https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=162.158.186.72&feedformat=atomexplain xkcd - User contributions [en]2024-03-29T12:51:41ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.30.0https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1912:_Thermostat&diff=148069Talk:1912: Thermostat2017-11-19T22:22:05Z<p>162.158.186.72: </p>
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Maybe the the last sentence is about moses parting the sea so he can walk through it.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.221|162.158.91.221]] 05:55, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
: I interpreted it that way. In computing, partitioning separates parts of a drive that are to be used for different purposes, so parallels might be drawn there. - [[User:Emmia|Emmia]] ([[User talk:Emmia|talk]]) 07:24, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
: Not so sure about that. It's possible, I guess, but it's not obviously funny. I think it's more related to the title text about the helpline operative being afraid to upset whatever god of technology has cursed him with this unfathomable tech problem, and suggesting to him that the situation is so dire he may as well just end it all. (Obviously overreacting, as the failure of an IoT-enabled thermostat is definitely a First World Problem and not the horrendous event the characters are considering it to be.) 09:57, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
:I also thought about the "parting the sea" idea...consider that in the Old Testament, the gods of other cultures were spoken of as alive, and the Israelite God as directly challenging and defeating them (see the challenge issued to the Egyptian deities in Exodus). Perhaps, rather than helping Cueball himself, Hairy thinks that by invoking the Most High, Cueball might be able to defeat whatever technology god he has angered. Hence, Hairy suggests that Cueball try to play the role of Moses. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.34.76|172.68.34.76]] 16:11, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
:No, just talking about abandoning hope and that Cueball should escape life. This use of walking into the sea is a commonly used result of giving up at life, a reaction to not wanting to deal with people, reality, etc. any more. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:37, 7 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
: I read it more as a comment along the lines of "if we've got to the point where we're making something as trivial as a thermostat this complicated then there's no hope for us and we may as well just end it all".[[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.32|162.158.155.32]] 17:31, 7 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
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I think there's additional humor to the extent of his boot problems. Monthly Energy Report (1).doc would be a normal document a smart thermostat may create. But if it became a boot volume it'd brick the device.<br />
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: Maybe "Monthly Energy Report (1).doc" was meant to resemble a malware-laden email attachment. The "(1)" could indicate a name-collision-avoidance suffix of a downloaded file. [[User:Bob Stein - VisiBone|Bob Stein - VisiBone]] ([[User talk:Bob Stein - VisiBone|talk]]) 11:48, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
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:'Monthly Energy Report.doc' might be a normal document a smart energy device might produce (can't see why it would be producing energy reports if all it is is a thermostat), but the '(1)' on the end suggests it's been unable to overwrite a previous report. or for some reason produced a copy of the original document.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.32|162.158.155.32]] 17:23, 7 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
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:When generating a report with a static filename every month, instead of using report names which include a variable such as 'Monthly report November 2017.doc', the generation will cause a naming collision the second time a report is run. <br />
Why there would be a process to guard against overwriting the previous report, or what the significance would be to know the device is 2 months old, I do not know.<br />
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I guess, in real life, this could happen when the thermostat has this guard against filename collisions in place and characters such as ( are not properly escaped in the script used to update the bootloader. <br />
Possibly a reference to xkcd 327? Though it feels like a stretch.<br />
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.111.247|162.158.111.247]] 22:46, 8 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
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I believe Cueball has accidentally discovered that the thermostat—supposedly simple device—is actually doing surveillance on the house (and is poorly coded). Now the tech support guy is astounded by the fact that somebody has found out, but then promptly suggests suicide in a non-direct manner to clean up evidence, covering this is with religious explanation. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.244.24|172.68.244.24]] 06:37, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
:I'm not sure about the surveillance. It seems to me that the .doc is somehow a record of power usage of the thermostat. However, it remains to be determined a. why it is running Android b. why it is mounting and booting a .doc c. how it got there [[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.12|162.158.106.12]] 07:11, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
:: The .doc file is the trojan that was installed on the device. It was supposed to look innocent, but actually contains an encoded sysroot with the real spyware. It's just also terribly written. Very genuinely Russian.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.202.106|162.158.202.106]] 21:46, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
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I took it as a variation on this joke in HHG:<br />
: "Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans."<br />
...Which in the BBC TV series was accompanied by visuals of Douglas Adams himself walking into the ocean. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.86.58|172.68.86.58]] 07:27, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
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Might be a reference to the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nest_learning_thermostat Nest Thermostat], which like Android is an Alphabet thing. While Nest doesn't run Android, its OS is Linux-based like Android. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.89|108.162.246.89]] 08:07, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
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While reading the title text my first thought was http://americangods.wikia.com/wiki/Technical_Boy [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 08:16, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
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Not sure if "Android error screen" deserves emphasis in the explanation, as lately many very simple devices have Android, it shouldn't be surprising to find a thermostat running it. [[User:Fvalves|Fvalves]] ([[User talk:Fvalves|talk]]) 10:12, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
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https://xkcd.com/349/ also mentions tech issues and the sea. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.107.78|141.101.107.78]] 10:36, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
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As a (former) network engineer for the largest IoT deployment at a major ISP, I can say with complete certainty that this is nothing. A hard reset (typically, holding the power and some other button down for 5+ seconds) will skip the attempt at local boot and go directly to a BOOTP wipe from the mothership, which should have that thermostat up and running the Russian military/mob's firmware in ten minutes tops. Soon your thermostat will be mining bitcoin and staging attacks on your local vital infrastructure like all the other thermostats, don't you worry. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.196|141.101.98.196]] 11:14, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
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Should we make a category for this? It's becoming a recurring theme on xkcd. [[User:RamenChef|RamenChef]] ([[User talk:RamenChef|talk]]) 15:49, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
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: Sounds like this may be referrng to recent news where some Google Pixel 2 owners received phones [https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/11/2/16599938/google-pixel-2-xl-operating-system-shipping-quality-control-issues without any operating system]. [[User:Shamino|Shamino]] ([[User talk:Shamino|talk]]) 16:59, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
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Refer to https://xkcd.com/801/ on using a complex OS for single purpose Hardware [[Special:Contributions/172.68.46.101|172.68.46.101]]<br />
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Perhaps it's referring to the story of Jonah. In an effort to get Jonah to go back to where he was supposed to go, God sent a terrible storm that devastated the ship that Jonah was escaping on. In order to appease God, the crew had to throw Jonah into the sea, where he was subsequently swallowed up by a giant fish.<br />
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"the extension .docx has been the default from Microsoft Office 2007 onwards and is generally favored over the preceding .doc extension."... No, not "favored", just that it's the default, and the default default, and most people don't know to change it, or how, or that they should. :) I've found docx more u stable, more buggy, and less readable (seeing as people who have the sense not to blindly downgrade through 2007 and 2010 and 365 won't natively be ale to open it, and may have trouble with the file support extension). Actually, Randall's use of .doc here suggests to me he's one of us who are wise enough to stick with Office 2003, or at least stick with using .doc. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:37, 7 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
:Moreover, the adding of "(1)" to a filename, when asked to avoid overwriting with conflicts, is itself only a more modern implementation within the Windows family (possibly Vista onwards, but Win8 onwards more certainly), for what used to be a purely overwrite/do not overwrite decision of sorts, although it does also mirror one of many possible user-based method of versioning/forking that wouldn't be unknown...<br />
:(My reading of the comic, BTW, is that someone in the household has opened up the device to a very insecure remote access to grab data to convert into a personal record - and, for some reason, this was being done in .doc rather than .xls or something more usefully statistical - the document for this somehow then written onto the raw partition,perhaps having deleted everythibg else (i.e. the virtual boot partition file the device normally goes to, as part of the bootstrap) leaving that document there for the bootloader to go "well, this is the only file,it must be the partition!" in an overly flexible/helpful but ultimately misguided firmware-led booting process. But there's ''so'' much wrong with even this scenario that I'm with the tech support guy in dispair that it ever happened.)[[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.130|141.101.76.130]] 22:35, 7 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
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:I strongly agree with the previous. My work in tech support has teched me that the worst clients are the ones who have "just a little bit adjusted" something causing the failure but when they contact the tech support they act as the failure had occured by itself and deny ever touching anything. This .doc file is clearly created by the caller who has downloaded data from the thermostat and then accidentally saved it to the thermostat. <br />
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[[Special:Contributions/172.68.47.48|172.68.47.48]] 18:41, 11 November 2017 (UTC)I can't figure out if it's just a typo or if there's some meaning that "Have you tried walking into the sea." ends with a "." rather than a "?". The author isn't one to make grammatical errors, but I can't think of a clear interpretation - perhaps this is because, while worded as a question, it really only makes sense as a command - if Cueball had already tried walking into the sea, then he probably wouldn't be calling tech support now. That made me realize that we're hearing this from Cueball's perspective, so homonyms could be at play - for example, rather than referencing the "sea" Harry could be referring to the lower level programming language "C" (a predecessor to C++), which could be part of a larger explanation. [TH] [[Special:Contributions/172.68.47.48|172.68.47.48]] 18:41, 11 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
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I took this to mean Cueball had been trying to hack his traditional thermostat, and poorly. He says the **little** LCD is giving him this **Android** recovery error. Almost no thermostats run Android and if they do they don't have little LCDs. So now tech support has to deal with his utter incompetence and tampering that's bricked his thermostat. Hence the telling him to go walk into the sea. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.186.72|162.158.186.72]] 22:22, 19 November 2017 (UTC)</div>162.158.186.72https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1849:_Decades&diff=1412281849: Decades2017-06-12T18:28:42Z<p>162.158.186.72: Clear up text in the first parenthesis</p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1849<br />
| date = June 12, 2017<br />
| title = Decades<br />
| image = decades.png<br />
| titletext = In the 90s, our variety radio station used the tagline "the best music of the 70s, 80s, and 90s." After 2000, they switched to "the best music of the 80s, 90s, and today." I figured they'd change again in 2010, but it's 2017 and they're still saying "80s, 90s, and today." I hope radio survives long enough for us to find out how they deal with the 2020s.<br />
}}<br />
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==Explanation==<br />
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This comic shows, by use on a time-line, an interesting phenomena where music, fashion, movies and culture created between the years 2000 and 2020 are not commonly grouped into the decade in which they were produced like previous decades. The comic asserts the reason for this is the lack of a single clear term to describe these decades, stating that the term "2000s" is ambiguous (as it could refer to the decade, century or millennium as a whole) and the terms "Aughts" and "Teens" never became the widely accepted terms for these decades. <br />
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The time-line in the comic stretches into the future (as of the time of publication) and attempts to name the 2020-2029 decade as the 20s, but does so with an uncertain question mark, presumably because it's (presently) an open question whether this dating convention will be reinstated after a 20-year pause. As the comic points out, common vernacular has managed to operate without clear terms for that grouping for 17 years, and that may have left enough of a mark on our thinking that we'll simply continue to operate in that way. There's an argument to be made grouping culture by decades is fairly arbitrary and not essential in cultural discussions. It should also be considered that that "the twenties" is still occasionally used to refer to the 1920's, and so reusing it to refer to the 2020's could be a source of confusion. It's not impossible that decade-based grouping will fall out of favor all together in the 21st century.<br />
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Despite many people pushing for terms like "aughties" and "tens", they never gained much traction among the common crowd.<br />
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==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
[A time line across the top of the box marks decades from 1960-2030, between the ticks marking decades the following groups]<br />
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1960-1970;<br />
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60s Music<br />
<br />
60s Fashion<br />
<br />
60s Movies<br />
<br />
60s Culture<br />
<br />
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1970-1980;<br />
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70s Music<br />
<br />
70s Fashion<br />
<br />
70s Movies<br />
<br />
70s Culture<br />
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<br />
1980-1990;<br />
<br />
80s Music<br />
<br />
80s Fashion<br />
<br />
80s Movies<br />
<br />
80s Culture<br />
<br />
<br />
1960-1970;<br />
<br />
60s Music<br />
<br />
60s Fashion<br />
<br />
60s Movies<br />
<br />
60s Culture<br />
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1990-2000;<br />
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90s Music<br />
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90s Fashion<br />
<br />
90s Movies<br />
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90s Culture<br />
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2000-2020;<br />
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[Sporadically Placed over 2 decades]<br />
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Fashion<br />
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Culture<br />
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Music<br />
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Movies<br />
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2020-2030;<br />
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[In light grey font]<br />
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20s Music?<br />
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20s Fashion?<br />
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20s Movies?<br />
<br />
20s Culture?<br />
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[Caption below the panel:] <br />
It's weird how for 20 years we stopped grouping our cultural memories by decade because "2000s" is ambiguous and and "Aughts" and "Teens" never really stuck.<br />
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{{comic discussion}}</div>162.158.186.72