Difference between revisions of "418: Stove Ownership"

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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==Explanation==
 
==Explanation==
{{incomplete|No wiki links; title text is questionable.}}
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This comic is a subtle statement on the epiphany many have when they reach adulthood and are on their own for the first time: Noone will tell you what to do! Nobody will, however, stop you from making those poor decisions you were refrained from prior to that independence. Eating bacon whenever one wants is among them. This line graph depicts [[Randall|Randall's]] health as a funtion of time after he gets to own a [[stove]]. The joke is that his health goes into an immediate deterioration the moment he realized that he could just cook bacon on his stove whenever he wants. When he says "he could have bacon", he means he has both the will AND means, since the stove is now his own. Before the bacoon revelation his health was actually improving -this may be explained because he was now cooking his own, healthy, food rather than getting pizza delivered or having other premade foods/junk food.
This comic is a subtle statement on the epiphany many have when they reach adulthood and are on their own for the first time. Nobody will stop you from making poor decisions you were refrained from prior to that independence. This line graph depicts an immediate deterioration in Randall's health the moment he realized that he could have bacon on his own. Eating bacon whenever one wants is among them. The joke is that his health was improving until he had this revelation and then went into immediate decline. When he says "he could have bacon", he means he has both the will AND means, since the stove is his own.
 
  
Frosting in a can, as mentioned in a title text is convenient because it is instant and not necessary to make from scratch. Similarly, there is now also instant, pre-made bacon that can be eaten right out of the box, eliminating the need to put in any effort to prepare it.
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[[Icing_(food)|Frosting]] (or icing) is something you use to decorate cakes. Many children enjoys this so much that they eat it of the cake and leaves the rest behind. Frosting in a can, as mentioned in a title text is convenient because it is instant and not necessary to make from scratch. When Randall came to college he still had a very sweet tooth so when he discovered Frosting in a can his health curve at the time also went into decline. However, that turned out to be a phase - he got over it, and he hopes it will be the same with cooking bacon.
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There is now also similarly instant, pre-made bacon that can be eaten right out of the box, eliminating the need to put in any effort to prepare it. Hopefully Randall has not discovered this!
  
 
==Transcript==
 
==Transcript==

Revision as of 19:29, 2 June 2014

Stove Ownership
Although maybe it's just a phase, like freshman year of college when I realized I could just buy frosting in a can.
Title text: Although maybe it's just a phase, like freshman year of college when I realized I could just buy frosting in a can.

Explanation

This comic is a subtle statement on the epiphany many have when they reach adulthood and are on their own for the first time: Noone will tell you what to do! Nobody will, however, stop you from making those poor decisions you were refrained from prior to that independence. Eating bacon whenever one wants is among them. This line graph depicts Randall's health as a funtion of time after he gets to own a stove. The joke is that his health goes into an immediate deterioration the moment he realized that he could just cook bacon on his stove whenever he wants. When he says "he could have bacon", he means he has both the will AND means, since the stove is now his own. Before the bacoon revelation his health was actually improving -this may be explained because he was now cooking his own, healthy, food rather than getting pizza delivered or having other premade foods/junk food.

Frosting (or icing) is something you use to decorate cakes. Many children enjoys this so much that they eat it of the cake and leaves the rest behind. Frosting in a can, as mentioned in a title text is convenient because it is instant and not necessary to make from scratch. When Randall came to college he still had a very sweet tooth so when he discovered Frosting in a can his health curve at the time also went into decline. However, that turned out to be a phase - he got over it, and he hopes it will be the same with cooking bacon.

There is now also similarly instant, pre-made bacon that can be eaten right out of the box, eliminating the need to put in any effort to prepare it. Hopefully Randall has not discovered this!

Transcript

[A hand-drawn graph is shown.]
[On the y-axis, "My Overall Health", on the x-axis, "Time".]
[The graph is generally steady through 3/4 of the x-axis, where it begins a steady decline, with a label "The Day I Realized I Could Cook Bacon Whenever I Wanted."]


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Discussion

The title text doesn't "imply" that Randall went through a frosting phase in college similar to his present-day bacon obsession; it flat-out states it. The reader need not infer anything. Also, the usage of parens to define both a "phase" and "frosting" struck me as a little bit pedantic. I suspect most, if not all, readers of both xkcd and this explainer site are well enough versed with these nuances. 108.162.219.21 08:29, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

I appreciated the definition of frosting, as in Australia, it means the sugar you dust over a cake, sometimes over icin, but not the icing itself. Frosting-in-a-can I had interpreted dusting-sugar-in-a-can. Someone redefining it as icing was useful to me. 108.162.250.162 23:38, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

On 5/30/14, I rewrote the description. It's still marked as inaccurate or incomplete, but the revision hasn't been reviewed yet ~J. 173.245.54.44 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Is it really necessary to describe why eating copious amounts of bacon will have adverse affects on ones health? Should we also describe the metabolic effects of eating fat on the digestive and circulatory system? I don't mean to sound so smug and cynical, but some of Randall's comics are rather self-explanatory. I believe we've satisfactorily cleaned up this explanation. 173.245.54.44 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)


Okay, I explained, hopefully to the satisfaction of the editors, why eating a ton of bacon would make somebody unhealthy. Can we close this one out? Thanks 173.245.54.44 01:53, 7 June 2014 (UTC)