explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2727: Runtime

2023-01-21T17:28:09Z

108.162.221.73:

{{comic
| number = 2727
| date = January 20, 2023
| title = Runtime
| image = runtime_2x.png
| imagesize = 399x389px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = At least there's a general understanding all around that Doctor Who is its own thing.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by (OCEAN'S) EIGHT BAD MOVIES - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The comic presents two separate conversations, which boil down to the same premise and yet differing conclusions. In one, a particular TV show is being watched, in the other a film franchise.

While it is finding its feet, a new season of a television show (perhaps commissioned, on the back of some perceived interest in the story it will tell, for a dozen or so episodes of around 50 minutes - i.e. about ten hours at a minimum) is not necessarily going to get everything right in the writing style, the slant it puts on the subject matter, the cast of characters or other production values. Or at least not for mass appeal to the everyman, for whom [[Cueball]] is the archetypal representative. Nevertheless, the series ''did'' get further seasons, and [[White Hat]] (the optimist, and clearly won over by the production) is on the way to successfully convincing Cueball to view the series, or perhaps to continue to watch it after becoming jaded by its early failure to live up to its promise. It sounds reasonable to Cueball, just from his friend's recommendation, to get over the hump and appreciate it "when it gets good".

A series of films, however, are seemingly a different matter. By substituting 10+ hours of filmed-for-television with something more cinematic, the prospect of getting over the exact same scale of 'hump' in a long-running set of sequels (eight films at a not unreasonable average length of 85 minutes each would ''also'' require ten hours of commitment), is not at all enticing.

The mention of “after the first 8 movies” might be a reference to the long-running Fast and the Furious franchise, which now has 9 movies (plus a couple spin-offs) at the time of this comic’s publication and whose more recent movies are well-reviewed (rated “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes), even though the first four were widely panned by critics. Someone like Randall who may have ignored the franchise when it first came out in 2001 may be wondering if he should watch the more recent ones that critics generally like, and if so, does he need to catch up on the initial movies first?

The title text talks of the long-running British TV series that is {{w|Doctor Who}}. The original Doctor Who, running from 1963-1989 was typically low budget, for its time and locality, though initially considered cutting edge in many ways. Compared to more modern classics, and especially Hollywood sci-fi, it would be noticably not as good. The revived series (2005-present), which has a much higher production budget and is typically much more aligned to modern viewers, who may ignore or not even know of the older episodes. Someone just starting to watching Doctor Who who sequentially from the ''very'' first season (from 1963) would have to watch hundreds of episodes (26 'seasons', by some counts) before the series "gets good" to modern eyes, if the {{tvtropes|GrowingTheBeard|"good" point}} is the 2005 series revival, or even quite a few to reach any given key point in the original run. Thus Doctor Who is considered to be its own thing, and unlike other shows where the fans recommend you suffer through a poor first season to enjoy improvement in subsequent seasons, {{w|Whovians}} might recommend potential new fans to begin with the 2005 reboot (technically the 27th season), which was produced to appeal to new-comers without even necessarily any cultural knowledge of what had been broadcast before.

There is also the wrinkle that anyone wishing to start with the original run would be out of luck, seeing as many early episodes - before the late-70s - were {{w|Doctor Who missing episodes|lost forever}}. The BBC didn't see any value in keeping them as they couldn't rerun them, so random episodes would be disposed of or recycled for various reasons, and those episodes are gone, making many stories incomplete. Some have been recovered through discovering some fan having recorded them (in fact, the ''audio'' for every single episode has been preserved) but most lost episodes remain lost.

It is vague about Randall's precise opinion, but even the most dedicated fan would acknowledge that it has had a varying quality/charm/consistency/etc, according to one's personal tastes for such things. Comparing the original run (pre-Millenium, featuring seven key actors sequentially taking on the title role, and another for a standalone TV-movie) with the revived series (continuing the pattern with a further seven title-actors, and the eighth already announced), and any number of 'show-runners' (producers, main writers, etc) is one possible point of contention, probably more suited to British viewers. Possibly, in Randall's case, it is just the (perceived) ups and downs in the more recent era, which has been more consistently screened in the US.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Two situations are depicted between White Hat and Cueball.]
:[Situation 1:]
:White Hat: You should keep watching! After the first season it gets really good.
:Cueball: Oh yeah, I've heard that!
:[Situation 2:]
:White Hat: You should keep watching! After the first 8 movies, they get really good.
:Cueball: Haha, what? I'm not going to sit through '''''eight''''' bad movies!
:[Caption below the panel:]
:It's weird how it's way more normal and socially acceptable to suggest someone spend 10-15 hours watching something when it's TV rather than movies.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Fiction]]
[[Category:Doctor Who]]

1380: Manual for Civilization

2014-06-11T21:53:43Z

108.162.221.73: /* Explanation */ No, seriously. They were advertised to elementary school students.

{{comic
| number = 1380
| date = June 11, 2014
| title = Manual for Civilization
| image = manual_for_civilization.png
| titletext = We will have an entire wing of the library devoted to copies of book #26, because ohmygod it's the one where Jake and Cassie finally KISS!!!
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Brian Eno}} is a musician and a co-founder of the {{w|Long Now Foundation}}. He is talking to an audience that one of the missions of the Long now is to make a library of books that can help rebuild society when it has collapsed. The experts have made a list and this list suggests that reading the {{w|Animorphs}} books would be enough to help humanity in rebuilding society.

Animorphs is a series of books written by {{w|K.A. Applegate}}. It follows a group of five children (later, an alien joins as the sixth member), that try to stop the parasitic aliens, the Yeerks, by transforming into animals. A Yeerk that enters a human has complete control over their host, and can read their memories. Because the Yeerks can imitate their host almost perfectly, humanity is slowly being taken over without knowing it, and for this reason the children cannot contact the authorities and are on their own in the battle against the Yeerks.

When asked if all the books on the experts list are from the Animorph series, Eno misses the point of the question by saying ''No!'', only to mention the {{W|List_of_Animorphs_books#Companion_books|Megamorphs}} books and {{W|The Andalite Chronicles}}, both of which are side stories to the Animorph universe.

There are other books like these which aren't mentioned here — but it is clear from the last two panels that it is a quite long list — and it seems to be written in two columns, so maybe all {{w|List_of_Animorphs_books#Animorphs_main_series|54 Animorphs books}} and all {{W|List_of_Animorphs_books#Companion_books|ten side stories}} could be included on the list.

In suggesting that a series of children's novels make up the blueprint for rebuilding civilization, [[Randall]] is spoofing the idea of such libraries (since such books would be largely useless in terms of providing the detailed instructions that would be necessary). At the same time, he may also be sending up a recent [http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2014/06/against_ya_adults_should_be_embarrassed_to_read_children_s_books.single.html controversial article] from ''{{W|Slate (magazine)|Slate}}'', which suggested that adults should be ashamed of reading children's literature, by having a popular children's work be considered crucial to rebuilding civilization.

The title text makes it completely ludicrous by saying an entire wing of the library will be devoted to the {{w|The Attack (Animorphs)|book}} (#26) where {{w|Animorphs#Animorphs|Jake and Cassie}} finally KISS!!!

This comic may also be a pun on {{w|Isaac Asimov}}'s {{w|The_Foundation_Series|Foundation series}}, where Harry Seldon claimed that the Galactic Empire is going to collapse in a thousand years, there is no way to stop it but his group of scientists are writing Encyclopedia Galactica to help people rebuild civilization.

*The Long Now Foundation was mentioned recently in [[1340: Unique Date]].
*Animorphs was referenced before in the title text of [[1360: Old Files]], where Cueball/Randall indicated that he was once an Animorphs fan, and is now ashamed of it.

==Transcript==
:[Brian Eno is talking to an unseen audience.]
:Brian Eno: Hi. I'm music's Brian Eno, co-founder of the Long Now Foundation.

:[Panel 2 shows he is standing on a stage.]
:Brian Eno: As part of our mission to promote long-term thinking, we've asked experts to help us assemble a collection of books from which civilization can be rebuilt if it ever collapses.

:[Panel 3 shows he is holding a manuscript with a long list of book titles.]
:Brian Eno: Today we're sharing the results — the first ever ''Manual for Civilization''.

:[Panel 4 shows him reading from the manuscript.]
:Brian Eno: *Ahem*
::''Animorphs #1: The Invasion''
::''Animorphs #2: The Visitor''
::''Animorphs #3: The Encounter''
:Unseen Audience member: ...are they ''all'' Animorphs Books?
:Brian Eno: No! There's also ''Megamorphs'' and ''The Andalite Chronicles''.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]

Talk:1355: Airplane Message

2014-04-14T14:50:15Z

108.162.221.73:

How can Iry-Hor, who's name comes from a ''written record'', be considered "prehistoric"? History begins with the written record. By definition, Iry-Hor would be the earliest historical name we know.

[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.38|108.162.216.38]] 13:51, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree. In fact, the Hebrew Bible goes even farther back, making the beginning of recorded history a much earlier date. I've always thought that the term "prehistoric" was farcical.

The Hebrew Bible contains the names of many individuals alive before Iry-Hor was born. The man Adam would then qualify as the oldest named individual in history. Even if Adam isn't accepted (and I can't see why not; the Hebrew Scriptures being as much a historical document as any Egyptian papyrii) then take your pick of the many others named well before the Eqyptians came on the scene.
[[User:Fiddlinmacx|Fiddlinmacx]] ([[User talk:Fiddlinmacx|talk]]) 14:18, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

The text (glyphs, really) about Iry-Hor were written during his lifetime. The Hebrew Scriptures were not written until around 2,500 years later, literally eons after the Egyptians had been 'on the scene.' Claiming that characters in Genesis are historical figures from 4000 BC is approximately as scientific as claiming that Tumok (from the 1940 film 'One Million B.C.') is actually the oldest human whose name we know. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.73|108.162.221.73]] 14:47, 14 April 2014 (UTC)Oz

Talk:1355: Airplane Message

2014-04-14T14:47:12Z

108.162.221.73:

How can Iry-Hor, who's name comes from a ''written record'', be considered "prehistoric"? History begins with the written record. By definition, Iry-Hor would be the earliest historical name we know.

[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.38|108.162.216.38]] 13:51, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree. In fact, the Hebrew Bible goes even farther back, making the beginning of recorded history a much earlier date. I've always thought that the term "prehistoric" was farcical.

The Hebrew Bible contains the names of many individuals alive before Iry-Hor was born. The man Adam would then qualify as the oldest named individual in history. Even if Adam isn't accepted (and I can't see why not; the Hebrew Scriptures being as much a historical document as any Egyptian papyrii) then take your pick of the many others named well before the Eqyptians came on the scene.
[[User:Fiddlinmacx|Fiddlinmacx]] ([[User talk:Fiddlinmacx|talk]]) 14:18, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

The text (glyphs, really) about Iry-Hor were written during his lifetime. The Hebrew Scriptures were not written until around 2,500 years later, literally eons after the Egyptians had been 'on the scene.' Claiming that characters in Genesis are historical figures from pre-Iry-Hor is approximately as scientific as claiming that Tumok (from the 1940 film 'One Million B.C.') is actually the oldest human whose name we know. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.73|108.162.221.73]] 14:47, 14 April 2014 (UTC)Ozy

1328: Update

2014-02-10T23:24:07Z

108.162.221.73: /* Transcript */ Grammar Correction

{{comic
| number = 1328
| date = February 10, 2014
| title = Update
| image = update.png
| titletext = I have a bunch of things open right now.
}}

==Explanation==
Microsoft Windows operating systems often download and install updates automatically without any user input (depending on settings). Many of these updates are system updates that ask for a restart in order to be completed, often using a pop-up with the option to "Remind Me Later," as referenced in the third panel.

Because reboots often take a significant amount of time, many people will opt to push back the reboots, even over and over. The comic makes fun of the possibility that the average user may delay even a physically critical update that could prevent a dangerous electrical fire.

The title text reflects the fact that the average user will have multiple applications open, or perhaps even more specifically multiple browser tabs open that the user wishes to keep, and a reboot would usually close all of them.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball sitting at a laptop, and there is an error message coming from the laptop.]
:Warning: '''Urgent:''' Critical update available!

:'''Details:''' Fixes an issue that was causing random laptop electrical fires.

:(This update will require restarting your computer.)
:Cueball: ''Remind me later''
:''click''

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Computers]]