explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1820: Security Advice

2024-10-06T01:38:48Z

172.71.147.106: /* Explanation */ someone messed up with updating tor.com’s name

{{comic
| number = 1820
| date = April 5, 2017
| title = Security Advice
| image = security_advice.png
| titletext = Never give your password or bank account number to anyone who doesn't have a blue check mark next to their name.
}}

==Explanation==
This is another one of [[Randall|Randall's]] [[:Category:Tips|Tips]], this time a list of security tips.

The comic depicts a conversation between [[Cueball]] and [[Ponytail]], discussing the fact that giving people security advice in the past has failed to improve their internet security, and in some cases even made things worse. One such example is telling people to create complicated passwords containing numbers and symbols, which not only made the passwords harder to remember (leading people to create huge security risks by [https://arstechnica.com/security/2015/04/hacked-french-network-exposed-its-own-passwords-during-tv-interview/ leaving post-it notes with their passwords on their computer monitor]), but did not actually make those passwords harder to crack (see [[936: Password Strength]]).

As a result, Cueball suggests using {{w|reverse psychology}} and give out bad advice instead, in hopes of achieving a positive effect. The last panel contains a list with 13 security tips, which are parodies of actual security tips. The title text is just one more tip. See [[#Security tips|table]] below for explanations for all 14 tips.

===Security tips===
{| class="wikitable"
!Security Tip
!Explanation
|- id="tip0"
|Print out this list and keep it in your bank safe deposit box (header)
|This is a standard recommendation for documents that must be kept secure because they are irreplaceable and/or contain sensitive information. However this list itself is easily replaceable and the contents will be well-known, so storing it in a safe place is totally unnecessary. Putting it in a {{w|safe deposit box}} would even be counterproductive since the list can only serve its purpose as a ready reminder if it's easily accessible to everyone. So when people fail to follow this tip, they may end up keeping it in a place where they have easy access to the tips so they may also fail to follow all the others.
|- id="tip1"
|Don't click links to websites
|The usual tip is "Don't click on ''suspicious'' website links" or "Don't click any links in suspicious emails". The comic's variation instead tells users not to click on any links to any websites, which essentially stops them from using the World Wide Web altogether. So this tip is not really helping, as the opposite of this would be to click on all links. [https://www.sketchywebsite.net This is an example website that showcases an extreme example of what ''could'' (probably wouldn't (this is not advice)) happen if you clicked on a suspicious link.]
|- id="tip2"
|Use prime numbers in your password
|It is usually recommended that one uses numbers in one's password, to increase its entropy, making it harder to find with a {{w|Brute-force attack|brute force}} attack. In contrast the comic suggests using {{w|prime numbers}} in one's password. Large prime numbers are an essential part of modern cryptography and security systems, when used in algorithms that are computed by machines. They don't have any effect when used by humans in passwords, except for maybe making it harder to remember. In addition, if people were to regularly use prime numbers in their passwords, it would actually make passwords ''easier'' to guess, as it would substantially reduce the number of possible passwords people may choose from.
|- id="tip3"
|Change your password manager monthly
|It is often recommended to change passwords on a regular basis and to use a {{w|password manager}}. Password managers are programs which can help users create, store, and change their passwords easily and securely. Changing password managers monthly would involve copying all stored passwords from one manager to another, which would be quite impractical and has no security benefit.
|- id="tip4"
|Hold your breath while crossing the border
|At some border crossings, government agents may search computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices. The usual advice for such situations ranges from asserting your rights to resetting all devices and deleting all data prior to crossing a border. Holding one's breath can potentially prevent inhaling germs or poisons in some situations, though useless in the context of computer security. These two topics mixed in the same advice won't achieve anything, but if you hold your breath for too long you could pass out when crossing, or look stressed/suspicious and invite even more scrutiny. This could also be a reference to the superstition of holding one's breath when passing a graveyard, or similarly to the movie ''{{w|Spirited Away}}'', where the main character is instructed to hold her breath while crossing the bridge that acts as the border between the human and spirit world. In any case, holding one's breath while browsing the Internet would have no useful effect, supernatural or otherwise.
|- id="tip5"
|Install a secure font
|A real tip might be "Install a secure browser" especially when many people used {{w|Internet Explorer 6}}. Secure fonts do exist and are designed to make checks difficult to alter, but using one on a computer would not help one's internet security. May also refer to Google Chrome [https://www.proofpoint.com/us/threat-insight/post/EITest-Nabbing-Chrome-Users-Chrome-Font-Social-Engineering-Scheme "Install missing font"] malware.
|- id="tip6"
|Use a 2-factor smoke detector
|{{w|Multi-factor authentication|Two factor authentication}} describes the practice of using two different identification factors (such as a password and a code from a secure token) to authenticate the user. A two factor smoke detector presumably uses two or more factors to identify ''smoke'' (such as {{w|Smoke_detector#Ionization|ionization}} and {{w|Smoke_detector#Photoelectric|photoelectric}}). Such devices [https://alarmspecs.com actually exist], but, while improving the user's general safety, they do nothing to improve their internet security.


A month before this comic the newest [[:Category:xkcd Phones|xkcd Phone]], [[1809: xkcd Phone 5]], was released with a 28-factor authentication.
|- id="tip7"
|Change your maiden name regularly
|A {{w|maiden name}} is the family name that a woman has at birth. (The gender-neutral term is "birth name" or "birth surname"; it is unclear whether this "advice" is meant to apply only to women.) Security experts frequently criticize the concept of security questions like "what is your mother's maiden name?", on the basis that they can often be deduced from publicly available information. In the sense that it refers to a historical fact, a maiden name cannot be changed retroactively, although in the sense that it refers to the last name on one's birth certificate, in some narrow cases this ''can'' be amended. For instance, when someone is {{w|adoption|adopted}} and takes their adoptive parent's last name, in many jurisdictions a {{w|legal fiction}} holds that they have had that last name since birth, and governments will issue new birth certificates to that effect. However, it is unlikely for anyone to be able to amend the surname on their birth certificate more than once, and impossible to do so "regularly".

A real tip for dealing with security questions is to enter false data.
|- id="tip8"
|Put strange USB drives in a bag of rice overnight
|The usual security tip is "Don't plug strange {{w|USB flash drive|USB drives}} into your computer," because sometimes attackers leave USB devices with malicious programs lying around, hoping that people will plug them into target computers out of curiosity. This tip states that you should "put USB drives in a bag of rice overnight" which is a common technique for drying out water-damaged devices, due to rice's absorbent qualities. This would not clean the drive of viruses, and unless the drive was wet (perhaps because you found it outside due to it being called "strange") it would not do anything. In [[1598: Salvage]], another attempt is made to salvage something unconventional with rice, and here it is shown that Randall considers the rice drying of a wet mobile is a myth, so this is yet another jab at the idea.
|- id="tip9"
|Use special characters like & and %
|You can use special characters to increase the entropy/strength of your password, though as described in [[936: Password Strength]], that often leads to passwords that are hard to remember but not particularly strong. The password context is missing here, and in everyday situations the characters & and % are not special. These two characters are often disallowed in passwords because of their relevance to {{w|SQL}} (a common database query language). If these characters were used in a password, a badly written security system using SQL could have severe bugs (and security vulnerabilities) similar to the security flaw in [[327: Exploits of a Mom]].
|- id="tip10"
|Only read content published through Tor.com
|{{w|tor (anonymity network)|Tor}} is a software solution to provide anonymity on the web for its users. The website [https://tor.com Tor.com] is the website of fantasy and sci-fi book publisher {{w|Tor Books}}, which has no relation to the Tor-network. In January 2024, the website was renamed to [https://reactormag.com/ Reactormag.com].
|- id="tip11"
|Use a burner's phone
|A play on using a {{w|Prepay mobile phone|burner phone}} (a cheap/disposable cell phone like those purchased at 7-11, often used for drug deals or other activity one might not want traced), and using the cell phone of a burner, i.e. a person who habitually uses marijuana (or, less likely, a person who goes to the {{w|Burning Man|Burning Man festival}}).
|- id="tip12"
|Get an SSL certificate and store it in a safe place
|{{w|Transport Layer Security|SSL/TLS}} is a protocol for securing connections on the internet. To check if someone is who they claim to be, you can check the individual's {{w|Public key certificate|certificate}}. Such a certificate has to be public; storing it in a safe place makes the certificate useless. You have to store the private key that matches the certificate in a safe place, else someone could steal the identity.
|- id="tip13"
|If a border guard asks to examine your laptop, you have a legal right to challenge them to a chess game for your soul.
|This tip is a reference to the common trope {{tvtropes|ChessWithDeath|Chess with Death}}, in which a mortal challenges a god to a game or challenge, often for their life. This version of the trope traces back to {{w|Ingmar Bergman|Ingmar Bergman's}} film {{w|The Seventh Seal}}, in which the protagonist {{w|The Seventh Seal#Synopsis|challenges Death}} to a game of chess. But instead of avoiding death, this tip suggests you have the right to do the same to get out of handing your devices over to a border guard. (This trope is also featured in [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/393 393: Ultimate Game]).
Under President [[Donald Trump]] (inaugurated two and a half months prior to this comic), border patrol and customs agents have become notorious for profiling non-Caucasian travelers and immigrants. Stories abound of agents coercing and threatening travelers to hand over their smartphones -- they do not have legal right to just take your devices under the Fourth Amendment, but have many not-entirely-idle threats they can level at you until you do as they wish.

|- id="tip14"
|'''Title Text''': Never give your password or bank account number to anyone who doesn't have a blue check mark next to their name.
|The usual security tip here is ''"only trust Twitter accounts claiming to be legitimate if they have a blue check mark next to their name"'', which means that the account is verified as legitimate. This tip suggests only giving your ''password'' to verified accounts, although you shouldn't give your password to ''any'' account. Twitter Verification would be revisited in [[1914: Twitter Verification]].

Twitter blue check marks have become even less reliable since Twitter's purchase by [[Elon Musk]] in October 2022, as Twitter has been loosening their verification policies and for a brief time, [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/10/twitter-blue-verification-parody-impersonation allowed anyone who paid to have a verified checkmark]. At time of writing (2023-04-11) Twitter has [https://web.archive.org/web/20230000000000*/https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/about-twitter-verified-accounts some verification checks], but still less than when this comic was written, making this even worse advice.

It also refers to problems especially visible in the US banking system, where there is very little security for direct account drafts, and because of that it is advised there to keep the account number as secret as possible. In contrast, in Europe giving your account number to someone is one of the most common ways to get paid.

A related tip might be "Never give your password or bank details to a website that doesn't have a padlock icon next to the URL". In most modern browsers, if you access a secure website, there will be a padlock icon in the browser indicating you've connected to a secure website using {{w|HTTPS|Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure}}. It doesn't provide that it is not malicious site, and that is secure to enter. So this tip treats the verified account icon the same way you might treat a secure website icon.
|}

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is listening to Ponytail who holds her hands out in front of her.]
:Ponytail: We've been trying for decades to give people good security advice.
:Ponytail: But in retrospect, lots of the tips actually made things worse.

:[Cueball takes his hand to his chin as Ponytail takes her arms down.]
:Cueball: Maybe we should try to give ''bad'' advice?
:Ponytail: I guess it's worth a shot.

:[Below these two panel is one large and long panel with a long list with 13 tips. The underlined heading and the bracket below it are centered above the bullet list below.]
:<big>Security tips</big>
:(Print out this list and keep it in your bank safe deposit box.)
* Don't click links to websites
* Use prime numbers in your password
* Change your password manager monthly
* Hold your breath while crossing the border
* Install a secure font
* Use a 2-factor smoke detector
* Change your maiden name regularly
* Put strange USB drives in a bag of rice overnight
* Use special characters like & and %
* Only read content published through tor.com
* Use a burner's phone
* Get an SSL certificate and store it in a safe place
* If a border guard asks to examine your laptop, you have a legal right to challenge them to a chess game for your soul.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Chess]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Tips]]

Talk:2941: Cell Organelles

2024-06-04T03:50:40Z

172.71.147.106: update comment

I'm a little disappointed there isn't a continuous endoplasmic reticulum with a zigzag in it.
Rogue mathematician away [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.77|172.71.154.77]] 19:20, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Sorry about the edit conflicts, attempting to fix.... [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.237|108.162.245.237]] 20:12, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Re [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2941:_Cell_Organelles&diff=343629&oldid=343628] is LLM use forbidden? I recall we have several ChatGPT-authored explanations, and had an ongoing discussion back when it was new. In any case, I've proofread and vouch for it, so I'm replacing the text. I encourage anyone who's bothered by it to paraphrase instead of delete. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.237|108.162.245.237]] 21:22, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

:If you've got the time to check AI-generated content properly and agree that it's what ''you'' would have written, you've got time to write it from scratch exactly how you'd have written it. And you get dangerously close to just putting in AI-content without checking at all, which right now is remains foolhardy.
:But, most of all, anything anyone submits can be changed by anyone else, and I don't know who picked up on it being AI and dealt with it the way they did, but only consensus can truly resolve where any attempt to impose an edit leads. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.119|162.158.74.119]] 22:36, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

::I almost completely agree with you for Wikipedia (I'd just change 'would' to 'could') and similar wikis, but it's undeniable that ExplainXkcd is different in some very substantial and obvious ways, many of which bear on whether to utilize AI. In particular, I would accept pretty much anything that helps explain the comic whether authored by human, machine, animal, or alien, but not hesitate for a second to, as the text below the Summary text input box says, edit it "mercilessly" whether I thought it was LLM-generated or not. But I wouldn't delete an even barely serviceable explanation ''just'' because I thought it came from an LLM, even if it was objectively low quality. I would try to improve it, which almost never means starting over from scratch. I'm not sure I believe the same is true for humans, who often insert, e.g., vandalism, trolling, or extremely undue and/or fringe topic passages. If an LLM is doing that, there's probably a human behind it. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.17|108.162.245.17]] 00:21, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

:Both the paragraphs and the table have been edited far enough from what ChatGPT pretty obviously came up with (almost all of which I would say merit inclusion unaltered, [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2941:_Cell_Organelles&diff=343604&oldid=343601 looking at the initial edits; although there is evidence that the LLM output was copyedited and wikilinked in a way that it would probably not do,] i.e., we use the {{tl|w}} template here which is not at all a Mediawiki standard, the Wikimedia wikis having a different form <nowiki>[[w:...]]</nowiki>) so that whatever deleterious LLM contamination they had has surely been beat out of them at this stage. Perhaps the GenAI deletionist is trying to encourage others to not fall prey to reliance on LLMs? A worthy goal, but I agree paraphrasing is far superior. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.180|172.69.34.180]] 01:57, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Re: the chloroplasts explanation: how do we know that this is an animal cell? (Would be good to say why...) -- [[User:Dtgriscom|Dtgriscom]] ([[User talk:Dtgriscom|talk]]) 22:18, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
:The cell has a membrane instead of a wall. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.199|162.158.90.199]] 22:24, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
::No, that’s human skin. [[User:Usb-rave|Usb-rave]] ([[User talk:Usb-rave|talk]]) 00:48, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
:::Yeah, the rule of thumb is of course a generalization worthy of chemistry "rules" -- the {{w|bone cell}} being perhaps the most obvious uncategorizable corner case of several. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.150.236|172.71.150.236]] 02:12, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Why does Golgi look like an alien, he's so little and cute. Wtf. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 23:11, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

:You know what I would like to see from AI? A tiny white Grey Golgi alien working in the cytoplasm to build his apparatus. Please see below. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.147.106|172.71.147.106]] 03:50, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Should 2732: Bursa of Fabricius be referenced? It feels like the Golgi Apparatus is making a similar joke, if somewhat inverted. [[User:Dkfenger|Dkfenger]] ([[User talk:Dkfenger|talk]]) 01:19, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

To me, 'Drain plug' is an engine oil-drain plug. Yes it is a bolt, rarely used in biological systems. But a cell and an engine are normally full of fluid, while plumbing sinks are normally empty. --[[User:PRR|PRR]] ([[User talk:PRR|talk]]) 02:10, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
:To me it's about as often something you would find in a kitchen or bathroom sink, especially if the plumbing was from the 1970s or earlier. Honestly I'm too young to know when sink plugs fell out of favor to levers. In any case, an actual hole in the cell membrane is almost always a potentially mortal wound, and few cells have any means of repairing all but the smallest tears. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.207.197|172.70.207.197]] 02:47, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

=== Golgi by AI art contest ===

Survey questions: (1) Which of these do you like the best? https://ibb.co/album/68tCSn Can you do better?

(2) Does anyone know how to make AI animations like those? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.142.181|172.71.142.181]] 03:49, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2941: Cell Organelles

2024-06-04T02:24:48Z

172.71.147.106: glycan duct plugs (not a sex toy reference)

I'm a little disappointed there isn't a continuous endoplasmic reticulum with a zigzag in it.
Rogue mathematician away [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.77|172.71.154.77]] 19:20, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Sorry about the edit conflicts, attempting to fix.... [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.237|108.162.245.237]] 20:12, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Re [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2941:_Cell_Organelles&diff=343629&oldid=343628] is LLM use forbidden? I recall we have several ChatGPT-authored explanations, and had an ongoing discussion back when it was new. In any case, I've proofread and vouch for it, so I'm replacing the text. I encourage anyone who's bothered by it to paraphrase instead of delete. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.237|108.162.245.237]] 21:22, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

:If you've got the time to check AI-generated content properly and agree that it's what ''you'' would have written, you've got time to write it from scratch exactly how you'd have written it. And you get dangerously close to just putting in AI-content without checking at all, which right now is remains foolhardy.
:But, most of all, anything anyone submits can be changed by anyone else, and I don't know who picked up on it being AI and dealt with it the way they did, but only consensus can truly resolve where any attempt to impose an edit leads. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.119|162.158.74.119]] 22:36, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

::I almost completely agree with you for Wikipedia (I'd just change 'would' to 'could') and similar wikis, but it's undeniable that ExplainXkcd is different in some very substantial and obvious ways, many of which bear on whether to utilize AI. In particular, I would accept pretty much anything that helps explain the comic whether authored by human, machine, animal, or alien, but not hesitate for a second to, as the text below the Summary text input box says, edit it "mercilessly" whether I thought it was LLM-generated or not. But I wouldn't delete an even barely serviceable explanation ''just'' because I thought it came from an LLM, even if it was objectively low quality. I would try to improve it, which almost never means starting over from scratch. I'm not sure I believe the same is true for humans, who often insert, e.g., vandalism, trolling, or extremely undue and/or fringe topic passages. If an LLM is doing that, there's probably a human behind it. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.17|108.162.245.17]] 00:21, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

:Both the paragraphs and the table have been edited far enough from what ChatGPT pretty obviously came up with (almost all of which I would say merit inclusion unaltered, [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2941:_Cell_Organelles&diff=343604&oldid=343601 looking at the initial edits; although there is evidence that the LLM output was copyedited and wikilinked in a way that it would probably not do,] i.e., we use the {{tl|w}} template here which is not at all a Mediawiki standard, the Wikimedia wikis having a different form <nowiki>[[w:...]]</nowiki>) so that whatever deleterious LLM contamination they had has surely been beat out of them at this stage. Perhaps the GenAI deletionist is trying to encourage others to not fall prey to reliance on LLMs? A worthy goal, but I agree paraphrasing is far superior. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.180|172.69.34.180]] 01:57, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Re: the chloroplasts explanation: how do we know that this is an animal cell? (Would be good to say why...) -- [[User:Dtgriscom|Dtgriscom]] ([[User talk:Dtgriscom|talk]]) 22:18, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
:The cell has a membrane instead of a wall. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.199|162.158.90.199]] 22:24, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
::No, that’s human skin. [[User:Usb-rave|Usb-rave]] ([[User talk:Usb-rave|talk]]) 00:48, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
:::Yeah, the rule of thumb is of course a generalization worthy of chemistry "rules" -- the {{w|bone cell}} being perhaps the most obvious uncategorizable corner case of several. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.150.236|172.71.150.236]] 02:12, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Why does Golgi look like an alien, he's so little and cute. Wtf. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 23:11, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

:You know what I would like to see from AI? A tiny white Grey Golgi alien working in the cytoplasm to build his apparatus. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.146.57|172.71.146.57]] 01:46, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Should 2732: Bursa of Fabricius be referenced? It feels like the Golgi Apparatus is making a similar joke, if somewhat inverted. [[User:Dkfenger|Dkfenger]] ([[User talk:Dkfenger|talk]]) 01:19, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

To me, 'Drain plug' is an engine oil-drain plug. Yes it is a bolt, rarely used in biological systems. But a cell and an engine are normally full of fluid, while plumbing sinks are normally empty. --[[User:PRR|PRR]] ([[User talk:PRR|talk]]) 02:10, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
:To me it's about as often something you would find in a kitchen or bathroom sink, especially if the plumbing was from the 1970s or earlier. Honestly I'm too young to know when sink plugs fell out of favor to levers. In any case, an actual hole in the cell membrane is almost always a potentially mortal wound, and few cells have any means of repairing all but the smallest tears. However, there are some instances when ducts can open and close, and I believe (but need to double check) that the responsible organelles are {{w|glycan}}s, which were coincidentally identified by Golgi (who was not considered an alien in Italy.) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.147.106|172.71.147.106]] 02:24, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

2929: Good and Bad Ideas

2024-05-08T21:10:12Z

172.71.147.106: /* Table of the entries */ speaking truth to power

{{comic
| number = 2929
| date = May 6, 2024
| title = Good and Bad Ideas
| image = good_and_bad_ideas_2x.png
| imagesize = 595x522px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = While it seemed like a fun prank at the time, I realize my prank fire extinguishers full of leaded gasoline were a mistake.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD- Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This is a scatter plot comparing how good an idea sounds to how good the idea is. For example, leaded gasoline sounded like a good idea due to its anti-knocking effects, but is a bad idea due to lead toxicity. Fake prank fire extinguishers both sound bad and ''are'' bad, as they can make a dangerous situation worse. Putting mold on infections sounds like a bad idea, but some molds, like ones containing penicillin, have helpful antibiotic effects.

The title text combines leaded gasoline and a fake prank fire extinguisher into something worse than either. The fire extinguisher is fake and releases flammable material onto the fire, and there is additional lead toxicity.

===Table of the entries===
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Idea !! What it means !! How good it sounds !! How good it actually is !! Explanation
|-
|{{w|Leaded gasoline}}||Adding {{w|Tetraethyllead|tetraethyl lead}} as an antiknocking agent to allow for increased performance||++||---||Leaded gasoline was introduced in the early 1920s to allow higher pressures and temperatures in an engine without causing {{w|Engine_knocking|detonation (knocking)}}, allowing for increased fuel efficiency and engine performance; it also works to prevent engine valve wear. In essence, it artificially raises the {{w|octane rating}} of the fuel, reducing the need for fuel refinement, thus reducing waste and/or expense. Lead, however, is both toxic and bioaccumulative, meaning that lead released into the air over decades built up to harmful levels in people (as well as other animals) and almost certainly contributed to a host of health issues. Some scientists even suppose that {{w|Lead–crime hypothesis|crime levels are influenced by lead exposure}}. (It should be noted that this only "[sounded] like a good idea" due to deliberate campaigns to obscure the known dangers).
|-
|{{w|Bloodletting}}||Releasing "bad blood" from the veins||---||---||You need (most of) your blood. Losing [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK542273/ more than 15%] of a person's total blood volume results in adverse effects. Bloodletting was performed as a medical procedure for at least 2000 years until the 19th century. The idea was to withdraw blood to balance the body's "humors". Despite this long history, the notion that bleeding someone is bad now seems like basic common sense, and it's now well-understood that blood-letting (outside of {{what if|98|certain rare and specific cases}}) does no good, causes significant harm and quite certainly causes many deaths.
|-
|{{w|Asbestos}}||Mineral which does not burn, tolerates extremely high temperatures and forms small fibers. These qualities make it excellent for insulation and fire protection||+++||---||Asbestos was used extensively in ships and buildings throughout most of the 20th century. Unfortunately, the microscopic fibers that make up asbestos greatly increase the risk of {{w|Asbestosis|lung disease}} and cancer when inhaled, causing its use to be banned in most countries.
|-
|Extension cords with prongs on both ends||allows easy connection between 2 female connectors||0 (neutral)||---||Prongs on both ends would make it easier to plug the extension cord in on either side. But once plugged into an outlet, the other end becomes a serious shock hazard, as seen in [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L08LjkN1k70 this Backyard Scientist video]. Shot circuits (both ends connected to outlets supplying power) would be much more likely, resulting in more sparks, fires, and damage to wiring.
|-
|Stair kayaking||Riding down a flight of stairs in a {{w|kayak}}||--||---|| Stair kayaking is a stunt where a person positions a kayak at the top of a flight of stairs and then, using their paddle to push off, [https://youtu.be/46BjHAxgddU?t=154 rides the kayak down the stairs]. This poses significant easily foreseeable risks of injury or death, as well as being very bad for the kayak, which is designed to ride on {{w|Kayak|water}}, not stairs.{{Citation needed}}
|-
|Fake prank fire extinguishers||Intentionally placing empty or otherwise non-functional {{w|fire extinguisher|fire extinguishers}} as a {{w|practical joke}}.||---||---|| The idea of placing fake fire extinguishers as a prank, presumably so that a person who thinks they are grabbing a real fire extinguisher will instead find a decoy, sounds very dangerous and potentially life-threatening for many people, and it would be highly dangerous. In the United States, (and presumably most countries), this would also be a felony in most, if not all, jurisdictions. An example of a similar situation, although not intended as a prank, can be found [https://twitter.com/ThatSamWinkler/status/1657154071051239424 here].
The title text expands this idea by having the prank fire extinguishers filled with (leaded) gasoline. This is literally adding fuel to the fire.
|-
|Always saying what you think||...regardless of the feelings of others or other considerations||++||--||Openness and honesty are seen as positive character traits in people. However, taking it to the extreme of ''always'' telling people what you think about them, can lead to awkward or unpleasant situations. It may harm your relationship with the other person if they don't like what you think, or they may reply without concern for ''your'' feelings or other considerations. Keeping negative thoughts to yourself or telling "white lies" can be considered a better alternative in some situations. Saying what you think to somebody in power (a boss, soldier, dictator, drunk) can negatively impact your earning potential, health, or freedom.
|-
|Replying to spammers||Clicking on the "Reply" button from {{w|spam email}}s and writing (and sending) a reply (or worse, clicking on the links in these emails)||--||--||At best, you confirm your email address and identify yourself as someone likely to respond to such unsolicited messages and so encourage the spammers to deluge you with even more messages. At worst, the spammer may use your correspondence to extract sensitive information about you or make you a victim of a scam.
|-
|{{w|Solar car}}s||Having {{w|Solar panel|solar panels}} on the car's surface (mostly hood and roof) for power generation||+++||-||Powering electric vehicles with solar panels seems like an excellent idea: it would provide free power with no increased land use, and theoretically could allow a vehicle to operate indefinitely without being fueled or charged. However, such vehicles couldn't operate without batteries (due to power requirements, weather conditions, shade from roadside features and nighttime driving), so they'd have increased complexity compared to plug-in or hybrid cars. Adding solar panels would add cost, weight, manufacturing complexity and maintenance requirements. Solar panels on moving cars are less efficient than in stationary installations and subject to damage from both collisions and road debris; even without these problems, the size of automobiles relative to their power requirements would sharply limit the car's range (unless it was a normal electric vehicle with supplemental solar panels). Solar cars do exist (the {{w|World Solar Challenge}} is a competition for such cars), but as a practical form of transportation, the negatives likely outweigh the positives.
|-
|Heelies||{{w|Heelys}} are shoes with an inline skate wheel embedded in the sole, at the heel. ||+||-||Heelys allow the wearer (usually children) to shift between normal walking and rolling like being on skates. This sounds like fun but [https://abcnews.go.com/Health/Exercise/story?id=3242181&page=1 has been suggested] to be a potentially significant injury risk.
|-
|Prequels||A work of fiction (mostly movie) telling the "story before the story" of another work of fiction.||+++||-||More of a good story sounds great on the surface, and audiences who are invested in a set of characters and/or a setting often love the idea of finding out what led up to certain events. But there are several pitfalls. Any spin-off of a popular property risks becoming a low-quality cash grab. Prequels, specifically, are constrained by the fact that they have to lead to the story that's already been released, which can lead to contrived storytelling. There's less room for suspense since the future of the storyline has already been established. There's a tendency to invent or fill in detailed backstories, which can undermine character arcs, and/or destroy the mystery and nuance of certain characters. And, since they tend only to be made where the original is already well-received, regression to the mean tends to mean they are more likely than not to fail to live up to expectations. Prequels can be good, of course, but there are a lot of ways they can go wrong.
|-
|Transitions® lenses||A brand name for {{w|Photochromic_lens|photochromic lenses}} in glasses, which get darker (like sunglasses) in bright light.||+||-||Photochromic lenses are clear lenses that darken when exposed to UV light, then turn clear again when the exposure is removed. The advantage is that wearers of glasses don't need to buy separate (prescription) sunglasses. However, the process is relatively slow (about a minute) so not so useful when there is a quick succession of shade and bright light, perhaps in a forest or when driving. If used in a car, the windscreen filters out UV light to some degree, which prevents the glasses from darkening as required. Finally, the process is temperature dependent, so in hot weather the glasses don't become as dark, and in cold weather they might stay dark for too long.

Additionally, the following should be considered. UV-conscious people protect their face against UV light, so the skin doesn't form wrinkles and ages slower. Sunscreen is difficult to apply around eyes without getting the substance on eyeballs (cosmetic substances should not get there). One of the reasons behind wearing sunglasses may be to protect skin around eyes from forming so called {{w|wrinkle|crow's feet}}. Under UV-filtering sunglasses, UV-activated transitions contact lenses will not darken defeating their purpose. At the same time transitions contacts are typically at least twice as expensive as the regular ones.
|-
|Cutting pizza in squares||Cutting (a presumably round) pizza in squares||-||-||Most people cut pizza into wedges and hold it by the crust. Cutting it into squares could allow for more pieces to be shared, if the resulting wedges would be too thin to be practical. However, pieces near the center will have no crust to hold it by, getting cheese and sauce all over your fingers. Cuts around the edge will probably leave smaller leftover scraps which are mostly crust. While hardly a disaster like the other items in its quadrant, square pizza pieces are just not very useful and rather inefficient. Cutting a rectangular pizza into squares might not suffer from the problems above, but, unless the pizza itself is square and cut only into four squares, some people will end up with a higher crust-to-topping ratio than others. Cutting a round pizza into squares is popular in Chicago and is sometimes called tavern-style or party-cut and some<nowiki>[</nowiki>''{{w|Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Words_to_watch#Unsupported_attributions|who?}}''<nowiki>]</nowiki> consider it the real Chicago style pizza rather than deep dish pizza.{{Dubious}}
|-
|{{w|Project Orion (nuclear propulsion)|Project Orion}}||Study by the U.S. government looking into nuclear pulse propulsion for spacecraft.||---||-||Using repeated nuclear explosions to generate motion sounds bad for both the spacecraft and everything else, especially with a ground launch, but there are ways to address a lot of the concerns, so it isn't as bad as it sounds. Project Orion's theorized specific impulse and thrust would also be far higher than anything chemical rockets can accomplish. The efficiency of Project Orion is extremely low, however, and the {{w|ablation}} issues are extremely difficult to overcome.

See also [[2423: Project Orion]].
|-
|Soup||{{w|Soup}}||0 (neutral)||0 (neutral)||Soup is probably one of the oldest foods created by prehistoric cooks. Many people enjoy it, though some consider many soups somewhat lacking as a meal on their own, or boring.
|-
|Combo washer dryers||A device that combines washing machine and laundry dryer into one device||+++||+||Better at space efficiency, but worse at each task than separate devices, and unable to do both tasks in parallel (useful when you have more than one batch of laundry).
|-
|Cutting sandwiches diagonally||Cutting sandwiches diagonally||+||+||[https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/math/a32690399/triangles-rectangles-best-way-cut-sandwich-math/ Generally] [https://www.npr.org/2009/11/28/120914097/rectangles-vs-triangles-the-great-sandwich-debate regarded] as the superior way to slice a sandwich, providing more aesthetically pleasing display of the contents, better support in the hand and fewer all-crust bites. Required in the assembly of a club sandwich,{{actual citation needed}} where the diagonal components are stacked again.
|-
|{{w|Diverging diamond interchange}}s||Road junction where the two (sets of) lanes cross over to switch sides (so if you normally drive on the right, now you drive on the left), then switch back to normal after the junction||-||+||Highway engineers believe the shape improves safety and traffic flow through the interchange because switching to the other side facilitates merging to and from the other road in the junction. However, the shape appears to be insanity to an unfamiliar driver.
|-
|Toasting sandwiches||Making a sandwich first and then cooking it, as in a dedicated {{w|Pie_iron|sandwich toaster}}, a {{w|toaster oven|toaster oven}}, frying pan or under a grill.||++||++||The grilled cheese sandwich is a familiar form to most people, and many other sandwiches are improved by toasting as a final step. Others, such as the {{w|western sandwich|Western}} or {{w|club sandwich|club}} are prepared using toast. The {{w|peanut butter, banana and bacon sandwich|Elvis}} is a specific case of a sandwich that normally wouldn't be toasted, but is improved by it - peanut butter, bacon, banana, and jelly, with the assembly lightly fried.
|-
|{{w|Crumple zone}}s||Designated areas of a car that crumple in case of a crash. ||--||++||Most people's intuition would be that stronger cars are safer, and intending parts of a vehicle to collapse ''by design'' might seem crazy. But engineered crumple zones are designed to absorb the kinetic energy in a vehicle collision, and do so in such a way as to protect the integrity of the passenger cabin. The result is that the occupants experience less intense deceleration and ideally without the damage significantly compressing the shell around them. This significantly reduces the danger of injury or death from crashes.
|-
|{{w|Sliced bread}}||Bread, sliced by the baker before packaging for sale||+++||++||It's far more convenient for making sandwiches or toast, but unfortunately pre-sliced bread will go stale faster and some applications may be better off thicker or thinner than the slices provided. Sliced bread is often used as a comparator for how good something is, using the phrase 'the best thing since sliced bread'.
|-
|Pizza||{{w|Pizza}}||++||++||Pizza is a widely popular dish throughout much of the world, uncontroversial {{w|Anchovies_as_food|except}} {{w|Pineapple|certain}} [https://www.taste.com.au/recipes/nutty-choc-pizza-fresh-berries/2c0220a4-8463-45ff-b2ba-ac7e5012a006 toppings].
|-
|Eating citrus fruit while at sea||Having a supply of {{w|citrus fruit}} on long sea journeys, especially during the {{w|Age of Sail}} ||0 (neutral)||+++||For a long time, {{w|Scurvy|scurvy}} was a danger to sailors, who generally subsisted on a monotonous diet of shelf-stable foods with low vitamin content while on long voyages. Most citrus fruits are rich in vitamin C, which prevents scurvy. Eating orange or lemons doesn't seem like a significant activity one way or the other, but it's an easy way to prevent a disease that causes serious ill-health and possibly a painful death.
|-
|Putting mold on infections||Seemingly a reference to the ancient practice of pressing moldy bread against infected wounds||---||++||While this sounds like a good way to get a fungal infection, with the correct mold this is a primitive way to obtain an antibiotic. Certain fungi naturally produce antibiotic substances, and this is where humans discovered {{w|penicillin}}.
|-
|Wheels on luggage||Some luggage bags have small wheels inset on their frame and a carrying handle.||+++||+++||A relatively simple fitting for rigid or semi-rigid luggage that substantially eases its transport over long distances on flat surfaces such as travel terminals.
|-
|{{w|Heat pump}}s||A technology that moves heat energy from a cold area to a warm area, most familiar as the technology that keeps a refrigerator cold. It can be used to heat a home interior in winter or cool it in summer.||++||+++||Unlike traditional furnaces, heat pumps do not generate heat (beyond a small overhead). Instead, they move existing thermal energy from a coolable environment across to a warmable one. This allows a space to be heated with significantly less energy use than a furnace or resistance heater that just generates heat 'from scratch'. Because these units are operated by electricity, they can provide heating with renewable energy (potentially using {{w|thermal energy storage}} for load-shifting), reduce or eliminate the need for natural gas connections, and prevent several risks that come with traditional furnaces (such a carbon monoxide leaks and fires). In addition, heat pumps can operate in the reverse direction as air conditioners, so a single unit can be designed to both heat and cool a building. It sounds like a good idea and works out better than expected in real life.
According to [https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/02/14/1068582/everything-you-need-to-know-about-heat-pumps/#:~:text=Heat%20pumps%20today%20can%20reach,today%20reach%20around%2095%25%20efficiency. MIT Technology review]:
<blockquote>Heat pumps today can reach 300% to 400% efficiency or even higher, meaning they’re putting out three to four times as much energy in the form of heat as they’re using in electricity. For a space heater, the theoretical maximum would be 100% efficiency, and the best models today reach around 95% efficiency.</blockquote>

See also [[2790: Heat Pump]].
|-
|{{w|Laser eye surgery}}||Surgical techniques using lasers for precision cutting in the eyeball.||-||+++||In the popular imagination, lasers are often thought of as something used for destroying their target. Firing them into people's eyes, then, does not sound like a great idea. However. this technology has substantially improved the eyesight of millions of people worldwide by allowing the treatment of eye problems otherwise only corrected by lenses or entirely untreatable. Randall has previously commented on laser eye surgery, amongst other ideas both good and bad, in [[1681: Laser Products]].
|-
|{{w|Fecal transplant}}s||Transfer of the gut microbiome of a healthy person to the sterilized gut of an ill person.||---||+++||The gut microbiome is a collection of bacteria that lives in our guts. It can influence our health. It is responsible for the last stages of digesting our food. It can also produce neurotransmitters that are carried by blood to our brain influencing our behavior. A healthy microbiome can be destroyed by bad eating habits, unhealthy lifestyles, acquired infections or the use of antibiotics. The important part is the composition of different species of bacteria that compromise the biome. Sometimes it may be necessary to completely sterilize the gut and then take a sample of a healthy biome from another person. A sample is enough as the bacteria will multiply. As long as the patient eats correctly, the microbiome after transplant should develop correctly.

It sounds bad because we tend to think of our feces as something gross, to be discarded, and other people's bacteria as infectious. It is called fecal transplant as our feces contain about 50% of gut bacteria, but nowadays the sample usually takes the form of a coated pill that is applied rectally.
|-
|}

==Transcript==
:[Two axes with double arrows cross each other in the middle. At the end of each arrow, there are labels. Scattered over the chart are 28 entries. Below these entries are given for each of the four quadrants, plus three that are on the Y-axis. For each quadrant the entries are listed in reading order, top to bottom left to right.]

:[X axis from left to right:]
:Sounds like a good idea
:Sounds like a bad idea

:[Y axis from top to bottom:]
:Actually a bad idea
:Actually a good idea

:[Top left quadrant (sounds like a good idea, actually a bad idea):]
:Leaded gasoline
:Asbestos
:Always saying what you think
:Solar cars
:Heelies
:Prequels
:Transitions® lenses

:[Top middle (actually a bad idea):]
:Extension cords with prongs on both ends

:[Top right quadrant (sounds like a bad idea, actually a bad idea):]
:Bloodletting
:Fake prank fire extinguishers
:Stair kayaking
:Replying to spammers
:Cutting pizza in squares
:Project Orion

:[Center (neutral):]
:Soup

:[Bottom left quadrant (sounds like a good idea, actually a good idea):]
:Combo washer dryers
:Cutting sandwiches diagonally
:Toasting sandwiches
:Sliced bread
:Pizza
:Wheels on luggage
:Heat pumps

:[Bottom middle (actually a good idea):]
:Eating citrus fruit while at sea

:[Bottom right quadrant (sounds like a bad idea, actually a good idea):]
:Diverging diamond interchanges
:Crumple zones
:Putting mold on infections
:Laser eye surgery
:Fecal transplants

==Trivia==
*A much leaner version of this comic appeared in the first [[What If? (book) | "What If?" book]], chapter "Weird (and Worrying) Questions from the What If? Inbox, #9".

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Scatter plots]]
[[Category:Rankings]]
[[Category:Food]]

2929: Good and Bad Ideas

2024-05-08T21:00:55Z

172.71.147.106: /* Table of the entries */ ext cords - short circuits

{{comic
| number = 2929
| date = May 6, 2024
| title = Good and Bad Ideas
| image = good_and_bad_ideas_2x.png
| imagesize = 595x522px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = While it seemed like a fun prank at the time, I realize my prank fire extinguishers full of leaded gasoline were a mistake.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD- Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This is a scatter plot comparing how good an idea sounds to how good the idea is. For example, leaded gasoline sounded like a good idea due to its anti-knocking effects, but is a bad idea due to lead toxicity. Fake prank fire extinguishers both sound bad and ''are'' bad, as they can make a dangerous situation worse. Putting mold on infections sounds like a bad idea, but some molds, like ones containing penicillin, have helpful antibiotic effects.

The title text combines leaded gasoline and a fake prank fire extinguisher into something worse than either. The fire extinguisher is fake and releases flammable material onto the fire, and there is additional lead toxicity.

===Table of the entries===
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Idea !! What it means !! How good it sounds !! How good it actually is !! Explanation
|-
|{{w|Leaded gasoline}}||Adding {{w|Tetraethyllead|tetraethyl lead}} as an antiknocking agent to allow for increased performance||++||---||Leaded gasoline was introduced in the early 1920s to allow higher pressures and temperatures in an engine without causing {{w|Engine_knocking|detonation (knocking)}}, allowing for increased fuel efficiency and engine performance; it also works to prevent engine valve wear. In essence, it artificially raises the {{w|octane rating}} of the fuel, reducing the need for fuel refinement, thus reducing waste and/or expense. Lead, however, is both toxic and bioaccumulative, meaning that lead released into the air over decades built up to harmful levels in people (as well as other animals) and almost certainly contributed to a host of health issues. Some scientists even suppose that {{w|Lead–crime hypothesis|crime levels are influenced by lead exposure}}. (It should be noted that this only "[sounded] like a good idea" due to deliberate campaigns to obscure the known dangers).
|-
|{{w|Bloodletting}}||Releasing "bad blood" from the veins||---||---||You need (most of) your blood. Losing [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK542273/ more than 15%] of a person's total blood volume results in adverse effects. Bloodletting was performed as a medical procedure for at least 2000 years until the 19th century. The idea was to withdraw blood to balance the body's "humors". Despite this long history, the notion that bleeding someone is bad now seems like basic common sense, and it's now well-understood that blood-letting (outside of {{what if|98|certain rare and specific cases}}) does no good, causes significant harm and quite certainly causes many deaths.
|-
|{{w|Asbestos}}||Mineral which does not burn, tolerates extremely high temperatures and forms small fibers. These qualities make it excellent for insulation and fire protection||+++||---||Asbestos was used extensively in ships and buildings throughout most of the 20th century. Unfortunately, the microscopic fibers that make up asbestos greatly increase the risk of {{w|Asbestosis|lung disease}} and cancer when inhaled, causing its use to be banned in most countries.
|-
|Extension cords with prongs on both ends||allows easy connection between 2 female connectors||0 (neutral)||---||Prongs on both ends would make it easier to plug the extension cord in on either side. But once plugged into an outlet, the other end becomes a serious shock hazard, as seen in [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L08LjkN1k70 this Backyard Scientist video]. Shot circuits (both ends connected to outlets supplying power) would be much more likely, resulting in more sparks, fires, and damage to wiring.
|-
|Stair kayaking||Riding down a flight of stairs in a {{w|kayak}}||--||---|| Stair kayaking is a stunt where a person positions a kayak at the top of a flight of stairs and then, using their paddle to push off, [https://youtu.be/46BjHAxgddU?t=154 rides the kayak down the stairs]. This poses significant easily foreseeable risks of injury or death, as well as being very bad for the kayak, which is designed to ride on {{w|Kayak|water}}, not stairs.{{Citation needed}}
|-
|Fake prank fire extinguishers||Intentionally placing empty or otherwise non-functional {{w|fire extinguisher|fire extinguishers}} as a {{w|practical joke}}.||---||---|| The idea of placing fake fire extinguishers as a prank, presumably so that a person who thinks they are grabbing a real fire extinguisher will instead find a decoy, sounds very dangerous and potentially life-threatening for many people, and it would be highly dangerous. In the United States, (and presumably most countries), this would also be a felony in most, if not all, jurisdictions. An example of a similar situation, although not intended as a prank, can be found [https://twitter.com/ThatSamWinkler/status/1657154071051239424 here].
The title text expands this idea by having the prank fire extinguishers filled with (leaded) gasoline. This is literally adding fuel to the fire.
|-
|Always saying what you think||...regardless of the feelings of others or other considerations||++||--||Openness and honesty are seen as positive character traits in people. However, taking it to the extreme of ''always'' telling people what you think about them, can lead to awkward or unpleasant situations. It may harm your relationship with the other person if they don't like what you think, or they may reply without concern for ''your'' feelings or other considerations. Keeping negative thoughts to yourself or telling "white lies" can be considered a better alternative in some situations.
|-
|Replying to spammers||Clicking on the "Reply" button from {{w|spam email}}s and writing (and sending) a reply (or worse, clicking on the links in these emails)||--||--||At best, you confirm your email address and identify yourself as someone likely to respond to such unsolicited messages and so encourage the spammers to deluge you with even more messages. At worst, the spammer may use your correspondence to extract sensitive information about you or make you a victim of a scam.
|-
|{{w|Solar car}}s||Having {{w|Solar panel|solar panels}} on the car's surface (mostly hood and roof) for power generation||+++||-||Powering electric vehicles with solar panels seems like an excellent idea: it would provide free power with no increased land use, and theoretically could allow a vehicle to operate indefinitely without being fueled or charged. However, such vehicles couldn't operate without batteries (due to power requirements, weather conditions, shade from roadside features and nighttime driving), so they'd have increased complexity compared to plug-in or hybrid cars. Adding solar panels would add cost, weight, manufacturing complexity and maintenance requirements. Solar panels on moving cars are less efficient than in stationary installations and subject to damage from both collisions and road debris; even without these problems, the size of automobiles relative to their power requirements would sharply limit the car's range (unless it was a normal electric vehicle with supplemental solar panels). Solar cars do exist (the {{w|World Solar Challenge}} is a competition for such cars), but as a practical form of transportation, the negatives likely outweigh the positives.
|-
|Heelies||{{w|Heelys}} are shoes with an inline skate wheel embedded in the sole, at the heel. ||+||-||Heelys allow the wearer (usually children) to shift between normal walking and rolling like being on skates. This sounds like fun but [https://abcnews.go.com/Health/Exercise/story?id=3242181&page=1 has been suggested] to be a potentially significant injury risk.
|-
|Prequels||A work of fiction (mostly movie) telling the "story before the story" of another work of fiction.||+++||-||More of a good story sounds great on the surface, and audiences who are invested in a set of characters and/or a setting often love the idea of finding out what led up to certain events. But there are several pitfalls. Any spin-off of a popular property risks becoming a low-quality cash grab. Prequels, specifically, are constrained by the fact that they have to lead to the story that's already been released, which can lead to contrived storytelling. There's less room for suspense since the future of the storyline has already been established. There's a tendency to invent or fill in detailed backstories, which can undermine character arcs, and/or destroy the mystery and nuance of certain characters. And, since they tend only to be made where the original is already well-received, regression to the mean tends to mean they are more likely than not to fail to live up to expectations. Prequels can be good, of course, but there are a lot of ways they can go wrong.
|-
|Transitions® lenses||A brand name for {{w|Photochromic_lens|photochromic lenses}} in glasses, which get darker (like sunglasses) in bright light.||+||-||Photochromic lenses are clear lenses that darken when exposed to UV light, then turn clear again when the exposure is removed. The advantage is that wearers of glasses don't need to buy separate (prescription) sunglasses. However, the process is relatively slow (about a minute) so not so useful when there is a quick succession of shade and bright light, perhaps in a forest or when driving. If used in a car, the windscreen filters out UV light to some degree, which prevents the glasses from darkening as required. Finally, the process is temperature dependent, so in hot weather the glasses don't become as dark, and in cold weather they might stay dark for too long.

Additionally, the following should be considered. UV-conscious people protect their face against UV light, so the skin doesn't form wrinkles and ages slower. Sunscreen is difficult to apply around eyes without getting the substance on eyeballs (cosmetic substances should not get there). One of the reasons behind wearing sunglasses may be to protect skin around eyes from forming so called {{w|wrinkle|crow's feet}}. Under UV-filtering sunglasses, UV-activated transitions contact lenses will not darken defeating their purpose. At the same time transitions contacts are typically at least twice as expensive as the regular ones.
|-
|Cutting pizza in squares||Cutting (a presumably round) pizza in squares||-||-||Most people cut pizza into wedges and hold it by the crust. Cutting it into squares could allow for more pieces to be shared, if the resulting wedges would be too thin to be practical. However, pieces near the center will have no crust to hold it by, getting cheese and sauce all over your fingers. Cuts around the edge will probably leave smaller leftover scraps which are mostly crust. While hardly a disaster like the other items in its quadrant, square pizza pieces are just not very useful and rather inefficient. Cutting a rectangular pizza into squares might not suffer from the problems above, but, unless the pizza itself is square and cut only into four squares, some people will end up with a higher crust-to-topping ratio than others. Cutting a round pizza into squares is popular in Chicago and is sometimes called tavern-style or party-cut and some<nowiki>[</nowiki>''{{w|Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Words_to_watch#Unsupported_attributions|who?}}''<nowiki>]</nowiki> consider it the real Chicago style pizza rather than deep dish pizza.{{Dubious}}
|-
|{{w|Project Orion (nuclear propulsion)|Project Orion}}||Study by the U.S. government looking into nuclear pulse propulsion for spacecraft.||---||-||Using repeated nuclear explosions to generate motion sounds bad for both the spacecraft and everything else, especially with a ground launch, but there are ways to address a lot of the concerns, so it isn't as bad as it sounds. Project Orion's theorized specific impulse and thrust would also be far higher than anything chemical rockets can accomplish. The efficiency of Project Orion is extremely low, however, and the {{w|ablation}} issues are extremely difficult to overcome.

See also [[2423: Project Orion]].
|-
|Soup||{{w|Soup}}||0 (neutral)||0 (neutral)||Soup is probably one of the oldest foods created by prehistoric cooks. Many people enjoy it, though some consider many soups somewhat lacking as a meal on their own, or boring.
|-
|Combo washer dryers||A device that combines washing machine and laundry dryer into one device||+++||+||Better at space efficiency, but worse at each task than separate devices, and unable to do both tasks in parallel (useful when you have more than one batch of laundry).
|-
|Cutting sandwiches diagonally||Cutting sandwiches diagonally||+||+||[https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/math/a32690399/triangles-rectangles-best-way-cut-sandwich-math/ Generally] [https://www.npr.org/2009/11/28/120914097/rectangles-vs-triangles-the-great-sandwich-debate regarded] as the superior way to slice a sandwich, providing more aesthetically pleasing display of the contents, better support in the hand and fewer all-crust bites. Required in the assembly of a club sandwich,{{actual citation needed}} where the diagonal components are stacked again.
|-
|{{w|Diverging diamond interchange}}s||Road junction where the two (sets of) lanes cross over to switch sides (so if you normally drive on the right, now you drive on the left), then switch back to normal after the junction||-||+||Highway engineers believe the shape improves safety and traffic flow through the interchange because switching to the other side facilitates merging to and from the other road in the junction. However, the shape appears to be insanity to an unfamiliar driver.
|-
|Toasting sandwiches||Making a sandwich first and then cooking it, as in a dedicated {{w|Pie_iron|sandwich toaster}}, a {{w|toaster oven|toaster oven}}, frying pan or under a grill.||++||++||The grilled cheese sandwich is a familiar form to most people, and many other sandwiches are improved by toasting as a final step. Others, such as the {{w|western sandwich|Western}} or {{w|club sandwich|club}} are prepared using toast. The {{w|peanut butter, banana and bacon sandwich|Elvis}} is a specific case of a sandwich that normally wouldn't be toasted, but is improved by it - peanut butter, bacon, banana, and jelly, with the assembly lightly fried.
|-
|{{w|Crumple zone}}s||Designated areas of a car that crumple in case of a crash. ||--||++||Most people's intuition would be that stronger cars are safer, and intending parts of a vehicle to collapse ''by design'' might seem crazy. But engineered crumple zones are designed to absorb the kinetic energy in a vehicle collision, and do so in such a way as to protect the integrity of the passenger cabin. The result is that the occupants experience less intense deceleration and ideally without the damage significantly compressing the shell around them. This significantly reduces the danger of injury or death from crashes.
|-
|{{w|Sliced bread}}||Bread, sliced by the baker before packaging for sale||+++||++||It's far more convenient for making sandwiches or toast, but unfortunately pre-sliced bread will go stale faster and some applications may be better off thicker or thinner than the slices provided. Sliced bread is often used as a comparator for how good something is, using the phrase 'the best thing since sliced bread'.
|-
|Pizza||{{w|Pizza}}||++||++||Pizza is a widely popular dish throughout much of the world, uncontroversial {{w|Anchovies_as_food|except}} {{w|Pineapple|certain}} [https://www.taste.com.au/recipes/nutty-choc-pizza-fresh-berries/2c0220a4-8463-45ff-b2ba-ac7e5012a006 toppings].
|-
|Eating citrus fruit while at sea||Having a supply of {{w|citrus fruit}} on long sea journeys, especially during the {{w|Age of Sail}} ||0 (neutral)||+++||For a long time, {{w|Scurvy|scurvy}} was a danger to sailors, who generally subsisted on a monotonous diet of shelf-stable foods with low vitamin content while on long voyages. Most citrus fruits are rich in vitamin C, which prevents scurvy. Eating orange or lemons doesn't seem like a significant activity one way or the other, but it's an easy way to prevent a disease that causes serious ill-health and possibly a painful death.
|-
|Putting mold on infections||Seemingly a reference to the ancient practice of pressing moldy bread against infected wounds||---||++||While this sounds like a good way to get a fungal infection, with the correct mold this is a primitive way to obtain an antibiotic. Certain fungi naturally produce antibiotic substances, and this is where humans discovered {{w|penicillin}}.
|-
|Wheels on luggage||Some luggage bags have small wheels inset on their frame and a carrying handle.||+++||+++||A relatively simple fitting for rigid or semi-rigid luggage that substantially eases its transport over long distances on flat surfaces such as travel terminals.
|-
|{{w|Heat pump}}s||A technology that moves heat energy from a cold area to a warm area, most familiar as the technology that keeps a refrigerator cold. It can be used to heat a home interior in winter or cool it in summer.||++||+++||Unlike traditional furnaces, heat pumps do not generate heat (beyond a small overhead). Instead, they move existing thermal energy from a coolable environment across to a warmable one. This allows a space to be heated with significantly less energy use than a furnace or resistance heater that just generates heat 'from scratch'. Because these units are operated by electricity, they can provide heating with renewable energy (potentially using {{w|thermal energy storage}} for load-shifting), reduce or eliminate the need for natural gas connections, and prevent several risks that come with traditional furnaces (such a carbon monoxide leaks and fires). In addition, heat pumps can operate in the reverse direction as air conditioners, so a single unit can be designed to both heat and cool a building. It sounds like a good idea and works out better than expected in real life.
According to [https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/02/14/1068582/everything-you-need-to-know-about-heat-pumps/#:~:text=Heat%20pumps%20today%20can%20reach,today%20reach%20around%2095%25%20efficiency. MIT Technology review]:
<blockquote>Heat pumps today can reach 300% to 400% efficiency or even higher, meaning they’re putting out three to four times as much energy in the form of heat as they’re using in electricity. For a space heater, the theoretical maximum would be 100% efficiency, and the best models today reach around 95% efficiency.</blockquote>

See also [[2790: Heat Pump]].
|-
|{{w|Laser eye surgery}}||Surgical techniques using lasers for precision cutting in the eyeball.||-||+++||In the popular imagination, lasers are often thought of as something used for destroying their target. Firing them into people's eyes, then, does not sound like a great idea. However. this technology has substantially improved the eyesight of millions of people worldwide by allowing the treatment of eye problems otherwise only corrected by lenses or entirely untreatable. Randall has previously commented on laser eye surgery, amongst other ideas both good and bad, in [[1681: Laser Products]].
|-
|{{w|Fecal transplant}}s||Transfer of the gut microbiome of a healthy person to the sterilized gut of an ill person.||---||+++||The gut microbiome is a collection of bacteria that lives in our guts. It can influence our health. It is responsible for the last stages of digesting our food. It can also produce neurotransmitters that are carried by blood to our brain influencing our behavior. A healthy microbiome can be destroyed by bad eating habits, unhealthy lifestyles, acquired infections or the use of antibiotics. The important part is the composition of different species of bacteria that compromise the biome. Sometimes it may be necessary to completely sterilize the gut and then take a sample of a healthy biome from another person. A sample is enough as the bacteria will multiply. As long as the patient eats correctly, the microbiome after transplant should develop correctly.

It sounds bad because we tend to think of our feces as something gross, to be discarded, and other people's bacteria as infectious. It is called fecal transplant as our feces contain about 50% of gut bacteria, but nowadays the sample usually takes the form of a coated pill that is applied rectally.
|-
|}

==Transcript==
:[Two axes with double arrows cross each other in the middle. At the end of each arrow, there are labels. Scattered over the chart are 28 entries. Below these entries are given for each of the four quadrants, plus three that are on the Y-axis. For each quadrant the entries are listed in reading order, top to bottom left to right.]

:[X axis from left to right:]
:Sounds like a good idea
:Sounds like a bad idea

:[Y axis from top to bottom:]
:Actually a bad idea
:Actually a good idea

:[Top left quadrant (sounds like a good idea, actually a bad idea):]
:Leaded gasoline
:Asbestos
:Always saying what you think
:Solar cars
:Heelies
:Prequels
:Transitions® lenses

:[Top middle (actually a bad idea):]
:Extension cords with prongs on both ends

:[Top right quadrant (sounds like a bad idea, actually a bad idea):]
:Bloodletting
:Fake prank fire extinguishers
:Stair kayaking
:Replying to spammers
:Cutting pizza in squares
:Project Orion

:[Center (neutral):]
:Soup

:[Bottom left quadrant (sounds like a good idea, actually a good idea):]
:Combo washer dryers
:Cutting sandwiches diagonally
:Toasting sandwiches
:Sliced bread
:Pizza
:Wheels on luggage
:Heat pumps

:[Bottom middle (actually a good idea):]
:Eating citrus fruit while at sea

:[Bottom right quadrant (sounds like a bad idea, actually a good idea):]
:Diverging diamond interchanges
:Crumple zones
:Putting mold on infections
:Laser eye surgery
:Fecal transplants

==Trivia==
*A much leaner version of this comic appeared in the first [[What If? (book) | "What If?" book]], chapter "Weird (and Worrying) Questions from the What If? Inbox, #9".

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Scatter plots]]
[[Category:Rankings]]
[[Category:Food]]