1436: Orb Hammer

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Revision as of 12:26, 20 October 2014 by 141.101.99.82 (talk) (Explanation: fixed typo)
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Orb Hammer
Ok, but make sure to get lots of pieces of rock, because later we'll decide to stay in a room on our regular orb and watch hammers hold themselves and hit rocks for us, and they won't bring us very many rocks.
Title text: Ok, but make sure to get lots of pieces of rock, because later we'll decide to stay in a room on our regular orb and watch hammers hold themselves and hit rocks for us, and they won't bring us very many rocks.

Explanation

Ambox notice.png This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Added title text explain first draft.
If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

This conversation suggests doing something that sounds absurd and not useful at all for the daily activities of a regular human. Yet it refers in simple English words (in a manner similar to another space-related XKCD comic-in-simple-English to the Apollo human spaceflight program which sent people to the Moon to bring geological samples back to Earth to study them. The use of such simple language contributes to the effect of the suggestion sounding absurd, even though the numerous side-products of the effort to realize the project have in fact had many benefits for regular people.

The title text refers to the end of Apollo program. The last mission, Apollo 17, ended in 1972 and since then no man has been on the Moon. Occasional lunar rocks can still be collected on Earth. They are formed when a celestial body impacts the Moon'surface, forming a crater and launching small rocks into the space. Some of them will eventually reach Earth, see lunar meteorites. It could also refer to the current Mars missions in which we send rovers to Mars to collect small amounts of dirt to test for life.

Transcript

Person 1: You know that glowing orb in the night sky?

Person 2: Yeah?

Person 1: Let's go hit it with a hammer until little pieces break off, then bring the pieces back and lock them in a closet.

Person 2: Sounds good!

Text under panel: The Apollo program was weird.


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Discussion

Although the alluded-to Mars Rover missions are on-going (most particularly Curiosity, and the long-running Opportunity), could the most immediate reference instead be Rosetta's Philae Lander, scheduled to land on its destination well within a month from the date of comic publication? (Although technically it's a drill, not a hammer, And it's not a sample return mission at all, unlike the likes prior Stardust/Hayabusa missions, or conversly the ultimate "hitting it with hammer"/non-return nature of Deep Impact.) 141.101.98.247 14:52, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

(Also, "testing for life", at least directly, has only been a specific aim of certain Mars sampling missions. But perhaps that's enough (possibly misplaced) pedantry. Just don't personally know specifically how to improve the current write-up.) 141.101.98.247 15:11, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

203: Hallucinations doesn't exactly use "simple" language. 199.27.128.207 23:31, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Comparing with the word list

I compared all the text with the cited word list list, to see what was missing:

glowing orb 
neither word found, though one could write "heavenly ball", or, as noted, earth or moon (or sun).
yeah 
not listed, nor is "yes" (odd). Perhaps "agree"?
let's 
"let" is listed (as in allow), but the contracted word is "us, which is not listed.
them 
not listed, though all the singular variants (him/her/it) are.
closet 
maybe "cupboard" or "small room" or "little room"?
apollo program 
formal names don't need to be listed
weird 
maybe "really strange"

I'm guessing Randal wasn't targeting the word list explicitly. Divad27182 (talk) 16:34, 20 October 2014 (UTC)


The simple language/technical field idea is also touched on in 444: Macgyver Gets Lazy Quetzalcoatl (talk) 15:31, 28 October 2014 (UTC)


There is a community portal discussion of what to call Cueball and what to do in case with more than one Cueball. I have added this comic to the new Category:Multiple Cueballs. Since there is really only one Cueball that "talks" it may be OK to keep him listed as Cueball. Just made a note that the other guy also looks like Cueball. --Kynde (talk) 15:03, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Sorry if this is the wrong procedure, but I've never edited anything beyond fixing grammatical mistakes. I've edited the page to get rid of the "double Cueball problem". Why don't we just leave it at this for this page and mark it as "completed". 108.162.216.89 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

That's fine (with me) for this page, but we'd appreciate input here. Djbrasier (talk) 01:36, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
I disagree. There is no reason to suggesdt that these guys who get this idea was from Nasa. This comic just describes the Apollo program with unexpected words. The transcript should describe not assume. Have deleted nasa reference and reinstated Cuecall-like guy.--Kynde (talk) 19:47, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Surely humour was correct? --141.101.98.248 10:48, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree. Rule #1 is "Don't be a jerk.", and discriminating against valid spelling on the basic of national origin certainly seems like "being a jerk" to me. -452 (talk) 14:45, 18 April 2015 (UTC)