2369: All-in-One - Revision history

81.179.199.253: /* List of functions */ Having allowed it to be able to summarise, it's logically now just another step to use that to re-compose an expanded 'original work' ripping off the ideas (if not just huge chunks of the words, with a new title page/footer).

2026-02-26T19:54:45Z

‎List of functions: Having allowed it to be able to summarise, it's logically now just another step to use that to re-compose an expanded 'original work' ripping off the ideas (if not just huge chunks of the words, with a new title page/footer).

192.112.253.23: /* Functions completely unrelated to printing or scanning */

2026-02-26T18:58:38Z

‎Functions completely unrelated to printing or scanning

192.112.253.23: /* Functions completely unrelated to printing or scanning */

2026-02-26T18:57:39Z

‎Functions completely unrelated to printing or scanning

NotaBene: /* Functions completely unrelated to printing or scanning */

2023-12-06T23:13:44Z

‎Functions completely unrelated to printing or scanning

172.69.134.30: /* Functions completely unrelated to printing or scanning */

2023-09-26T03:26:05Z

‎Functions completely unrelated to printing or scanning

162.158.146.153: /* Explanation */

2023-08-21T15:58:59Z

‎Explanation

172.70.91.65: /* Explanation */ a comic on xkcd is xkcd-style? no way :0

2023-06-15T12:30:31Z

‎Explanation: a comic on xkcd is xkcd-style? no way :0

172.70.211.126: /* Functions that most all-in-one printers do */

2022-10-05T17:53:17Z

‎Functions that most all-in-one printers do

Jacky720: rv

2022-05-04T23:38:38Z

Show changes

Ex Kay Cee Dee at 23:38, 4 May 2022

2022-05-04T23:38:33Z

Show changes

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 ====''Functions completely unrelated to printing or scanning''====
 *'''Summarize''': Presumably this function would summarize a printed material for the user. Similar to the translate function, a document would need to be scanned and OCRed first. Then a machine learning algorithm would comprehend the text and reduce it in length while keeping the important points. Although Large Language Models like ChatGPT are now (as of 2026) capable of performing {{w|Automatic_summarization|this task}} with mostly accurate results, this technology did not exist at the time the comic was made, and it is unlikely that software from that time could successfully do anything of the sort, especially if it was software sold with the printer itself rather than a program run on a computer.
-*'''{{w|plagiarism|Plagiarize}}''': Plagiarism refers to the act of copying another person's creative work and passing it off as your own. While a printer could certainly be useful for this purpose, it is unclear what effect a dedicated 'plagiarize' button would have, since a printer is already capable of copying specified data from a wide variety of sources. Whatever effect it would have (if any) is also likely to be legally questionable, as many forms of plagiarism are prohibited by intellectual property laws. (Maybe it plagiarizes printer techniques, in which case this might be useful, though only in edge cases.)
+*'''{{w|plagiarism|Plagiarize}}''': Plagiarism refers to the act of copying another person's creative work and passing it off as your own. While a scanner/printer could certainly be useful for directy duplicating a work, a dedicated 'plagiarize' button may (perhaps with a similar method of understanding the original as with "Summarize") take the prior work and then ''rewrite'' it as a faked original. At a bare minimum, it would have to remove any direct indications of the true authorship, to perhaps replace with equivalent details of the current operator. Whatever process is used, it is also likely to be legally questionable, as many forms of plagiarism are prohibited by intellectual property laws. (Maybe it plagiarizes printer techniques, in which case this might be useful, though only in edge cases.)
 *'''Roll''': This function would probably roll up paper into a roll, like how the newspaper is rolled up for distribution by paperboys.
 *'''Burn''': Perhaps the printer has this function for greater assurance that sensitive information will be irretrievably destroyed.  Historically, some printers could be at risk of catching fire if they jammed in a particular way, and so the "{{w|lp0 on fire}}" error code was created to signal that it should be investigated urgently.

@@ Line 30: / Line 30: @@
 ====''Functions completely unrelated to printing or scanning''====
-*'''Summarize''': Presumably this function would summarize a printed material for the user. Similar to the translate function, a document would need to be scanned and OCRed first. Then a machine learning algorithm would comprehend the text and reduce it in length while keeping the important points. Although Large Language Models like ChatGPT are now (as of 2026) capable of performing {{w|Automatic_summarization|this task}} with mostly accurate results, this technology did not exist at the time the comic was made, and it is unlikely that software from that time could successfully do anything of the sort, especially if it was included in the printer itself rather than a computer.
+*'''Summarize''': Presumably this function would summarize a printed material for the user. Similar to the translate function, a document would need to be scanned and OCRed first. Then a machine learning algorithm would comprehend the text and reduce it in length while keeping the important points. Although Large Language Models like ChatGPT are now (as of 2026) capable of performing {{w|Automatic_summarization|this task}} with mostly accurate results, this technology did not exist at the time the comic was made, and it is unlikely that software from that time could successfully do anything of the sort, especially if it was software sold with the printer itself rather than a program run on a computer.
 *'''{{w|plagiarism|Plagiarize}}''': Plagiarism refers to the act of copying another person's creative work and passing it off as your own. While a printer could certainly be useful for this purpose, it is unclear what effect a dedicated 'plagiarize' button would have, since a printer is already capable of copying specified data from a wide variety of sources. Whatever effect it would have (if any) is also likely to be legally questionable, as many forms of plagiarism are prohibited by intellectual property laws. (Maybe it plagiarizes printer techniques, in which case this might be useful, though only in edge cases.)
 *'''Roll''': This function would probably roll up paper into a roll, like how the newspaper is rolled up for distribution by paperboys.

@@ Line 30: / Line 30: @@
 ====''Functions completely unrelated to printing or scanning''====
-*'''Summarize''': Presumably this function would summarize a printed material for the user. Similar to the translate function, a document would need to be scanned and OCRed first. Then a machine learning algorithm would comprehend the text and reduce it in length while keeping the important points. {{w|Automatic_summarization|Automatic text summarization}} does exist, although the technology is not as widely used as automatic translation.
+*'''Summarize''': Presumably this function would summarize a printed material for the user. Similar to the translate function, a document would need to be scanned and OCRed first. Then a machine learning algorithm would comprehend the text and reduce it in length while keeping the important points. Although Large Language Models like ChatGPT are now (as of 2026) capable of performing {{w|Automatic_summarization|this task}} with mostly accurate results, this technology did not exist at the time the comic was made, and it is unlikely that software from that time could successfully do anything of the sort, especially if it was included in the printer itself rather than a computer.
-*'''{{w|plagiarism|Plagiarize}}''': This function is unclear. Maybe it would plagiarize a paper for a certain subject? It would also be legally questionable. (Maybe it plagiarizes printer techniques, in which case this might be useful, though only in edgecases)
+*'''{{w|plagiarism|Plagiarize}}''': Plagiarism refers to the act of copying another person's creative work and passing it off as your own. While a printer could certainly be useful for this purpose, it is unclear what effect a dedicated 'plagiarize' button would have, since a printer is already capable of copying specified data from a wide variety of sources. Whatever effect it would have (if any) is also likely to be legally questionable, as many forms of plagiarism are prohibited by intellectual property laws. (Maybe it plagiarizes printer techniques, in which case this might be useful, though only in edge cases.)
 *'''Roll''': This function would probably roll up paper into a roll, like how the newspaper is rolled up for distribution by paperboys.
 *'''Burn''': Perhaps the printer has this function for greater assurance that sensitive information will be irretrievably destroyed.  Historically, some printers could be at risk of catching fire if they jammed in a particular way, and so the "{{w|lp0 on fire}}" error code was created to signal that it should be investigated urgently.

@@ Line 42: / Line 42: @@
 *<span style="background:#acfb90">'''Notarize''' (selected)</span>: A {{w|notary public}} is a person certified by a government to attest that certain kinds of legal documentation are legitimate and executed.  All-in-one printers and scanners may be able to recognize certain signs of legitimacy (e.g. the {{w|EURion constellation}}), but unless this printer has some tactile sensation, it cannot certify the identity of the person who signed the document as a human can.
 *'''{{w|Biodegrade}}''': This would biodegrade the paper. Whether this would send it to an organic waste plant (which would be helpful) or actually house a composter inside the printer (which would be gross{{Citation needed}}) is unknown.
-*<span style="background:#acfb90">'''Crumple and throw at trash like basketball''' (selected)</span>: Many people, when done with a piece of paper, will crumple it up and throw it into a trash can from a distance as if playing basketball.  This wouldn't be a very useful feature in a printer, especially relative to its complexity.{{citation needed}}  For one thing, it would prevent the person who printed the document from using it (even if the user intends to throw away the paper eventually, presumably they need to use it at least once or they wouldn't print it), and it would also deny the user one of the few pleasures available in the office environment.
+*<span style="background:#acfb90">'''Crumple and throw at trash like basketball''' (selected)</span>: Many people, when done with a piece of paper, will crumple it up and throw it into a trash can from a distance as if playing basketball.  This wouldn't be a very useful feature in a printer, especially relative to its complexity.{{citation needed}}  For one thing, it would prevent the person who printed the document from using it (even if the user intends to throw away the paper eventually, presumably they need to use it at least once or they wouldn't print it), and it would also deny the user one of the few pleasures available in the office environment.  The specificity of this function name could suggest that other models of this printer (Even-More-In-One?) could imitate other sports, such as {{w|paper football}}.
 ==Transcript==

@@ Line 42: / Line 42: @@
 *<span style="background:#acfb90">'''Notarize''' (selected)</span>: A {{w|notary public}} is a person certified by a government to attest that certain kinds of legal documentation are legitimate and executed.  All-in-one printers and scanners may be able to recognize certain signs of legitimacy (e.g. the {{w|EURion constellation}}), but unless this printer has some tactile sensation, it cannot certify the identity of the person who signed the document as a human can.
 *'''{{w|Biodegrade}}''': This would biodegrade the paper. Whether this would send it to an organic waste plant (which would be helpful) or actually house a composter inside the printer (which would be gross{{Citation needed}}) is unknown.
-*<span style="background:#acfb90">'''Crumple and throw at trash like basketball''' (selected)</span>: Many people, when done with a piece of paper, will crumple it up and throw it into a trash can from a distance as if playing basketball.  This wouldn't be a very useful feature in a printer, especially relative to its complexity.  For one thing, it would prevent the person who printed the document from using it (even if the user intends to throw away the paper eventually, presumably they need to use it at least once or they wouldn't print it), and it would also deny the user one of the few pleasures available in the office environment.
+*<span style="background:#acfb90">'''Crumple and throw at trash like basketball''' (selected)</span>: Many people, when done with a piece of paper, will crumple it up and throw it into a trash can from a distance as if playing basketball.  This wouldn't be a very useful feature in a printer, especially relative to its complexity.{{citation needed}}  For one thing, it would prevent the person who printed the document from using it (even if the user intends to throw away the paper eventually, presumably they need to use it at least once or they wouldn't print it), and it would also deny the user one of the few pleasures available in the office environment.
 ==Transcript==

@@ Line 10: / Line 10: @@
 This is a parody of an {{w|all-in-one printer}}, a printer which typically can perform several functions, usually printing, scanning, copying, and faxing. This machine starts off with fairly standard printer functions but quickly becomes absurd. The machine is accordingly oversized, making room for all the status indicators and (presumably) the extra internal parts required to accomplish the uncommon functions.
-The title text says that if both the "scan" and "shred" options are selected, it now scans documents ''before'' trying to destroy them. Previously the machine destroyed documents and then scanned the pieces and tried to reconstruct them, identifying the original location of each shredded piece on the original sheet(s) of paper, which takes a large amount of processing power.
+The title text reads like a software update's patch notes; the mentioned feature says that if both the "scan" and "shred" options are selected, it now scans documents ''before'' trying to destroy them. This indicates that, prior to this update, the machine destroyed documents and then scanned the pieces and tried to reconstruct them, identifying the original location of each shredded piece on the original sheet(s) of paper, which takes a large amount of processing power. Such a matter SEEMS like an unrealistic oversight on the developers' part, but real developers of both games and machinery have made similarly huge errors both before and after this comic was uploaded.
 ===List of functions===

@@ Line 8: / Line 8: @@
 ==Explanation==
-This is an xkcd-style parody of an {{w|all-in-one printer}}, a printer which typically can perform several functions, usually printing, scanning, copying, and faxing. This machine starts off with fairly standard printer functions but quickly becomes absurd. The machine is accordingly oversized, making room for all the status indicators and (presumably) the extra internal parts required to accomplish the uncommon functions.
+This is a parody of an {{w|all-in-one printer}}, a printer which typically can perform several functions, usually printing, scanning, copying, and faxing. This machine starts off with fairly standard printer functions but quickly becomes absurd. The machine is accordingly oversized, making room for all the status indicators and (presumably) the extra internal parts required to accomplish the uncommon functions.
 The title text says that if both the "scan" and "shred" options are selected, it now scans documents ''before'' trying to destroy them. Previously the machine destroyed documents and then scanned the pieces and tried to reconstruct them, identifying the original location of each shredded piece on the original sheet(s) of paper, which takes a large amount of processing power.

@@ Line 17: / Line 17: @@
 ====''Functions that most all-in-one printers do''====
 *<span style="background:#acfb90">'''{{w|Printer (computing)|Print}}''' (selected)</span>: The most common function that a printer needs to do. A digital document or graphic exists on a computer, is sent to the printer and the printer transfers the document onto paper using ink or toner.
-*'''{{w|Photocopier|Copy}}''': A copy function allows a user to place a document on the integrated/linked scanning bed and the printer will immediately make a copy of the document as if a traditional 'analogue' photocopier.
+*'''{{w|Photocopier|Copy}}''': A copy function allows a user to place a document on the integrated/linked scanning bed and the printer will immediately make a copy of the document as if it were a traditional 'analogue' photocopier.
 *<span style="background:#acfb90">'''{{w|Fax}}''' (selected)</span>: A fax function sends a scanned document by telephone to another telephone number. The receiver fax machine will reconstruct the document and print it.  A machine that has this function is usually also able to act as a receiver for faxes sent from elsewhere, though that setting wouldn't be visible in this configuration group.
 *'''{{w|Image scanner|Scan}}''': A scan function is used to optically scan images or documents into digital forms so that they can be used by computers. It can be seen as the reverse operation of the printer function.