1304: Glass Trolling
| Glass Trolling |
 Title text: Plus, when someone finally grabs your glasses and stomps on them, it costs way less than $1,500 to replace them. |
Explanation
This is another comic in the My Hobby series. Google Glass is a set of glasses frames worn like typical glasses that features an optical display and internet connectivity. It responds to voice commands starting with "OK glass", for example to initiate video recording or to check tomorrow's weather. Strangers and other people surrounding the user would often find it annoying to hear someone talking to "himself", or to Glass. Also many people who buy the newest gadgets, like Google Glass, like to brag about it, and thus would try to say OK Glass so loud that other people will notice they have these cool new glasses. This can be very annoying in general!
Randall's hobby is saying "OK, glass" before any sentence while he is only wearing regular glasses. Like here where he (drawn as usual like Cueball, with regular glasses) is checking tomorrow's weather, not on the glasses but on his smartphone. Apparently this is even more annoying to the bystander than if he would actually wear a real Google Glass while saying so. He thus both annoys other people, mocks people who buy such glasses to brag about them, and in general mocks Google Glass.
The "OK, Glass" keyword is not useless outside of Glass; in the browser Chrome and the Android/iOS app Google Now, "OK, Glass" is also valid instead of "OK, Google" to initiate a voice command. While Cueball may be using this app, it is not necessarily the case, given that the caption states that Cueball enjoys prefacing everything with the phrase. It seems generally that Randall is no fan of Google Glass, which was also shown earlier in 1251: Anti-Glass. Google Glass was a recurring theme in xkcd in 2013.
In the title text, Randall states that there is an extra benefit by doing this while only wearing regular glasses. Because when someone is finally fed up with the annoyance and rips the glasses off and stomps on them, then it would cost much less for regular glasses than if he had to replace a "Google Glass". These are very expensive - $1,500 at the time of this comic, as the title text says. (Note that regular glasses can also be very expensive, but you could choose to wear your reserve glasses for such a prank...). Also several people have claimed to been attacked while wearing Google Glass in San Francisco, with one person claiming their attacker destroyed their Glass.
Transcript
- [Caption above the panel:]
- My Hobby:
- [Cueball, wearing regular glasses, is holding his smartphone up in one hand while typing, as shown with two times two small movement lines on either side of the phone. A voice from off-panel right emanates from a starburst at the frame.]
- Cueball: OK, Glass, check tomorrow's weather.
- Cueball: Ooh, snow!
- Off-panel voice: Oh my god, it's somehow even more annoying than if you had it.
- [Caption below the panel:]
- Saying "OK, Glass" before everything while wearing regular glasses.
add a comment! ⋅ add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅ 
refresh comments!Discussion
In google now, you can use "OK glass" instead of "OK google".--Mralext20 (talk) 05:23, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
- I have a problem with the sentence "It's likely that Cueball uses this app because he holds a smartphone in his hand" independent on whether this app exists or not -- simply by the fact that the title is "Glass Trolling" -- there would not be much "Trolling" involved if the "Ok, Glass" actually made sense in the context -- so my take is that Randal is NOT aware of the App referenced, and that the "Ok, Glass" is in context where no meaning of "OK, Glass" makes any sense, such as when using an old fashioned "feature phone" or a iphone, windows phone or simply just an Android phone which no "Ok, Glass" capabilities -- I vote to strike this part of the explanation Spongebog (talk
There are actually privacy activists who call for grabbing such gadgets and destroying them by stomping on them. Google for "#camover" in combination with "google glass" to find hints. --Kigana (talk) 08:58, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
I don't know, aren't dioptric glasses correcting more complicated problems like astigmatism also costly? -- Hkmaly (talk) 09:55, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
- Speaking in gross costs, yes. My new glasses cost well over $400 USD. Thankfully, due to decent vision insurance, I only paid $53 for exam ($10), frame/lenses ($20) and the upcharge (discounted) for polycarbonate lenses. Context: I have heavy astigmatism (especially my left eye) plus farsightedness. --BigMal // 108.162.216.57 13:37, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
- Will people who need to wear glasses be able to wear Google Glass? Or would that be a problem? PheagleAdler (talk) 06:55, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
Made a major edit to the article, it is now much clearer and more informative IMHO. Feel free to tweak. --141.101.98.135 20:31, 16 December 2013 (UTC) (actually User:NeatNit, cba to log in)
Using : OK, glass! on a smartphone medically is a symptom of "ejaculatio praecox". 108.162.231.222 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
I'm not native speaker, but it's "it's likely that ..., it's not entirely true" English? Wouldn't "it's likely that ..., it's not necessary true" be better? -- Hkmaly (talk) 16:39, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
