explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

616: Lease

2013-04-17T18:45:30Z

Janetmweiss: Created page with "{{comic | number = 616 | date = July 29, 2009 | title = Lease | image = lease.png | titletext = You should talk to the girl down the hall; I think you'd like h..."

{{comic
| number = 616
| date = July 29, 2009
| title = Lease
| image = lease.png
| titletext = You should talk to the girl down the hall; I think you'd like her. Lemme know if you find out why she's ordering all those colored plastic balls.
}}

==Explanation==
A man is about to sign a lease to rent a building, but he's scared that he's not grown-up enough for the responsibility, presenting as evidence that he still plays with {{w|Lego}} building blocks.

In reality, as children, we often think that when we're adults, we'll somehow definitively feel like adults, but this isn't the case. We may become more responsible and capable over time, but we'll never attain the infallibility we erroneously associated with adults when ''we'' were children.

Of course, the man in this comic actually ''isn't'' responsible and capable, since he drifts off to think about the fictional character {{w|Batman}} (who originally appeared in children's comics) in the middle of a serious financial transaction.

The title text references one of xkcd's most famous comics, [[150: Grownups]], where a woman decides to use the freedom of adulthood to fill her apartment with playpen balls.

==Transcript==
:[A man is holding a sheet of paper.]
:Man #1: Okay, any other concerns before you sign the lease?

:Man #2: I'm concerned that we're sitting here like I'm a responsible adult. I'm pretty sure I stopped growing up in my teens and have been faking ever since.

:Man #2: For god's sake, you're entrusting me with a building. I still make LEGO buildings sometimes.

:Man #1: Sir, does any of this impact your fulfillment of the lease terms?
:Man #2: I don't know what you just said because I was thinking about Batman.

{{comic discussion}}

625: Collections

2013-04-17T18:28:54Z

Janetmweiss: Created page with "{{comic | number = 625 | date = August 19, 2009 | title = Collections | image = collections.png | titletext = You know what really helps an existential crisis?..."

{{comic
| number = 625
| date = August 19, 2009
| title = Collections
| image = collections.png
| titletext = You know what really helps an existential crisis? Wondering how much shelf space to leave for a Terry Pratchett collection.
}}

==Explanation==
A man enters, excited that he's managed to buy every one of author {{w|Terry Pratchett}}'s {{w|Discworld}} books for his {{w|Amazon Kindle|Kindle e-reader}}. The woman he's talking to says that it seems pointless to her to build a Kindle collection.

The man interprets this to mean she thinks it's pointless to build a collection on an electronic device, perhaps due to the {{w|Digital rights management|digital rights management}} software common on these devices which can (for instance) make it difficult to transfer the files if the device breaks.

However, the woman is ''actually'' commenting on the futility of building up any kind of collection at all, since nothing we do can change the fact that we're inevitably going to die. This view is in line with those advanced by the philosophical movement known as {{w|Existentialism|existentialism}} which theorizes that life has no deep, hidden meaning and hence even things that we personally feel are meaningful (like building up collections) will not change the outcome of life in the end. (A {{w|Magpie|magpie}} is a bird traditionally thought to be drawn to collect shiny objects and bring them back to its nest.)

This doesn't bother the man, though, and in the title text he gleefully ponders how much shelf space he'd need to accommodate physical copies of all of Terry Pratchett's books.

==Transcript==
:Man: I now have every Discworld book!
:Woman: Eh. Building a Kindle collection seems pointless.

:Man: Yeah, I know the DRM means I'll probably lose them someday.
:Woman: No, pointless in general.

:Woman: Sure, you satisfy deep magpie-like urges by building neat collections, but you still die alone.

:Man: Sorry, sometimes I mistake your existential crises for technical insights.
:Woman: Sometimes I mistake this for a universe that cares.

{{comic discussion}}

525: I Know You're Listening

2013-04-17T18:07:05Z

Janetmweiss: Created page with "{{comic | number = 525 | date = January 2, 2009 | title = I Know You're Listening | image = i know youre listening.png | titletext = Basically it's Pascal's Wa..."

{{comic
| number = 525
| date = January 2, 2009
| title = I Know You're Listening
| image = i know youre listening.png
| titletext = Basically it's Pascal's Wager for the paranoid prankster
}}

==Explanation==
The man in this comic periodically says "I know you're listening" aloud in empty rooms. The idea is that if nobody is listening, he doesn't lose anything, and if somebody ''is'' listening, he gains by freaking them out. As mentioned in the title text, this is similar to {{w|Pascal's wager|Pascal's Wager}}. Blaise Pascal was a French philosopher and mathematician who postulated that it was best to behave like a good Christian on earth because, if there was no afterlife, you wouldn't lose anything by being Christian, and if there was, you'd gain immensely by going to heaven due to being a Christian. (Needless to say, there are numerous holes in this argument.)

==Transcript==
:Now and then, I announce "I know you're listening" to empty rooms.
:[Man is sitting in an armchair, reading. He murmurs something.]
:[Second man in front of a large computer terminal jumps out of chair after hearing the first man mumble. His chair has fallen over]
:If I'm wrong, no one knows. And if I'm right, maybe I just freaked the hell out of some secret organization.

{{comic discussion}}

526: Converting to Metric

2013-04-17T17:56:13Z

Janetmweiss: Created page with "{{comic | number = 526 | date = January 5, 2009 | title = Converting to Metric | image = converting to metric.png | titletext = According to River, "adequate"..."

{{comic
| number = 526
| date = January 5, 2009
| title = Converting to Metric
| image = converting to metric.png
| titletext = According to River, "adequate" vacuuming systems drain the human body at about half a liter per second.
}}

==Explanation==
Most people will eventually develop an intuitive feel for how big certain measurements are (e.g., how long an inch or a foot is, how much a pound weighs). This comic points out that people who were brought up using the {{w|Imperial measurement|imperial system}} probably don't have the same intuitive understanding for metric units and attempts to provide some benchmarks for these people. Most of the benchmarks are common sense, highly-useful ones (e.g., if it's 30 degrees centigrade, you'd be quite comfortable outside dressed for the beach) but some of the benchmarks are humorous and/or completely useless. Benchmarks include:

Temperature
*-20 degrees centigrade - FuckFuckFuckCold and -30 degrees centigrade - Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck!: This is basically what you say when you step outside at this temperature
*-40 degrees centigrade - Spit goes "clink": The temperature at which your spit would freeze

Length
*1cm - Width of microSD card and 3cm - Length of SD card: Refers to the {{w|MicroSD card|memory cards}} used in cell phones, digital cameras, etc.
*1m - {{w|Lightsaber|Lightsaber Blade}}: Refers the weapon used in the {{w|Star Wars}} movie franchise.
*170cm - {{w|Summer Glau}}: Refers to the height of the actress who portrays the character River Tam on the TV show {{w|Firefly (TV series)|Firefly}}.
*200cm - Darth Vader: Refers to the height of the main antagonist from Star Wars.
*16m4cm - Human tower of Serenity crew: Again, this refers to the Firefly TV show, which takes place mostly on a space ship called Serenity. Presumably, if all the crew of Serenity were stacked on top of each other, this would be their combined height. The comic depicts four characters from the show standing on top of each other; the bottom figure is the crew's captain, {{w|Malcolm Reynolds}} in his signature coat.

Speed
*110 kph - 30 m/s - Interstate (65 MPH): Refers to the {{w|Interstate|American highway system}}...
*120 kph - 35 m/s - Speed you actually go when it says "65":...whose speed limit everyone routinely breaks.

Volume
*30mL - Nasal Passages and 40mL - Shot Glass: The comic points out that you could just about fill a shot glass using the mucus from your nose. Since shot glasses are usually used for mixed drinks, the comic jokes that this mucus could constitute a new, disgusting drink.
*30L - Milk Crate: Refers to a {{w|Milk crate|type of small box}} originally used to transport milk but now often in demand to be used as bicycle basket, storage spaces, etc.
*55L - Summer Glau: Again, this refers to the actress from Firefly.
*65L - {{w|Dennis Kucinich}}: An American politician belonging to the {{w|Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic party}}, noted for his relatively strong (for the US) leftest views.
*75L - {{w|Ron Paul}}: An American politician belonging to the rival {{w|Republican Party (United States)|Republican party}}, noted for his strong rightest views. As hinted at in the comic, he, Kucinich and Glau would not get along at all well together trapped inside a fridge.

Mass
*3g - {{w|M&M's|Peanut M&M}}: A small chocolate candy
*5kg - {{w|Lcd monitor|LCD Monitor}}: A modern flat-screen-style monitor.
*15kg - {{w|CRT monitor|CRT Monitor}}: An older-style, cathode ray tube-based monitor.
*4kg - Cat and 4.1kg - Cat (With Caption): Refers to the internet's love of putting {{w|Lolcat|captions on cats}}. Usually, this is done in a graphics program, but here the cat is actually physically carrying around his caption.
*150kg - Shaq: {{w|Shaq|Shaquille O'Neal}}, a famously tall basketball player.
*200kg - Your Mom, 220kg - Your Mom (incl. cheap jewelry) and 223kg - Your Mom (also incl. Makeup): Refers to a common type of {{w|Your mom|joking insult}} whereby someone insults someone else's mother in a creative way. Here, the comic slyly calls your mom fat and implies she wears way too much jewelry and almost 7 pounds of makeup.

The hover text refers once again to Summer Glau's Firefly character, River, who (after being subjected to a long series of medical experiments) is severely mentally ill and often comes out with macabre—though scientifically accurate—pronouncements.

==Transcript==
:Guide to Converting to Metric
:The key to converting to metric is establishing new reference points. When you hear "26 degrees centigrade", instead of thinking "That's 79 degrees fahrenheit" you should think, "that's warmer then a house but cool for swimming." Here are some helpful tables of reference points:

:Temperature:
:60 degrees centigrade - Earth's Hottest
:45 degrees centigrade - Dubai Heat Wave
:40 degrees centigrade - Southern US Heat Wave
:35 degrees centigrade - Northern US Heat Wave
:30 degrees centigrade - Beach weather
:25 degrees centigrade - Warm Room
:20 degrees centigrade - Room Temperature
:10 degrees centigrade - Jacket Weather
:0 degrees centigrade - Snow!
:-5 degrees centigrade - Cold Day (Boston)
:-10 degrees centigrade - Cold Day (Moscow)
:-20 degrees centigrade - FuckFuckFuckCold
:-30 degrees centigrade - Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck!
:-40 degrees centigrade - Spit goes "clink"
:[Stick figure next to last three lines]
:Man: <<Pthoo>> [Man spits]
:Spit: <<Clink!>> [Spit bounces off ground]

:Length
:1cm - Width of microSD card
:3cm - Length of SD card
:12cm - CD Diameter
:14cm - Penis
:15cm - BIC pen
:80cm - Doorway width
:1m - Lightsaber Blade
:170cm - Summer Glau
:200cm - Darth Vader
:2.5m - Ceiling
:5m - Car-length
:16m4cm - Human tower of Serenity crew
:[Human tower of Serenity crew stick figures depicted taking up from second line of panel to bottom]

:Speed
:5 kph - 1.5 m/s - Walking
:13 kph - 3.5 m/s - Jogging
:25 kph - 7 m/s - Sprinting
:35 kph - 10 m/s - Fastest Human
:45 kph - 13 m/s - Housecat
:55 kph - 15 m/s - Rabbit
:75 kph - 20 m/s - Raptor
:100 kph - 25 m/s - Slow Highway
:110 kph - 30 m/s - Interstate (65 MPH)
:120 kph - 35 m/s - Speed you actually go when it says "65"
:140 kph - 40 m/s - Raptor on Hoverboard

:Volume
:3mL - Blood in a fieldmouse
:5mL - Teaspoon
:30mL - Nasal Passages
:40mL - Shot Glass
:So when it's blocked, the mucus in your nose could about fill a shot glass.
:[Image of a shot glass] Related: I've invented the worst mixed drink ever.
:350mL - Soda Can
:500mL - Water Bottle
:3L - Two-Liter Bottle
:5L - Blood in a Human Male
:30L - Milk Crate
:55L - Summer Glau
:65L - Dennis Kucinich
:75L - Ron Paul
:200L - Fridge
:[Stick figure shoving stick figures of Ron Paul, Summer Glau, and Dennis Kucinich into fridge]
:[Above fridge, circled, is 55+65+75 < 200]

:Mass
:3g - Peanut M&M
:100g - Cell Phone
:500g - Bottled Water
:1kg - Ultraportable Laptop
:2kg - Light-Medium Laptop
:3kg - Heavy Laptop
:5kg - LCD Monitor
:15kg - CRT Monitor
:4kg - Cat [Drawing of cat]
:4.1kg - Cat (With Caption) [Drawing of cat, going "Mrowl?", and holding a caption]
:60kg - Lady
:70kg - Dude
:150kg - Shaq
:[Stick figure of lady and dude beside previous 3 lines]
:200kg - Your Mom
:220kg - Your Mom (incl. cheap jewelry)
:223kg - Your Mom (also incl. Makeup)

{{comic discussion}}

592: Drama

2013-04-17T17:45:45Z

Janetmweiss: Added reference to comic 1124

{{comic
| number = 592
| date = June 3, 2009
| title = Drama
| image = drama.png
| titletext = This happens in geek circles every so often. The "Hey, this is just a system I can figure out easily!" is also a problem among engineers first diving into the stock market.
}}

==Explanation==

In this comic, two men and a woman discuss how irrational society's interactions about sex are. They decide to throw out all these silly societal rules to end drama forever and spread this philosophy to everyone they know, which immediately leads to a huge increase in drama.

As one of the men in the comic states, people are indeed complicated and—crucially—what seems intuitive and rational to one person might seem completely crazy and irrational to someone else; so throwing out all the rules one person thinks make no sense isn't going to mean the world suddenly makes sense for everyone else. Instead, everyone who understands the old rules, whether they like them or not, will suddenly find themselves in a completely alien world to which they have no idea how to relate.

Furthermore, any one person's sense of what seems rational is based on {{w|Incomplete information|incomplete information}}. The three people in the comic trying to change all the sex rules—like the engineers referenced in the title text who thinks they can "solve" the stock market—can't even begin to conceive of all the chaotic factors affecting the system they're trying to fix, so they have no way of knowing which rules are truly crazy and which rational.

Geek often fall prey to the fallacy that human interactions can be easily simplified if only a group of sufficiently qualified geeks put their minds to it as laid out in [http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html The Geek Social Fallacies] and [http://pervocracy.blogspot.ca/2012/02/geek-social-fallacies-of-sex.html The Geek Social Fallacies of Sex].

Randall also covers similar ground in comic [[1124: Law of Drama]].

==Transcript==
:[Three people are sitting together.]
:Woman: Man, sex has all these crazy social rules. They just create drama.
:Man #2: Let's agree to change them, and make sex simple!
:Man #1: Okay!

:Man: Hooray! We've solved the problem of drama!
:Man: I'll go tell everyone!
:[The man opens a door.]

:[There is a graph, showing time vs. drama. A vertical dotted line indicates the rule change. Drama is low before the line, then steadily increases afterward.]

:[The man closes and leans against the door.]
:Man: Holy shit
:Man: Guys
:Man: People are complicated!

{{comic discussion}}

592: Drama

2013-04-17T17:42:23Z

Janetmweiss:

{{comic
| number = 592
| date = June 3, 2009
| title = Drama
| image = drama.png
| titletext = This happens in geek circles every so often. The "Hey, this is just a system I can figure out easily!" is also a problem among engineers first diving into the stock market.
}}

==Explanation==

In this comic, two men and a woman discuss how irrational society's interactions about sex are. They decide to throw out all these silly societal rules to end drama forever and spread this philosophy to everyone they know, which immediately leads to a huge increase in drama.

As one of the men in the comic states, people are indeed complicated and—crucially—what seems intuitive and rational to one person might seem completely crazy and irrational to someone else; so throwing out all the rules one person thinks make no sense isn't going to mean the world suddenly makes sense for everyone else. Instead, everyone who understands the old rules, whether they like them or not, will suddenly find themselves in a completely alien world to which they have no idea how to relate.

Furthermore, any one person's sense of what seems rational is based on {{w|Incomplete information|incomplete information}}. The three people in the comic trying to change all the sex rules—like the engineers referenced in the title text who thinks they can "solve" the stock market—can't even begin to conceive of all the chaotic factors affecting the system they're trying to fix, so they have no way of knowing which rules are truly crazy and which rational.

Geek often fall prey to the fallacy that human interactions can be easily simplified if only a group of sufficiently qualified geeks put their minds to it as laid out in [http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html The Geek Social Fallacies] and [http://pervocracy.blogspot.ca/2012/02/geek-social-fallacies-of-sex.html The Geek Social Fallacies of Sex].

==Transcript==
:[Three people are sitting together.]
:Woman: Man, sex has all these crazy social rules. They just create drama.
:Man #2: Let's agree to change them, and make sex simple!
:Man #1: Okay!

:Man: Hooray! We've solved the problem of drama!
:Man: I'll go tell everyone!
:[The man opens a door.]

:[There is a graph, showing time vs. drama. A vertical dotted line indicates the rule change. Drama is low before the line, then steadily increases afterward.]

:[The man closes and leans against the door.]
:Man: Holy shit
:Man: Guys
:Man: People are complicated!

{{comic discussion}}

592: Drama

2013-04-17T16:53:12Z

Janetmweiss: Created page with "{{comic | number = | date = <!-- Click on the "All Comics" button in the sidebar on the left and find this comic in the list. The date is in the rightmost column, in ..."

{{comic
| number =
| date = 
| title =
| image =
| titletext =
}}

==Explanation==

In this comic, two men and a woman discuss how irrational society's interactions about sex are. They decide to throw out all these silly societal rules to end drama forever and spread this philosophy to everyone they know, which immediately leads to a huge increase in drama.

As one of the men in the comic states, people are indeed complicated and—crucially—what seems intuitive and rational to one person might seem completely crazy and irrational to someone else; so throwing out all the rules one person thinks make no sense isn't going to mean the world suddenly makes sense for everyone else. Instead, everyone who understands the old rules, whether they like them or not, will suddenly find themselves in a completely alien world to which they have no idea how to relate.

Furthermore, any one person's sense of what seems rational is based on {{w|Incomplete information|incomplete information}}. The three people in the comic trying to change all the sex rules—like the engineers referenced in the title text who thinks they can "solve" the stock market—can't even begin to conceive of all the chaotic factors affecting the system they're trying to fix, so they have no way of knowing which rules are truly crazy and which rational.

Geek often fall prey to the fallacy that human interactions can be easily simplified if only a group of sufficiently qualified geeks put their minds to it as laid out in [http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html The Geek Social Fallacies] and [http://pervocracy.blogspot.ca/2012/02/geek-social-fallacies-of-sex.html The Geek Social Fallacies of Sex].

==Transcript==
:[Three people are sitting together.]
:Woman: Man, sex has all these crazy social rules. They just create drama.
:Man #2: Let's agree to change them, and make sex simple!
:Man #1: Okay!

:Man: Hooray! We've solved the problem of drama!
:Man: I'll go tell everyone!
:[The man opens a door.]

:[There is a graph, showing time vs. drama. A vertical dotted line indicates the rule change. Drama is low before the line, then steadily increases afterward.]

:[The man closes and leans against the door.]
:Man: Holy shit
:Man: Guys
:Man: People are complicated!

{{comic discussion}}

147: A Way So Familiar

2013-04-17T16:29:29Z

Janetmweiss: I added an explanation of what "Hedwig" is

{{comic
| number = 147
| date = August 23, 2006
| title = A Way So Familiar
| image = a_way_so_familiar.png
| titletext = Two Hedwig references, an obscure Joey Comeau, and a girl with a mohawk. Yes.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete}}

Some {{w|Introversion|introverts}} tend to empathize with other people they perceive as being shy or introverted. Sometimes their imagination leads them on to far/obscure futures. A person outside the imaginative world can easily see through this and judge as a delusion.

In this comic, [[Hairy]] points out he saw a girl at the bank and probably started having platonic romantic feelings toward her, describing many characteristics that would be impossible to know about her without actually talking to her (sweetness, soul pain)

In the last comic, the reader finds out she probably does not look like the sweet girl the reader imagined, having a Mohawk and shoveling (presumably dead) prostitutes into a car.

{{w|Joey Comeau}} is a Canadian writer, best known for the "A softer world" webcomic.

Hedwig refers to the musical {{w|Hedwig and the Angry Inch (musical)|Hedwig and the Angry Inch}} and the comic references the musical's song "The Origin of Love." This song is based a satirical idea from {{w|Symposium (Plato)#Aristophanes|Plato's ''Symposium''|}} whereby every person originally consisted of two bodies joined together; the gods eventually violently tore us apart, and we fall in love when we find the person who was once physically joined to us. This song contains the lyrics:

:''You had a way so familiar''
:''I couldn't recognize''
:'''cause you had blood on your face''
:''I had blood in my eyes''
:''But I could tell by your expression''
:''That the pain down in your soul''
:''Was the same as the one down in mine'' [http://www.amazon.com/Hedwig-Angry-Inch-Vocal-selections/dp/0634068814/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1366215386&sr=1-1&keywords=hedwig+and+the+angry+inch]

The joke is that Hairy seems oblivious to the fact that his imagination is a very obvious delusion. While people could forgive a guy empathizing with a "cute pretty girl", [[Cueball]] seems annoyed by the lack of judgement of Hairy.

==Transcript==
:Hairy: I saw a cute girl outside the bank today. She looked nice.
:Cueball: Oh no, not again. You are the <u>worst</u> judge of these things.
:Hairy: But she was so sweet. Shy, but there was something in her eyes. A pain down in her soul, the same as the one down in mine.
:Cueball: Mm hmm.
:Hairy: The police light played through her mohawk like the sun setting through pine trees as she shoveled the third hooker into the trunk of the camry...
:Cueball: Back up.

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