Talk:1149: Broomstick

2012-12-19T16:49:50Z

Chriss:

:Anyone have any thoughts on the title text? Is that intended to suggest that Toto was an annoyance that Dorothy was happy to be rid of? I'm not really sure why (if) it's supposed to be funny... [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 15:50, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
::I figured it was a kind of loophole closing. With a lot of movies, you have viewers that go "well if the protagonist had just done 'this', then they could have saved a lot of trouble." But in this "easier" scenario, what reason would the witch have to trust Dorothy? Collateral is often used to ensure that one party will keep up their end of a deal, so it helped to seal this one. [[Special:Contributions/76.122.5.96|76.122.5.96]] 16:11, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
::I agree that the intention was to close a loophole, but I also was unable to fathom that Dorothy would leave Toto behind. It would be ''way'' out of character for her. If Dorothy had been a more self-centered character, then the title text would be a lot funnier. [[User:Smperron|Smperron]] ([[User talk:Smperron|talk]]) 11:38, 19 December 2012 (EST)
::Definitely to close a loophole. Dorothy has something the Witch wants that Dorothy doesn't need except the crazy witch wants to hurt her for them. The Wizard seems to have what she needs but won't give it except for what the witch wants. A trade seems much easier. But of course, who would trust the witch (and why would the untrusting witch start trusting)? All things considered, if you're in a strange land with freaky creatures and frighteningly perverse singalongs, you might consider a Scottish terrier a small price to pay to return to a Kansas farm which, while dull, is far superior to that crazy place. :) [[User:Chriss|Chriss]] ([[User talk:Chriss|talk]]) 16:49, 19 December 2012 (UTC)Chriss

925: Cell Phones

2012-11-08T01:36:56Z

Chriss: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 925
| date = July 15, 2011
| title = Cell Phones
| image = cell_phones.png
| imagesize =
| titletext = He holds the laptop like that on purpose, to make you cringe.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, after hearing about the "Cell Phones Don't Cause Cancer" study, Black Hat plots "Total Cancer Incidence" per 100,000 and "Cell Phone Users" per 100 on the same graph. The graph in frame 3 shows that the number of cell phone users rises after the number of cancer incidence, which makes Black Hat comically come to the conclusion that Cancer causes Cell Phones.

Also, since the image text asks, yes, the way that Black Hat holds the laptop in frame 2 totally makes me cringe.

The comic highlights a well-known fallacy known as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc ''post hoc ergo propter hoc''], often shortened to simply ''post hoc.'' The Latin translates to "after this, therefore because of this," referring to the common mistake that because two events happen in chronological order, the former event must have caused the latter event. The fallacy is often the root cause of many superstitions (e.g., a person noticing he/she wore a special bracelet before getting a good test score thinks the bracelet was the source of his/her good fortune), but it often crosses into more serious areas of thinking. In this case, the scientific research community, which often prides itself on its intellectual aptitude, is gently mocked for being nonetheless prone to such poor reasoning all too often.

==Transcript==
:[A person is holding a cellphone. The black hat guy is sitting at a desk with a laptop.]
:Person: Another huge study found no evidence that cell phones cause cancer. What was the {{w|World Health Organization|W.H.O.}} thinking?
:Black Hat Guy: I think they just got it backward.

:[The black hat guy swivels in his chair, holding the laptop by the upper edge of the screen.]
:Person: Huh?
:Black Hat Guy: Well, take a look.

:[There is a plot of total cancer incidence and cell phone users. Cancer rises from 1970 to 1990, then stays relatively steady. Cell phone use rises from 1980 to the present.]

:Person: You're not... There are so many problems with that.
:Black Hat Guy: Just to be safe, until I see more data I'm going to assume cancer causes cell phones.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics with charts]]
[[Category:Cancer]]

explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:1149: Broomstick

925: Cell Phones