1243: Snare

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Snare

Title text: It's going in A collection of satellites skewered with pins and mounted in display boxes. Not necessarily MY collection.

Explanation

This comic paints another one of Black Hat's evil activities as an unlikely supervillain.

As Cueball states, there have been some strange discoveries in the news including a gigantic ring strung with superstrong mesh, a long pole, and a gigantic winch. As Cueball outlines these items, Black Hat responds casually to each detail, seeming preoccupied with his computer. Cueball realizes that the pole, ring and net combination sounds like a butterfly net, albeit one of immense size. Given Black Hat's history of nefarious activities and the specific length of the pole (260 miles or 420 km, the same as the height of the International Space Station's orbit above Earth), Cueball infers and then accuses Black Hat of wanting to catch the International Space Station (ISS) by winching the pole up so that the Space Station orbit leads it to fly into the net, therefore catching it.

Black Hat does not deny the charge, but he dissimulates by saying it is not necessarily the ISS that he intends to catch, but just an international space station. While his statement implies that it could be targeted at some other international space station, it is transparently obvious which one he is targeting since there's only one international space station in existence.^{[citation needed]} Any international space station that he can catch must be the ISS. (As for non-international space stations, the only one in orbit at the time of the comic’s publication was the Chinese Tiangong-1, which has since deorbited.)

The title text is a reference to how butterfly collections are usually presented. The insects are mounted in glass display cases, each skewered through the body with a pin, and labeled. The text is spoken by Black Hat, who again tries to imply that he is not to blame, as it may not be meant for his collection of satellites. Perhaps he is just catching a space station for a friend (or possibly Danish).

The real buildings may belong to these structures:

• The giant ring from the first panel may be an allusion to the Tevatron, a former circular particle accelerator at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), east of Batavia, near Chicago, Illinois. It is a 6.86 km (4.26 miles) long ring, giving it a diameter of almost 2,2 km (1.4 miles) leaving plenty of room to catch the ISS which is "only" 108.5 m (356 ft) in the longest direction.
• Similarly, the gigantic winch in St. Louis, may refer to the 630-foot (192 meters) high Gateway Arch monument. It is the tallest man-made monument in the United States.
  • Even the rough south-north direction of this building does match to this scenario because the Fermilab is approx. 240 miles north of St. Louis. However, it is an arch, not a winch.^{[citation needed]}

Transcript

[Cueball is talking to Black Hat. Black Hat is using a laptop.]

Cueball: They said on the news that they found a giant ring lying in a field outside Chicago. Strung with some kind of superstrong mesh.

Black Hat: Mhm?

Cueball: Then they found a 260 mile long shaft connected to the ring, running from Chicago to St. Louis. In St. Louis they found a gigantic winch.

Black Hat: Did they.

Cueball: It sounds kind of like...

Cueball: ...a butterfly net.

Cueball: ...are you planning on catching the International Space Station?

Black Hat: I'm planning to catch an international space station.

_{Black Hat: Not sayin' which.}

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Discussion

Any HUMAN-BUILD space station must be the ISS, but maybe Black Hat knows about some alien space station he wants to catch? kshksh (talk) 14:45, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Incidentally, St. Louis is about 300 miles from Chicago, so the shaft would be 40 miles short.

It depends on how large the giant ring is. 20 mile radius would put it adjacent. Also, "outside" Chicago is flexible.

More importantly, Black Hat is such a jerk. He builds a freaking space elevator but only uses it for a particularly silly kind of evil. - Frankie (talk) 14:26, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

By the way, what is Black Hat sitting at? It looks like there is open laptop on desk, but he uses separate keyboard in a special shelf... --JakubNarebski (talk) 15:06, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

It's entirely possible that he has exactly that. My mother uses an ergonomic keyboard instead of the crappy, built-in one on the laptop. Her desk has a keyboard shelf, so that's where the ergonomic one goes. 68.231.138.149 18:05, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't believe in ergonomic keyboards, but look at what laptops have instead of keyboard. I'm usually using standard keyboard instead of built-in one and I don't believe I'm alone. Also note that as a hacker, Black Hat probably needs lots of special symbols, which may be missing or on nonstandard positions on laptop keyboard (he is hacker, isn't he?). -- Hkmaly (talk) 11:51, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Regardless of whether or not you believe in them, ergonomic keyboards exist. 76.106.251.87 14:43, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Existence of keyboards which are CALLED ergonomic is fact. The bit I don't believe in is that they really are ergonomic, that is, significantly better to write on that standard keyboards. Which is subjective. On the other hand, I don't think that ANYONE would argue that the built-in laptop keyboards are better to write on that standard keyboards. -- Hkmaly (talk) 13:02, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Real giant ring observed over Chicago today.

A smoke ring from an exploded transformer. I honestly think this could have inspired the comic. on reddit on the news 92.204.27.3 11:31, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Funny, I immediately flashed on the world's largest electromagnet, delivered today to the Fermilab facility in Batavia IL, which is just outside Chicago: http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2013/07/26/massive-electromagnet-completes-arduous-trip-to-fermilab/ Gardnertoo (talk) 20:15, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

If he would like to catch one of the other space stations he would probably not say he wants to catch an international station, because they are only national projects. 91.45.17.43 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I think that both "AN international space station" and "Not necessarily MY collection" is something he says to avoid blame. It is obvious that he's going to catch the ISS and put her in HIS collection, but he's not confessing to it. -- Hkmaly (talk) 13:02, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Am I the only one who finds the connection to the Gateway Arch Momument and Tevatron dubious? There is no explanation of the type of winch, and the ring is specifically 'lying in a field'. Maybe the could be included as possibilities, but to say that the structures are 'probably' the ones referred to is false in my opinion.--Pudder (talk) 12:15, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

I precisely agree. I will make the change now. 173.245.54.20 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I think it would be quite a daunting task to put a space station in a display case... 625571b7-aa66-4f98-ac5c-92464cfb4ed8 (talk) 21:03, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

\_ Talk about daunting tasks -- You've gotta admire the sheer logistics Black Hat would have to overcome for catching 'a' space station as described: First, finding a superstrong, pliable material to a) catch, slow down, and hold a space station originally moving at orbital speeds; and b) finding enough of it to create a mesh field large enough to catch something that size. Second, to have a pole of enough strength to hold the large ring (and accompanying mesh) upright when lifted, but not be so heavy as to be too difficult to winch from a fixed point on the ground. Next, to have it all survive high-altitude winds and freezing temperatures when erected, and finally: reentry! Bringing anything back from LEO will undoubtedly encounter friction with the atmosphere. That dude's got mad skills if he can pull even half of those things off. -Electro- 108.162.221.203 08:56, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

We need a new page on butterfly nets. Klyxm (talk) 10:14, 5 March 2018 (UTC) 12

I thought the title-text might mean that Black Hat was going to give the ISS as a gift... Maybe to Danish? Eebop (talk) 19:13, 29 May 2021 (UTC) eebop (talk) 12:11 29 March 2021 (UTC)