Lem’s Bunny asks the natural follow-up question to today’s comic.
For those of you who have been waiting patiently: the submissions to WetRiffs.com will be going up soon — we’re just handling some final influxes of sexy. If any of you have any guitar-shower pictures you want to submit, now’s the time!
xkcd 
Wouldn’t it be once every 33 times?
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Yes, but once every 30 would still round up to 97% (96.6..%). Actually, so would once every 29 times, but that would just be pushing it.
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A friend of mine said he hadn’t even thought of Schroedinger. It’s a *cat* in a *box*. How can you *not* think of Schroedinger?
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Well, it’s not radioactive.
Hmm….
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Eleanor’s right. I was sort of surprised that it wasn’t a Schrödinger joke.
Unless there were two comics in superposition and the webfunction collapsed so that… naaah
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Shouldn’t the title of the strip be “F Minus Minus” instead of “A Minus Minus”?
I know I’d deduct significantly more points than that if a seller mailed me a bobcat instead of an office chair…
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Re: 96.6% One can also factor in the one weird guy who would be satisfied with a bobcat.
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And you’re forgetting that most of the guys who order chairs and get chairs within a reasonable time don’t bother giving feedback at all. The guys who receive live bobcats and are still capable of responding are far more likely to give feedback.
So it’s only true if the proportion of recipients rendered incapable of commenting by the bobcats is equal to the proportion who are moderately satisfied with their chairs and see no need to comment.
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I know that if I was expecting an office chair and opened the box to discover a live Schrödinger bobcat, my comments would be rather decoherent.
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So if I order 30 shirts from the store am I guaranteed to get a bobcat?
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Hope this works:
http://tinyurl.com/3d2meb
Sometimes the speed of things on the net is scary…
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Andrew.
Check out the time stamp on the ebay sale. It happened before the comic.
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How is that possible?
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following up on Andrew’s comment, now click on the buyer’s (chibiotaku) feedback page. http://myworld.ebay.com/chibiotaku
i
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Guys, the comic comes out the night before the day it officially posts.
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I would like to request an office chair…and by office chair I of course mean that I would like to receive a bobcat.
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The comics come out exactly every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at midnight. You can refresh your browser at 11:59 and 12:00 to check
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Well, the real question is whether the rating would be higher or lower had the Schrodinger bobcat been dead.
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The comic is not published “the night before.”
The comic publishes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday promptly at 00:00 Eastern Time. Ebay uses Pacific time. Hence, Thursday at 22:20 PDT = Friday at 01:20 EDT, so the comic had already been posted.
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I consider midnight to be “night”. Look outside tonight at midnight and see if you come to the same conclusion.
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Well, regardless of whether the non-schroedinger schroedinger-bobcat was alive or dead, the ebay response cracks me up!
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Anyone else see the SOMC similarity?
http://www.stuffonmycat.com/index.php?itemid=5270
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Well, now that’s a new hype we’re starting here.
Did I think of Schrödinger reading the comic? I don’t want to localize this.
Great comic!
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If midnight was “the night before Friday” because of what it looked like outside, I have to wonder if, using that same reasoning, 3AM on December 25 is still “the night before Christmas.”
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Kyle: I left a comment on that
“WOULD NOT BUY AGAIN”
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XDD!!
If I ever buy an Office chair, I’m going to be sure to leave feedback as such. Though, I think I’d be highly disappointed if there wasn’t a Schrödinger-bobcat contained.
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I wouldn’t mind getting a bobcat instead, assuming I survived. XD
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Didn’t the last panel used to say “A- Would Not Buy Again” instead of just “Would Not Buy Again”? If so, why would you take that off? That was my favorite part! Contrarily, if i just completely made the A- part up, what’s wrong with my brain?
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Oh, i get it now. The A Minus (Minus) was in the title. Sorry i’m an idiot!
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I laughed myself silly at the comic, then nearly died thanks to the Ebay page…I love Xkcd =]
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Yes. Recall that in Clement Clarke Moore’s “The Night Before Christmas” the narrator physically witnesses Santa Claus’s arrival. And as we all know, Santa visits at Midnight.
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Santa arrives at Midnight? 😦 What time zone midnight?
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Roxaven: Local time.
Otherwise, if he arrived at each destination at midnight in some fixed time zone, he could be arriving as late as noon in the local time zone of the destination. Breaking into a house in broad daylight is a good way to get arrested, and you wouldn’t want Santa to be arrested, would you? 😉
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Well, that does make sense to me. Though, somewhere in Africa they believe that Santa comes by boat during the day…
Wait, was it Africa or Australia?… I tend to forget these things. :(… But then again, I only knew that from learning something in 5th grade about Santa.
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Roxaven: You are thinking of Sinterklaas, the Belgian and Dutch equivalent of Santa Claus (English name was actually derived from Dutch name). In Australia they have Santa, just like US and UK. Africa has thousands of local cultures, but probably Americanised enough to do Santa as well.
Ironically, giving gifts at Christmas is becoming more and more popular in the Netherlands as well, although he is called the Kerstman (Christmas-man) there.
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SquishyCube: Oho, I always get things like that mixed up… But, honestly. I’m Wiccan. 🙂 One of the first xkcd comics I read was of course: http://xkcd.com/111/
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OMG you were serious. I forget that the comics actually have a direct influence on reality. I can’t wait. hee-hee-hee.
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Late commenting on this one, but it is obvious to me that the 2 ebay users are in cahoots to get that feeback posted. Come on. $10 for that office chair? and $10 was the Buy It Now price?
Yes, it was still funny.
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ilcylic, “A minus minus” is a reference to Futurama. In fact, it’s the worst grade imaginable.
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http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/23/700mhz-auction-set-to-begin-tomorrow-suits-in-a-tizzy/
@ Jan 23rd 2008 2:18PM
Instead of wireless spectrum, package contained bobcat.
Would not buy again.
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