560: Lithium Batteries

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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Lithium Batteries
I'm normally a pretty frugal person, but I still compulsively buy any R/C aircraft that's less than $30. In the last few years, this has become a problem.
Title text: I'm normally a pretty frugal person, but I still compulsively buy any R/C aircraft that's less than $30. In the last few years, this has become a problem.

Explanation

Randall muses that his life would have been better if he aged in reverse; this idea is based on a timeline of the usage of lithium-ion batteries. The reasoning is that each of these uses would come to realization when he most needed it; cheap RC planes as a child, a cellphone when he is a teenager and also later for when he is a successful businessman and finally a pacemaker when he is old.

The time-reversed aging is probably a direct reference to "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button", by F. Scott Fitzgerald, a "major motion picture" of which was released in December 2008, a few months before this comic appeared. Randall has used this theme before in 270: Merlin, referencing another backward-time-travelling character (in that case, from "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White).

Lithium-ion batteries have the highest energy density of any widely available battery, and for this reason are commonly used in portable electronic devices such as laptops, tablets and smartphones, and also the newest airliners such as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

In the title text, Randall states that he is a big fan of cheap radio-controlled aircrafts (now powered by cheap lithium-ion batteries), which he desperately wishes would have been available when he was a child. That these have now become so cheap has undoubtedly been the inspiration for this comic. As such, he has an uncontrollable, instinctive urge to make up for his childhood lack of RC aircraft by buying every one he sees that cost less than $30. This has now become a financial problem since cheap RC aircraft has become more and more plentiful. The one in the comic is prized at only $10.

Transcript

Timeline of Commercial Uses of Lithium Batteries:
[The panel has a timeline that goes from Past to Present. The timeline has 4 notches on it.]
Past
[the first notch, closest to the past side, has a picture of an old man with a walking stick.]
Pacemakers
[The second notch has an image of a man in a car, who is talking on his cell phone.]
Phones for Rich Business People
[The third notch, has a teen taking on his cellphone.]
Phones for Teenagers
[The forth notch, closest to the present on the timeline, and an image of a toy plane box with $10 written on it.]
Really cheap r/c planes and helicopters
Present
[Below the main panel.]
Life would be so much better if I was one of those people who aged backward.


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Discussion

Old pacemakers and phones kinda sucked. Might not be worth. Davidy²²[talk] 20:51, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

[it] Beanie (talk) 09:40, 19 April 2021 (UTC)