970: The Important Field
| The Important Field |
 Title text: I hear in some places, you need to fill one form of ID to buy a gun, but two to pay for it by check. It's interesting to see who has what incentives to care about what mistakes. |
Explanation
It is common for online interfaces to force users to type certain details twice, as a form of redundancy checking to ensure that the user really has entered the correct details and hasn't made an error. Some forms even go the extra step of preventing the user from copy-pasting into the second field, which would render it useless as a redundancy check.
This is usually done for email addresses and passwords, which are used to identify and authenticate users, and are therefore important to get right.
In this comic, Green Hat is using an online web interface to launch a missile at a target. The joke is that even though the interface only asks him to enter the target coordinates once, it asks for his email address twice, even though the coordinates are by far the more important detail to get right (launching the missile at the wrong target could result in a disastrous loss of life or property damage).
In the title text, Randall suggests that the presence of redundancy checks can give you an interesting insight into what things people deem to be important. He gives a (supposed) real-life example of a merchant that requires only one form of ID in order to buy a gun, but two forms if you want to pay for it by check - suggesting that the seller is more worried about the safety of their money than the potential danger of giving a lethal weapon to someone untrustworthy.
Trivia
This is the only comic so far to feature Green Hat. It appears that the green hat means that he is part of the military.
Transcript
- [Green Hat sitting at a computer.]
- Computer: Welcome to the missile launch interface!
- Click
- Computer: Enter the target's coordinates.
- Type Type
- Computer: Enter your email address for our records.
- Type Type
- Computer: Enter your email again, to ensure you typed it correctly.
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I never realized his hat was green until I read this page 162.158.58.171 04:22, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
In order to purchase a firearm in the United States from a Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL) you have to submit an official government photographic identification card (State ID or State Drivers license usually suffice), complete a Form 4473 Firearms Transaction Record to include such personal data as name, address, height, weight, ethnicity, age, birth date and Social Security Number or Tax Identification Number and submit the previous personal data from the Form 4473 to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) which is administered by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and receive a "PROCEED WITH TRANSACTION" from the NICS in order to take possession of the firearm.
To pay for your firearm with a check you only need show two forms of identification one of which may just be your Social Security Card.
To take possession of the firearm actually requires more stringent checks on identity than to pay with one by check.
But other than that you're right. -- 211.40.37.62 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
Please enter your name and address, so we know who to blame when New York disappears. Davidy22[talk] 04:22, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
How can a law-bound society write laws about guns when the all-embracing laws cannot first be rescinded?
The USA has much the same life problems that Iran once had -which probably lead to Iran's defeat at Gaugamela (Mosul.) I doubt Darius III's officers had e-mail addresses to worry about, none the less if their aristocracy were bound by bureaucracy at the wrong time and place, that would have been it.
Something else that is probably beyond emails:
"The Iraqi government is planning to retake the city with the help of the peshmerga, Sunni tribes, and US-led coalition air support."
I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait (talk) 19:29, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
Why are the words "has heard" italicised in the explanation? 172.68.141.148 03:34, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
i can't access 969
what is wrong --Caliban (talk) 07:34, 7 October 2024 (UTC)
- Please elaborate. I can access it, but maybe you're not trying to go there any of the ways that I've just tried and succeeded to. 162.158.33.224 08:23, 7 October 2024 (UTC)
