explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1615: Red Car

2015-12-11T09:03:59Z

Nytux: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1615
| date = December 11, 2015
| title = Red Car
| image = red_car.png
| titletext = That guy only drives an alkaline car to overcompensate for his highly acidic penis.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a take on men drive big cars to compensate for a small penis.

It works as an absurd generalization of a banal statement. It's often assumed that men drive big cars in order to compensate a small penis. There is an opposition here between small and big. Now, Megan replaces this classical opposition by color complements. Red and cyan are additive complement colors, in the sense that adding red and cyan produce white.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]

1494: Insurance

2015-03-05T09:47:23Z

Nytux: /* Lifehacks vs. IT hacks */ clarifying hacking in opensource community

{{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==
{{incomplete|Life hacks is a "real thing". It is not at all mentioned in the lifehack vs IThack section as a real thing discussed for instance on-line. See comments section.}}
[[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 code development (in particular in the opensource community) to the fact of "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 IT hacks would 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.

:[Zoom in on Cueball as he reads the paper.]

:[Cueball starts to ask the insurance agent a question when he hands Cueball yet another 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}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

Talk:1494: Insurance

2015-03-05T09:41:32Z

Nytux:

Well...suck for you.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.57|108.162.215.57]] 05:17, 4 March 2015 (UTC) RobotGoggles

'''Incomplete tag?'''
I know it's pretty early, and the explanation is bound to be rewritten, but the current explanation is a little confusing, and makes a couple jumps that I wouldn't necessarily make. Maybe the incomplete tag shouldn't be removed yet? I'd do it, but I don't really know enough about actually editing the explanations to feel comfortable doing it yet.
[[User:ARoseByAnyOtherName|ARoseByAnyOtherName]] ([[User talk:ARoseByAnyOtherName|talk]]) 08:52, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

: I mean, I had written an explanation I'd say was a bit clearer (if a bit more complicated), but some unregistered user removed most of it... Makes me a bit grumpy. The newly added ''Lifehacks vs. IT hacks'' section brings up most of the things that person removed, though, so this should be complete enough. [[User:Obskyr|Obskyr]] ([[User talk:Obskyr|talk]]) 09:44, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

:: Well, for what it's worth, I liked your version better. --[[User:RenniePet|RenniePet]] ([[User talk:RenniePet|talk]]) 10:47, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
:::Not only that. The new version was so bad I decided to revert to Obskyr's. [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1494%3A_Insurance&diff=85633&oldid=85624] [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.201|108.162.221.201]] 13:54, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

;Any meaning to conveyer?

The spelling error in the alt text seems like a simple typo.

Lawyer? I assumed it was a salesman or HR guy. --[[User:RenniePet|RenniePet]] ([[User talk:RenniePet|talk]]) 08:50, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
:: Insurance agent. Not exactly a salesman; agents have multiple hats. You don't get fire insurance from HR.[[User:Taibhse|Taibhse]] ([[User talk:Taibhse|talk]]) 09:34, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

This is probably a reference to those youtube videos of ''life hacks'' of questionable legality. Eg signing up for one flight to take another[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.100|108.162.219.100]] 16:44, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I guess this might also relate to that (from my experience) programmers tend to like to break things (anything claimed to be "secure" seems to attract lots of people wanting to test out how secure) or find workarounds for things? [[User:Pinkishu|Pinkishu]] ([[User talk:Pinkishu|talk]]) 10:11, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

;Hacking

Please read [https://stallman.org/articles/on-hacking.html On Hacking]. I think the term you're looking for is cracking, or at least black hat hacking. Hacking a system would mean getting a system to do something unique and/or interesting. Or interacting with the system in a way that wasn't predicted. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.191|108.162.238.191]] 10:19, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
:You're right. But there is at least a second common usage for the word hack that is described by wikipedia as "an inelegant but effective solution to a computing problem". When the insurance guy speaks about "cool hacks", he's probably not refering to Stallman's definition. [[User:Nytux|Nytux]] ([[User talk:Nytux|talk]]) 09:41, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

;Hard hacks
Things like lock-picking is often also seen as physical equivalents of hacking, not necessarily illegal but still something most people would look on with suspicion.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.98|108.162.254.98]] 10:21, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

:Agree, this is excellent example on "hacking the computer": there is nothing illegal on lock-picking itself. Even if you use it on someone's else door without permission, it would not be crime unless you actually ENTER the door (or damage the lock). Locksmiths MUST know how to do it. But ... first thing you think about when hearing lock-picking is that thiefs do it. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 11:37, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
::Before coming down into the comments, and seeing the last set of comments, I felt it necessary to make an edit to highlight just such an issue regarding the confusion about 'hacking'. As a historical sideline, note also the term "cracksman" as used for those who illegally open safes (and others skilled with locks and barred entranceways, in a criminal manner), which predates all the above computer-era terminology. But I didn't want to add ''too'' much more to the explanation. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.181|141.101.98.181]] 17:25, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I think part of the point of today's comic is to point that contracts are somewhat similar to a computer program (both have definitions and rules by which the system must abide), but lack the strict rigor of the latter. So, when programmers read a legal contract they immediately start searching for bugs or vulnerabilities or even syntax optimizations. {{unsigned ip|188.114.98.29}}

;Why is it illegal to do things allowed by the contract?
Why is it illegal if the insurance company agreed that the "fraudulent" maneuver was accepted, by signing the contract allowing it?
[[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.172|199.27.128.172]] 23:22, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Uh, why doesn't it mention life hacks at all in the "lifehacks vs IT hacks" section? Especially since I remember some lifehacks actually advocate for plain fucking stealing, like e.g. one which suggested that if you need a free umbrella, go to a restaurant and say you lost a black umbrella. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.224|141.101.89.224]] 01:56, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

1494: Insurance

2015-03-04T09:37:39Z

Nytux: /* Explanation */ Developing about hacks in IT

1493: Meeting

2015-03-02T10:44:01Z

Nytux: "If you're reading this, the webserver was installed correctly"

{{comic
| number = 1493
| date = March 2, 2015
| title = Meeting
| image = meeting.png
| titletext = Here at CompanyName.website, our three main strengths are our web-facing chairs, our huge collection of white papers, and the fact that we physically cannot die.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Needs to be expounded upon heavily.}}

[[Beret Guy]]'s business, as previously seen in [[1032: Networking]] and [[1293: Job Interview]], is going well, although it is unclear why. The common theme in these three comics is that [[Beret Guy]] misuses common business cliches. The following are examples and phrases that [[Randall]] is likely making a joke about:

* "If you're reading this, the webserver was installed correctly." When a web server is installed automatically (like apache using apt-get), it typically comes with a minimal configuration meant to deliver a single page saying all is working fine. Usually, a company will then configure further the web server and provide actual meaningful content. It looks that, Beret Guy's company kept the page as is, but also trademarked the sentence making it the company's motto, and proudly displays it under the company's logo.

* "Welcome to a meeting!" The usual way to start a meeting is to welcome the participants by telling them in which meeting they are (e.g. "Welcome to the meeting on ..."). Here, the complete lack of specifics in this sentence is an indication that the meeting has in fact no purpose at all, except to be just "A meeting". It could also mean that Beret Guy does not even know himself what the meeting is about.

* "Just wanna touch bases." Often business professions will contact a customer to "touch base," meaning to check in for a status update. The use of the plural "bases" suggests [[Beret Guy]] does not know what this means. This could also be a word play on the expression "Cover some bases".

* "the self driving car project" Google has been working on self-driving cars, which usually shouldn't be lost track of and found by the police. Given that the program was started by accident, they may have simply lost control of the vehicle in some manner.

* "Sales, any luck figuring out who our customers are?" No doubt this question would not be taken seriously in the real world. Money doesn't usually appear from nowhere, and most businesses would be very unsettled if their cash flow was from an unknown source.

* "Bug tracker" usually refers to software bugs that need fixing, not actual bugs.

* "White papers" (title text) are usually policy recommendations, but we suspect the title text is talking about (near-worthless) blank pages.

* "Main strengths" (title text) typically refer to one's skills, but "we physically cannot die" sounds more at home in a description of a superhero's strengths and weaknesses than a company's.

"CompanyName.website" ([http://companyname.website which in real life redirects to xkcd.com]) and "If you're reading this, the web server was installed correctly" are both examples of generic placeholder text. However, given the trademark sign, it appears that Beret Guy is using these phrases as his company's legal name and motto, respectively.

==Transcript==
'''Beret Guy:''' Welcome to a meeting! I'm almost out of words, so I'll keep this short. Just wanna touch bases.

'''Beret Guy:''' First, a few updates. We've learned from the state police that the self-driving car project we launched by accident during this morning's carpool has come to an end about 90 miles outside of town. Very exciting!

'''Beret Guy:''' Profits are up. Sales, any luck figuring out who our customers are?

'''Ponytail:''' Nope. Money keeps appearing, but we have no idea how or why.

'''Beret Guy:''' Great!

'''Beret Guy:''' Oh, and one last thing—I saw a cool red beetle in the hall. Can someone add it to the bug tracker?

'''[from outside panel]''': Just did!

'''Beret Guy:''' Thanks!

{{comic discussion}}