1690: Time-Tracking Software

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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Time-Tracking Software
'List of helicopter prison escapes' and 'List of sexually active popes' are both entertainingly long, but sadly there's no 'List of helicopter prison escapes involving sexually active popes.'
Title text: 'List of helicopter prison escapes' and 'List of sexually active popes' are both entertainingly long, but sadly there's no 'List of helicopter prison escapes involving sexually active popes.'

Explanation

Ambox notice.png This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Extremely simple summary. Details must be expanded upon for each part of the graph.
If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

In this comic, Randall uses time-tracking software, which is intended to increase productivity by identifying how you are spending time, that reveals that he is doing frivolous and pointless things that take up large amounts of his time. He makes remixes, edits Star Wars footage, reads strange (albeit entertaining) Wikipedia articles, and even spends a large amount of time adjusting this software, all without getting anything useful done. Thus, he is embarrassed at this revelation.

The visual appearance of lightsabers in the Star Wars movies of the original trilogy has been digitally changed twice during the re-releases for de 2004 DVD and the 2011 Blu-ray release. There are several Star Wars fans that feel the need to alter the movies (mainly to revert the changes made in the re-release), but so far nobody felt the need to replace lightsabers with metal swords.

Jack & Diane is a rock song written in 1982 by John Mellencamp. "Suckin' on a chili dog outside the tastee freeze" is the first line of the second verse of the song. A remix made using just this line would probably sound a bit repetitive.

The two Wikipedia lists mentioned in this comic are: List of helicopter prison escapes and List of sexually active popes. Randall is disappointed in a lack of a Wikipedia list stemming from the intersection of the two; that is, a helicopter prison escape involving a sexually active pope. With the last sexually active pope being Pope Leo XII in the 1820s, and helicopter predecessors only taking flight in 1907, and mass production of helicopters not occurring until World War II, one concludes that such an event has never happened.

The Wikipedia list of sexually active popes has been mentioned before in a what if? article on infinitely powerful lasers as a sort of replacement for the entertainment a infinitely powerful laser could supply, if one could exist.

Transcript

[The panel displays a pie chart with 5 slices, titled "Your activity report". You can find below the transcript of the labels on each slice in clockwise order. The percentages are estimated from the image, and are not included in the actual comic]


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Discussion

I don't know how to interpret the "This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it." on the List of sexually active popes wiki page. 141.101.104.224 10:19, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

They're asking you to become a pope, and be sexually active. Then you can get arrested, and do a helicopter prison escape to start the 'List of helicopter prison escapes involving sexually active popes.' 162.158.26.140 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
It's because we can't know for sure if every single pope is secretly sexually active or if it's just limited to the ones caught red-handed. 141.101.98.5 11:35, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
Another interpretation: seduce the pope. --162.158.85.99 15:39, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
It can also be interpreted as to CONVICT pope of sexual activity. While the "became pope" and "seduce the pope" are funnier, convicting popes may be easier, as you are not limited to current and future ones, but can convict already dead popes after-the-fact by finding new evidence. Or forging some. -- Hkmaly (talk) 16:49, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Those estimated percentages have a strangely high degree of precision, I'd think limiting them to whole number percentages would do. 141.101.98.58 11:48, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Replacing lightsabers in Star Wars movies may be a reference to this amusing video of the sword fight in The Princess Bride where swords are replaced with light sabers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYVQooRSlzg 173.245.52.69 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

The Jack and Diane remix with one line repeated may be a reference to svantana's brilliant re-do of a Human League number: http://svantana.bandcamp.com/track/you-were-workin-as-a-waitress-in-a-cocktail-bar 108.162.245.109 13:31, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

This is the greatest thing in the history of all remixes. 173.245.54.49 03:01, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
That was the stupidest thing that I have ever exposed my ears to, and I loved every second of it.108.162.216.102 20:14, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Look what some loser tried to actually make, to no one's surprise..... Schiffy (Speak to me|What I've done) 17:07, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Anyone took a copy before the page was deleted? 108.162.229.49 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
I just took a look on the Wayback Machine, and unfortunately the first and only archive is after the deletion. If anyone knows of any other archive websites....-108.162.215.69 05:30, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
From Google cache - List of helicopter prison escapes involving sexually active popes--Attempt15 (talk) 18:22, 7 June 2016 (UTC)


Notice that the last successful helicopter prison escape was exactly two years ago.. 162.158.86.35 06:49, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

One thing that this comic brings to the table is that the managing effort to increase productivity usually has a significant (and many times negative) impact on productivity itself. In this graphic, the installation took him nearly 25% of his time. He'd be significantly more productive if he wasn't using any time tracking software at all. 141.101.98.115 14:58, 8 June 2016 (UTC) duartix

I agree that losing productivity on time tracking software is more likely than actually getting some productivity advantage from it. If the things you are doing needs to be done, finding out how long they took won't help. If they are useless, you don't need to find out how much time they take to prove that. -- Hkmaly (talk) 16:49, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Why has no one yet done a Jack and Diane remix as proposed here? Update 2021, someone has: https://twitter.com/tommcgovern27/status/1360368299121532930