Difference between revisions of "1997: Business Update"

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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==Transcript==
 
==Transcript==
 
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
 
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
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Beret guy: Quarterly reports are looking good. Our office is full of cash, we're producing stocks faster than ever before, and our customers are experiencing rapid growth. Any updates?
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Ponytail girl: Bad news: Many of our assets were liquidated this morning due to a thermostate glitch. Good news: The sink in the kitchen as stopped producing original content.
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Beret guy: How are our finances? 
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Megan: Our biggest source of revenue is our ongoing project to transmute lead into gold. Our biggest expense is our project to transmute it back.
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Beret guy: Lastly, any luck getting the girl from ''The Ring'' to stop showing up in our video conferences?
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Other attendee 1: No, but honestly, she's made some good contributions.
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Other attendee 2: Yeah, I think we should hire her.
  
 
{{comic discussion}}
 
{{comic discussion}}

Revision as of 18:05, 23 May 2018

Business Update
Our customers keep sending us their personal information, even though we've repeatedly asked them to stop. The EU told me I'm the heir to some ancient European throne that makes me exempt from the GDPR, but we should probably still try to fix that.
Title text: Our customers keep sending us their personal information, even though we've repeatedly asked them to stop. The EU told me I'm the heir to some ancient European throne that makes me exempt from the GDPR, but we should probably still try to fix that.

Explanation

Ambox notice.png This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a MAGIC CEO - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.
If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

With the May 25 deadline to implement the European Union's GDPR law, this comic focuses on a business meeting about what the company is doing to prepare for it.

Transcript

Ambox notice.png This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.

Beret guy: Quarterly reports are looking good. Our office is full of cash, we're producing stocks faster than ever before, and our customers are experiencing rapid growth. Any updates?

Ponytail girl: Bad news: Many of our assets were liquidated this morning due to a thermostate glitch. Good news: The sink in the kitchen as stopped producing original content.

Beret guy: How are our finances? Megan: Our biggest source of revenue is our ongoing project to transmute lead into gold. Our biggest expense is our project to transmute it back.

Beret guy: Lastly, any luck getting the girl from The Ring to stop showing up in our video conferences? Other attendee 1: No, but honestly, she's made some good contributions. Other attendee 2: Yeah, I think we should hire her.


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Discussion

"Our customers are experiencing rapid growth"

Literally?

162.158.38.184 18:23, 23 May 2018 (UTC)anon

Probably. Also, excited for comic 2000! StillNotOriginal 18:37, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Panel 2 would suggest that they are making ice (in a fridge?) and that the thermostat glitch caused them to become liquid; additionally that the faucet in the kitchen sink has stopped running. -- Richardelguru (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

The formatting seems odd. Is it just me? (Chrome on mobile) 162.158.103.95 20:16, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

The title text sounds like some weird Only-in-Beret-Guy-Land variant on a Nigerian Prince scam. 162.158.62.225 20:51, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

"Beret Guy claims she has made several appearances in their video conferences, which may be possible if someone has hacked their video feed to play footage from the 2002 movie." Surely it's simpler than that. They're watching a video feed, and the plot of the Ring is that Samara appears in videos to tell people they're going to die. Their videoconference is cursed, not hacked. --162.158.38.130 23:42, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

I get the vibe that her contributions are nothing sentient or original, she is literally the recording from the series, and that these "contributions" are still markedly better than whatever their normal meeting fare is.162.158.106.48 01:36, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
Am I the only one who found the Sadako panel hilarious while assuming her appearances were real (as in movies) and her contributions were valuable because she got rid of some very irritating participants? Maybe I'm just jaded after too many unproductive telcos...--162.158.91.89 09:07, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

The EU told me I'm the heir to some ancient European throne that makes me exempt from the GDPR

I wonder if this is a reference to the claim that Native Americans don't have to pay tax in US? Sikachu (talk) 00:28, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

I think when the comic talks about stocks, it's talking about shares and not pillories. Generally companies have a constant number of stocks, which only changes during some kind of financial restructuring like a split. The idea that they're producing them faster than ever before is therefore absurd. YM Industries (talk) 04:55, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Currently the explanation is a bit hard to read. Because everything in the first 2 panels is mentioned as individual sentences within a single paragraph, it makes it hard to add further details on these items. My suggestion is to transform this into a bullet point list or a table. I'd do it myself but I'm new to explainxkcd and don't want to tread on anyone's toes. YM Industries (talk) 04:55, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

The sink cannot be flooding from the sewers (or, if so, that’s not what stopped); that would not count as original content. 162.158.75.136 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Good point! Fixed! Berets (talk) 01:00, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Maybe that's just me, but I understand the last part of the title text ("but we should probably still try to fix that.") as related to "that makes me exempt from the GDPR", meaning the team wishes not to be exempt. That would be in accord with the twisted way of thinking of Beret Guy & Co.

Also, it's not clear whether some of the things are ment literally, like stocks or growth. 162.158.103.95 19:49, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

I keep getting emails saying there privacy policy has changed to comply with new EU regulations... But of course, I live in privacy-less America. Linker (talk) 17:03, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

I think the first panel is switching the words, i.e. our office is full of customers, we're producing cash faster than ever before, and our stocks are experiencing rapid growth, but that's just an idea. 108.162.219.154 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I personally read the "sink producing original content" as some kind of newfound lifeforms being discovered from the sink...162.158.238.130 23:10, 8 June 2018 (UTC)