explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1083: Writing Styles

2012-08-13T16:15:00Z

Grapefruit678: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1083
| date = July 18, 2012
| title = Writing Styles
| image = writing_styles.png
| imagesize =
| titletext = I liked the idea, suggested by h00k on bash.org, of a Twitter bot that messages prominent politicians to tell them when they've unnecessarily used sms-speak abbreviations despite having plenty of characters left.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is less about how teenagers write on the internet and more about how politicians write on the internet. The comic shows that a lot of politicians, likely specifically alluding to US Senator Chuck Grassley, use "sms-speak", which involves substituting numbers for letters and shortening phrases to get a longer idea across in less characters. The practice began first with text messages, also known as SMS or Short Message Service which limited messages to 160 characters. Twitter has adopted the 140 character limit since its inception, which allowed any given tweet to be received as a text message with enough room for the user's Twitter handle (15 characters max).

The point of the comic is this, there is no reason for anyone, especially politicians, to use "sms-speak" in tweets unless they are reaching the 140 character limit. Additionally, Ron Paul followers tend to be younger due to his support for the legalization of marijuana.

Neither example given exceeds 60 characters. Indeed, extending the "sms-speak" to logical full character words and punctuation only uses slightly more than half the character limit:
*Ron Paul is the only candidate who offers us a real choice! (59 characters)
*its gettin l8 so ill b here 4 prob 2 more hrs tops (50 characters)
*It is getting late, so I will be here for probably two more hours, tops. (72 characters)

==Transcript==
If you post: you sound like (This is a chart with the above two labeled columns. The rows will be represented below in the same format)

"Ron Paul is the only candidate who offers us a real choice!": A teenager

"its gettin 18 so ill b here 4 prob 2 more hrs tops": A senator

{{Comic discussion}}

1084: Server Problem

2012-08-13T16:12:34Z

Grapefruit678: /* Explaination */

{{comic
| number = 1084
| date = July 20, 2012
| title = Server Problem
| image = server_problem.png
| imagesize =
| titletext = Protip: Annoy Ray Kurzweil by always referring to it as the 'Cybersingularity'.
}}

==Explaination==
In this comic, [[Cueball]] has messed up his Linux server (apparently again as he does this a lot). [[Megan]] comes over and runs the 'ls' command which lists the files in the location/directory and gets a "Device is not responding error".

The best I can make of the directory is that it is nonsense. Adobe is the maker of such programs as Acrobat, Flash and Photoshop. Android VM would be a virtual machine for the mobile Operating System created by Google called Android.

But, the crux of the comic is that [[Cueball]] should really just give up and wait for the singularity. The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity singularity] is "the hypothetical future emergence of greater-than-human superintelligence through technological means. Since the capabilities of such intelligence would be difficult for an unaided human mind to comprehend, the occurrence of a technological singularity is seen as an intellectual event horizon, beyond which events cannot be predicted or understood.

Proponents of the singularity typically state that an "intelligence explosion",where superintelligences design successive generations of increasingly powerful minds, might occur very quickly and might not stop until the agent's cognitive abilities greatly surpass that of any human."

In the image text, Ray Kurzweil is an author and futurist who has talked and written much about the singularity.

==Transcript==
Person 1, sitting at laptop: I, um, messed up my server again.

Person 2: I'll take a look. You have the *weirdest* tech problems

[Person 2 uses the root prompt]

~# ls

[computer returns the following]

usr/share/Adobe/doc/example/android_vm/root/sbin/ls.jar: Error: Device is not responding.

[Person 2 has an amazingly incredulous look on their face]

Person 2: What did you *do*!?

Person 1: Maybe the device is busy. Should I try it later?

Person 2: You should shut down this system and wait for the Singularity.

{{Comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

1085: ContextBot

2012-08-13T16:10:42Z

Grapefruit678: /* Explanation */ removed unnecessary clause

{{comic
| number = 1085
| date = July 23, 2012
| title = ContextBot
| image = contextbot.png
| imagesize =
| titletext = If you read all vaguebooking/vaguetweeting with the assumption that they're saying everything they can without revealing classified military information, the internet gets way more exciting.
}}

== Explanation ==
This comic is a commentary on the practice of "vaguebooking/vaguetweeting" which is putting a vague and frustrated or sad status in Facebook or tweet on Twitter, hoping someone will respond with "Is everything OK?", "Call Me?" or whatever. The worst is when someone puts a vague status like that and someone responds asking them what happened and the initial poster responds with "I don't want to talk about it." Well, if you didn't want to talk about it, why are you putting up this vague status fishing for responses! Just keep it to yourself if you don't want to talk about it!

Ok, back to the comic, this is a fictitious Google invention which puts context for these statuses, presumably based on the personal data which Google has collected. The second context is about a torrent file which is a way to download large files from a lot of different sources, thereby speeding up the process, it is used for large files such as movies or Linux software distributions. And the 3rd one is about an xkcd favorite, Minecraft, which you can see has been used previously in xkcd comics. Diamond is the most valuable resource in the game, and if you drop it into the lava it is destroyed.

== Transcript ==
: [A social network feed with four status updates from four different people. Each one has a reply from the same account, which is called 'ContextBot', underneath.]
: Close-up face with glasses: The things I put up with...
: ContextBot: (His building's WiFi doesn't reach the bathroom.)
: Male female couple: You'd think by now I'd have learned never to trust anyone.
: ContextBot: (She downloaded a torrent that turned out to be an encrypted .rar and a link to a survey.)
: Blonde girl with bangs: I officially give up.
: ContextBot: (She hit alt-tab to hide Minecraft at work and accidentally dropped a stack of diamond into lava.)
: Spiky hair guy: Sighhhh
: ContextBot: (He thought these grapes were seedless.)
: Everyone stopped complaining about Google's data-gathering when they launched ContextBot, a system which replies to vague, enigmatic social network posts with context from the poster's life.

{{Comic discussion}}