explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2197: Game Show

2019-09-03T03:17:58Z

162.158.165.176: added desktop link

Suggestion for comic explanation: Black Hat does the things that Black Hat always does. {{unsigned|172.68.65.90}}

I'm unable to find a single instance of any game show ever asking this sort of question. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.142.161|172.68.142.161]] 22:35, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

How about https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Island_Discs?
Desktop link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Island_Discs

I find myself wondering what Black Hat would do if he had the skeleton. Probably some kind over-elaborate scheme to mess with people? Or maybe it's just because there are so many people who'd be interested in the possibility of bringing it back from a desert island. [[User:Angel|Angel]] ([[User talk:Angel|talk]]) 01:07, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

At first it looks like Black Hat is playing a different type of game show game - to associate each item to the one before. The links are mode of transport, plane, relating to Earhart, internal structure, has a crown. Beyond that, items seem to simply be random and hard to obtain.--[[Special:Contributions/172.69.63.89|172.69.63.89]] 01:53, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
*Well, when you consider that Queen Elizabeth is a big fan of this show... --[[User:Account|Account]] ([[User talk:Account|talk]]) 02:05, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

1772: Startup Opportunity

2016-12-15T01:38:51Z

162.158.165.176: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1772
| date = December 14, 2016
| title = Startup Opportunity
| image = startup_opportunity.png
| titletext = While there's no formal regulation, it turns out their industry group is NOT one you want mad at you.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Draft.}}
[[Beret Guy|Beret Guy's]] [[:Category:Beret Guy's Business|company]], first seen in [[1032: Networking]], [[1293: Job Interview]] and [[1493: Meeting]], returns, and its purpose is as vague as ever.

Analysts, brought in to advise his company, determine that it doesn't actually serve any purpose. Ironically, many analysts also don't actually serve any purpose. Beret Guy is dumbfounded, claiming that his company must do ''something'', and takes a line of reasoning that faintly resembles the sort of logic a child might use. A child that visits an office building might conclude that an office does a lot because there are a lot of employees working inside, unaware that what really makes a successful business is how efficiently it uses its employees to deliver goods and services to the consumer. But most children, to their credit, would never even consider that the chairs in the office are somehow key to the business' success.{{Citation needed}} Beret Guy, demonstrating yet again that he has even less sense for business than your average child, uses the amount of chairs in the workplace as a yardstick for success, with no mention of his actual, human workforce.

The analysts suggest that Beret Guy find an industry to disrupt. The mention of "industry" immediately reminds Beret Guy of {{w|SimCity}}, where Industrial (along with Residential and Commercial) is one of the three main zone types - it allows factories and farms to develop. {{w|Disruptive innovation|Disruption}} means coming up with a product that redefines what the market expects and leaving existing competitors in the dust (for instance, smartphones disrupted mobile, digital photography disrupted film, and air travel disrupted rail and sea travel (and is in turn being disrupted by high-speed rail)) - it's now an industry buzzword and virtually every company claims to be "disruptive".

When pointed in the right direction, Beret Guy realizes that the main industry he deals with is weird disappearing shops selling cursed goods. This is [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheLittleShopThatWasntThereYesterday a common trope] in horror stories, and as soon as [[Hairy]] hears about it he wants out of the building, but as his colleagues point out it also bears more than a passing resemblance to many dodgy {{w|startup companies}}. These appear suddenly with a lot of promotion and a marketable idea, looking for {{w|venture capital}} (or, a lot of times in recent times, pre-orders on {{w|Kickstarter}}). However, many startups fail - either because they didn't take into account the difficulties involved in bringing a product to market, or because they were an active scam - and disappear without a trace, leaving customers either empty handed or with a buggy product that falls short of promises. As [[Cueball]] notes, these cursed shops are actually the perfect startup, at least from a moneymaking perspective. This humorously ignores the more obvious larger problem, that such a business would be impossible to create due to not actually having magical items to sell. Apparently, the business may become one, if he does spend most of his money there.

Disappearing shops selling cursed goods which only work under specific astrological conditions (such as a television set that only works for a single cycle of the moon) may also be found in the real world. These are usually unlicensed and only seem to appear when there is an abundance of heroes desperate for such items (eg. people with a limited budget immediately before the start of the FIFA World Cup).

As with most Beret Guy comics, there are multiple layers of absurdity. For a start, the fact that he-and by extension, the rest of the cast-live in a world including supernatural shops is, while not inconsistent, still supernatural. The assertion that this is where he buys most of his materials and other products is also curious, given the shops' inherent temporary nature, as it implies either something about him causes these shops to appear, or that he is drawn to these shops instinctively. Most absurdly, he apparently purchases his FOOD from these establishments (which may also serve as an explanation for his 'soup outlet' in [[1293: Job Interview]]), despite previously stating everything they sell is cursed, conjures troubling images in the mind of HOW exactly food would be cursed-and its effects.

The title text alludes to the fact that irrespective of whether or not there is formal regulation, it is unwise to anger a group of people who have access to cursed magical items. It is easy to imagine numerous ways they could make one's life substantially worse.<sup>[[[285|''citation needed'']]]</sup><noinclude>

==Transcript==
[Beret Guy is sitting in a board meeting]
:White Hat: We've discovered that your company doesn't do anything.
:Beret Guy: How is that possible?! We have so many chairs!

:White Hat: You need to find an industry to disrupt.
:Beret Guy: An...industry?
:Beret Guy: Oh, yeah!
:Beret Guy: The zoning thing from SimCity!

:White Hat: No, like, a kind of business.
:Beret Guy: How do I find those?
:White Hat: I don't know. What's something you spend a lot of money on?

[Beat panel]

:Beret Guy: You know those mysterious shops that sell you magical items, and then it turns out they're cursed, but when you go back later there's no sign the shop was ever there?
:Beret Guy: I get most of my stuff from those.
:Beret Guy: Like groceries.

:Hairy: We should go.
:Hairbun: Wait. High-value sales, no regulation, and when customers try to complain, they can't find you...
:Cueball: Maybe this ''is'' the perfect startup.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Beret Guy's Business]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]

1764: XKCDE

2016-11-25T07:36:46Z

162.158.165.176: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1764
| date = November 25, 2016
| title = XKCDE
| image = xkcde.png
| titletext = 4. They unplug the root machine but the thousands of leaf VMs scatter in the wind and start spinning up new instances wherever they land
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Barebones and possibly inaccurate.}}

Randall has created a theoretical software environment named XKCDE, which relies on the user creating a series of nested virtual machines inside each other, which would likely cause extreme strain on the resources of the machine running it.

He suggests continuing that process until the user gets fired, which will very likely lead to the environment not having many active users, a very counter-productive approach to software development.

A software environment which disables both the machine it runs on and the user that runs it could be thought of as a useless machine.

==Transcript==
:[Some text is displayed above a box, listing some steps.]
:Installing the xkcd development environment

:1. Spin up a VM
:2. Spin up a VM inside that VM
:3. Continue spinning up nested VMs and containers until you get fired

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:1763: Catcalling

2016-11-24T23:23:50Z

162.158.165.176:

Wouldn't this very quickly result in the extinction of all cats, as they are forced to rush from one chauvinist to another, unable to escape long enough to eat or sleep?
>Jesper


Is it just me or wouldn't this fail if the misogynists also were cat-lovers? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.224|141.101.98.224]] 15:16, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
* I doubt even cat-lovers would enjoy being swarmed by a hopeless amount of cats for an entire year.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.36|162.158.74.36]] 15:51, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
>"Misogyny"

The way I originally read this, in addition to wanting to stop getting harassed, Megan also just liked cats and wanted an easy way to gather them. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.55.71|172.68.55.71]] 15:56, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

My initial thought: Awww! Maybe by being confronted to care for neighborhood cats, such "men" might learn how to love and care for creatures who only want to exploit them, like said men do with women. That could work! ...And then I read the title text. --BigMal // [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.36|162.158.74.36]] 16:52, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Catcalling now attracts my friend Catherine. [[User:Int|Int]] ([[User talk:Int|talk]]) 17:00, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Did we know Megan was a lefty? [[User:Jameslucas|jameslucas]] <small>([[User talk:Jameslucas|" "]] / [[Special:Contributions/Jameslucas|+]])</small> 18:18, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

The big question is... does it attract bobcats? --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.123|172.68.54.123]] 21:30, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

The cursor might not be left handed, rather, we might just be on the other side of the screen, eh? [[User:NotLock|NotLock]] ([[User talk:NotLock|talk]]) 07:40, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
:I was thinking the same thing, but dismissed the idea because the text ("Catcalling", "Attracts cats", etc) isn't similarly mirrored. The drop-down menu itself usually has its arrow-thingy on the right, though... Hmm... [[User:Maplestrip|Maplestrip]] ([[User talk:Maplestrip|talk]]) 11:22, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
::Maybe comic characters read in mirror-text! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.165.176|162.158.165.176]] 23:23, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the part about the title text being perl is wrong. It's definitely not perl5, because things like [2 miles] are not valid syntax at all. This might be perl6 with syntax I don't know, but I doubt it, since the square brackets would indicate something like an array rather than a single element: [2 miles] would then mean "2" and "miles" separately, which doesn't make much sense. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.49.75|173.245.49.75]] 09:23, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

:I agree, it looks much more like trying to indicate text fields in a ASCII string. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.69.142|162.158.69.142]] 12:20, 24 November 2016 (UTC)