415: Restraining Order

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Revision as of 10:23, 24 September 2014 by 141.101.64.65 (talk) (Explanation)
Jump to: navigation, search
Restraining Order
On Mondays I go running, so you'll have to get up early and follow along a parallel street. What fun!
Title text: On Mondays I go running, so you'll have to get up early and follow along a parallel street. What fun!

Explanation

A restraining order is a legal injunction requiring a party to do, or refrain from doing, certain acts, under penalty of fines or imprisonment. The kind of restraining order referred to in this comic is one that forbids someone from getting within a certain distance of the other person, and is designed to safeguard the complainant's life.

But the joke in this comic is that Ponytail has gotten a restraining order against Cueball that requires him to stay between 500 yards (457 m) and 600 yards (549 m) of her at all times, which needless to say will cause a major disruption to his life.

The title text says he'll have to get up early on Mondays and follow her jogging course along a parallel street. Of course, such a restraining order could not exist in reality.[citation needed]

A yard is a unit of length used in the UK and the United States, 1 yard = 0.91 metre.

Transcript

[Cueball and Ponytail stand facing one another. Both hold sheets of paper.]
Not content with normal restraining orders, my ex got creative.
Cueball: Wait... I can't get closer than 500 yards of you... or more than 600 yards away?
Ponytail: You'll have to move somewhere within this ring.


comment.png add a comment! ⋅ comment.png add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅ Icons-mini-action refresh blue.gif refresh comments!

Discussion

Looks like something Danish would do, not Ponytail.Classhole 00:31, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Therein lies the problem with presuming "Ponytail" is a singular, consistent character, which she isn't, and never has been. It's kind of ridiculous to say something is out of character for Ponytails, Megans, or Cueballs (and probably White Hat), since they're rarely the same person.Pennpenn (talk) 02:02, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
Actually, these characters represent personalities, not necessarily a person. Therefore, it is perfectly valid to say that something is out of character. Beanie (talk) 12:18, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Is "iconic" meant to be "ironic"? It is also not ironic, unless if the restraining order forces Cueball to be within 1 yard of Ponytail at all times which defeats the general purpose of a restraining order. flewk (talk) 12:08, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Is this even legally possible? Prongs95 (talk) 15:10, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

This is certainly not possible, just think of how much trouble it would cause.Dontknow (talk) 00:28, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

It's not *that* bad if Cueball is massive enough. But stuff gets really weird if Cueball's de Broglie wavelength is on the order of 100 yards... --172.68.54.4 16:20, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

I need another explain page for the comments. “That Guy from the Netherlands” (talk) 15:58, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

The Steven Wright line comes to mind about seeing a girl and wondering if there were an opposite to a restraining order.

I feel as if one could theoretically enforce a maximum distance. For example, if you had a restraining order (minimum distance) on your target and they were imprisoned and released on bail, they could not the leave the state, giving us our maximum distance. From there, especially in a tiny state like Rhode Island, you could slowly corner them in. Especially if this were to occur on a pennisula, they would be trapped, helpless to move except at your whim.

On the surface of a sphere, all distances are modulo the circumference of the sphere, so a minimum distance d is equivalent to a maximum distance circumference - d. If d was large enough, it would imply a maximum distance even accounting for irregularities of the earth's surface, or one of the persons going on the ISS. 162.158.154.35 00:55, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

This one is kind of like 390. 172.69.42.44 03:09, 2 October 2020 (UTC)