1494: Insurance

2015-03-05T06:49:57Z

Mwibeck: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1494
| date = March 4, 2015
| title = Insurance
| image = insurance.png
| titletext = LIFEHACKS: You can just take all the luggage off the airport conveyer belt and leave with it. They don't check that it's yours at the door!
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] in this comic, as is often the case, is some sort of programmer or at least logically minded person. He reads through the terms that are handed to him, and finds some sort of loophole. This is a play on the fact that programmers often find loopholes in programs and code, and exploiting them is nothing more than a "cool find" or an interesting idea. More importantly, programmers try to prevent loopholes, which is why it is important to be able to identify them.

The insurance agent foresees this, and explains that this {{w|Life_hacking|"cool hack"}} - which is known as {{w|Insurance_fraud|insurance fraud}} - is illegal. The comparison here is that exploiting a program's faults can be regarded as interesting or fun, while exploiting the faults in a legal document will most certainly result in some sort of legal repercussions.

The insurance agent is also already prepared for the following question - how he knew Cueball would be looking for loopholes, and it's because many programmers visit him.

The title text provides another example: While airport luggage security certainly is exploitable, walking out with ''every'' piece of luggage from the conveyor belt would be easily noticeable and would result in being arrested for theft.

This would appear to be a sequel to [[1469: UV]]

== Lifehacks vs. IT hacks ==

The term hacking in IT is ambiguous and goes from simple code development to "using a {{w|Hack|hack}}". A hack would then refer to a tricky piece of code doing the intended job in a way that the framework or project in which it is inserted was not intended to. To the general public, 'hacking' a system would normally refer to some illegal way of acheiving a goal against the will of the original developers of the system, like getting a copy of all the data available or taking advantage of some unwanted behavior, but a more distinctive term for such an exploitation (maliciously or after an invitation to perform legitimate penetration testing) would be 'cracking'.

This comic is making fun of what would IT hacks look like in real world. Surely, taking many luggages from an airport is technically possible and probably not so difficult, but first, it looks weird, and second, it's also obviously illegal. The weirdness of such behavior is more obvious in real life than in IT.

==Transcript==
[Cueball is standing in front of a desk, which a man sits behind. The man is presumably an insurance agent, and is handing Cueball a paper.]

Insurance agent: Here's a page explaining the terms of your new fire insurance policy.

[Cueball reads the paper.]

Cueball: Hey, what if I -

Insurance agent: And ''here's'' a page explaining that the "cool hack" you just thought of is called "insurance fraud". We already know about it and it's a crime.

Cueball: Oh. Right. How did -

Insurance agent: I see a lot of programmers here.

{{comic discussion}}

1460: SMFW

2014-12-15T08:43:55Z

Mwibeck: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1460
| date = December 15, 2014
| title = SMFW
| image = smfw.png
| titletext = wtfw it's like smho tbfh, imdb.
}}

==Explanation==

{{incomplete|Little to no peer revision.}}

On various forums on the internet, people will use acronyms for common phrases as opposed to the common phrases themselves (e.g. "LOL" as opposed to "laughing out loud"). As the comic suggests, SMFW is a plausible acronym, but does not have any potential phrases to represent. The acronym itself is eerily close to a number of other acronyms commonly used, including: "SFW" (meaning "safe for work", denoting that something does not have suggestive content), "MFW" (meaning "my face when...", setting up for a user's reaction to something: possibly the intended replacement for the caption at the bottom of the comic), "SMF" (meaning "so much fun") and "NSFW" (meaning "not suitable for work", the opposite of "SFW"). Because "SMFW" is so similar to these other acronyms, for some it would intuitively feel like "SMFW" has its own meaning. One possible interpretation would be '"So much fun with" an acronym *almost* makes sense.'
The title text contains more examples of imaginary acronyms of similar nature:

* "WTFW" is a combination of "WTF" ("What the fuck?") and "TFW" ("That feel when...", used in a similar nature to "MFW"), and possibly "FTW" ("For The Win")
* "SMHO" is a combination of "SMH" ("shake my head") and "IMHO" ("In my humble opinion...")
* "TBFH" is a combination of "TBF" ("to be fair") and "TBH" ("to be honest")
* "IMDB" is, of course, [http://www.imdb.com/ the Internet Movie Database], but also resembles abbreviations such as "IMHO" ("in my humble opinion") and "IDK" ("I don't know")

Below are possible examples of potential representations for each acronym, according to [http://www.urbandictionary.com/ Urban Dictionary]:

SMFW is an acronym for "Smoke more fucking weed".

WTFW is an acronym for "What the fuck, what?".

SMHO is an acronym for "Shaking my head off".

TBFH is an acronym for "To be fucking honest".

==Transcript==

[Cueball is sitting at a desk, crouched over a laptop]

Caption: SMFW an acronym ''almost'' makes sense

{{comic discussion}}

explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1494: Insurance

1460: SMFW