2374: 10,000 Hours

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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10,000 Hours
I'm proud to announce that as of this year I've become a world-class expert at chewing.
Title text: I'm proud to announce that as of this year I've become a world-class expert at chewing.

Explanation

Ambox notice.png This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created in 10,000 hours. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.
If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

This comic references the somewhat common idea that one must do something for 10,000 hours to become an expert on it. in this comic, Cueball's phone tells him that, assuming that idea is correct, he is now a master of several things, because the amount of time he spends on his phone.

The title text refers to the fact that people eat a lot[citation needed], up to around 2 hours a day. Because there are 365 days in a year, and at the time of this comic's publication, Randall is 36 years old, he has spent a large amount of time eating, well over 10,000 hours.

Transcript

Ambox notice.png This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.

[Cueball is staring at his phone. A report is shown above his head] If you buy into the "10,000 hours" thing, you are now a world-class expert

[Caption below comic] My screen time reports have started trying to put a positive spin on things

Trivia

This comic was published 2 days after Randall's birthday, October 17th


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Discussion

Sorry for the kinda bad explanation, this is my first time editing on this wiki 162.158.119.71 00:45, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Its fine! Donthaveusername (talk) 00:53, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Usually when I wake up and open this site, I am greeted with atleast 5 paragraphs of writing, but this time I got to see only 2. So that gave me an idea. Let's make this the smallest explanation in the entire site! To make that record, let's condense the sentences to make it even shorter!The 𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭 talk stalk 03:09, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm all for short explanations to the point. Most of the most recent (ie the 1000 or so) are far too long. I even once saw some "incomplete" explanation where the reason for it being inclomplete was "it's too short". What gives... Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 08:04, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
That being said, I agree. The current explanation seems to be pretty much complete. Maybe some citation for the "2 hours eating" thing is missing but that's it. Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 08:09, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
Done. Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 08:13, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
Kinda spoilt it. Wanted to change "several things" to "some task" (without haing read this Talk aim) but ended up going for "some possibly trivial task" which is longer yet again. With my edit-explanation of "No indication that this is for anything more than one thing (Candy Crush? Twitter? Reading election updates that won't affect your actions in any way..?) or the true importance of his mastery." which might not count but definitely aint laconic. 162.158.154.215 10:38, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
Good luck making this explanation the shortest. I assume you haven't seen, for example, 3: Island (sketch)'s explanation? I'm all for short explanations too, but not at the expense of leaving the humor unanalysed. BlackHat (talk) 22:49, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
I'm also all for short explanations that are concise and clear and agree some can get rather lengthy, but I don't agree with the goal to see how short we can make this explanation. I guess if it was somehow meta-related to the comic itself, it might be justifiable, but just making it really short solely for that purpose is going to jeopardize the "clear" part of the goal. Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 16:12, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
It seems to me that a bit more commentary is needed, because it seems like there are two aspects to the myth: (1) it takes 10,000 hours to become and expert; (2) anybody can become an expert by spending those 10,000 hours. The comic seems to be commenting more on the latter aspect. Gbisaga (talk) 17:25, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

If Randall is 36 years old, he estimates he's averaged about 45 minutes/day chewing. This is significantly less than the 2 hours mentioned in the explanation, even if you account for the fact that you aren't chewing the entire time you're eating (it's probably still more than half the time). Barmar (talk) 17:09, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

At the age of 1 year and 51 2/3 days every human (who was not put on a ventilator) would be a world class expert in breathing! And at about somewhere between 7 and 8 months old, every human would be a world class expert in heart beating. Rtanenbaum (talk) 20:54, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

I know the incomplete tag was taken off, but the explanation still leaves a bit of the joke undiscussed. Feel free to delete any of my edits if you think it's fine as it is. BlackHat 17:24, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Barmar, the article says 1-2 hours. So it could be in the 75 minute area if he only spends about 60% of the eating time chewing.

Is there a sense here that Cueball has spent 10,000 hours looking at the ScreenTime app itself? That's how I first read it. SteveBaker (talk) 15:20, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Let's see, what have I done for 10,000 hours? Hmmm. Yeah, let's not go there. These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For (talk) 17:08, 27 October 2020 (UTC)