I messaged not one, but two friends of mine who know about programming, and neither of them could tell what this was even trying to say. Quoth one (only after reading the explainxkcd page): "it would only be funny to someone who is in serious like, whatever that program was".
Like, there's making a niche joke, and there's making a joke that only people who program Unix can understand. It's needlessly obscure to the point of showing off.
One of Dara O Briain's stand-up movies has him starting the show with a mini-disclaimer about how he won't be making any jokes about Muslims, because "One: I don't know a fucking thing about Muslims. Two: Neither do you." (Ignore the imgur post that comes up if you search that, it's a misquote, watch his actual specials.)
I'm not saying that XKCD should dumb down its material, necessarily. However, given that XKCD is one of the most popular webcomics, I think it would be in everyone's best interest to have something for us common folk to latch onto.
Who the hell would say this? Not that she's trying to defend the car fire, that's the joke, but who would say the word "oxidizing" in any kind of casual conversation?
The way this comic should have been set up is with a close up of Ponytail's face as she explains the science behind friction or whatever and then goes on to say that fire is just the same forces at a greater intensity (or however actual science would say it). Then in the last panel it would zoom out and two cars are crashed and on fire and she's saying "...so really, this was just going to happen anyway". Funny and educational!
The presentation we're given reads unnaturally, uses visuals as window dressing rather than content, and doesn't even show the actual fire. Lame!
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