1457: Feedback

Feedback

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Title text: A new study finds that if you give rats a cell phone and a lever they can push to improve the signal, the rats will chew on the cell phone until it breaks and your research supervisors will start to ask some questions about your grant money.

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Explanation

This comic is a joke about the psychological theory that animals conditioned using seemingly random rewards and punishments promotes superstitious behavior, and then extrapolates this theory to humans and Wi-Fi or (more likely) Cellular signal integrity.

Often when connecting to unfamiliar Wi-Fi networks or when in a poorly covered area of a cell network, the signal displayed by the connecting device varies wildly, especially as distance increases. Poor wireless signal and drops in connection can be extremely frustrating, and hence Cueball has likely tried a variety of methods to improve the signal. As a result of his desperation, he replicates scenarios that are unlikely methods to increase his signal, but in some way mirror conditions where he has been successful finding a signal in the past. His past conditions have somehow led him to having the superstition that holding a pineapple while standing on top of a chair may resolve the problem. Likely, the signal increased at random while he was standing on a chair holding the pineapple, and he erroneously concluded that the chair and pineapple caused the signal strength increase. It is almost inconceivable that this technique could have any positive effect on the signal. This is related to the idea in comic 552: Correlation. See also the much later 2259: Networking Problems.

Megan questions his ridiculous behavior, but it seems Cueball has become extremely erratic due to the inconsistent signal strength.

The title text refers to a fictive study that apparently examined the behavior of rats in response to signal strength on a cellphone. It is a reference to B. F. Skinner's experiments. In these experiments, rats and, more frequently cited, pigeons are taught superstitious behavior by being rewarded at random intervals. In this new experiment the rats naturally could not understand the concept of signal strength,^{[citation needed]} so they chewed up the cellphone till they broke, leading to the research supervisors questioning the validity of the study and questioning whether the grant money for the study was well used.

Skinner's real experiment

Skinner placed a series of hungry pigeons in a cage attached to an automatic mechanism that delivered food to the pigeon "at regular intervals with no reference whatsoever to the bird's behavior." He discovered that the pigeons associated the delivery of the food with whatever chance actions they had been performing as it was delivered, and that they subsequently continued to perform these same actions.

One bird was conditioned to turn counter-clockwise about the cage, making two or three turns between reinforcements. Another repeatedly thrust its head into one of the upper corners of the cage. A third developed a 'tossing' response, as if placing its head beneath an invisible bar and lifting it repeatedly. Two birds developed a pendulum motion of the head and body, in which the head was extended forward and swung from right to left with a sharp movement followed by a somewhat slower return. Skinner suggested that the pigeons behaved as if they were influencing the automatic mechanism with their "rituals" and that this experiment shed light on human behavior.

See this Mind Field episode where this experiment has been performed on humans!

Transcript

[Megan is looking up at Cueball who is standing on a chair facing away from her. He is holding a pineapple at breast height in his right hand while he is looking up at his smartphone, which he is holding up above head height in his left hand.]

Megan: Why are you standing on a chair holding a pineapple?

Cueball: I wasn't getting good reception but now I am!

[Caption below the panel:]

The erratic feedback from a randomly-varying wireless signal can make you crazy.

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Discussion

Could the pineapple here have any relation to the wi-fi pineapple? 173.245.52.103 05:27, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Oh, it might as well be an obscure Psych reference. Please stop looking for extraobscure references.--108.162.254.34 17:57, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree, in the context I really don't see how the Wi-Fi pineapple has any relevance. --Pudder (talk) 18:52, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Cueball could be acting on being told that he could access an unknown Wifi using a pineapple. JamesCurran (talk) 16:45, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm3_qEMTdc4 141.101.104.39 06:35, 8 December 2014 (UTC) 141.101.104.39 06:37, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

I think the comic also refers to another experiment where pigeons received a snack from a dispenser at totally random times. The pigeons, thinking that whatever it is they did last helped trigger the release of food would develop a complex ritual dance to receive food. (http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Skinner/Pigeon/) 108.162.229.123 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

The intro to Mr. Nobody references this. It's what I immediately thought of when I saw this comic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGcEy_W48Kc (the explanation starts around 1 minute in) 108.162.221.170 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

The title text may also be a reminder that despite signal strength being important enough to some humans to act in an insanity-suggesting manner, it is not an essential need of a living organism, as the rats visibly demonstrate. --Koveras (talk) 08:47, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

I thought 'reception' and 'wireless signal' referred to the cellular signal. That caused a lot of issues with the iphone and others. 173.245.62.89 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Agreed. I don't think the comic has anything to do with wifi. The alt text seems to bolster this view. SeanAhern (talk) 15:09, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Me too. In my house, cellular signal varies more than WiFi signal for small movements. 188.114.99.189 03:42, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Was it Mythbusters who tin-foiled an entire room to see whether it acted as a make-shift antenna? --Pudder (talk) 15:23, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

What if the pineapple is actually where the signal is coming from, but it's a directional pineapple... greptalk18:32, 08 December 2014 (UTC)

Don't be silly. Everyone knows pineapples are omnidirectional... Of course, given the decreasing power away from the plane, if the pineapple is being held high up due to you being on a chair, if you're holding your phone up as well you probably also need to not be on the chair for your phone to get the very best signal from it... Obviously. 141.101.98.247 19:48, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

The first thing this comic made me think of was the belief in some people that if you hold a car key fob up to your chin and press a button, the signal from the fob will be more strongly focused (presumably by your skull) and thus able to reach your car from a greater distance. I wonder if there's any relationship? KieferSkunk (talk) 07:24, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

It's not really a believe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Uqf71muwWc --108.162.254.148 12:07, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

I have a few issues with that video, even though it SEEMs to be an established video series with mostly competent people doing the stuff in them. The experiment shown was far from exhaustive and there were several things I would have challenged the demonstrator to try, especially given the claims made as to how the range was increased... if you're interested, hit me up on my talk page and I'll try to explain. -- Brettpeirce (talk) 13:33, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

As he says in the video, don't prejudge, simply do the experiment yourself. I have, and it very clearly works. Miamiclay (talk) 22:25, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

I bet Woz loved this strip. He did a similar trick in college: http://archive.woz.org/letters/pirates/24.html --108.162.237.170 22:07, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Quick question

I just wanted to followup on the request I submitted through your contact form a couple weeks ago as I haven't heard anything back. I pasted it below for your reference.

Is it okay if we feature your site in our next email newsletter? It's a perfect fit for a piece we're doing and I think our audience would find some of the content on your site super useful.

I know you're probably busy, so just a simple yes or no would suffice.

Many Thanks, 172.69.62.226 (talk) 19:21, 25 February 2020 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Uh you'll have to ask Tori I think Caliban (talk) 12:39, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Pity I didn't see that one when it came in. It was written five years ago, and no sign that it was actually written at face-value anyway. (Even if we have a Contact Form, which I seem to have missed, I'm fairly certain that it isn't being monitored in any meaningful way.)

Not sure what Tori would have to do with it, either. I think it was before she joined, as well, but I could be wrong about that. But no still particular reason why they'd be the person to ask. 172.68.205.164 18:19, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Um-a couple things first. 1) I joined on February 1st, 2024, so this wouldn’t be for me to answer. 2) I don’t represent explain xkcd policy-that would probably be a question to ask the whole community, or at the very least admins/Jeff. 3) This whole thing sounds to me like a scam/troll, so I agree that it wasn’t written at face-value. 42.book.addict^{Talk to me!} 00:41, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Sad but Wild

This comic page has had nothing but vandalism and reverts of the vandalism for THREE YEARS STRAIGHT. --DollarStoreBa'al^converse 22:57, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

It's because there are spam-houses out there that will look for inline links to pages that are variations upon <site address>/Feedback, which tend to be used to contact site-owners, and either automate or direct their human wage-slavesworkers to add their latest spam-payload to it.

I've seen other sites suffer from this, and have to deal with it. Out of the ~1 billion websites there may be, it'd be trivial to have a list of thousands(/millions?) of spammable targets and just broadcast the spam du jour around and benefit from the very few attempts that actually successfully hook somebody.

It's not even the only page on this site that suffers this, though it may be the most obvious at the moment. Some of them were (semi-)protected, during a past spate of (clearly anthropic) spamming, but this just seemed to shift that effort towards yet other pages. Or, in at least one case, the Talk: page for the protected one.

The BOT tends to catch many of these, and no sign that anybody/anything cares that their spam has been immediately reverted, but the most recent one here was just so badly written (perhaps as an 'idiot-trap' - a phishing attempt performed so badly that anyone who actually falls for it is going to need no effort at all to get to the point of being ripped off) that it didn't even trigger that response.

The most likely way to stop this entirely is to actively delete the pages (Feedback, 1457: Feedback, perhaps 1457, probably the respective Talk: page(s)) long enough for every spamhaus to get a "Page not found" response and perhaps then delete their chosen target page link from their huge list of tryable pages. But that's assuming they do, and if any given list is only retried from the beginning every three months (and immediately deletes the item from it, rather than give it a "three strikes, then out" treatment) then you'd need to keep it 'dark' for at least that long. And old lists might be used again at any time by any new haus, plus future site-scraping (from scratch) would always pick up the revived page again (maybe share it around, too) and you're potentially back to where you started.

It is 'wild' that happens and, of the estimated 800 million of so 'inactive and unmaintained' sites, there will be so many places with 'open' Feedback/etc pages where such spam builds up (perhaps even publicly). But, like here, other places will have enough responsiveness to have a 'Feedback' page yet generally confine all such probings to history (or, at least, the History pages - which are a mixed blessing, in this case).

If you're considering it sad that nobody else has bothered to edit anything (only spammers and spam-reverters), that might just be that nothing more needs to be changed. Like many other pages might be ok, for long periods of time until someone has a good and legitimate idea for a tweak. From my decades of web (and other internet-related) experience, however, I'm not going to let myself feel emotionally affected by this level of spammer chancerism. (Well, mostly. I had to chuckle a bit at the awfulness of the recently reverted 'feedback' message. If it wasn't an idiot-trap, it was quite the most awful spamming I've seen recently, except for the frw ones that don't even remember to leave 'contact details'!) 82.132.244.90 06:00, 18 September 2025 (UTC)

If they were trying to idiot-trap, they came to the wrong site. I enjoy idiot-traps though, simply to get a nice laugh out of them. --DollarStoreBa'al^converse 13:41, 18 September 2025 (UTC)

How does anybody fall for this? --DollarStoreBa'al^converse 14:33, 22 October 2025 (UTC)
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