Talk:2261: Worst Thing That Could Happen

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Revision as of 19:47, 7 September 2022 by 172.70.91.78 (talk) (More correct link.)
Jump to: navigation, search


What? No one mentioned Earth being hit by asteroid or one of close stars going supernova? -- Hkmaly (talk) 19:43, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

No, this is just dealing with the worst scenarios. -boB (talk) 21:05, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birds_(film) , isn't it? Wouldn't it be more destructive than just ramming and pecking? 141.101.105.216 21:56, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

I very recently saw a meme I had to think of (and want to share the funny part), where a badass-person was described. The last point was "the morals of a seagull." --Lupo (talk) 07:10, 30 January 2020 (UTC) Edit: Just googled it. It was a reddit post about seals, and the conclusion was, they are like "if a cat weighed 300 kilos and had the intelligence of a toddler & the morals of a seagull". --Lupo (talk) 07:25, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

“Much of the computer networking technology used today has its roots in research into hardening nuclear command and control systems against an incoming first strike...”. This is false, at least as far as the early internet goes. https://www.internetsociety.org/internet/history-internet/brief-history-internet/#f5 — “5 It was from the RAND study that the false rumor started claiming that the ARPANET was somehow related to building a network resistant to nuclear war. This was never true of the ARPANET, only the unrelated RAND study on secure voice considered nuclear war. However, the later work on Internetting did emphasize robustness and survivability, including the capability to withstand losses of large portions of the underlying networks.” Since the authors include Vint Cerf, I’m inclined to give it a lot of credibility. 162.158.2.214 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

How does Ninja Warrior subject contestants to pain/humiliation on failure? The only humiliation factor is from failing in the first place, and the water is there to minimize pain (well, to minimize injuries anyway). There are plenty of much better examples of game shows that "punish" failure. 172.68.70.34 16:12, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Ninja Warrior is the 'painful' contest that I happen to have seen most recently, but on reflection I suppose MXC/Takeshi's Castle is a little more straightforward on the "humiliation" factor. --NotaBene (talk) 02:34, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

CTRL-f for searching... I always imagined Randal as an Emacs user (Emacs standard binding for incremental search is ctrl-s) but I guess no one is perfect. 172.68.70.70 05:14, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Ctrl-F works on almost anything nowadays, such as web browsers, which he probably uses more frequently than Emacs. Of course, Ctrl-F notably does NOT work in Microsoft Outlook. Thanks, Bill. -boB (talk) 16:34, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
It says he's searching release notes, which would be located where the upgrade came from, which means the website it was downloaded from (so, reading in a web browser) or some App Store or another (I would think the notes are in the Store app itself or a plain text file). Since I've never used eMacs, it seems an unlikely format for something meant to be widely seen like release notes. :) NiceGuy1 (talk) 05:05, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
in this comic Cueball et al. are representing programmers not users, they would not be installing the latest release of an app from an App Store but rather applying a patch to, and then recompiling, source code. The release notes would be in a text file, most likely with a .txt extension, and would be readable with any software tool that would be used for displaying or editing .txt files. But setting that aside, to think that because you personally haven’t used of a particular tool has any bearing on its popularity is hubris of the highest order.172.68.70.34 10:11, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
You're right about Randal being an Emacs user though, see title text of 561. Bischoff (talk) 08:13, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

Just added two new categories for this comic: Category:Volcanoes and Category:Nuclear weapons. They were long overdue with 22 and 25 comics respectively after I searched through for relevant words. This is the fourth with Supervolcanoes mentioned. --Kynde (talk) 10:58, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

There are presumably many more people than wells (citation needed). If everybody fell down a well, the people in any particular well would be piled on top of each other, and the ones at the top should be able to climb out. Then they can help the people below them. Barmar (talk) 19:22, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

"Since Randall is just reading but not changing the patch notes, a web browser, PDF viewer, or word processing program such as Adobe Reader or Microsoft Word might have been used."... Uhhhh, just because he's not changing the release notes doesn't mean he isn't using something like Notepad, which to me seems the most likely unless it's an App Store, about just as likely that it's a web browser on the upgrade's website. Also, not to be pedantic (okay, to be pedantic, LOL!), Adobe ACROBAT Reader wouldn't be a "word processing program". I could see calling the writer program Adobe Acrobat that, but the more widespread READER is exactly that, just a reader, no processing. :) NiceGuy1 (talk) 05:05, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Am I the only one that thinks the link to Lassie is extremely tenuous? It seems far more likely to be referencing the general trope of falling down a well, such as this example from TVTropes or even some previous comics, such as 568. PotatoGod (talk) 03:55, 3 February 2020 (UTC) EDIT: fixed the broken link to tvtropes PotatoGod (talk) 17:50, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

I'd say the Lassie connection is valid, partly because it's the first thing I thought of as well. The tvtropes article you referenced doesn't seem to exist and 568 has nothing to do with falling into wells. Mike probably got in voluntarily. Bischoff (talk) 08:09, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

COVID 19. COVID 19 could happen. Cwallenpoole (talk) 14:56, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

If you think the pandemic of the last two years is the worst possible pandemic, then I guess your imagination isn't as good as mine at thinking up "worst thing(s) that could happen." Mathmannix (talk) 18:04, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
Oh, no. I'm not saying it's the worst thing that could happen. I'm saying it did happen and because the upgrade happened before the pandemic, the pandemic must be caused by the upgrade. Cwallenpoole (talk) 18:13, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Care to explain why the (re)deletion, other-IP? SFAICT, that contribution was relevent, but you're removing it. (Are you the same IP who has been editing a lot of other things out, recently? I bet you are.) And in leiu of re-reverting it myself, which is as bad form as it is for you to repeat removing things in the first place, with no justification given, I shall leave this link and comment as a whole as a note for posterity. 172.70.91.78 19:44, 7 September 2022 (UTC)