1518: Typical Morning Routine

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Typical Morning Routine

Title text: Hang on, I've heard this problem. We need to pour water into the duct until the phone floats up and ... wait, phones sink in water. Mercury. We need a vat of mercury to pour down the vent. That will definitely make this situation better and not worse.

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: First draft If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

Explanation

Waking up to an alarm can be annoying, especially when one has difficulty in turning the alarm off. This comic takes this to a ridiculous extreme, whence the comic derives its humour, especially when paired with the title describing it as "typical."

In this comic, Cueball is shown using his phone as his alarm clock. Often times, it can be hard to turn off the alarm on a smartphone when groggy. Cueball has apparently exited the alarm app by mistake. As such, he his taking an unusually long time turning the device off. Getting annoyed, he's decided to remove the battery to forcefully shut off his phone. However, in the process, he accidentally drops his devices down an air vent. Unable to get it out, Cueball tries to remotely brick it (erase important system files rendering the device as useful as a brick). However, he seems to have accidentally gone into airplane mode in the confusion, thereby cutting off all wireless communications with the device. Rather than dealing with the noise for weeks, Cueball proposes that they just move out instead.

Mercury is a very dense liquid. The phone would certainly float on it, though the quite toxic nature of mercury makes pouring it into the air supply a somewhat less-than-stellar idea.

Transcript

[The panel is completely black, with white text]

Alarm: BLEEP BLEEP

Hairy Cueball: Urgh

Off-Screen: Your alarm is going off

Hairy Cueball: Huh?

Off-Screen: Make it stop.

Hairy Cueball: Urrgh

Alarm: BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP B

Off-Screen: Hit snooze.

Hairy Cueball: I'm trying. I closed the alarm app and I can't... I'll just pop out the battery.

Hairy Cueball: Whoops!

[CLANG]

[The lights have turned on; Hairy Cueball is on a bed, looking down the air vent he has dropped the phone into]

Alarm: EEP BLEEP BLEEP BLE

Off-Screen: Make it stop!

Hairy Cueball: It... fell down the vent.

[Hairy Cueball is at a desk with a computer]

Alarm: EP BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP BLE

Off-Screen: Can you brick it remotely?

Hairy Cueball: Trying... I think I fumbled it into airplane mode?

Off-Screen: The battery could last for weeks.

Hairy Cueball: You know, maybe we should just move.

Trivia

• In this comic, Cueball has messy hair, unlike the round head he normally has.

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Discussion

If he has hair, shouldn't he be called Hairy by definition? Sidenote: Did I really just use the word whence?199.27.130.228 05:57, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Added first draft for the transcript. This is my first edit here, so feel free to clean it up. 173.245.56.158 06:02, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

I think that this is still Cueball because his hair isn't a different colour to his head. The only reason we can see it is because it's bed hair, and he hasn't combed it down yet. 141.101.98.172 06:06, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

It is not Cueball when he has hair. It is not hair enough to call him Hairy. He has obviously still hair in the last panel, where it is less morning hair, and it is now clearly black (as Hairys). But there is too little air for it to be Hairy in my opinion. However, if it should be either of the two it would be Hairy. Makes no sense to call a guy with hair (any hair) Cueball. I have removed all reference to Cueball and the hairy category that was also added. Since we do not know who is lying beside him, we cannot even use this to say anything about him. --Kynde (talk) 07:27, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Someone has changed it to Hairy. See further comment below. So lets call him that. --Kynde (talk) 07:44, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't see how this comic is about sarcasm or language. It contains language, but it isn't about language.
Update: Oh, right, the title text ends with a sarcastic comment.173.245.56.158 06:17, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that the character in the title text is being sarcastic. Randall uses that kind of "would be X and totally not Y" talk in other comics and in his What-Ifs. In the times I've seen it, the character speaking it comes off as hilariously naive as opposed to sarcastic. 108.162.237.161 04:35, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

I think that the character should be Hairy, as the name is "used by xkcd explainers to describe male characters with hair and no other distinguishing features."--17jiangz1 (talk) 07:31, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Well then lets call him Hairy then - see discussion above though... --Kynde (talk) 07:44, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

I would like to be the first to point out similarities between this comic and 349: Success. He starts with hitting snooze (easy) then needs to switch applications (not really worse yet, bear with me), remove battery (losing whatever is unsaved in RAM), bricking the phone (losing it, though maybe just until he has time to reinstall the OS) and finally is willing to fill the flat with mercury vapours (which is a major health hazard). 141.101.104.136 11:32, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

I am not so sure that metallic mercury is "extremely toxic"; of course, some mercury-containing compounds are. "Extremely expensive"? Yes, compared to what one usually throws into an air vent, but many metals are far more expensive per kg than mercury. Jkrstrt (talk) 15:15, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

For sure, but in the amounts they would need it would be quite an expense, not to say heavy burden to get back home with. The vapours from the mercury would be flowing into the apartment from the vent and it is not something you wish to get inside. --Kynde (talk) 16:00, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Air Vent

Is having an air vent in your floor something common? o.o Pinkishu (talk) 09:28, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, but I had the same question. See wiki links in the updated explanation. --Kynde (talk) 10:21, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Also, pouring water in the vent will short-circuit the smart-phone which gives us the same result as bricking a smart-phone. sirKitKat (talk) 09:55, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

I also though of that and added it. --Kynde (talk) 10:21, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Adding enough water to drown the speaker should drown the noise? Puggan (talk) 12:43, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

And pouring mercury will dissolve some of the metals in the phone. 141.101.104.94 10:01, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Not necessarily if it actually floats on-top. But I'm questioning if a smartphone lies flat on a surface, would the mercury then actually get beneath it? I would not be surprised if it would make it stick to this surface. Of course if you put the phone on top of a pool of mercury, it would not think. Not much would! But this is a different story. Hopefully they just move out instead ;-) Or maybe get really awake and start to think. Will add this last part to the explain --Kynde (talk) 10:21, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

I think that long before mercury (significantly) disolves metal in the phone, it would already have shorted out various bare metalic wires (as per water, only better). The question is whether the miniscus effect of the mercury allows the mercury to enter the casing quite as easily as water.

As to the possibility of a flat phone being held down by the mercury you pour over it, I think that's unlikely. Maybe a limpet-like (flanged outwards) case flush to a flat surface could exclude the liquid metal from getting under the edges of the phone to allow a suction effect to counteract buoyancy, but that's not a common shape for phone cases which are rarely even sharp-edged perpendicularly to the faces. Mercurial pressure would end up edging under the more realistic curved edges and remove any residual 'stiction'.

(I also read the "make this situation better not worse" as a continuation of the former text, not a response by the other speaker. It's a common meme for a single person to suggest a monomaniacal plan of action with escalatingly ridiculousness, and then to cap it off with "And I see absolutely no problems with that..." whilst forgoing traditional emoticon indicators of humour, to continue the 'deadpan serious' tone.)141.101.98.186 16:43, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

I think "Forced-air Central Heating" is a better explanation for Hairy's vent than "Underfloor air distribution". Forced-air heat/cooling is very common in the US, and the Wikipedia entry has a good picture of a floor vent. --199.27.128.211 16:41, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Just open the vent! 173.245.50.64 23:39, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

I remember that the explanation included a bit about how it was fortunate that they did not attempt to detonate a nuclear bomb and use its EMP to disable the phone. Not related to the comic, but I thought it was funny. I'm adding it back in. R3TRI8UTI0N (talk) 00:52, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Noise and battery

How much effective are today's phones in making noise? If they use the same circuits as for playing music (which I suspect most do), I don't think they will be able to do it for weeks, even in airplane mode ... -- Hkmaly (talk) 11:30, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Spelling and Commentary

There are a couple spelling mistakes. 'hos' in the first sentence, 'cold' instead of 'could'. Probably more.

Instead of correcting the spelling, I was wondering about the tone of the explanation. Specifically, shouldn't this be written in a more neutral tone without the side commentary?

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the contribution. Just curious.

108.162.221.101 11:36, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Please just correct spelling if you find errors. Not everyone who contributes are native English speakers. So bear with them and help by just correcting spelling and grammar. --Kynde (talk) 13:37, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

"Quiet please make it stop" - Mass Effect 2 Overlord DLC 172.70.251.16 15:22, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

At least on my IPhone, alarms automatically stop playing sound after like 5 minutes Firestar233 (talk) 19:33, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

As far as I can work out, on iPhone, alarms stop after 15 minutes for 90 seconds, then start again (this cycle continues indefinitely). I don't know about other phones - they might stop for good after a certain amount of time, or they might just continue continuously until they are stopped by something. 162.158.74.119 01:12, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

I have my 'dumbphone' set with several alarms (five minute intervals, quarter past the hour to half past, different tones. If I totally ignore one (or more) without acknowledging/snoozing it, it'll go for about two minutes (while I'm busy elsewhere in the house, not realising that it's vibrating away on the table I charge it on) and then recur about six minutes after the original time anyway. Meaning that when I finally realise that I've got my sequence of alarms going, I'll frequently cancel one alarm in the sequence and then (within a minute) have to cancel a second, and maybe even a third a minute or so after that. (Never timed it, but this would be consistent.)

On my tablet(/smartphone, but never used as a phone) the one alarm I've bothered to set up on that [i]generally[/i] doesn't sound at all (when I reduce the volume of the device, I inevitably get it into Do Not Disturb mode) so often I'll discover the alarm (more or les concident with the final dumbphone alarm, but the clocks drift slightly) has happened and I've got a "Missed alarm" notification on the dropdown of the OS interface.

...yes, it sounds a strange setup to use (or ignore!), but it works for me. ;) 162.158.74.49 18:56, 9 December 2023 (UTC)