2350: Deer Turrets

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Deer Turrets

Title text: When my great grandfather designed the Titanic and it hit an iceberg and sank, he didn't sit around moping. He took those lessons to his next job designing airships, and he made the Hindenburg completely iceberg-proof!

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a NEIGHBORHOOD DEER (PEW PEW). Explain what a laser turret is. 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.

Black Hat has built laser turrets that automatically shoot at nearby wireless devices. This could potentially be useful in a military context, but for reasons unforeseeable, he's gone and strapped them to local deer. Deer are well-defined by their tendency to move around (which Cueball attempted to exploit for ergonomic reasons in 1329: Standing), typically in areas close to civilization, so attaching wireless-seeking laser robots to them effectively makes them organic killbots. As the last panel reveals, this can be circumvented by disabling wireless access on your devices (airplane mode), though Black Hat doesn't seem particularly concerned with letting people know this, and seems to brush these inventions off as simple mistakes. At least one member of the press isn't convinced, sarcastically asking "is it really?!" It's not clear if the reporter is asking if it's really "another mistake" (i.e. expressing that this was Black Hat's plan all along), or if it's really "okay", but Black Hat chooses to interpret the question as meaning the latter, and declares that he thinks everything's fine -- after all, he's not the one getting shot by deer-mounted lasers.

The title, "Deer Turrets," may be a pun on "deterrents," as laser turrets would certainly deter people with wireless devices from approaching deer.

In the second panel Black Hat uses the common idiom "hindsight is 20/20". This may be a pun, as "hind" is a term for an adult female (doe) deer - as a counterpoint to the adult male (buck) deer being known as a "stag" - and a "sight" is a visual aligning device, often for weaponry. Whether or not the potential pun has any further caliber to its references, this might be the ultimate aim of this wording.

The auto-targeting laser turrets may be a reference to attempts by researchers at the University of Washington to create a laser-based battery charging device [1]. The device in question is mounted on a turret that locates and aims the beam at a photovoltaic cell attached to the battery. The same technology could theoretically be used with a higher-powered laser, but for the application described in the comic, the targeting mechanism would need to be altered to sense any electronic rather than the accompanying photovoltaic cell.

In the title text, Black Hat claims that his great grandfather designed the RMS Titanic, the then-largest ocean-liner in the world which sank after striking an iceberg in 1912, and the LZ 129 Hindenburg, the then-largest airship in the world which caught fire and crashed in 1937. He claims that his ancestor did not retire from the design business after the loss of the Titanic, but instead learned from it and made the Hindenburg "iceberg-proof". This is an obvious and humorous lie for several reasons. First, the lead designers of the Olympic-class Titanic and the Hindenburg-class airship were two different people, Lord Pirrie and Dr. Ludwig Dürr respectively, and Black Hat is probably not one of Dürr's great-grandsons (Lord Pirrie had no children). Secondly, while no airship has been recorded to be destroyed by striking an iceberg, it's not because of any "iceberg-proofing" efforts by Black Hat's great-grandfather, or anyone else -- it's just due to the basic fact that airships fly in the air, where there are no icebergs.^{[citation needed]} Were an airship to strike an iceberg, it would almost certainly be destroyed; in fact, the even deadlier accident on the airship USS Akron resulted from the airship simply striking the (unfrozen) ocean.

The possibility of mounting devices on wild deer was previously referenced in the title text of 1924: Solar Panels.

Black Hat has built a similar device to target users of Google Glass in 1251: Anti-Glass.

Transcript

[Black Hat is at a podium, addressing a crowd]

Black Hat: Was it a mistake to build turrets that can track nearby wireless devices and fire powerful lasers in their general direction?

Black Hat: Sure. I realize that now.

[Face-front view of Black Hat]

Black Hat: Was it a mistake to mount those turrets on neighborhood deer, release them, then lose interest in the project and move on?

Black Hat: Yes. Hindsight is 20/20.

[Close-up, Black Hat holds up his index finger]

Black Hat: But science is about learning from mistakes

Black Hat: And not being afraid to make new ones.

[Side view again]

Black Hat: Like inviting you here, but not warning you to put your phones in airplane mode.

Black Hat: Another mistake.

Black Hat: But that's okay.

Off-Panel: Gallop gallop

Audience member: Is it really?!

Black Hat: I think it's fine.

Deer: Pew! Pew!

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Discussion

There's no "next" button on 2349? --108.162.219.250 18:44, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

The reason there's no Next button is that it's the newest comic. --162.158.158.43 21:04, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Is this about something? I mean, it could be a commentary on the way politics handled Covid, some politicians taking terrible decisions, then saying it was a mistake and that science is still learning, but then still taking terrible decisions afterwards. 141.101.69.83 21:02, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

That's definitely my take on this comic. The similarity with certain political meetings in the covid situation is quite abvious, in my opinion. 90.127.120.72 16:02, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

I saw it as a send up of the agile development practices of Silicon Valley and many other businesses today. The principle is that if an idea is going to fail, you want it to fail fast, so you can learn and pivot quickly to a better idea. This can ideally result in a culture that values constructive failure. If taken too far, it can lead to sloppy practices, waste, and outright harm to customers and to the public. JSekula71 (talk) 20:12, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

The thing about icebergs, is that 9/10ths of them would be on fire, if they weren't kept underwater. Truth! 162.158.155.192 22:17, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

(to the tune of “Do-Re-Mi”) Does are near, now flee in fear; The ray will boil everyone; The antlered gun is taking aim; Now it’s vaporised my lung... Lightcaller (talk) 22:43, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Deer don't gallop. Are you sure that's about the deer? 172.69.33.187 22:54, 24 August 2020 (UTC) Dear IP_address, deer most certainly do gallop. Since I'm a nice guy (rarely), I LMGTFYed that to confirm. Cellocgw (talk) 12:35, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

No deer run. 172.69.34.210 02:25, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Some deer run. 162.158.159.116 16:04, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

I don't think you can build an iceberk-proof airship. Or at least, you won't get it into air because it would be too heavy. -- Hkmaly (talk) 00:21, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

You make a ship iceberg proof by making it fly. You can't be sunk if you fly over. Hax (talk) 07:16, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

I think the "Is it really??" means "Is it really okay?", not "Is it really a mistake?". 162.158.183.137 11:03, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Gotta keep on trying 'til you run out of cake. 108.162.210.188 13:18, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Some airplanes crash into mountains. Some mountains look like icebergs. Therefore, some airplanes crash into some icebergs. These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For (talk) 03:51, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

The current explanation says, “Deer are well-defined by their tendency to move around” - though I’m not too familiar with deer (they’re not common animals in my place), I’m not sure if this explanation is okay. Maybe “well-known” instead of “well-defined”? Intuitively, the set {A | A has tendency to move around} is not well-defined... Yosei (talk) 14:01, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

“in their general direction” – Sounds like a Monty Python and the Holy Grail reference to me (“I fart in your general direction!”) --172.70.242.44 23:18, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

When Mao went to clear the sparrow but for the locust, it was 42% as deadly as fauna-mounted autocannons

Just saying. 172.69.34.150 07:17, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Didn't the designer of the Titanic go down with ship? SanFranSam 172.69.35.53 04:25, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Laughed

The part that made me laugh the hardest was the Citation Needed on the claim that there are no flying icebergs! Well played. BlakeFelix (talk) 11:03, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Ok, this iceberg (https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2829:_Iceberg_Efficiency) could definitely pose a threat to an airship. Perhaps it's Black Hat's way of justifying his grandfather? IDK 172.70.231.77 (talk) 12:32, 12 March 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)