Talk:1912: Thermostat

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Revision as of 09:57, 6 November 2017 by 141.101.99.161 (talk) (Added a comment)
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Maybe the the last sentence is about moses parting the sea so he can walk through it.162.158.91.221 05:55, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

I interpreted it that way. In computing, partitioning separates parts of a drive that are to be used for different purposes, so parallels might be drawn there. - Emmia (talk) 07:24, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
Not so sure about that. It's possible, I guess, but it's not obviously funny. I think it's more related to the title text about the helpline operative being afraid to upset whatever god of technology has cursed him with this unfathomable tech problem, and suggesting to him that the situation is so dire he may as well just end it all. (Obviously overreacting, as the failure of an IoT-enabled thermostat is definitely a First World Problem and not the horrendous event the characters are considering it to be.) 09:57, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

I think there's additional humor to the extent of his boot problems. Monthly Energy Report (1).doc would be a normal document a smart thermostat may create. But if it became a boot volume it'd brick the device.

I believe Cueball has accidentally discovered that the thermostat—supposedly simple device—is actually doing surveillance on the house (and is poorly coded). Now the tech support guy is astounded by the fact that somebody has found out, but then promptly suggests suicide in a non-direct manner to clean up evidence, covering this is with religious explanation. 172.68.244.24 06:37, 6 November 2017 (UTC) I'm not sure about the surveillance. It seems to me that the .doc is somehow a record of power usage of the thermostat. However, it remains to be determined a. why it is running Android b. why it is mounting and booting a .doc c. how it got there 162.158.106.12 07:11, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

I took it as a variation on this joke in HHG:

"Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans."

...Which in the BBC TV series was accompanied by visuals of Douglas Adams himself walking into the ocean. --172.68.86.58 07:27, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Might be a reference to the Nest Thermostat, which like Android is an Alphabet thing. While Nest doesn't run Android, its OS is Linux-based like Android. 108.162.246.89 08:07, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

While reading the title text my first thought was http://americangods.wikia.com/wiki/Technical_Boy Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 08:16, 6 November 2017 (UTC)