Editing 1997: Business Update
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==Explanation== | ==Explanation== | ||
− | This comic shows a meeting at [[Beret Guy]]'s business (as seen in [[:Category:Beret Guy's Business|these other comics]]). As usual, those in the business demonstrate a misuse of business terminology and take strange happenings within the business in | + | {{incomplete|Created by THE KITCHEN SINK - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}} |
+ | This comic shows a meeting at [[Beret Guy]]'s business (as seen in [[:Category:Beret Guy's Business|these other comics]]). As usual, those in the business demonstrate a misuse of business terminology and take strange happenings within the business in stride. | ||
− | Though maintaining a semblance of business-savviness through the use of many corporate buzzwords, it becomes clear that what is normally metaphorical in a usual boardroom meeting is here | + | Though maintaining a semblance of business-savviness through the use of many corporate buzzwords, it becomes clear that what is normally metaphorical in a usual boardroom meeting is here quite likely meant literally. The Quarterly Reports, described as "looking good," may be literally physically attractive (rather than recording successful business dealings). Knowing Beret Guy, it seems likely that the office is full of coins or dollar bills, and not simply economically well-off. |
− | + | Stocks (as in the stock market, a.k.a. shares) are being manufactured. Stocks are valuable, so from an outside perspective making more of them would create value. However, the humor of this situation is that in real life, creating shares from nothing would reduce the value of existing shares (as the combined value of stocks should add up to the total value of the company... so creating more stocks means each has to be worth less to make the addition balance out). This is ironic in that typically stocks represent the value of the company, rather than being the product being created. | |
− | Alternatively, the company may be producing the leg restraints known as | + | Alternatively, the company may be producing the leg restraints known as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stocks stocks]. It's unlikely that there would be many people wishing to buy these stocks. |
− | + | Individual customers are experiencing physical growth, though most businesses would be more concerned with a growth in the number of customers supporting the business. If the customers are not children they are likely very concerned by this rapid growth.{{Citation needed|date=May 2018}} | |
− | + | Assets "liquidated" in a thermostat glitch may have been literally melted ("turned into liquid"). It could also mean that their infrastructure is so hilariously messed up that a simple glitch in a thermostat somehow resulted in the loss of a large amount of the company's assets. Note that this type of thing is not entirely unheard of, as shown by [https://thehackernews.com/2018/04/iot-hacking-thermometer.html a hack of a thermostat in a casino that led to massive data loss in 2017]. | |
− | + | The kitchen sink producing original content was not generating unique ideas or its own TV shows (commonly called original content), but instead leaking from the faucet, or backing up from the drains. | |
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+ | It is also worth noting that the "largest source of revenue" may not be producing much if any revenue at all; it can still be the biggest if there are no others. On the other hand, past experience with Beret Guy's business would indicate that this company is [[1032: Networking|making plenty of money]], though they aren't necessarily sure [[1493: Meeting|how]]. | ||
Transmuting lead into gold was a {{w|Nuclear transmutation#Alchemy|goal of alchemists}} for many centuries. With modern nuclear technology, it is actually now possible to accomplish transmutation of lead into gold, and gold into lead. While the expense far exceeds the value of the gold produced by such methods, it seems plausible that, given Beret Guy's surpassing strangeness, his company may be successfully and cheaply transmuting large quantities of lead into gold and back again. Since gold is worth much more than lead in today's market, the first transmutation could indeed result in major profit, while the reverse would obviously result in major losses, and be a rather pointless undertaking for a typical, profit-oriented business. | Transmuting lead into gold was a {{w|Nuclear transmutation#Alchemy|goal of alchemists}} for many centuries. With modern nuclear technology, it is actually now possible to accomplish transmutation of lead into gold, and gold into lead. While the expense far exceeds the value of the gold produced by such methods, it seems plausible that, given Beret Guy's surpassing strangeness, his company may be successfully and cheaply transmuting large quantities of lead into gold and back again. Since gold is worth much more than lead in today's market, the first transmutation could indeed result in major profit, while the reverse would obviously result in major losses, and be a rather pointless undertaking for a typical, profit-oriented business. | ||
− | + | In the last panel, "the girl from ''The Ring''" refers to Sadako Yamamura, the antagonist of {{w|The Ring (film series)|the ''Ring'' series by Koji Suzuki}}, or her counterpart Samara Morgan from the {{w|The_Ring_(2002_film)|American remake}}, who has been referenced by xkcd several times in the past as in [[396: The Ring]]. Beret Guy claims she has made several appearances in their video conferences, which may be possible if someone has hacked their video feed to play footage from the 2002 movie. However, some of Beret Guy's employees then proceed to remark that she has made contributions to the meetings in question, implying that the image of Yamamura is not only alive but sentient and communicating with the employees, a possibility that, if accurate, is accepted with surprising nonchalance by Beret Guy's employees. It's also possible that Yamamura is simply the recording from the series, and her contributions are just in keeping with the general tone of the company's video conferences. Either way, it would appear that Beret Guy's sheer eccentricity has affected his staff to the point that a digital spectre would not be an abnormal employee. | |
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− | In the last panel, "the girl from ''The Ring''" refers to Sadako Yamamura, the antagonist of {{w|The Ring (film series)|the ''Ring'' series by Koji Suzuki}}, or her counterpart Samara Morgan from the {{w|The_Ring_(2002_film)|American remake}}, who has been referenced by xkcd several times in the past | ||
− | The title text refers to the May 25 deadline to implement the European Union's {{w|GDPR|General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)}}; this comic parodies a business meeting about what the company is doing to prepare for it. However, while normally the problem would be how to handle the customers' personal information that the company requires to retain in order to do business, in this case it seems the company does not require personal information at all, and instead, customers are sending them theirs on their own (and they refuse to stop doing it!). Even more bizarrely, Beret Guy was told by the EU (or at least | + | The title text refers to the May 25 deadline to implement the European Union's {{w|GDPR|General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)}}; this comic parodies a business meeting about what the company is doing to prepare for it. However, while normally the problem would be how to handle the customers' personal information that the company requires to retain in order to do business, in this case it seems the company does not require personal information at all, and instead, customers are sending them theirs on their own (and they refuse to stop doing it!). Even more bizarrely, Beret Guy was told by the EU (or at least he thinks he was told by the EU) that he is exempt because he is royalty of some kind, which would give him {{w|Sovereign immunity}}, but he wants to fix this problem anyway, just to be on the safe side. |
==Transcript== | ==Transcript== | ||
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[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]] | [[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]] | ||
[[Category:Beret Guy's Business]] | [[Category:Beret Guy's Business]] | ||
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