explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1567: Kitchen Tips

2015-08-21T09:43:34Z

Baratacom: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1567
| date = August 21, 2015
| title = Kitchen Tips
| image = kitchen_tips.png
| titletext = Household tip: Tired of buying so much toilet paper? Try unspooling the paper from the roll before using it. A single roll can last for multiple days that way, and it's much easier on your plumbing.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, Cueball appears to be hosting a show (or be in an ad) giving out kitchen advice. He starts with a reasonable tip to use a meat thermometer instead of guessing when meat is cooked. His later tips, though, are little more than telling how to complete normal kitchen activities performed using common sense. Moreover, he repeats "If you're anything like me," suggesting he's actually ''done'' these things in his kitchen.

The first tip he gives is reasonable: to determine if meat is done cooking, one can either guess, or use a meat thermometer to check that the internal temperature has reached the correct level to render meat safe for consumption. (This one looks like an ad for meat thermometer; the alternative less precise solution is to prick the meat with metal skewer, if the juices run clear it is cooked; if they are red (blood) it needs more time).

The second panel shows that Cueball throws away dishes and buys new ones every time they are used. This is perfectly normal if the plates were made of paper or Styrofoam, but we see his trashcan is filled with chipped ceramic plates and glasses. Naturally, this would be a very expensive and excessive practice. Cleaning them is the simple task of "washing the dishes," a chore he seems to be unaware of.

Cooking on a stove is typically done using a pot or pan, where food is placed in it to heat. Cueball seems to originally have cracked, and attempted to scramble, eggs directly on a burner. This will, of course, not be easy to clean. Moreover, his stove has open-flame burners, making the task even more impractical than cooking directly on any range with a flat top.

Ice is usually manually made by filling an ice cube tray with water and leaving it in a freezer for several hours. One could even use any sort of container, not as practical as a tray, but better than the proposed approach. Cueball, however, sprays a hose directly into his freezer compartment and quickly slams the door shut to trap some water inside. While this unorthodox method ''will'' make ice, it will result in a large sheet of ice on the bottom of the freezer. More importantly, it will also make it impossible to actually use the freezer to hold anything else (unless you don't mind breaking through a block of ice to get it out).

The title text relates to toilet paper, which most people normally use by one or several sheets at a time. Apparently, Cueball only uses the entire roll without unspooling it and then flushes it whole, which means every time he wants to go to the toilet, he would need to buy another roll, which is both economically impractical and prone to clogging the toilet and the plumbing.

==Transcript==
[Cueball at a kitchen counter, holding a meat thermometer]

Cueball: If you're anything like me, you may have trouble telling when meat is fully cooked.

Cueball: Instead of guessing, try a meat thermometer!

[Cueball at a sink, holding a dirty dish, with a trashcan next to him full of broken ceramics and glasses]

Cueball: If you're anything like me, you probably throw away your plates and glasses when they get dirty. But if you clean them, they can often be used again!

[Cueball cracking an egg over a pan on a hot stove]

Cueball: Making scrambled eggs? Put a pan under them!

Cueball: It's easier, and it keeps your burners clean.

[Cueball holding a garden hose, spraying it into the freezer compartment of a refridgerator]

Cueball: If you're anything like me, you make ice by spraying a hose into your freezer and then slamming it shut.

Cueball: But there's a better way...

{{comic discussion}}

1518: Typical Morning Routine

2015-04-29T13:54:54Z

Baratacom: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1518
| date = April 29, 2015
| title = Typical Morning Routine
| image = typical_morning_routine.png
| titletext = Hang on, I've heard this problem. We need to pour water into the duct until the phone floats up and ... wait, phones sink in water. Mercury. We need a vat of mercury to pour down the vent. That will definitely make this situation better and not worse.
}}

==Explanation==
Waking up to an alarm can be annoying, especially when it is your partner's alarm, and they are slow to wake up and even then have difficulty in figuring out how to turn the alarm off. This comic takes this to a ridiculous extreme, whence the comic derives its humor, especially when paired with the title describing this situation as a "Typical Morning Routine". Of course the typical could refer only to the part of the "routine" until the phone is dropped into an air vent.

In this comic, a guy with morning hair is shown using his phone as his alarm clock. (This is clearly not [[Cueball]] as he, per definition, has no hair. Although this guy has less hair than [[Hairy]] usually does, it is black in the fourth frame, and hairy is just a description of any hairy guy in xkcd.) We never see who he is sharing the bed with, a person that must get more and more angry with him and his alarm. (We have no reason to assume it is [[Megan]] , and we do not even know if it is a girl.)

It can sometimes be complicated to turn off the alarm on a {{w|smartphone}} when groggy. The guy has apparently exited the alarm app by mistake. In some OSes, simply exiting the app doesn't close it, requiring you to use the app switcher to close it. (As of when this comic was posted, [[Randall]] uses both iOS and Android according to [[1508: Operating Systems]]).

After giving up on shutting the alarm app off Hairy then, in annoyance, gets the brilliant idea of trying to remove the battery, in the dark, to shut off his phone forcefully, instead of just trying to turn it off. (This narrows it down to Android phones, since iPhones do not have consumer removable batteries.) However, in this process, he accidentally drops his device down an {{w|air vent}} next to the bed. Such a vent for an {{w|underfloor air distribution}} may not be very deep until it reaches a bend, so the phone can be expected to survive the fall. Usually such a {{w|Register (air and heating)|vent}} will have some sort of grille preventing anything large from falling into it. It's tricky to notice, but there does seem to be a grille, but it could either be missing a few parts due to poor maintenance, or this phone must have been small enough to slip through anyway.

If they were a little handy, they would probably be able to open the vent and retrieve the phone. But of course it could either be too deep (not probable, since the phone survived the fall intact), or they do not have the tools (maybe they live in a rented apartment). So being unable to get it out, Hairy attempts to remotely {{w|Brick (electronics)|brick}} the phone from his laptop. (That is to erase important system files rendering the device as useful as a brick).

However, Hairy seems to have accidentally gone into {{w|airplane mode}} in the confusion, thereby cutting off all {{w|wireless communications}} with the device. Airplane Mode also has a side effect where by turning off all communication components, the phone uses less energy, so the phone will now last a week, rather than typically a day or so. Rather than dealing with the noise for weeks, Hairy proposes that they just move out instead. But a smartphone playing loud sounds in airplane mode typically only lasts a day or so before the battery charge runs out.

There is a semi-common logic puzzle involving a ping-pong ball falling down a pipe with a kink in it. In this puzzle, the solution is to pour water into the pipe until the ping-pong ball floats up.

In the title text his partner remembers this problem and attempts to apply his knowledge. Then realizing that phones do not float in water he suggests using {{w|Mercury (element)|mercury}}. The phone would certainly float on mercury, as it is a very dense liquid (the only metal that is liquid at room temperature). The extremely toxic nature of mercury, however, makes pouring it into the air supply a somewhat less-than-stellar idea, not to mention the fact that the required amount of mercury would be extremely expensive. The last line in the title text is either yet another bit of early-morning confusion, or a bit of irony, stating that the mercury idea would ''definitely make this situation better and not worse''. The title is also sarcastic, as this definitely does not happen on a daily basis, or else an alarm would already be already continuously ringing from the vent in the first place if it were the case.

If they were actually ready to pour mercury down the went, or brick the phone (ruining it anyway) then maybe they could just pour enough water into the vent instead, until the phone would shut down by being flooded, therefore short-circuited. This would not work if the phone was waterproof. Some rugged phones and phone cases do actually float on water, and simply water would work.

Of course all these great ideas they have, would probably not have come up, if they had not just been awakened brutally by a very loud alarm, that they fail to keep quiet. It is very difficult to think clearly in such a stressful circumstance.

This comic follows a similar storyline to [[349: Success]], as Cueball, like Hairy here, encounters an issue and attempts proceedingly more absurd solutions to the issue.

==Transcript==
:[The panel is completely black, with white text. Small lines indicate from where the two voices are coming, and also from where the alarm goes off. A small broken square surrounds the first word spoken.]
:Alarm: '''Bleep Bleep'''
:Voice (right): Urgh
:Voice (left): Your alarm is going off
:Voice (right): Huh?
:Voice (left): Make it stop.
:Voice (right) Urrgh

:[The panel is completely black, with white text. Small lines indicate from where the two voices are coming. Several small lines surrounds the last "sound" which is not spoken. The alarm noise is continued from the previous panel and continues over the top of the frame directly into the next panel.]
:Alarm: '''Bleep Bleep Bleep B'''
:Voice (left): Hit snooze.
:Voice (right): I'm ''trying''. I closed the alarm app and I can't... I'll just pop out the battery.
:Voice (right): Whoops!
:Clang

:[The lights have turned on so it is now a white panel with black text. The voice to the right came from Hairy with morning hair. He is leaning over the side of the bed, looking down the air vent through which he has dropped the phone. The other person to the left is not shown. The alarm noise (now coming from the air vent as visualized by the lines coming out of the vent) still continues from the previous panel and continues over the top of the frame directly into the next panel.]
:Alarm: '''eep Bleep Bleep Ble'''
:Off-Screen voice: Make it stop!
:Hairy: It... fell down the vent.

:[Hairy is sitting in his bed with a laptop. The person to the left is still off-screen. The alarm noise still continues from the previous panel and continues over the top of the frame out of the comic the the right.]
:Alarm: '''ep Bleep Bleep Bleep Ble'''
:Off-Screen voice: Can you brick it remotely?
:Hairy: Trying... I think I fumbled it into airplane mode?
:Off-Screen voice: The battery could last for weeks.
:Hairy: You know, maybe we should just move.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Sarcasm]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]

1518: Typical Morning Routine

2015-04-29T13:53:24Z

Baratacom: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1518
| date = April 29, 2015
| title = Typical Morning Routine
| image = typical_morning_routine.png
| titletext = Hang on, I've heard this problem. We need to pour water into the duct until the phone floats up and ... wait, phones sink in water. Mercury. We need a vat of mercury to pour down the vent. That will definitely make this situation better and not worse.
}}

==Explanation==
Waking up to an alarm can be annoying, especially when it is your partner's alarm, and they are slow to wake up and even then have difficulty in figuring out how to turn the alarm off. This comic takes this to a ridiculous extreme, whence the comic derives its humor, especially when paired with the title describing this situation as a "Typical Morning Routine". Of course the typical could refer only to the part of the "routine" until the phone is dropped into an air vent.

In this comic, a guy with morning hair is shown using his phone as his alarm clock. (This is clearly not [[Cueball]] as he, per definition, has no hair. Although this guy has less hair than [[Hairy]] usually does, it is black in the fourth frame, and hairy is just a description of any hairy guy in xkcd.) We never see who he is sharing the bed with, a person that must get more and more angry with him and his alarm. (We have no reason to assume it is [[Megan]] , and we do not even know if it is a girl.)

It can sometimes be complicated to turn off the alarm on a {{w|smartphone}} when groggy. The guy has apparently exited the alarm app by mistake. In some OSes, simply exiting the app doesn't close it, requiring you to use the app switcher to close it. (As of when this comic was posted, [[Randall]] uses both iOS and Android according to [[1508: Operating Systems]]).

After giving up on shutting the alarm app off Hairy then, in annoyance, gets the brilliant idea of trying to remove the battery, in the dark, to shut off his phone forcefully, instead of just trying to turn it off. (This narrows it down to Android phones, since iPhones do not have consumer removable batteries.) However, in this process, he accidentally drops his device down an {{w|air vent}} next to the bed. Such a vent for an {{w|underfloor air distribution}} may not be very deep until it reaches a bend, so the phone can be expected to survive the fall. Usually such a {{w|Register (air and heating)|vent}} will have some sort of grille preventing anything large from falling into it. It's tricky to notice, but there does seem to be a grille, but it could either be missing a few parts due to poor maintenance, or this phone must have been small enough to slip through anyway.

If they were a little handy, they would probably be able to open the vent and retrieve the phone. But of course it could either be too deep (not probable, sine the phone survived the fall intact), or they do not have the tools (maybe they live in a rented apartment). So being unable to get it out, Hairy attempts to remotely {{w|Brick (electronics)|brick}} the phone from his laptop. (That is to erase important system files rendering the device as useful as a brick).

However, Hairy seems to have accidentally gone into {{w|airplane mode}} in the confusion, thereby cutting off all {{w|wireless communications}} with the device. Airplane Mode also has a side effect where by turning off all communication components, the phone uses less energy, so the phone will now last a week, rather than typically a day or so. Rather than dealing with the noise for weeks, Hairy proposes that they just move out instead. But a smartphone playing loud sounds in airplane mode typically only lasts a day or so before the battery charge runs out.

There is a semi-common logic puzzle involving a ping-pong ball falling down a pipe with a kink in it. In this puzzle, the solution is to pour water into the pipe until the ping-pong ball floats up.

In the title text his partner remembers this problem and attempts to apply his knowledge. Then realizing that phones do not float in water he suggests using {{w|Mercury (element)|mercury}}. The phone would certainly float on mercury, as it is a very dense liquid (the only metal that is liquid at room temperature). The extremely toxic nature of mercury, however, makes pouring it into the air supply a somewhat less-than-stellar idea, not to mention the fact that the required amount of mercury would be extremely expensive. The last line in the title text is either yet another bit of early-morning confusion, or a bit of irony, stating that the mercury idea would ''definitely make this situation better and not worse''. The title is also sarcastic, as this definitely does not happen on a daily basis, or else an alarm would already be already continuously ringing from the vent in the first place if it were the case.

If they were actually ready to pour mercury down the went, or brick the phone (ruining it anyway) then maybe they could just pour enough water into the vent instead, until the phone would shut down by being flooded, therefore short-circuited. This would not work if the phone was waterproof. Some rugged phones and phone cases do actually float on water, and simply water would work.

Of course all these great ideas they have, would probably not have come up, if they had not just been awakened brutally by a very loud alarm, that they fail to keep quiet. It is very difficult to think clearly in such a stressful circumstance.

This comic follows a similar storyline to [[349: Success]], as Cueball, like Hairy here, encounters an issue and attempts proceedingly more absurd solutions to the issue.

==Transcript==
:[The panel is completely black, with white text. Small lines indicate from where the two voices are coming, and also from where the alarm goes off. A small broken square surrounds the first word spoken.]
:Alarm: '''Bleep Bleep'''
:Voice (right): Urgh
:Voice (left): Your alarm is going off
:Voice (right): Huh?
:Voice (left): Make it stop.
:Voice (right) Urrgh

:[The panel is completely black, with white text. Small lines indicate from where the two voices are coming. Several small lines surrounds the last "sound" which is not spoken. The alarm noise is continued from the previous panel and continues over the top of the frame directly into the next panel.]
:Alarm: '''Bleep Bleep Bleep B'''
:Voice (left): Hit snooze.
:Voice (right): I'm ''trying''. I closed the alarm app and I can't... I'll just pop out the battery.
:Voice (right): Whoops!
:Clang

:[The lights have turned on so it is now a white panel with black text. The voice to the right came from Hairy with morning hair. He is leaning over the side of the bed, looking down the air vent through which he has dropped the phone. The other person to the left is not shown. The alarm noise (now coming from the air vent as visualized by the lines coming out of the vent) still continues from the previous panel and continues over the top of the frame directly into the next panel.]
:Alarm: '''eep Bleep Bleep Ble'''
:Off-Screen voice: Make it stop!
:Hairy: It... fell down the vent.

:[Hairy is sitting in his bed with a laptop. The person to the left is still off-screen. The alarm noise still continues from the previous panel and continues over the top of the frame out of the comic the the right.]
:Alarm: '''ep Bleep Bleep Bleep Ble'''
:Off-Screen voice: Can you brick it remotely?
:Hairy: Trying... I think I fumbled it into airplane mode?
:Off-Screen voice: The battery could last for weeks.
:Hairy: You know, maybe we should just move.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Sarcasm]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]

1518: Typical Morning Routine

2015-04-29T13:53:06Z

Baratacom: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1518
| date = April 29, 2015
| title = Typical Morning Routine
| image = typical_morning_routine.png
| titletext = Hang on, I've heard this problem. We need to pour water into the duct until the phone floats up and ... wait, phones sink in water. Mercury. We need a vat of mercury to pour down the vent. That will definitely make this situation better and not worse.
}}

==Explanation==
Waking up to an alarm can be annoying, especially when it is your partner's alarm, and they are slow to wake up and even then have difficulty in figuring out how to turn the alarm off. This comic takes this to a ridiculous extreme, whence the comic derives its humor, especially when paired with the title describing this situation as a "Typical Morning Routine". Of course the typical could refer only to the part of the "routine" until the phone is dropped into an air vent.

In this comic, a guy with morning hair is shown using his phone as his alarm clock. (This is clearly not [[Cueball]] as he, per definition, has no hair. Although this guy has less hair than [[Hairy]] usually does, it is black in the fourth frame, and hairy is just a description of any hairy guy in xkcd.) We never see who he is sharing the bed with, a person that must get more and more angry with him and his alarm. (We have no reason to assume it is [[Megan]] , and we do not even know if it is a girl.)

It can sometimes be complicated to turn off the alarm on a {{w|smartphone}} when groggy. The guy has apparently exited the alarm app by mistake. In some OSes, simply exiting the app doesn't close it, requiring you to use the app switcher to close it. (As of when this comic was posted, [[Randall]] uses both iOS and Android according to [[1508: Operating Systems]]).

After giving up on shutting the alarm app off Hairy then, in annoyance, gets the brilliant idea of trying to remove the battery, in the dark, to shut off his phone forcefully, instead of just trying to turn it off. (This narrows it down to Android phones, since iPhones do not have consumer removable batteries.) However, in this process, he accidentally drops his device down an {{w|air vent}} next to the bed. Such a vent for an {{w|underfloor air distribution}} may not be very deep until it reaches a bend, so the phone can be expected to survive the fall. Usually such a {{w|Register (air and heating)|vent}} will have some sort of grille preventing anything large from falling into it. It's tricky to notice, but there does seem to be a grille, but it could either be missing a few parts due to poor maintenance, or this phone must have been small enough to slip through anyway.

If they were a little handy, they would probably be able to open the vent and retrieve the phone. But of course it could either be too deep (not probable, sine the phone survived the fall intact), or they do not have the tools (maybe they live in a rented apartment). So being unable to get it out, Hairy attempts to remotely {{w|Brick (electronics)|brick}} the phone from his laptop. (That is to erase important system files rendering the device as useful as a brick).

However, Hairy seems to have accidentally gone into {{w|airplane mode}} in the confusion, thereby cutting off all {{w|wireless communications}} with the device. Airplane Mode also has a side effect where by turning off all communication components, the phone uses less energy, so the phone will now last a week, rather than typically a day or so. Rather than dealing with the noise for weeks, Hairy proposes that they just move out instead. But a smartphone playing loud sounds in airplane mode typically only lasts a day or so before the battery charge runs out.

There is a semi-common logic puzzle involving a ping-pong ball falling down a pipe with a kink in it. In this puzzle, the solution is to pour water into the pipe until the ping-pong ball floats up.

In the title text his partner remembers this problem and attempts to apply his knowledge. Then realizing that phones do not float in water he suggests using {{w|Mercury (element)|mercury}}. The phone would certainly float on mercury, as it is a very dense liquid (the only metal that is liquid at room temperature). The extremely toxic nature of mercury, however, makes pouring it into the air supply a somewhat less-than-stellar idea, not to mention the fact that the required amount of mercury would be extremely expensive. The last line in the title text is either yet another bit of early-morning confusion, or a bit of irony, stating that the mercury idea would ''definitely make this situation better and not worse''. The title is also sarcastic, as this definitely does not happen on a daily basis, or else an alarm would already be already continuously ringing from the vent in the first place if it were the case.

If they were actually ready to pour mercury down the went, or brick the phone (ruining it anyway) then maybe they could just pour enough water into the vent instead, until the phone would shut down by being flooded, therefore short-circuited. This would not work if the phone was waterproof. Some rugged phones and phone cases do actually float on water, and simply water would work.

Of course all these great ideas they have, would probably not have come up, if they had not just been awakened brutally by a very loud alarm, that they fail to keep quiet. It is very difficult to think clearly in such a stressful circumstance.

This comic follows a similar storyline to [[349: Success]], as Cueball, in both comics, encounters an issue and attempts proceedingly more absurd solutions to the issue.

==Transcript==
:[The panel is completely black, with white text. Small lines indicate from where the two voices are coming, and also from where the alarm goes off. A small broken square surrounds the first word spoken.]
:Alarm: '''Bleep Bleep'''
:Voice (right): Urgh
:Voice (left): Your alarm is going off
:Voice (right): Huh?
:Voice (left): Make it stop.
:Voice (right) Urrgh

:[The panel is completely black, with white text. Small lines indicate from where the two voices are coming. Several small lines surrounds the last "sound" which is not spoken. The alarm noise is continued from the previous panel and continues over the top of the frame directly into the next panel.]
:Alarm: '''Bleep Bleep Bleep B'''
:Voice (left): Hit snooze.
:Voice (right): I'm ''trying''. I closed the alarm app and I can't... I'll just pop out the battery.
:Voice (right): Whoops!
:Clang

:[The lights have turned on so it is now a white panel with black text. The voice to the right came from Hairy with morning hair. He is leaning over the side of the bed, looking down the air vent through which he has dropped the phone. The other person to the left is not shown. The alarm noise (now coming from the air vent as visualized by the lines coming out of the vent) still continues from the previous panel and continues over the top of the frame directly into the next panel.]
:Alarm: '''eep Bleep Bleep Ble'''
:Off-Screen voice: Make it stop!
:Hairy: It... fell down the vent.

:[Hairy is sitting in his bed with a laptop. The person to the left is still off-screen. The alarm noise still continues from the previous panel and continues over the top of the frame out of the comic the the right.]
:Alarm: '''ep Bleep Bleep Bleep Ble'''
:Off-Screen voice: Can you brick it remotely?
:Hairy: Trying... I think I fumbled it into airplane mode?
:Off-Screen voice: The battery could last for weeks.
:Hairy: You know, maybe we should just move.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Sarcasm]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]