1519: Venus

|< < Prev Comic #1519 (May 1, 2015) Next > >|

Venus

Title text: The sudden introduction of Venusian flowers led to an explosive growth of unusual Earth pollinators, which became known as the "butterfly effect."

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: This explanation requires some touching up. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

Miss Lenhart is teaching a class blatantly wrong facts about Venus, and using actual scientific terms incorrectly to support her claims.

In the first panel we see Miss Lenhart teaching the history of Venus. This is the history currently accepted by most scientists, aside from the Venusians cultivating flowers. In the second panel, "runaway greenhouse effect" is a pun, referring to the Runaway greenhouse effect. The comic takes the term literally and assumes the greenhouses were actually running away. The third panel ties the previous distortion into the very real (but unconnected) historic reputation of the Netherlands as flower growers, as a further fabrication by Miss Lenhart. In the final panel we see that she is a month away from retirement and doesn't care about relaying acurate information anymore.

The title text is a pun on the Butterfly effect, misattributing it to Miss Lenhart's false history.

Transcript

[Miss Lenhart is standing in front of an image, presumably a temperate Venus, with greenhouses, grass, flowers and a river flowing into a sea.]

Miss Lenhart: Venus once was temperate. It had seas and rivers, and Venusians cultivated vast fields of beautiful flowers.

[The image is now zoomed out to see the entirety of Venus, with continents and oceans. The greenhouses are shown moving (running) away from Venus.]

Miss Lenhart: Until their greenhouses fled the planet due to the runaway greenhouse effect.

[Miss Lenhart is now standing in front of a classroom and addressing Hair Bun Girl sitting at a desk.]

Miss Lenhart: The Venusians pursued their greenhouses to Earth, settling in the Netherlands and kickstarting the Dutch floral industry. Any questions?

Offscreen: Because you're retiring in a month, do you just not care what you say anymore?

Miss Lenhart: What?! I ride the skies atop a screaming bird of truth! Also, yes, I do not.

 add a comment! ⋅  add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅  refresh comments!

Discussion

The "Runaway Greenhouse Effect" refers to the continuing increase of a planet's average temperature due to an increase of gases that reflect heat from the planet back toward its surface; Venus is an example of this to the extent that its temperature is not tolerable to Earth-like organisms.

Considering that our probes are only able to work for few hours on the surface, emphasizing "Earth-like" sounds like understatement. The temperature is not the most dangerous property of Venus, though. -- Hkmaly (talk) 01:19, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

True, and the fact that the temperature is hot enough to melt lead, and it's not the worst thing there, is one of the many reasons why Venus is a terrible vacation spot. -Pennpenn 108.162.250.155 01:04, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Well, it might be nice to visit, even if you wouldn't want to stay there. Which sounds very much like many actual vacation spots... ;) 172.70.85.73 20:13, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

The "Butterfly Effect" refers to the hypothesis that a small action (such as a butterfly flapping its wings) in a chaotic system such as a planet's weather, can have a large effect (such as causing a storm on the other side of the planet). The Dining Logician (talk) 06:43, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

...or flip a bit on your hard drive. But then again, that's what Emacs is for, isn't it? 173.245.50.157 15:05, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Good ol' C-x M-c M-butterfly. --108.162.222.137 04:22, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

I added a link to Tulip Fever (and clarified the 'links' to the mistold history), which may or may not be 'inspiring' Miss's little tale, but certainly would be interesting if intended to be the so-called-historic basis in this retelling of facts. 141.101.98.186 11:19, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Two of the false statements were referred to as "puns", but that's not how I understand the word pun, so I changed the texts. --RenniePet (talk) 13:39, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Any suggestions about where the phrase "I ride the skies atop a screaming bird of ..." comes from? --RenniePet (talk) 13:40, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Sounds like a lyrical/poetic reference.

Maybe we can ask Norm DeMoura? 108.162.221.166 22:31, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

It may be a reference to the tale The Bird of Truth 108.162.229.232 23:14, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

I think Randall just squeezed it in for extra humor. {unsigned ip|172.71.30.28|17:28, 1 September 2024}}

The student is Hair Bun Girl, as Hair Bun Girl is any female that has a hair bun. It says on her page that "She is distinguished by her hair that is set up in a bun.", which is the only distinguishing feature seen here.--Forrest (talk)09:41, 03 May 2015 (UTC)

Well I wrote that, when I created the category, and what I meant was that she is any woman. We do not call a child Cueball or Megan (even though they may be drawn this way. I will again delete this reference.--Kynde (talk) 11:22, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

I move that the bottom section, "Trivia," may be transferred into the main body of text, or that it shall be erased altogether. 108.162.215.70 07:34, 10 June 2018 (UTC)