Difference between revisions of "596: Latitude"

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Robert's log is fairly innocuous: home at 12:30 PM, school at 2:00 PM and {{w|Subway (restaurant)|Subway}} at 3:30 PM. This log suggests that "Robert" is actually [[Little Bobby Tables]].
 
Robert's log is fairly innocuous: home at 12:30 PM, school at 2:00 PM and {{w|Subway (restaurant)|Subway}} at 3:30 PM. This log suggests that "Robert" is actually [[Little Bobby Tables]].
  
Megan's log appears to prove Black Hat's point: home at 11:00 AM, a sex toy store at 12:30 PM, home at 1:30 PM, another sex toy store at 2:00 PM, home at 2:30 PM, {{w|Fry's Electronics}} at 3:00 PM, a power tool store at 3:30 PM, home at 4:10 PM and a hospital burn ward at 4:10 PM. This suggests that Megan wast trying to please herself with sex toys from two diffent stores, then with power tools, causing burns in a "delicate" area.
+
Megan's log appears to prove Black Hat's point: home at 11:00 AM, a sex toy store at 12:30 PM, home at 1:30 PM, another sex toy store at 2:00 PM, home at 2:30 PM, {{w|Fry's Electronics}} at 3:00 PM, a power tool store at 3:30 PM, home at 4:10 PM and a hospital burn ward at 4:10 PM. This suggests that Megan wast trying to please herself with sex toys from two different stores, then with power tools, causing burns in a "delicate" area.
  
 
The title text shows that [[Randall]] liked the T-Mobile G1 (also known as the {{w|HTC Dream}}) more than he previously thought.
 
The title text shows that [[Randall]] liked the T-Mobile G1 (also known as the {{w|HTC Dream}}) more than he previously thought.

Revision as of 01:14, 13 February 2013

Latitude
The G1, especially with the new Android upgrade, is way better than I originally thought.
Title text: The G1, especially with the new Android upgrade, is way better than I originally thought.

Explanation

Black Hat made a mobile phone application to log and find addresses and business names for the locations of his friends using data from Google Latitude. His reason for this is that they use Latitude, but neglect to turn it off when engaging in "discreet" activities.

A table showing activity logs for two of Black Hat's friends: Megan and Robert (his log is partially cut off)

Robert's log is fairly innocuous: home at 12:30 PM, school at 2:00 PM and Subway at 3:30 PM. This log suggests that "Robert" is actually Little Bobby Tables.

Megan's log appears to prove Black Hat's point: home at 11:00 AM, a sex toy store at 12:30 PM, home at 1:30 PM, another sex toy store at 2:00 PM, home at 2:30 PM, Fry's Electronics at 3:00 PM, a power tool store at 3:30 PM, home at 4:10 PM and a hospital burn ward at 4:10 PM. This suggests that Megan wast trying to please herself with sex toys from two different stores, then with power tools, causing burns in a "delicate" area.

The title text shows that Randall liked the T-Mobile G1 (also known as the HTC Dream) more than he previously thought.

Transcript

[The Black Hat Guy is holding a phone up to someone.]
Black Hat Guy: We're in a narrow window in which people are using Google Latitude, but haven't learned the habit of turning it off when they're doing something discreetly.
Black Hat Guy: I wrote an app to log friends' locations and work out addresses and business names.
[A timetable is visible. Each column represents a different person.]
[First column: Megan.]
11:00AM Home
12:30PM Eastview Adult Toy Store
1:30PM Home
2:00PM Laketown Sex Toy Shop
2:30PM Home
3:00PM Fry's Electronics
3:30PM Ed's Power Tool Emporium
4:00PM Home
4:10PM Hospital Burn Ward
[Second column: Rober - the rest of the name is cut off, as well as the end of each entry.]
12:30PM Home
2:00PM School
3:30PM Subway


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Discussion

I thought the sex toy shops were unrelated to the last two shops - that she just did something re-e-e-eally stupid with the gizmos and power tools that landed her in the burn ward. Also, who's to say Robert didn't turn off Latitude? His schedule has some pretty big blanks. Anonymous 06:51, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

If Megan was buying a drill so she could put up shelves, that kind of destroys the joke. Why should she need to be discreet about that?
Also, I think that Robert's simple schedule of home / school / subway is a small joke about reversed expectations. A usual joke about how men spend their time (while on the internet, for example) might show a preponderance of sexually-related activity. Here, Randall has attributed the sexual experimentation to Megan instead. 108.162.219.223 00:48, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

My take on this is that Megan went to the two last stores to improve her toys, as several xkcd comics deal with DIY stuff. 108.162.254.163 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I was thinking that as well: she was trying to "Tim Taylor" her sex toys, and got about the same results he would. --Aaron of Mpls (talk) 10:59, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps the title text is a reference to the previous comic about the android girlfriend?173.245.50.84 21:29, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Fortunately for him, Black Hat knows how to avoid SQL injection, so he didn't lose his database when he added Little Bobby Table ;-)
--Lou Crazy (talk) 09:39, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
Probably this did not happen because there is no real reason to assume it is Bobby, rather Cueball and Robert in this comic is the same and thus making Cueball here = Rob. But that is also just guess work. Have corrected explanation and removed Bobby category. (But not added Rob) --Kynde (talk) 16:26, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

According to the explanation (and logical spelling), Robert's schedule is clearly "Home, School, Subway". So why does the explanation say "Home, Schoo, Subwa"? --JayRulesXKCD (talk) 17:48, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

And yes, before you say it, I know that's where it ends in the comic, but still. Oversight, I guess? --JayRulesXKCD (talk) 17:50, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
I'm not sure if you mean in the transcript, because in that only what is actually written should be there. The full words are used above in the explanation, but should still be cut off as they are in the transcript. --Kynde (talk) 13:16, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

I added this comic to Category:Comics featuring Rob because it mentioned Robert in the app. Undo this if it should not be. 625571b7-aa66-4f98-ac5c-92464cfb4ed8 (talk) 22:41, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Why is it assumed he was at a Subway Sandwich shop and not an actual subway, which would also give reason why the time after is blank for a longer time as especially back then signals in underground Subways were non existent, not that they are any better now especially for GPS. Even the transcript on the original xkcd.com page does not specify which it is. 108.162.216.166 12:01, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Malapropism alert: Do you mean "inconspicuous places" or do you mean "innocuous places"? --172.70.86.11 14:25, 18 November 2022 (UTC)