2163: Chernobyl

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Revision as of 17:14, 14 June 2019 by Asdf (talk | contribs)
Jump to: navigation, search
Chernobyl
You know when you can't hear your speakers, and you keep turning various volume controls up higher and higher in confusion, and then someone hits the mute button and there's a deafening blast of sound? That's basically what happened at Chernobyl.
Title text: You know when you can't hear your speakers, and you keep turning various volume controls up higher and higher in confusion, and then someone hits the mute button and there's a deafening blast of sound? That's basically what happened at Chernobyl.

Explanation

Ambox notice.png This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a NUCLEAR BOT. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.
If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

Ponytail and White Hat discuss the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster which is topical due to the HBO miniseries Chernobyl.

Transcript

Ambox notice.png This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.
[Ponytail and White Hat facing each other.]
Ponytail: Did you like Chernobyl?
White Hat: Yeah!
White Hat: But I still don't understand the meltdown. Can you explain it...simpler?
[Zoom in to closeup of Ponytail, with White Hat off-panel to the right]
Ponytail: Well, the graphite--
White Hat (off-panel): Already too complicated.
Ponytail: Uh...they put the reactor in an unstable--
White Hat (off-panel): Nope, sorry.
Ponytail: Hmm, ok.
Ponytail: Long ago, humans banged rocks together to make fire.
White Hat: Ok...
Ponytail: 30 years ago, we banged some rocks together too hard.
White Hat: Oh no!
Ponytail: Yeah, we messed up real bad.


comment.png add a comment! ⋅ comment.png add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅ Icons-mini-action refresh blue.gif refresh comments!

Discussion

Please note that the first panel is referring to an HBO mini-series about the Chernobyl disaster, not the disaster itself! White Hat is NOT expressing enjoyment of the disaster itself, which was my initial reaction! Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 16:55, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

If I were Randall, I would have put "HBO's Chernobyl" to dispel that confusion. Also, I'd be much cooler. OhFFS (talk) 18:06, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
That’s why Randall put it in italics. 172.69.160.132 18:54, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
Actually that's exactly what I thought until I came here, I've only been marginally aware such a show even existed, LOL! Actually, I took White Hat's enjoyment as "I find the subject interesting". In April & May I was coming to a bar for a Game Of Thrones viewing party (I only made it to three), and one either started or ended with Chernobyl, that was my only awareness of it. NiceGuy1 (talk) 05:47, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

In the transcript, there's two words that might be both italic and bold: First, when Ponytail says "30 years ago, we banged some rocks together too hard.", I think "too" is italic and bold, and when she says "Yeah, we messed up real bad.", I think the "real" is also italic and bold. If this is the case, I don't know how to apply both bold and italic to text in wiki markup! Can anyone help? Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 01:51, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Never mind - I figured it out via the Wikitext Cheatsheet! Putting 5 single quotes around the text did it! Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 02:20, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
I completely agree those words are both, and I feel I can say so with utmost certainty. NiceGuy1 (talk) 05:47, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
I appreciate the feedback. Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 13:22, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

If you’re going to watch the series, be sure to read this so you’ll know which parts are total BS: https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/what-hbos-chernobyl-got-right-and-what-it-got-terribly-wrong Tualha (talk) 08:39, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Well, there's a really short and simple explanation: "The reactor was a shit design." :P The exact circumstances aren't even that important, since it could just as easily have gone wrong in a variety of different ways. (To quote a 1993 report from a Soviet committee, translated by IAEA, "The Commission considers that the negative properties of this type of reactor are likely to predetermine the inevitability of emergency situations.") Zmatt (talk) 08:59, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

It was a shitty design - but operational errors were crucial to the disaster. There are many big machines and installations that are very dangerous if put outside of their normal operating envelopes, and designing them to be failsafe in face of operational blunders is often very hard. Airliners stall, power turbines enter resonant states, boilers bust etc. - when operated incompetently. -- Malgond (talk) 18:29, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

I thought White Hat understood 'banging the rocks together to hard' to mean 'created to big a fire.' 172.68.59.90 19:53, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Added alternative explanation with this meaning -- Malgond (talk) 14:38, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

What I like about this page is that it's an explanation of an explanation...John.Adriaan (talk) 02:18, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

An explanation for Beret might have to be a little more literary. "The Soviets told no tale; but even as uranium was the foundation of their might, so also was it their destruction: they banged too hard and too greedily, and disturbed that from which they fled, the Curie's Bane."

/Ponytails/Ponytail/162.158.214.34 10:26, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

The explanation of the title text mentions unmuting a sound system, but initiating an emergency shutdown is more like muting a sound system. That would make the analogy more precise­—muting a sound system often causes a crack sound, proportional to the set volume, Turning up the volume causes offsets somewhere in the system. At switching off, these offsets rapidly go away, causing a sound. 162.158.89.31 14:26, 20 June 2019 (UTC)