscan speak directly to the soldiers who killed them, saying, "My wife was the mother of five children, and I loved her dearly," or "My cousin liked baseball." Eventually the soldiers suffer psychological breakdowns and defect ''en masse'', rather as Cueball seems to do in the title text.

Amusingly, the 2014 game ''{{w|Watch Dogs}}'' does something quite similar to this; the in-game "Profiler" provides a brief summary of a targeted enemy, and if the enemy does not have a gameplay-relevant feature (i.e. "Can call for backup"), it will mention their hobbies or interests.

The game ''{{w|Borderlands 2}}'' directly references this comic with the Morningstar, a unique aftermarket talking Hyperion sniper rifle which berates the user in a nagging, whiny voice any time they reload, kill an enemy, swap weapons, or score a critical hit. The weapon is obtained from the mission Hyperion Contract 873 (a reference to this comic being comic number 873) and is referred to as "the Hyperion ex-K seedy experimental weapon" upon completion of the mission.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is sitting in a chair in front of his TV holding a gamepad while playing a video game. Every time he shoots the sound is written inside a ring of small curved lines to indicate the noise. Text on the screen is noted after each round of blasts with a zigzag line from the screen and between each entry.]
:''Blam''
:Game: He once built a treehouse.
:''Blam''
:Game: She has 110 unread emails that she was hoping to get to tonight.
:''Blam blam''
:Game: He was the only one who took care of the plants back at base.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:No one liked my FPS mod that gives you three-second snippets from the bios of people you shoot.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Video games]]

Talk:2019: An Apple for a Dollar

2018-07-14T20:09:11Z

108.162.241.142:

Is this a reference to how shops in America don't include VAT in price labels?
(It's my first time trying to contribute to this so sorry if I get some format stuff wrong){{unsigned ip|141.101.107.132}}

:Yeah, Randall would love it in Europe! (you should sign your posts with <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki> though) --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.51.22|172.68.51.22]] 15:53, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

:It is a commentary on overly complex taxes and fees on things that really shouldn't have fees applied (I can think of hardly anything that really should have a fee applied, or be taxed really, but that's a political-philosophical discussion for another space-time coordinate) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.239|172.69.70.239]] 16:18, 13 July 2018 (UTC) Sam

:We call it sales tax, and it doesn't have the chaining-effect on every stage of production that VAT does, but yeah. It's rarely calculated into the sticker price. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.246|162.158.106.246]] 16:27, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Is food taxed where Randall lives? It's not where I live and I was under the impression that it's not in most of the US. It's not uncommon for me to go to a store after working out and buying a protein bar for exactly $1. {{unsigned ip|162.158.63.22}}

:Living smack-dab in the center of the US and I can tell you that pretty much everything has a sales tax. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.239|172.69.70.239]] 16:18, 13 July 2018 (UTC) Sam
::Groceries, such as apples, should not be taxed, but I believe that processed foods are taxed. Actually, nevermind, this is state dependent: [https://blog.taxjar.com/states-grocery-items-tax-exempt/] [[Special:Contributions/172.68.46.137|172.68.46.137]] 16:27, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

:In my experience food is indeed taxed like everything else, but businesses will sometimes set the actual price of the item slightly below $1, such that the tax makes it cost exactly $1. The example that comes to mind is the soft-serve ice cream at IKEA. [[User:PotatoGod|PotatoGod]] ([[User talk:PotatoGod|talk]]) 16:31, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
::That has been my experience as well, although it varies by region. — AfroThundr <sup>([[User:AfroThundr3007730|u]] · [[User talk:AfroThundr3007730|t]] · [[Special:Contributions/AfroThundr3007730|c]])</sup> 16:37, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

The closest thing this can relate to a for a European is buying dinners or hotel rooms if you come from a corrupt East or Southern European country where "tourists tax" is a real thing and added out of nowhere on top of the regular price, because the regular price only have to include regular taxes.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.202.58|162.158.202.58]] 16:39, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm thinking on the analysis I tentatively added to the explanation above. I assumed Megan was an engineer, but re-reading the comic ("Should I solve for something ??") I think it's more possible she no longer has to do math in her career, and is being portrayed as having a flashback to school again when she encounters a similar situation to her education. The examples are common in math and physics in grade school. It's hard for me to figure out in my head how to combine all the different interpretations, or which ones are likely wrong; it would be great if somebody could clean it up. If not, it's just a tiny wiki on the internet. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.160|172.68.54.160]] 18:25, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Is this really a grocery store? I thought of it more as a coffee shop. Minimalist decor and whatnot. It's also one of those places where you would explain introductorily that you want just the apple. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.130|108.162.237.130]] 18:15, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

The exact fraction of an apple needed to spend exactly $1.00 is 0.46082949308. [[User:meunstercheese|MuensterCheese]] misspelled their username. [[User_talk:Meunstercheese|Chat \o]] 19:23, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

One could also interpret this as an analogy of Randall's first experiences with cryptocurrencies (to avoid naming any specific one), which makes transactions as simple as possible without any tricks. The title text then suggests that it's possible in this scenario to send fractions of a unit in cryptocurrencies. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.142|108.162.241.142]] 20:09, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

1966: Smart Home Security

2018-03-14T09:41:31Z

108.162.241.142: /* Explanation */ XP example is bad because users chose not to apply a free upgrade.

{{comic
| number = 1966
| date = March 12, 2018
| title = Smart Home Security
| image = smart_home_security.png
| titletext = If they're getting valuable enough stuff from you, at least the organized crime folks have an incentive to issue regular updates to keep the appliance working after the manufacturer discontinues support.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a FACELESS ENGINEER - Confirm that the graph means "the older the device, the worse the best-case is".}}

With the proliferation of smart appliances in recent years, there is a growing trend of hackers taking over smart "Internet of Things" devices and adding them to {{w|botnets}}. The hardware is then used for DDOS attacks, crypto mining etc. The "Mirai" botnet made of over 500,000 compromised routers, refrigerators, tvs, DVRs, baby monitors, thermostats, and webcams was used in October 2016 to take down DynDNS, one of the core infrastructure providers for the internet in North America.

With the potential threat always looming, security updates must be constantly pushed, and exploits must be found by the original developers and "white hat" hackers (The faceless team of engineers [[Randall]] describes), before they could be found (and get used) by "black hat" hackers. At any time, these people could quit, leaving devices defenseless.

The graph shows the various cases of how well things go on the y axis, compared to how long it has been owned on the x axis. Probability of compromise briefly dips (indicative of first rounds of security fix updates & the time window when you can easily exchange the product if you find out it's faulty) within the 1st year, then rises: The older a device/software is, the less likely it is to consistently receive security updates for protection, so they are more likely to be hacked, even in the best case. After 10 years, the device/software, is most likely outdated and is not being used anymore. Companies then no longer find it profitable to continually update the product, and then pull support out, even if people are still using it, leaving them vulnerable. This exact thing happens to Android phones not using LineageOS.

The title text suggests that there may be some silver lining to having your device controlled by organized crime professional s: These criminals have a vested interest in keeping your device working well enough that you keep it plugged in. So the more organized & pragmatic attackers will in fact secure it against competing attackers, especially those of a more prankster mindset, who'd cause more noticeably malicious changes. Advanced malware in the wild does frequently block & evict competing malware, so he's probably right. Some IOT malware may thus provide 'regular security update service' after the manufacturers give up - some at a conceivably acceptable cost of a few cents electrical usage for a crypto miner for instance. However, it could very easily go horribly wrong - for instance if that miner is hiding by letting a refrigerator run 2°C higher than its outputs allege, & using the energy difference to max out the processor on mining operations

==Transcript==
:[A graph is shown inside a frame. There is one dotted line going from the middle of the left edge, then dipping slightly before rising slowly at first, then more rapid and finally slowing its ascend down as it nears the top right corner.]

:[Above the frame is the title of the x-axis, and from each end of this text, there is a small line going out and then down, to indicate a time range, which is shown below with four times:]
:How long you've had your smart appliance
:6 months     1 year     5 years     10 years

:[Along the left part of the frame there runs a double arrow and at the top and bottom of these arrows there are legends at the top and bottom of the panels height:]
:Best-case
:Worst-case

:[Inside the panel there is text above the dotted line to the left, and below the dotted line to the right:]
:You're constantly being rescued from peril by a faceless team of engineers who could wander away at any time

:Your appliance is part of a botnet run by organized crime

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Line graphs]]
[[Category:Virtual Assistants]]

Talk:1541: Voice

2017-08-09T06:14:43Z

108.162.241.142:

The premise of this comic reminds me of a sci-fi short story I read many years ago but have never been able to track down. A young girl's doll (?) comes to life, and it explains that it is a entity that can inhabit inanimate objects. Some things happen that I have forgotten, and while walking down the road, the girl is almost struck by a runaway car. The entity takes control of the car and steers it away from her. It decides that, having saved the girl's life, it has every right to take control of her - leaving our poor protagonist in the worst kind of "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" scenario as the story ends. Perhaps Randall Munroe read the same story. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.212|141.101.98.212]] 12:08, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
:To me it reminds me of the movie "Being John Malkovich", especially the end, where the main character is forever trapped in the other person's body, unable to talk. Kind of the-other-way-around, but a similar concept. [[User:Linuspogo|Linuspogo]] ([[User talk:Linuspogo|talk]]) 12:23, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

:Actually, it's very much like The Silver Chair from The Chronicles of Narnia where someone is enchanted most of the time, and only in their right mind for a short time every day. They have a short time to convince those around them that they are now in their right mind. --[[User:Mlv|Mlv]] ([[User talk:Mlv|talk]]) 15:33, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

The phrase "..and put food in our normal mouths" (trying to pass as a human but getting it wrong) reminded me of 629: Skins "..been driving my car and having a job all day .. didn't meow once." [[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.105|173.245.53.105]] 16:15, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

;every six years

6 years back it was june 22, 2009 -> [[600|Comic 600]]. I guess there is no link between those comics , but I would not be surprised if there was. [[User:SirKitKat|sirKitKat]] ([[User talk:SirKitKat|talk]]) 12:44, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
: anyway, I'm looking forward to the comic of june 22, 2021 ;) [[User:SirKitKat|sirKitKat]] ([[User talk:SirKitKat|talk]]) 12:51, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
::Do you realize that xkcd is fiction? Do you realize that Homer and Marge Simpson have not been married for 27 years, since Bart has been 10 during these 27 years? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.94|173.245.50.94]] 13:15, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
:::The author of this comic has a habit of doing things as suggested by the commenter that you mock. Stay on topic. This is not a place for picking fights.[[Special:Contributions/173.245.48.154|173.245.48.154]] 14:49, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
::::I'd just like to make it known that while both 22 June 2009 and 2015 both fell on a Monday, 22 June 2021 will fall on a Tuesday. (Thank pesky leap days for that.) Randall will have to break his regular schedule for a small easter egg that would then be 12 years in the making. Given that it's Randall, there's a pretty likely chance that WOULD happen, but I wouldn't count on it. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.142|108.162.241.142]] 06:14, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Does this look like a continuation of the same conversation from two comics ago? [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 14:57, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
: Not to me. It's the same characters chatting casually, but there's nothing else linking both comics. [[Special:Contributions/188.114.111.224|188.114.111.224]] 15:11, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

By the way, I'd think that, even if Ponytail can't control her voice, she still can write whatever she wants. [[Special:Contributions/188.114.111.224|188.114.111.224]] 15:15, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
: "Voice" in one sense could mean the use of vocal cords and mouth to produce audible speech, but in a more general sense it can be used to describe any verbal or nonverbal communication. (eg right now I am voicing my opinion on this subject) I suspect the latter is being implied here, although like most of the comics it's open to interpretation. [[User:Tahg|Tahg]] ([[User talk:Tahg|talk]]) 21:10, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

;Animorphs reference?

xkcd has mentioned that franchise before- https://xkcd.com/1380/
It centers around an alien race named the Yeerks that effectively possess a host by entering the brain. There is a single character in that series (Marco's mother) that is on rare occasions able to break through the Yeerk's control to use her own voice. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.12|141.101.99.12]] 15:23, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Agreed, this was my first impression of the comic. --Elimist--
:The Yeerks have full access to the host's thoughts, feelings, and memories. They are literally wrapped around the brain. They are completely indistinguishable and would not act suspicious in a personality sense. The only things that give them away are their required actions, such as returning to the pool every few days, or if they get caught in a conversation with their conspirators. The only reason Jake's status as host was discovered in one novel was because the Yeerk had only just entered his brain and didn't have time to fully acquire his memories. The Yeerk's sudden and unexpected exposure to what he believed to be the Andalite bandits lead him to have an emotional outburst. Had he been given any amount of time to adjust to his new host, he would have gone unnoticed until he had to return to the pool. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.210.153|108.162.210.153]] 18:49, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

My first thought was Randal must be talking about party obsessed people who are in fact out of control over their acting and helpless having to go out even if they don't have a reason to --floydheld--

This reminded me of the movie "The Host", where a human body is used to receive a voyaging alien entity. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.123|108.162.219.123]] 18:37, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

'''Ponytail as filler character:'''
"Note on Ponytail: She is mainly a filler character..." - maybe she has never got her own voice because she is used as a filler character? If that's the case then in that brief moment we "hear" the real Ponytail. {{unsigned ip|141.101.98.94}}

Removed the Yeerk mention, because while Yeerk hosts can occasionally act against their controller this isn't how they work, so this really probably isn't a reference to Animorphs (as much as I like the books). -Pennpenn [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.162|108.162.250.162]] 23:29, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

When I first read it, I interpreted it as some other intelligence was being suppressed by Ponytail, rather than the other way around, as it is currently being explained. (Although on further reflection, this doesn't make as much sense. I still wanted to put it in as a consideration, though.) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.107|108.162.218.107]] 02:13, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

'''Possible Stephen Hawking reference?''' It has been reported (can't find the link at the moment) that S.H. sometimes says things he didn't mean to say as a result of his software's autocomplete. Apparently his children have also had fun with this. Sorry for the lack of reference :s [[User:Glen442|Glen442]] ([[User talk:Glen442|talk]]) 14:30, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
:[http://washington.cbslocal.com/2015/06/17/stephen-hawkings-son-says-he-programmed-curse-words-into-his-fathers-voice-box/ Reference] [[User:Glen442|Glen442]] ([[User talk:Glen442|talk]]) 14:51, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

:Completely unrelated to the comic, but the above was subverted in the 2015 Comic Relief night (the umpteenth UK one, that is, seeing as the US seem to have started doing it) in a comedy sketch involving Stephen Hawking in a Little Britain setting. He apparently ''wants'' to swear, but his autocorrect bowdlerises his attempts. I'm not sure if the humour(-with-a-'u') will travel, but it's probably on YouTube if you want to look for it.
:''More'' related to the comic, Stephen was 'stuck' with an American accent with his original voice synthesiser unit, but it's now so much part of him and his popular image that he keeps it. ''Normally'' representing what he wants to say, it seems. Though maybe the reason behind his recent comments about the dangers of advanced AI is that (of all people), an aspiring AI Overlord could quite easily impersonate him and control his life, to its own ends, with people (certainly outside his usual immediate contacts) being unable to tell that he's actually in the midst of an "[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AndIMustScream I Have No Voice And I Must Scream]" scenario. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.30|141.101.98.30]] 16:01, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Could this be about multiple personality disorder? First thing that came to my mind when seeing it. Know it's not quite like this, but it is a comic. {{unsigned ip|173.245.48.207}}

'''Demonic possession.''' Maybe Megan and Ponytail are roommates, and Ponytail was possessed by Ba'al. http://xkcd.com/1419/ [[User:Wm.casson|Wm.casson]] ([[User talk:Wm.casson|talk]]) 15:22, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Is there any possible reference to democracy here? The population only has a voice every X years? {{unsigned ip|197.234.242.249}}

If I ever break character in the middle of a roleplay, this is what I say. Although it's funny--people will eventually relate such an outburst to this comic, so if I outburst like this "in actuality" the thing controlling me would simply link this comic.

Not that it's happening to me. I'm just a normal human, with normal human hands, typing normal sentences.
On the internet, nobody knows you're the ISS. NO ONE. [[User:International Space Station|International Space Station]] ([[User talk:International Space Station|talk]]) 05:09, 7 October 2015 (UTC)