1858: 4th of July

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4th of July

Title text: Strangely, they still celebrate by eating hot dogs. Since they don't have mouths, they just kinda toss them in the air and let them fall back down into their propeller blades. It's pretty messy.

Explanation

In the United States, the 4th of July is celebrated as Independence Day. This comic claims to show the timeline of different activities that are used to celebrate the holiday. One common activity is to watch fireworks displays. With the rise of personal drones there have been several videos of fireworks from drones, including flying the drones through the middle of the display. The comic then purports that starting in the year it was published (2017), fireworks and drones will be at some sort of war with each other, starting with drone pilots leading their drones into the path of the rising fireworks before they explode, leading to fireworks technicians intentionally trying to strike down drones. In 2019, Randall posits that the drones will be weaponized with fireworks and competitions will be held to shoot down your opponents' drone. This wanton destruction of drones leads them to turn against their pilots and humanity in 2020 (after gaining sentience, presumably by their AI evolving through the competition), and then in 2021, they will be celebrating their Independence Day from the humans.

The title text refers to another popular 4th of July activity in the United States: Barbecues with fare such as hot dogs and hamburgers. But since the drones don't have mouths or a digestive tract, they simply make a mess by using their rotors as a blender.

Transcript

[One single panel is shown. The header reads:]

4^th of July activities

2014 - Watching fireworks

2015 - Watching fireworks from drones

2016 - Flying drones through fireworks

2017 - Intercepting fireworks with drones

2018 - Competitions to hit drones with fireworks

2019 - Teams compete to shoot down each other's firework-armed drones

2020 - Sentient firework-armed drones overthrow humans

2021 - Drones celebrate independence day

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Discussion

Hmm. I would personally switch 2017 goal with 2018. But in the meantime, I'm going to practice my armor-polishing skills so that my future master will treat me well. 162.158.74.33 15:46, 3 July 2017 (UTC) SiliconWolf

Drones don't have armor. At least not yet. -- Hkmaly (talk) 00:17, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Added an initial description, definitely needs work though. Hopefully it covers the bases for readers not aware of Independence day celebration in the US Bpendragon (talk) 17:32, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

A far as hitting drones with fireworks, fireworks cannot be controlled once launched and air currents (especially if there are drones in the vicinity) would make the fireworks' trajectories unpredictable.

Intercepting fireworks with drones would require precise control of the drone. The Dining Logician (talk) 17:45, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

"fireworks cannot be controlled once launched" .. I think people can fix that if sufficiently motivated ;-) Zmatt (talk) 08:11, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

If it can be controlled, it's usually called missile, not firework. Although I suppose you can make a decent fireworks with MIRVs. -- Hkmaly (talk) 00:17, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Or make the fireworks drones (Sacramento Bee, Intel world record attempt) Elvenivle (talk) 17:49, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't understand the title text, I understand the first part, but the second part had me confused.Xkcdreader52 (talk) 06:55, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

It's pretty messy.--Dgbrt (talk) 14:24, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

There's also Nathan's Coney Island Hot Dog eating contest on July 4 each year - which also gets pretty messy, with contestants eating over 70 hot dogs with buns in just 10 minutes.108.162.238.179 12:39, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks so much for the explanation! I didn't read it properly I guess. Boeing-787lover 13:18, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

All hail our new drone overlords, who took over yesterday. 188.114.102.48 11:19, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Praise the drones! Ser igel (talk) 07:26, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

So apparently 2 days ago was Drone Independence Day. Considering the pandemic, how apropos. :) NiceGuy1 (talk) 21:58, 6 July 2021 (UTC)