Editing 1362: Morse Code

{{comic
| number    = 1362
| date      = April 30, 2014
| title     = Morse Code
| image     = morse_code.png
| titletext = Oh, because Facebook has worked out SO WELL for everyone.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] recounts the last message sent in {{w|morse code}} by the French maritime radio station {{W|Le Conquet radio}} upon retiring its 500&nbsp;kHz channel.

The poetic, and potentially angsty-sounding nature of the message reminds him of the on-line journal website {{W|LiveJournal}}, which was popular until the late 2000s (it was launched in 1999), and stereotypically used by angst-ridden teenagers to post song lyrics, poems, or cryptic messages to express their emotions and possibly fish for attention. Since Cueball never uses his LiveJournal account any more, he wonders if he can find the password again. He might be considering posting the final Morse Code message as his own last and final message on his LiveJournal.

The popularity of the site died down considerably with the arrival of social networking sites like {{W|MySpace}}, {{W|Facebook}}, {{W|Google Plus}} and the advent of microblogging platforms like {{W|Twitter}} and {{W|Tumblr}}. LiveJournal has also lost a lot of users since a Russian company bought them out; Russian dissidents used LiveJournal to present their opinions, and the Russian government used to retaliate by creating "denial of service" attacks which make LiveJournal unusable for all its users, sometimes for days. Nowadays (May 2014) LiveJournal is still quite popular among Russian-speaking people, including dissenters, but its administration was forced to show {{w|HTTP 451}} error in some cases (e. g., when a user with a Russian IP is trying to read {{w|Alexei Navalny}} blog) with new laws. Thus when [[Megan]] is upset with his desire to let LiveJournal die out like the Morse Code, Cueball describes it as "a nice place to go for some peace and quiet".

The title text is Megan's (or [[Randall|Randall's]]) sarcastic remark indicating that Facebook is no less filled with angst-ridden thoughts than LiveJournal was, nor is it free from problems or controversies around other issues such as security or privacy.

The silence, speak, silence, speak pattern of this comic - if we interpret each frame as a Morse code mark - may give us <code>.-.-</code> which represents the question mark symbol '?'.  This would further add to the angst of the comic.  However this means that we interpret the frames containing silence as the short dot mark, and the frames containing conversation as the long, dash mark, thus if we use the duration of each frame as a basis for conversion to Morse code, then we have relatively short silences compared with relatively long durations of speech.  This may reflect the speed at which modern social media operates, giving less time for reflection and serious thought and discussion, as eluded to by Cueball offering a quick and curt remark about Livejournal, which Megan takes offence to.  The level of coded cryptic messages within the comic further adds to the angst as described earlier.  The other alternative <code>-.-.</code> merely denotes the letter "c", whilst a homophone for "sea", and thus relates to the current setting (and the navy), this seems too simple and coarse as an explanation.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan are lying in a grassy, lonely plain.]

:Cueball: When the French navy retired morse code in 1997, they broadcast a final message: "Calling all. This is our last cry before our eternal silence."

:Cueball: I wonder if I can find my Livejournal login.
:Megan: Hey, I ''like'' Livejournal.
:Cueball: It's a nice place to go for some peace and quiet, I suppose.

==Trivia==
[[Randall]] is no stranger to LiveJournal. xkcd started on LiveJournal [https://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/] before xkcd.com was created and is no longer live today. The blog was updated parallel to the website up to 2006 whereupon the introduction of a new RSS feed and automated update tools for the website allowed Randall to shut it down.

The Morse code for the final message "this is our final cry on 500 khz before eternal silence" is:
 - .... .. ...   .. ...   --- ..- .-.   ..-. .. -. .- .-..   -.-. .-. -.--   --- -.   ..... ----- -----   -.- .... --..   -... . ..-. --- .-. .   . - . .-. -. .- .-..   ... .. .-.. . -. -.-. .
A period is a very short tone while the hyphen represents a slightly longer one. Between each character there is a small pause. This message was typically sent within less than half a minute.

==External links==
*[https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-53668116.html An obituary for Morse code]
*<span class="plainlinks">[https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/500_kHz_%28maritime_et_a%C3%A9ronautique%29?uselang=en#Nuit_du_31.C2.A0janvier.C2.A01997_au_1er.C2.A0f.C3.A9vrier.C2.A01997.2C Transcript of communications of the french station that night]</span>
*[https://www.onlineconversion.com/morse_code.htm Convert text to morse code and vice versa]
*[https://grammica.com/morse-code-translator Encode and decode your text message with a Morse code translator.]
*[https://morsify.net Morse code translator with audio generation functionality]
*[https://www.morsecodeinfo.com/ Morse code translator with full info]
{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Social networking]]