explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:763: Workaround

2015-10-09T12:56:25Z

141.101.106.113:

This comic is broken:
<code>{#if:|| --></code>
surrounding the comic should not happen. Some experiments???--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 23:04, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Six partitions, C through J... Which two letters are missing? [[User:Mumiemonstret|Mumiemonstret]] ([[User talk:Mumiemonstret|talk]]) 14:23, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Well I assume D: is the DVD Burner and E: the BluRay drive? Just guessing, who still has optical drives these days, Fuck optical drives :0
--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.66|108.162.254.66]] 09:54, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

I found that, starting with XP, and particularly now with 7, the drive letters Windows automatically assigns to new devices started to not make much sense... The main system partition is C, the manufacturer recovery partition is D (really must get round to "hiding" that) and after that it's a free for all. The DVD drive (which I still have semi regular use of for various reasons), a gaggle of USB hard disks, memory sticks and card readers, any fresh ones I might end up creating on the internal HDD, and even the built-in SD card slot, all fight for whatever letters they can get, though once a drive is assigned one it tends to stick with it... for an arbitrary length of time, which may be a matter of hours, or maybe a decade-plus, at which point some other new (or occasionally, another existing) drive will co-opt that letter and bump the original down the list. Optical drive seems to get priority, then the external HDDs, then the memory sticks and card readers, but it's not an absolute.

So if he's ever used a USB drive at any point, especially before adding a new internal HDD for extra storage, there could well be a gap...

I'm also no stranger to the "squillions of partitions" issue, at least back in the Win98 era. One family machine ended up with no fewer than three different HDDs in it all at once, each with at least two partitions for various reasons (not least partition size limits / sector size efficiency, and improved ease of backing up using a utility that imaged the partitions separately onto CDRW without any compression), including one each for the various family members, the system drive, programs, games, and shared documents. On top of which there was the floppy, two optical drives (DVDROM, CDRW) and an IDE Zipdisk (yes, you heard right... both built-in IDE ports plus a PCI expansion card with a third port put to full use) and at least one virtual image-drive, and a parallel port smartmedia card reader. All this at the start of the USB-drive era, under 98SE with the USB patch. Suffice to say there were a lot of letters in use.

...and this is what was done by four people who were each generally fairly competent with computers, an a couple of them rather more so, such that we were usually the ones being asked for help rather than the other way around. I would at this point say "so who knows what fresher hells might be brewed up by those who didn't know what they were doing was even more wrong than the deliberate mistakes we were forced to make", but I've seen enough of them first hand through friends, colleagues and extended family to not have to wonder o_O; [[Special:Contributions/141.101.106.113|141.101.106.113]] 12:56, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Talk:1566: Board Game

2015-10-09T12:39:10Z

141.101.106.113:

I think Cueball has mastered [[wikipedia:gamification|gamification]] and [[wikipedia:crowdsourcing|crowdsourcing]]. --[[User:Koveras|Koveras]] ([[User talk:Koveras|talk]]) 12:45, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunately the rules change every year and explaining the rules would probably take close to a year. The Feds really should supply free tax prep software to the masses. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.100|108.162.216.100]] 13:45, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
:Not going to happen. Guess [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/16/technology/personaltech/turbotax-or-irs-as-tax-preparer-intuit-has-a-favorite.html?_r=0 who's lobbying] against it? [[User:Ralfoide|Ralfoide]] ([[User talk:Ralfoide|talk]]) 16:27, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Someone needs to make an actual board game based on this comic. Any aspiring or wanna be board game makes out there? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.149|173.245.54.149]] 15:44, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

I think the title "Board Game" could imply a double meaning since doing taxes is such a chore. Hence, the homophone ''bored''. Also, paragraph 4b is an assumption. We don't know Cueball's actual reasoning for tricking board game hobbyists into doing his taxes. Perhaps he is cheap and doesn't want to pay a professional. Perhaps it is an experiment. IMO it wouldn't be because it is too confusing because he would need to thoroughly understand the rules in order to explain them, thus leaving him fully qualified to complete it personally. I think the fave value explanation is just laziness. Same reason I hire someone to cut my grass. --[[User:R0hrshach|R0hrshach]] ([[User talk:R0hrshach|talk]]) 16:30, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

I disagree with the paragraph "Note that while Cueball states he "tricks" his board game club ... the players knew what he was doing but going along with it ...". They obviously know they are playing a tax return game, but presumably he has not told them that the cards and tokens they are getting match Cueball's actual situation in real life. So, they are tricked into preparing his actual return while thinking they are just playing a simulation game.
Zetfr 20:43, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

This kind of reminds me of when they made a Magic: The Gathering turing machine. http://www.toothycat.net/~hologram/Turing/ Just replace "Magic" with "Cueball's tax board game" and "Calculating anything a turing machine can" with "Doing my taxes."[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.48|108.162.219.48]] 03:18, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

"This is one of several xkcd comics" should include links to examples [[User:Ehusmark|EHusmark]] ([[User talk:Ehusmark|talk]]) 09:52, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Its a shame that so many people resort to such ludicrous methods every day to do their income taxes.
End Tax Discrimination [[User:YourLifeisaLie|Yourlifeisalie]] ([[User talk:YourLifeisaLie|talk]]) 14:33, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

This right here is one of the big reasons I'm glad to have been born and raised in the UK. Automatic, systematic tax calculations - including the occasional refund when the error-detection system finally sweeps round to your particular record (not sure if they ever issue demands if the error is in the other direction, though...) - for everyone except the self-employed. Naturally this means any business over a trivial size needs some kind of accounts and payroll department to deal with all the sums, but you should have that anyway.

IE just do your job and collect your pay, the tax is taken off on a per-paycheque basis with nothing more needing to be done on your behalf unless you spot a glaring error (such as the dreaded "emergency tax" band if the employer forgets to inform the authorities that you've taken up a new job at their company and what your annual salary is likely to be, so instead they detect you're suddenly getting a lot of regular income and apply the highest possible deductions in case you've taken up as a high-rolling drug dealer or something...). All taxes, national healthcare, pension, union etc contributions come out of the packet before it even hits your bank account, any errors are assumed to be someone else's fault, and even the "emergency" things are *eventually* flagged and dealt with by the system (even if it might take a year or two) so you don't get _permanently_ bilked of what you're rightly owed. So you don't end up with those clever enough and evil enough being able to game the system to minimise their tax bill even in some unethical ways, whilst a dyscalculic day labourer having to do two jobs to feed their kids gets bent over a barrel. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.106.113|141.101.106.113]] 12:39, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

1558: Vet

2015-07-31T11:48:34Z

141.101.106.113: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1558
| date = July 31, 2015
| title = Vet
| image = vet.png
| titletext = It's probably for the best. Since Roombas are native to North America, it's illegal for Americans to keep them in their houses under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
}}

==Explanation==
Roomba is a brand of domestic cleaning robots manufactured by the company iRobot. The robots are designed to automatically vacuum floors. Although these robots are controlled by a quite simple software without any artificial intelligence, some owners tend to humanize them like pets.

There are several other comics related to a Roomba:
* [[413: New Pet]]
* [[908: The Cloud]]
* [[1183: Rose Petals]]
* [[506: Theft of the Magi]]
* [[1193: Externalities]]

===Location===
The place where Megan meets the vet does not appear to be a normal vert surgery as there is another customer waiting in line is some kind of standing queuing system separated by a cord. Veterinary surgeries on the other hand, will normally have separate rooms for waiting (with seats) and treating the animals . Perhaps this is a celebrity vet offering advise as part of a TV show, or perhaps this is Cueball setting up his own, unprofessional veterinary services. The later would nicely parallel the rest of the comic: The Roomba is not a dog, Cueball is not a vet.

===The second customer===
The second customer has a dog on a leash but is also carrying a pet transporter which is clearly too small for the dog. Perhaps he has another small dog in there, or perhaps the implication is that he too has a Roomba.

==Transcript==
:[Megan arrives with a pet box, Cueball is a pet doctor, one more client waiting in line.]
:Megan: There's something wrong with my dog. He keeps crawling around eating dirt.
:[Cueball holds content of Megan's pet box, a roomba. Cueball discusses with Megan.]
:Cueball: This is a roomba.
:Megan: Well, he's a mix. Probably some roomba in there.
:[The roomba lies on the table, Cueball discusses with Megan.]
:Cueball: A roomba is not a pet.
:Megan: You're right. It's wrong to keep a beautiful creature like this in a house.
:[Megan is outside in front of a tree, rommba is driving towards that tree, away from Megan.]
:Megan: Go! Be free!
:Roomba: WHIRRR
{{incomplete transcript}}

{{comic discussion}}

1558: Vet

2015-07-31T11:46:11Z

141.101.106.113: /* Location */

{{comic
| number = 1558
| date = July 31, 2015
| title = Vet
| image = vet.png
| titletext = It's probably for the best. Since Roombas are native to North America, it's illegal for Americans to keep them in their houses under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
}}

==Explanation==
Roomba is a brand of domestic cleaning robots manufactured by the company iRobot. The robots are designed to automatically vacuum floors. Although these robots are controlled by a quite simple software without any artificial intelligence, some owners tend to humanize them like pets.

There are several other comics related to a Roomba:
* [[413: New Pet]]
* [[908: The Cloud]]
* [[1183: Rose Petals]]
* [[506: Theft of the Magi]]
* [[1193: Externalities]]

===Location===
The place where Megan meets the vet does not appear to be a normal vert surgery as there is another customer waiting in line is some kind of standing queuing system separated by a cord. Veterinary surgeries on the other hand, will normally have separate rooms for waiting (with seats) and treating the animals . Perhaps this is a celebrity vet offering advise as part of a TV show, or perhaps this is Cueball setting up his own, unprofessional veterinary services. The later would nicely parallel the rest of the comic: The Roomba is not a dog, Cueball is not a vet.

==Transcript==
:[Megan arrives with a pet box, Cueball is a pet doctor, one more client waiting in line.]
:Megan: There's something wrong with my dog. He keeps crawling around eating dirt.
:[Cueball holds content of Megan's pet box, a roomba. Cueball discusses with Megan.]
:Cueball: This is a roomba.
:Megan: Well, he's a mix. Probably some roomba in there.
:[The roomba lies on the table, Cueball discusses with Megan.]
:Cueball: A roomba is not a pet.
:Megan: You're right. It's wrong to keep a beautiful creature like this in a house.
:[Megan is outside in front of a tree, rommba is driving towards that tree, away from Megan.]
:Megan: Go! Be free!
:Roomba: WHIRRR
{{incomplete transcript}}

{{comic discussion}}

1558: Vet

2015-07-31T11:43:47Z

141.101.106.113: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1558
| date = July 31, 2015
| title = Vet
| image = vet.png
| titletext = It's probably for the best. Since Roombas are native to North America, it's illegal for Americans to keep them in their houses under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
}}

==Explanation==
Roomba is a brand of domestic cleaning robots manufactured by the company iRobot. The robots are designed to automatically vacuum floors. Although these robots are controlled by a quite simple software without any artificial intelligence, some owners tend to humanize them like pets.

There are several other comics related to a Roomba:
* [[413: New Pet]]
* [[908: The Cloud]]
* [[1183: Rose Petals]]
* [[506: Theft of the Magi]]
* [[1193: Externalities]]

===Location===
The place where Megan meets the vet does not appear to be a normal vert surgery as there is another customer waiting in line is some kind of standing queuing system separated by a cord. Veterinary surgeries on the otehr hand, will normally have separate rooms for waiting (with seats) and treating the animals . Perhaps this is a celebrity vet offering advise as part of a TV show.

==Transcript==
:[Megan arrives with a pet box, Cueball is a pet doctor, one more client waiting in line.]
:Megan: There's something wrong with my dog. He keeps crawling around eating dirt.
:[Cueball holds content of Megan's pet box, a roomba. Cueball discusses with Megan.]
:Cueball: This is a roomba.
:Megan: Well, he's a mix. Probably some roomba in there.
:[The roomba lies on the table, Cueball discusses with Megan.]
:Cueball: A roomba is not a pet.
:Megan: You're right. It's wrong to keep a beautiful creature like this in a house.
:[Megan is outside in front of a tree, rommba is driving towards that tree, away from Megan.]
:Megan: Go! Be free!
:Roomba: WHIRRR
{{incomplete transcript}}

{{comic discussion}}

11: Barrel - Part 2

2014-12-10T19:59:28Z

141.101.106.113:

{{comic
| number = 11
| date = September 30, 2005
| title = Barrel - Part 2
| image = barrel mommies.jpg
| titletext = Awww.
}}

==Explanation==
Like in the previous comic in the Barrel series, the boy is floating in the ocean in a barrel. The previous comic made a point about the uncertainty of life; here, the boy's lament at not finding a mother is pure sentimentality, as accentuated by the title text.

According the Freud, the first stage of psychosexual development is the Oral Stage which relates to a baby's relationship with its mother. The realisation that mommy cannot be found is the first point at which a person learns to stop trusting the world and realises that the world is not always comforting and safe.

This is the second in a five-part series of comics whose parts were randomly published during the first several dozen strips. The series features a [[:Category:Barrel|character]] that is not consistent with what would quickly become the [[xkcd]] [[stick figure]] style. The character is in a barrel.

The full series can be found [[:Category:Barrel|here]]:
*[[1: Barrel - Part 1]]
*11: Barrel - Part 2 (this one)
*[[22: Barrel - Part 3]]
*[[25: Barrel - Part 4]]
*[[31: Barrel - Part 5]]

==Transcript==
:[A boy sits in a barrel which is floating in an ocean.]
:Boy: None of the places i floated had mommies.

==Trivia==
*This is the thirteenth comic [[xkcd#History|originally posted]] on livejournal. The previous was [[14: Copyright]]. The next was [[15: Just Alerting You]]. View archive [http://liveweb.archive.org/web/20070927001941/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=40 here].
*Original [[Randall]] quote: "The story continues."
*The drawing style is very reminiscent of the {{w|The Little Prince|Little Prince}}.
{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics posted on livejournal]]
[[Category:Barrel|02]]