explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

705: Devotion to Duty

2015-07-01T23:28:46Z

108.162.237.173: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 705
| date = February 22, 2010
| title = Devotion to Duty
| image = devotion_to_duty.png
| titletext = The weird sense of duty really good sysadmins have can border on the sociopathic, but it's nice to know that it stands between the forces of darkness and your cat blog's servers.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, we see a man talking on a phone. We are unsure of his aims (terrorism, robbery, etc.) but he has taken hostages and cut all links to the outside world, in order to control the situation and prevent the police from observing the interior of the building (as popularly depicted in film and television). Initially all appears to be normal (for a hostage situation) to the reader but then the hostage-taker explains on the phone that someone has entered the building, climbed the air vents to bypass their cordon, effortlessly killing other hostage-takers (who are likely hardened killers with weaponry) on his way to the server room and then ignored the hostages, preferring instead to reconnect the servers to the outside world. The hostage-taker is evidently puzzled by this and explains it to the person on the other end of the phone, who immediately recognizes the reason: the man that entered the building is a "sysadmin" (short for {{w|System administrator}}), and he is concerned that his servers are losing "uptime" to the internet. This evidently concerns the man on the phone, who knows that a good sysadmin is an unstoppable force once started!

This comic is a reference to one of two things (or both): the Hollywood depiction of heroes able to perform superhuman feats in tricky situations (such as John McClane in ''{{w|Die Hard}}'', which the first two panels are a deliberate reference to), or the duty that people impose upon themselves to go above and beyond the call of duty to ensure that they carry out their work (in this case a dutiful sysadmin, concerned for those trying to use his server).

The title text is a simple nod to the fact that many read unusual sites like cat blogs (where owners write about their cats) and the brutal actions of killing by the sysadmin was simply to allow the user to reach those sites. An additional joke is the unreasonable comparison of 'forces of darkness' being the opposite of 'cat blog's'.

A sysadmin is also mentioned in the title text of [[309: Shopping Teams]].

==Transcript==
:[Bearded criminal is holding a pistol and talking on a mobile phone.]
:Criminal: We took the hostages, secured the building and cut the communication lines like you said.
:Phone: Excellent.

:[Still talking on the phone, waving gun around in the air animatedly.]
:Criminal: But then this guy climbed up the ventilation ducts and walked across broken glass, killing anyone we sent to stop him.

:Phone: And he rescued the hostages?

:[Criminal looking confused and defeated, shoulders hunched and pistol hanging limply at his side.]
:Criminal: No, he ignored them. He just reconnected the cables we cut, muttering something about "uptime".
:Phone: Shit, we're dealing with a ''sysadmin''.

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:1446: Landing

2014-11-12T05:37:22Z

108.162.237.173: first

I would bet money that this comic will have to do with the Rosetta Lander that will be landing on a comet for the first time in history this morning. Info about it at Rosetta.esa.int

[[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.173|108.162.237.173]] 05:37, 12 November 2014 (UTC)pH

Talk:1382: Rocket Packs

2014-06-25T22:29:13Z

108.162.237.173:

I think long fall boots (from Portal) would probably help with this.
[[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.65|173.245.56.65]] 04:34, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
:-Not so much, they're designed for a completely different purpose. That's like expecting a kevlar vest to protect you against a sword. (They would, however, help if you ran out of fuel in midair.) [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.83|173.245.55.83]] 12:53, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
::A kevlar vest would protect you from a sword, if you're stabbed or hit in the chest.[[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.198|173.245.52.198]] 19:37, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
:::Kevlar vests do not protect against even relatively small knives. If wearers of Kevlar body armor expect to come in close contact with hostile people, they add metal or ceramic strike plates to their armor specifically designed to upgrade it to be able protect against being stabbed with a knife or sword. {{unsigned ip|199.27.133.11}}
I was thinking a chair design with the legs pulled out in front might help out. {{unsigned ip|199.27.133.174}}

Wear the jet pack on your chest, avoid calf-burn. But don't mention the genitals. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.61|141.101.104.61]] 05:13, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Is it really so hard to invent calf shields? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.30|108.162.221.30]] 07:53, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Where is the problem? just reverse front and rear :=)
http://www.thefind.com/apparel/info-batwing-chaps
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.199|108.162.254.199]] 10:10, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

The logic and humor of this comic could be extended to the notion of "free" medical care, in a world where people are inclined to try things like rocket packs. {{unsigned ip|173.245.50.73}}

Most practical rockets have the thrust in line with the center of gravity. A jetpack like the one depicted will tend to nose over unless the user sticks his lower legs up into the exhaust to deflect it. Not a great way to travel. Real jetpacks have the nozzles either side to get around this problem. They still have the difficulty of being unable to glide if the engine cuts. If this happens too low to use a parachute, that will spoil the user's day. [[User:Jim E|Jim E]] ([[User talk:Jim E|talk]]) 16:03, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Why do people keep talking about running out of fuel in midair? When was the last time you ran out of fuel in your car, in between gas stations? Sure, the consequences aren't quite as catastrophic, but my point is that usually people refill their tanks before they run out...[[User:Diszy|Diszy]] ([[User talk:Diszy|talk]]) 21:30, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
:Running out of fuel isn't the only reason your car might stall or stop in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes the engine overheats and stops or the accelerator just stops working for no (apparent) reason. If something similar happens to your jetpack when you are 30m in the air, you can expect a few medical bills, if not a visit to your neighborhood mortician. Any good jetpack should come equipped with emergency boosters, but how effective they may be at low heights is still an issue. {{unsigned ip|103.22.201.239}}
:I've run out of fuel in a car twice, due to faults. The first was a loan car - it smelt of petrol, but the owner said it was OK. Turned out it had a hole in the fuel tank, which meant that the petrol leaked out and left me stranded. The other time was my car - fuel tank had rusted (I was unaware of this), and when I went over a rough bit of road, it disintegrated, shedding fuel. Not all "out of fuel" errors are caused by driving until you run out. [[User:Farnz|Farnz]] ([[User talk:Farnz|talk]]) 13:55, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Real life rocket packs have flight times as short as 30 seconds in some cases, so running out if fuel and falling to the ground is a very real concern. [[User:Jim E|Jim E]] ([[User talk:Jim E|talk]]) 22:54, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

I think the title text may also refer to how free health care sometimes sounds just as far-fetched in the US as practical jetpacks becoming commonplace. It was something that always almost came up when people were comparing countries on the Internet these last few years. Especially when Canadians compared their country to the States... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.162|141.101.98.162]] 12:58, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
:There's no such thing as "free health care". TANSTAAFL, and TANSTAFH. Wherever you are, you and your country's economy pay for it one way or another (barring some novel method of enslaving providers of healthcare and medical supplies). Canadians pay about as much per capita for healthcare as most other industrialized nations, and incur intangible costs such as increased wait times, rationed care, and so on. I wish people would start using a less misleading term than "free healthcare", which falsely implies that magic fairies are making the costs and trade-offs disappear. If "free health care" seems "far-fetched" in the US, it's because most of us haven't lost sight of the fact that it isn't free, and (thanks to government intrusion, restrictions, and mandates) in a lot of ways it's much less free in the other sense of the word [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.71|173.245.50.71]] 07:43, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
::The point was not that Canada pays very little for healthcare, it is that the US pays so much. You are 100% right that Canada pays about as much as most other industrialized nations, but the US pays FAR more than most other industrialized nations. You completely ignore that the US pays per capita 90% MORE than Canada. Exact numbers are US: $8,508 Canada: $4,522.--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.173|108.162.237.173]] 22:29, 25 June 2014 (UTC)