explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2808: Daytime Firefly

2023-07-29T09:25:01Z

162.158.38.24: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2808
| date = July 28, 2023
| title = Daytime Firefly
| image = daytime_firefly_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x272px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Mr. Jones, watch out for Ms. Lenhart! She's from genus Photuris!
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a waterfly. Believe in me / Help me believe in anything / 'Cause I wanna be someone who believes / Yeah / [Chorus]}}

Some things are associated with being seen so much in a given context that it can be surprising to see them anywhere else. This comic starts with the initially trivial incident of a famously night-time outdoor insect, a {{w|firefly}}, being discovered indoors and during the day.

This quickly becomes another typical observation, that of the experience of a schoolchild seeing someone, who they normally only encounter in the classroom, 'in the real world'. This may not be strange in small, close-knit communities, but can still be seen as extraordinary, and is sometimes an event that happens after the child (and/or teacher) has left the school, after several years have passed, and is a sign that they are now more equal citizens rather than tutor and student with vastly different non-overlapping lives outside of education.

Unlike fireflies, teachers generally do not {{w|Bioluminescence|bioluminesce}}, or flit around in the open air.{{Citation needed}} But that scenario is where the analogy quickly turns, imagining Mr Jones (named as the teacher concerned) behaving like such an insect. Such an encounter would be at least as awkward as bumping into them in a semi-social situation, and the conversation you'd be having could be terribly stilted. The idea of an outdoor, night-time encounter involving the deliberate flashing of lights could be intended to invoke another {{w|Dogging (sexual slang)|activity}}, with perhaps a similar motive in mind, in which it might indeed be... 'awkward'... for students and teachers to unexpectedly recognise each other.

The title text continues the conversation with some sage advice, to the firefly-teacher, to avoid [[Miss Lenhart]] (presumably, but here with the honorific of {{w|Ms.}}), another teacher of their acquaintence whom they believe to belong to an {{w|Photuris|aggressively mimicking genus of predatory firefly}}, and thus a potential danger to his existence. The females of those species are known to copy the blinking mating patterns of other firefly species in order to lure the males of those species with the promise of mating but with the true sole intent of eating them. The speaker is clearly concerned that Mr. Jones, while acting out the life of a firefly, will be fooled by Ms. Lenhart's firefly persona and then consumed.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[Cueball is pointing at a flying insect to the right. Megan is walking towards it.]
:Cueball: There's a bug in there.
:Megan: Oh, it's a firefly!
:Cueball: Wait, really?
:Megan: Yeah! I dunno which species. I'll let it out.

:[Cueball is standing to the left. Megan has caught the firefly between her hands.]
:Cueball: ...I guess it makes sense fireflies have to go somewhere during the day.
:Cueball: I had just never thought about it.

:[Megan is walking to the left while holding the firefly. Cueball is standing to the right.]
:Cueball: It's like seeing your teacher at the store.
:Cueball: "Oh, weird, you exist in other contexts, too."

:[Megan standing on a grass field has released the firefly.]
:Megan: Or when you see your teacher hovering over a field at night giving off flashes of light.
:Cueball (off-panel): Yeah, also weird.
:Cueball (off-panel): "Sorry Mr. Jones! Uh, have...fun? See you Monday."

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Miss Lenhart]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Biology]]

2661: Age Milestone Privileges

2023-07-23T11:37:50Z

162.158.38.24: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2661
| date = August 19, 2022
| title = Age Milestone Privileges
| image = age_milestone_privileges.png
| titletext = If you reach 122, you get complete unrevertible editorial control over Jeanne Calment's Wikipedia article.
}}

==Explanation==
This is a list of "age milestones" in the United States. As usual for Randall, he has added many fictional entries to supplement some real life ones. The real milestones are the ages at which Americans are generally allowed to do certain things for the first time. These are a mix of legal restrictions (such as the age for driving and voting), rules from private companies (such as movie theaters and car rental companies) and medical guidance (like the shingles vaccine).

{| class="wikitable"
! Age || Privilege || Real? || Description
|-
| 16 || Drive || Yes || Legal driving age in the US is set by the individual states, but the general rule is that Americans are allowed to begin driving on public roads at age 16. There are various levels of restrictions on this privilege, however. In Randall's state of {{w|Driver's licenses in the United States#Licenses for adults and minors; GDL laws|Massachusetts, and in 8 other states}}, 16 is the minimum age to apply for a learner's permit. {{w|Driver's licenses in the United States#/media/File:Restricted license age requirements by US state.svg|In most of the country, 16 years is the minimum age for a restricted driver's license.}}
|-
| 17 || Attend R-Rated movies alone || Yes || In the US, the Motion Picture Association assigns {{w|Motion_Picture_Association_film_rating_system|ratings}} to movies based on whether they consider the film's content to be suitable for children. In this classification, "R" stands for "restricted", and the guidance from the MPAA is that no one under the age of 17 should be allowed to see it if not accompanied by a parent or legal guardian. It should be noted that this guidance does not have force of law, but is sufficiently accepted that nearly all US theaters adopt it as a policy.
|-
| 18 || Vote || Yes || The Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution prevents a minimum age of voting from being set above eighteen, meaning that eighteen-year-olds are old enough to legally vote anywhere in the country. Some states allow 17-year-olds to vote in primaries if they will turn 18 before the general election, but Randall's state of Massachusetts is not one of them.
|-
| 21 || Buy alcohol || Yes || While individual states have official power over the drinking age, the {{w|National Minimum Drinking Age Act}} restricts federal funding from states that do not enforce a drinking age of 21 years. This has resulted in a ''de facto'' national drinking age of 21 in the US, which is higher than most countries. It should be noted that some states allow minors to drink alcohol under certain circumstances, but no state allows anyone under 21 to buy alcohol.
|-
| 25 || Rent a car || Generally || Car rental companies set their own age restrictions on renting cars. The industry standard in the US is to charge a higher rate for drivers under the age of 25. Thus, there was not a "prohibition" per se, but 25 is a milestone for "regular" rates and fees on car rentals.
|-
| 30 || Run for Senate || Almost || This entry is slightly incorrect: According to {{w|Article_One_of_the_United_States_Constitution#Clause 3: Qualifications of senators|Article 1, Section 3, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution}}, one must be at least 30 years old in order to ''become'' Senator, not ''run'' for Senate. For example, Joe Biden was 29 years old when he was first elected to Senate but turned 30 before being sworn in.
|-
| 32 || Rent a Senator's car || No || This is the first joke entry in the table. For one thing, most Senators do not rent out their cars, which they probably need to use regularly themselves because they have jobs{{Citation needed}} to commute to, and it would be a security hazard to allow random strangers access to their vehicle.

This could also be a reference to the Ambassador, a now defunct car brand.
|-
| 35 || Run for president || Almost || In the United States, according to {{w|Article Two of the United States Constitution#Clause 5: Qualifications for office|Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution}}, a person must be at least 35 years old to be eligible to hold the Office of President. Similar to the age 30 entry, this is slightly incorrect. However, unlike the Senate case, this technicality has not been relevant for anyone elected as United States president—at least not yet (as of 2022).
|-
| 40 || Rent a flying car || No || A 25-year-old might be able to rent a non-flying car today, but not a flying car, because the technology is not mature enough to the point where they're available to rent. The joke is that by the time a 25-year-old reader becomes 40, the technology will exist and they'll be able to rent a flying car. Unlike the earlier lines, the limitation has nothing to do with their age, just technological development.
Alternatively, even once flying cars are developed, their usage will be more restricted. For example, young people are perceived to be more reckless and/or otherwise dangerous.

This whole issue may be virtually negated if the newly developed flying cars are introduced only as ''self-''flying cars (an off-shoot of self-driving technology but devoid of many of the dangers of navigating roads, i.e. person-controlled vehicles, pedestrians and other ground-based hazards), in which case the age (or even presence) of the renter may be very much more irrelevant than the nature of any route/destination the guidance computer is tasked to fulfill. The question would then be how much a potential passenger would trust pure electronics to avoid all the actual dangers for what is essentially a flying taxi, compared to a human controller who may be fallible but presumably at least has their own fully developed common sense and a degree of self-preservation as well as any requisite training.
|-
| 45 || Learn about the God-Empress || No || Obviously, the restriction of knowledge of the "God-Empress" does not actually exist because this comic is visible to people under 45 years old.{{Citation needed}} According to [[1413]], she will be public knowledge by 2040 anyway.
|-
| 50 || Join AARP || Yes || Full {{w|AARP}} (formerly called the American Association of Retired Persons) membership is available to anyone age 50 and over. Officially, there are no age restrictions to membership, but members under the age of 50 do not have access to full benefits.
|-
| 50 || Get a shingles vaccine || Recommendation || At the time of the comic, the [https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/shingles/public/shingrix/index.html CDC recommended] that adults 50 years and older get the shingles vaccine called Shingrix (this line was not in the original version of the comic, corrected later)
|-
| 52 || Click to skip captchas || No || Older people might have more difficulty understanding [[:Category:CAPTCHA|captchas]]. Also, they could be more inconvenienced because some older people move more slowly, so it would take them longer to move the mouse, and people would care more about older people anyway. However, this would be impractical to implement because if the computer knew the person's age, it would know that the user is a person, not a bot, so there would be no point in a captcha anyway.
|-
| 55 || Vote for God-Empress || No || It appears that a person must have knowledge of the existence of the God-Empress for ten years before they are sufficiently qualified to elect a new one. Since the God-Empress is (presumably) in power for life, it is likely that most people would have to wait much longer than ten years.
|-
| 62 || $80 national parks lifetime pass || Yes || The US National Parks Service has a [https://www.nps.gov/planyourvisit/passes.htm lifetime membership pass] for Americans ages 62 and over, which allows access to national parks and other areas managed by the NPS.
|-
| 65 || Eligible for Medicare || Yes || {{w|Medicare (United States)|Medicare}} is a US government-run health insurance for older people, and indeed begins eligibility at age 65 for the general public.
|-
| 67 || Collect Social Security || Sort of || {{w|Social Security (United States)|Social Security}} is a system of benefits for retired individuals, disabled persons and widows/widowers. U.S. individuals may collect reduced Social Security benefits starting at age 62, and they can collect increased Social Security benefits if they wait until age 70. 67 is considered "Full Retirement Age." There is some debate about whether one would be better off waiting or taking it right away, but for most people Full Retirement Age (67) is at least close to optimal.
|-
| 68 || See "Skip ads" button on live TV|| No || Some DVRs and streaming applications have a feature to skip over commercial breaks in recorded programs, but this could not be available in live TV, since it would require jumping forward in time. Time travel is currently impossible.{{citation needed}}
|-
| 70 || Run for God-Empress || No || The name suggests that this would also only be available to women.
|-
| 75 || Ride any animal in a national park || No || The National Parks Service probably could institute this relatively safely because most people over 75 would not be able to run fast enough to outrun/catch up to an animal and mount it{{Citation needed}} and would not have the rebellious/risk-taking/adventurous streak that would incline them to try.{{Citation needed}}
|-
| 80 || Eligible for Megacare || No || This is based on becoming eligible for Medicare at age 65.
|-
| 85 || Click to toggle whether an ad is positive or negative about the product || No || In line with previous milestones regarding advertisements, this implies the ability to control reality and change the mood of the ad one is watching as it is running. Obviously, this is impossible, but could potentially be pulled off by adding an option to change the ad to another ad about the same product, but with the opposite viewpoint of the product. Ignoring the issue that ads that are just negative about a specific target don't tend to be commissioned. Except perhaps in certain areas of political campaigning. Furthermore, the wording appears to imply the new ad is the same as the one you were watching previously, ie. same actors, rather than a different ad about the same product.
|-
| 90 || Click to make any movie R-rated || No || It is unclear whether this would actually make the movie less appropriate or change the Motion Picture Association's rating to be erroneous.
|-
| 100 || Get a letter from the president || No || In the US (which other milestones, such as running for president starting at age 35, indicate is the country being referred to), you can instead get [https://www.today.com/series/today-celebrates/celebrate-today-ask-al-roker-wish-your-loved-ones-happy-t69606 congratulated] by the weatherman ({{w|Al Roker}}) on the {{w|Today (American TV program)|Today Show}}. However, the United Kingdom is much closer. People there can [https://www.royal.uk/anniversary-messages-0 apply to receive a card] (formerly a telegram, later a TeleMessage) from the monarch on their 100th birthday.
|-
| 102 || (35+67) Collect a {{w|Former_Presidents_Act#Pension|presidential pension}} || No || The idea behind this joke is that it is the minimum age of presidency plus the minimal age to collect Social Security. There are several reasons why this must be a joke. Two are that Social Security begins 67 years after the person was born, not 67 years after the person's job started, and that the United States government would not bother to set up such a system because the vast majority of people, including former presidents, do not live to 102 years old. In fact, as of 2022, no former United States president has ever lived to 102 years old. The current oldest former U.S. President is Jimmy Carter at 97. Good luck Jimmy, only 5 more years!
|-
| 105 || Get a birthday card from the God-Empress || No || Being a God-Empress would be more important than being the leader of a single country. This would make the God-Empress's time more valuable, so she only has to send a birthday card to the few people who reach the age of 105. Contrariwise, the God-Empress is presumptively all-powerful and furthermore capable of delegation of ministerial tasks such as card transmission, so the utilitarian fact that the scarcity of 105-year-old people reduces workload is not a plausible justification.
|-
| 111 || Leave your own birthday party early by putting on a magic ring || No || This is a reference to the {{w|Lord of the Rings}} where Bilbo leaves his eleventy-first birthday party (the Bilbo Baggins Farewell Birthday Party) invisibly by using {{w|the One Ring}}.
|-
| 118 || Vote 100 times || No || Presumably a joke meaning the person can now cast 100 votes, for each election issue that a younger person can only vote for once, giving their opinion a vastly increased personal weight (or subtlety, if they vote more across the board than merely grant 100 votes to the same outcome), although it may not greatly change the result unless sufficient voters exist (of a like mind) to disproportionately swing the result towards the result desired more by these elder voters than their one-vote juniors.
It is the 100th anniversary of their having (potentially) first voted, and as such is a century milestone. But if there were exactly one election at the same time each year, the first vote on or after their birthday would actually be the 101st vote the person has been eligible to cast in their lifetime. If the sole election of each year were held at a different time of each year, someone who voted in every election might vote for the 100th time at either age 116, 117, or 118. However this milestone would happen earlier because there are often multiple elections per year, e.g., primaries, general elections and possibly runoffs. There may also be several reasons why the person may not have been given the opportunity to vote every year since they were 18, e.g. prior to the {{w|Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|women's suffrage}} being officially ratified barely 100 years ago, but most importantly that the mandated minimum voting age was 21 until {{w|Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution|much more recently}}.
|-
| 120 || Collect the pensions of all elected officials || No || It is very unlikely that any government would award the pensions of all elected officials to anyone because they have reached the age of 120 years.{{cn}}
|-
| 125 || Drink alcohol in an R-rated movie while getting a shingles vaccine from the president || No || This entry references four earlier milestones (attending an R-rated movie, drinking alcohol, becoming President, and getting the shingles vaccine) whose corresponding ages (17, 21, 35, and 50) sum to 123. While not exactly 125, this may have contributed to the inspiration or age selection of this milestone.
|-
| 128 || Age rolls over, become a baby again || No{{Citation needed}} || {{w|Integer overflow}} happens in computers when there are not enough bits (binary digits) to store the result of a calculation, and typically happens in computers at a given power of two, such as 128. An unsigned 7-bit number can hold the values 0 to 127 (127 being 27 - 1) and an attempt to go beyond 127 will overflow, also called rollover, back to zero. 7-bit numbers are not common native values in today's computers. For the more usual integers of one byte (8 bits), while a signed byte would roll over after 127, it would typically rollover to -128 rather than to zero, whereas an unsigned byte would rollover to zero but not until after 255. 

|}

The title text mentions {{w|Jeanne Calment}}, who holds the record for the oldest person ever (there are biblical references to older people, such as {{w|Methuselah}}, who supposedly lived to 969, but their ages haven't been verified). She reportedly was age 122 when she died in 1997. There's some controversy whether Calment actually claimed her mother's records, including birth certificate, as her own. "Editing wars" have been fought over her Wikipedia page. Randall claims that if you match her age you get sole editorial control over that article. However, if anyone managed to exceed her achieved age, presumably they would get their own page (albeit that they should not be encouraged to {{w|Wikipedia:Editing Your Own Page|edit it}} themselves) and hers would cease to be as interesting - although that might depend on what use is made of the unparalleled editorial control now granted.

==Transcript==

<big>Age Milestones</big> 
and associated privileges

16  Drive 
17  Attend R-rated movies alone 
18  Vote 
21  Buy alcohol 
25  Rent a car 
32  Run for senate 
35  Run for president 
40  Rent a flying car 
45  Learn about the God-Empress 
50  Join AARP 
50  Get a shingles vaccine 
52  Click to skip captchas 
55  Vote for God-Empress 
62  $80 National parks lifetime pass 
65  Eligible for Medicare 
67  Collect Social Security 
68  See "Skip Ads" button on live TV 
70  Run for God-Empress 
75  Ride any animal in a national park 
80  Eligible for MegaCare 
85  Click to toggle whether any ad is positive or negative about the product 
90  Click to make any movie R-rated 
100  Get a letter from the president 
102  (35+67) Collect a presidential pension 
105  Get a birthday card from the God-Empress 
111  Leave your own birthday party early by putting on a magic ring 
118  Vote 100 times 
120  Collect the pensions of all elected officials 
125  Drink alcohol in an R-rated movie while getting a shingles vaccine from the president 
128  Age rolls over, become a baby again

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:CAPTCHA]]
[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]] 
[[Category:Wikipedia]]

591: Troll Slayer

2022-12-22T03:54:19Z

162.158.38.24: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 591
| date = June 1, 2009
| title = Troll Slayer
| image = troll slayer.png
| titletext = We have met the enemy and he is us.
}}

== Explanation ==
The worst fear of edgy /pol/faced rightoids is being mocked as impotent.
They're immunized against most insults; ugly, fat, evil, monstrous, degenerate - even failsons. They can shrug it all off.
The /pol/face meme on the other hand acts on their deepest fears. Their pathological sense of inadequacy, impotence and fear of emasculation that informs their worldview.

It's okay to be ugly, undesirable, even a cdsfm-guzzling didfsaper-sdfscat bottom-furry. As long as - deep down - they're feared.
They're okay with being ignored, denounced, even mocked. But they can't stand being laughed at as impotent and powerless. It's many times worse than being ignored or mocked in other ways.
It's like the incel fear that women will laugh at them. It's not the rejection itself, it's having their deep seated self-loathing and impotence publicly acknowledged by the Other.
Specifically: The fear of being perceived as powerless is greater than the actual fear of being powerless.

Liberals of course play right into this by portraying rightoids (including /pol/faced mass shooters) as a terrifying unstoppable evil that should be feared by the masses. Something they get off to. Every. Time.

/pol/ has been mocked for years, going back to the 7+1chan days. So far nothing stuck. Leaders exposed as ziondfssts and pedodfsles? Nothing. Furfdsries and Nazis in drag? Nothing. Hypocrisy? Statistics? Actually existing white genocide by rightoids? Nothing.

The /pol/face though made them melt down within 24 hours. To be the point they've spend days spamming with thousands of IPs to prove how "not mad" they are. (Mind that they've never done this before)

And before you say "words words words" or "da left cant meeem" here's a TLDR: You're impotent, inadequate, powerless. And deep down you know it.

==Transcript==
:[A list of post comments alongside pictures on a website. The first picture shows a page from a book/website with a small black picture with a white feature in the upper left corner and text to the right and below it. The second picture shows Cueball in front of three people, with a unclear drawing to the right (is it a canon?). The third picture shows a man with a black hat holding up a sword to the left and a trumpet to the right. The fourth and last picture is cut off in the middle at the bottom of the frame. The visible top part shows a drawing of a mans face from the nose/ears and up. The man has black hair and says LOL].
:Text picture: Hey, let's troll the fuck out of the Twilight boards
:Cueball picture: I'm in. Should be fun
:Man with sword picture: Me too. Signing on now.
:LOL face picture: Lol angsty teens.

:[Stephenie Meyer is shown sitting facing right and chatting at her computer. She get's a reply from the screen. It looks like she actually speaks the lines of text to someone, but she only types it in via the keyboard. This becomes clear in in the next panel where the pimpled boy she talks to obviously types his reply on the keyboard. Across the top border of the frame is a smaller frame with a caption:]
:Hours Later:

:Stephenie Meyer (typing): Hi, it's Stephenie Meyer. Fine, you don't like my books. But please leave us alone.
:Pimpled boy (from computer): Show us your tits.
:Stephenie Meyer (typing): I asked politely. Don't make me get tough.

:[A boy with lots of pimples and black hair is sitting at his computer typing (facing the other way towards Stephenie in the previous panel). He writes his reply on the keyboard and receives a reply from Stephenie coming out of the computer.]
:Pimpled boy (typing): And what, call the internet police? You don't get it, do you? We've been trolling for years. We're all anonymous. There's nothing you can do to hurt us. We're the net's hate machine.
:Stephenie Meyer (from computer): Okay. Just remember, I gave you a chance. <code>*Disconnected*</code>.

:[A page from a book is shown lying slanted across the panel. Some of the text is thus cut off at the edges of the frame. The first eight lines can be read clearly, even though the last letter in both the 2nd and sixth line is partly cut-off. Below that there are four incomplete lines, where only the visible part will be transcribed, but a good guess at the missing text is written in square brackets. Across the top border of the frame is a smaller frame with a caption:]
:Six Months Later:

:Vampires! Book VI

:Edward ran a pale hand
:through his perfect golden-
:bronze hair, then signed
:on to 4chan.org, the darkest
:place on the internet, where
:all his vampire compatriots
:spent their time.
:Suddenly, there was [a]
:[sha]rp knock at the d[oor]
:[?] swept in [?]
:[?r?]ing [?]

:[Another list of post comments alongside pictures on the same website as in the first panel. The first picture shows a man with black hair and a woman with long hair standing with their backs against each other (probably Edward and Bella from the books). The second picture is just a white frame with the text Dawnz. The third picture shows a person from the chest and up. The person has black hair and black clothes, with some kind of collar. The fourth and last picture shows two chess piece a large one in front of the other. The picture is shown completely but the text message seems to be more than two lines long, but only the top two lines are shown. Across the top border of the frame is a smaller frame with a caption:]
:Shortly thereafter:

:Two people picture: OMG I love this place it's so edgy being anonymous
:Dawnz picture: Whos your favorite vampire
:Collared person picture: Check out my pic Im so dark just like this site
:Chess piece picture: Any Twilight fans in Dallas want to meet a lonely

:[Back to the boy with lots of pimples now sitting resigned at his computer without typing.]
:Hairy: Oh... Oh God.

{{Comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]] 
[[Category:Twilight]]
[[Category:Internet]]

Talk:2357: Polls vs the Street

2020-10-12T21:45:34Z

162.158.38.24:

Love the title text! [[User:Fwacer|Fwacer]] ([[User talk:Fwacer|talk]]) 23:56, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

I Edit Conflicted with someone (2 minutes too late, after quite a bit of typing, then half a dozen Captcha submissions - just two to put ''this'' text in). If anyone wants to review my attempt, I'm HTML-commenting it in this gap...

...I already knew I'd have to Wikilink some bits, and can see at least one typo. Maybe I'll integrate some into what's there now, myself but probably not tonight. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.241|162.158.158.241]] 00:39, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
:(Self-reply) Looking into it, I must have been editing for a whole hour, actually. Didn't feel like it, but given there wasn't even a transcript when I started (but the BOT had been replaced) I must have been. And I want paying for all the Captcha responses I'm asked for. It seems I'm either being 'a useful idiot' for slavishly helping the Algorithm, or I am far better(/worse?) at identifying traffic lights, crosswalks, motorbikes, traffic and bicycles than "the man on the street" that pre-populated the Captcha knowledgebase thresholds... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.175|162.158.158.175]] 00:54, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
::I swear half of the answers were wrong in the first place. One time I took a capatcha and it misidentified a mailbox as a parking meter and I had to answer wrong on purpose to get through.
:::One that I didn't get a 'by' on (I'm convinced that being correct just gives you another test in order to generate that result with more authority) was a request for "bicycle" that featured a surface-painted bike-lane symhol. I said "skip" as there was no actual bike (like features that clearly look cross-walkish but aren't even on the road, or horizontal). So unless most other people had a more generous/playful citeria, I should have been correct. And I'm a whiz at identifying hydrants (in my mind?) Of all kinds of colours, but I think there must be far too many opposing opinions. (Traffic Lights: Do you just highlight the lit bits? The composite frames upon which all the lights sit? The whole lot including the support poles/cables? And do you choose frames that have a sneaky tiny bit of overlap of your chosen feature, but are otherwise mostly empty? Or exclude squares that have a slice that wouldn't be recognised as such if given in isolation?) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.110|162.158.159.110]] 13:04, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
::::Select everything containing a part you would expect to receive if you ordered it fully assembled from amazon. Full frame, but cables not included. All of the car. All the nuts on the hydrants. All the lines on the crosswalk. Mailbox includes the stick in the ground, but not the wall of the house when mounted on one. If it takes a second glance to tell it isn't what it asked for, then select it anyways. normies don't have time to double check their answer when trying to post their lols on cat videos.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.39|108.162.238.39]] 13:59, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
:::::Well, sounds like what I do with edge-cases (except I do check carefully, so that I'm ''right'', no matter what), but if other people are being sloppy, I'll have to he careful to be sloppy, eh? ;) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.241|162.158.158.241]] 01:10, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
Reminiscent of this beautifully snarkastic tweet. https://twitter.com/DavidLJarman/status/1302719537234599936 [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.173|172.68.189.173]] 03:27, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

It seems to me that it is morally indefensible to tell the truth to pollsters. And also to people doing a Vox Populi. If you believe one party is better for the people in your country, then you have a moral duty not to sabotage them. But if everyone tells the pollsters honestly that they are definitely going to vote for party X, you could have everyone believing that it's a foregone conclusion that party X will win, so they don't bother to go out in the rain to vote, and party Y gets in - because they thought their party needed their vote. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.38.24|162.158.38.24]] 21:45, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

In England the word on the Street is most often SLOW (in Wales it's is ARAF SLOW) :-D [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 18:56, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
:Or BUS / BWS STOP [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.173|162.158.154.173]] 09:53, 13 September 2020 (UTC)