Main Page
Welcome to the explain xkcd wiki!
We have an explanation for all 3241 xkcd comics, and only 66 (2%) are incomplete. Help us finish them!
Latest comic
| Countdown Standard |
 Title text: Anyone who is caught counting 'three ... two ... one ... zero ... GO!' will be punished with a lifetime of eating only ISO standard food samples. |
Explanation
This comic reflects the common trope of people counting to prepare for a synchronized action as a group (such as lifting something heavy) to get everybody to do the action at the same time, without first having agreed at what point in the count they will act. Two of the ways that people often count up can be confusing: the action can be taken on the beat of 'three', or on the beat after 'three'. This comic alleges that, if Randall gained control of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), he would standardize counting to go down from three and have the 'go'-point be at zero. However, this proposal would be no better than counting up, as some people may expect to act on the 'one', leading to exactly the same problems.
"Deprecated" is a term applied to something that is no longer recommended for use, so you should fix things so as not to use it anymore. It is commonly used when a standard is replaced by a newer version or an alternative approach, but may still be in use in legacy applications. It is hard to imagine where this would be applicable in this case, since such countdowns tend to be short-lived affairs that would be unlikely to continue running for appreciable periods beyond the publication of the new standard.
The fact that these are called "countdowns", yet the ones being complained about are counts that go up, is probably intentional, and cause for additional irritation among those who are bothered by the inherent inconsistencies.
ISO is an international organization that is responsible for standardizing many things (such as technology and safety standards) to allow for smooth interoperability between countries, manufacturers, and so on. However, it doesn't standardize everyday actions like countdowns.
There are no "ISO standard food samples", as mentioned in the title text, but the implication is that they would be unimaginably bland because they would be 'lowest common denominator' illustrations of the base definition of each food. There are NIST Standard Reference Materials for food, such as peanut butter (see here). ISO 3103 also describes a standardized method for brewing tea, and hacker lore describes a supposed "ANSI-standard pizza".
Transcript
View comic discussionNew here?
Last 7 days (Top 10) |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
You can read a brief introduction about this wiki at explain xkcd. Feel free to create an account and contribute to the wiki! We need explanations for xkcd comics, characters, What If? articles, and everything in between. If it is referenced in an xkcd comic, it should be here.
- If you're new to wiki editing, see the explain xkcd:Editor FAQ for a specific guidance to this wiki and the more general help on how to edit wiki pages. There's also a handy wikicode cheatsheet.
- Discussion about the wiki itself happens at the Community portal.
- You can browse the comics from the list of all comics or by navigating the category tree at Category:Comics.
- The incomplete explanations are listed here. Feel free to help out by expanding them!
Rules
Don't be a jerk!
There are a lot of comics that don't have set-in-stone explanations; feel free to put multiple interpretations in the wiki page for each comic.
If you want to talk about a specific comic, use its discussion page.
Please only submit material directly related to xkcd and, of course, only submit material that can legally be posted and freely edited. Off-topic or other inappropriate content is subject to removal or modification at admin discretion, and users who repeatedly post such content will be blocked.
If you need assistance from an admin, post a message to the Admin requests board.
