1064: "Front Door"

[sportsracer48]

Alt text: FYI: I'll be releasing a wolf into a randomly-chosen front yard sometime in the next 30 years. Now your fear is reasonable, and you don't need to feel embarrassed anymore. Problem solved!

And, fixed.

[rhomboidal]

I regularly get spooked by the motion-sensing driveway light until I realize I'm the one who triggered it.

[eculc]

this one was first. the other one is a fraud.

also, WTF randall? why no alt-text?

rants aside, I regularly experience this, aside form the jump in embarassment at the end.

[Plasma Mongoose]

I wonder if this graph also applies to someone's back-door.

[Bobsama]

When I rewire the motion-activated lights & their sensors, I'll be making sure that the lights turn on well ahead of me instead of after I stumble on the stairs.

[Arky]

I regularly get spooked by the motion-sensing driveway light until I realize I'm the one who triggered it.

Or ARE you?

Maybe it was triggered just before you came within the proximity sensor range by someone hiding behind that bush over there.

Perhaps you should put a line down on your driveway, correct to the millimetre, so that you can have a higher degree of confidence that the light was triggered by you and not by the axe murderer in the bushes (who is probably keeping really still and not triggering the light, so don't worry).

[Arky]

I wonder if this graph also applies to someone's back-door.

Only if it is you approaching someone else's back door, and only if you replace "embarassment" with "excitement".

[hypersapien]

There's no title-text.

BTW, everyone, alt-text is what displays when the the image doesn't load. The hoverover is called title-text.

[Goozim King]

No title text. Was someone following him right before he posted the comic?

[karanj]

The lack of title text is scaring me >_>

[Plasma Mongoose]

I wonder if this graph also applies to someone's back-door.

Only if it is you approaching someone else's back door, and only if you replace "embarassment" with "excitement".

Just goes to show how versatile graphs are.

[Tabasco]

I find this comic funnier if you try reading it "backwards" ... i.e., the person is embarrassed by what's going on in their own place, they leave, and then once safely outside and the embarrassment subsides it's replaced by fear someone'll figure out what they were up to ... thus their initially hurried escape is accompanied by a similar curve of the fear response. I guess it's not that great a fit, but it amuses me all the same. Go figure.

[Alsadius]

I guess they can't all be funny.

[Azkyroth]

Odd.

I only have this happen in the hallway at work after turning out the lights.

[jakerman999]

Little bit of nitpicking, shouldn't movement speed come to a stop(or near enough to one) when the door is reached? Some time should be taken to open it, and probably unlock it as well given that it's dark it's probably locked.

[Erwin Brödinger]

Little bit of nitpicking, shouldn't movement speed come to a stop(or near enough to one) when the door is reached? Some time should be taken to open it, and probably unlock it as well given that it's dark it's probably locked.

He is diving through the window.

[lemmings]

Someone needs to take that gray curve, shift it down a bit so that the starting position is below 0, then integrate it. Label that new plot, "Distance from a person walking to their door". The +C needs to be high enough that it nearly reaches 0 when the person begins running.

[Diadem]

There's no title-text.

BTW, everyone, alt-text is what displays when the the image doesn't load. The hoverover is called title-text.

Everybody knows, no one cares. On XKCD it's called an alt-text.

[BAReFOOt]

Now I need to make a chart of my feelings when noticing there’s no title text.

IMPOSSIBRU!!!

[whateveries]

I regularly get spooked by the motion-sensing driveway light until I realize I'm the one who triggered it.

Or ARE you?

Maybe it was triggered just before you came within the proximity sensor range by someone hiding behind that bush over there.

Perhaps you should put a line down on your driveway, correct to the millimetre, so that you can have a higher degree of confidence that the light was triggered by you and not by the axe murderer in the bushes (who is probably keeping really still and not triggering the light, so don't worry).

unfortunately the repeatability of the PIR detector is hampered by things like ambient temperature, thermal mass and low cost high volume manufacturing requirments, it kind of takes a best guess inside of a window that there is something out there, getting mm accuracy would require a laser based scan, or trip line, but that is a completely different kettle of fish, Vision based processing is a good possibility with the existance of the open computer vision library you could with a bit of time and effort make your own system and grid up your drive using a webcam, that could work well maybe not mm accuracy, but certainly within inches...wait the little box in the corner tells me my compilation is complete, back to work.

[mcgaggen]

The first thing I thought about after reading this (well really the second, the first was thinking about how this comic applies to my life) is this other comic: http://xkcd.com/833/
(I couldn't figure out how to insert an image)

[BAReFOOt]

On XKCD it's called an alt-text.

It’s only you, mate.
There is an alt text. It’s “Front Door”.
And there is a title text. But it’s empty.
Here’s the code:

Code: Select all

<img src="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/front_door.png" title="" alt="Front Door" />

People said “alt text” instead of “title text” in the times before HTML4, when there was only the alt attribute, and browsers erroneously treated it like a title attribute! That has loooong changed. Everyone knows that. So get with the times.

[vemorris]

Well, I think it IS pretty funny, in a classic XKCD kind of way. The "alt" (or whatever) text that isn't there? About the comic, at two levels it's saying,

"There's actually nothing behind me."

Just what you are realizing when you get through the front door. Quite clever, actually.

[FCN]

Now with title text:

FYI: I'll be releasing a wolf into a randomly-chosen front yard sometime in the next 30 years. Now your fear is reasonable, and you don't need to feel embarrassed anymore. Problem solved!

[bhoot]

I know that GOOMHR is cliche and all, but GET THE HELL OUT OF MY HEAD GOD DAMMIT!

[imyourfoot]

I've recently become afraid of the dark again once I started imagining that weeping angels were right behind me.

[orangustang]

I want to know the units for this. HOW MANY FEAR?!

[Arancaytar]

Wolf? Not a raptor?

(Though I suppose raptors are even harder to come by at the pet store than bobcats. And I tried that for months now; they keep sending me office chairs.)

[Arky]

I want to know the units for this. HOW MANY FEAR?!

The unit of Fear is the Ailes. The same units are also used for Uncertainty and Doubt, which are interchangeable with Fear.

Before the Ailes was adopted as the S.I. unit, it was known by many different names around the world such as the Howard or the Mao. Some American scientific literature still uses the outdated Atwater units.

[Pfhorrest]

I've recently become afraid of the dark again once I started imagining that weeping angels were right behind me.

I was reading this thread thinking how silly it is that people are honestly afraid, even on a subconscious level, that someone is going to sneak up on them as they approach their own damn house in the night, and wondering what kind of bad neighborhoods you all must live in where this is even a plausible threat vs say getting struck by lightning...

Then I read your comment, my chest tightened up a bit, and I compulsively scanned my yard out my window to make sure I didn't have any new statues watching me.

[Shidoshi]

Someone needs to take that gray curve, shift it down a bit so that the starting position is below 0, then integrate it. Label that new plot, "Distance from a person walking to their door". The +C needs to be high enough that it nearly reaches 0 when the person begins running.

If only we knew what units were used on the vertical scale...

[pbnjstowell]

I've recently become afraid of the dark again once I started imagining that weeping angels were right behind me.

Then I read your comment, my chest tightened up a bit, and I compulsively scanned my yard out my window to make sure I didn't have any new statues watching me.

This is why I shut my curtains at night.


PS. Maybe it's not a really good GOOMHR moment, but I was just watching an old DW episode (Tooth and Claw)... and it's a full moon in the morning.
What's this you say about wolves?

[VectorZero]

I want to know the units for this. HOW MANY FEAR?!

ALL OF THEM

[Cousj001]

Almost every species in the Universe has an irrational fear of the dark. But they're wrong. 'Cause it's not irrational. It's the Vashta Nerada.

[DVC]

Even if Randall releases a Wolf fear wouldn't be reasonable. Reasonable fear would be fear that was statistically justified, and one Wolf won't do it.

[DVC]

On XKCD it's called an alt-text.

It’s only you, mate.
There is an alt text. It’s “Front Door”.
And there is a title text. But it’s empty.
Here’s the code:

Code: Select all

<img src="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/front_door.png" title="" alt="Front Door" />

People said “alt text” instead of “title text” in the times before HTML4, when there was only the alt attribute, and browsers erroneously treated it like a title attribute! That has loooong changed. Everyone knows that. So get with the times.

You've just described an etymology making alt-text an entirely valid term to use. Remember that English is not a prescribed language and dictionaries don't define things, they just record how words are commonly used. In the same way, we all know what alt-text means, just because the way of coding it has changed doesn't mean the term is no longer valid.

[imyourfoot]

I've recently become afraid of the dark again once I started imagining that weeping angels were right behind me.

I was reading this thread thinking how silly it is that people are honestly afraid, even on a subconscious level, that someone is going to sneak up on them as they approach their own damn house in the night, and wondering what kind of bad neighborhoods you all must live in where this is even a plausible threat vs say getting struck by lightning...

Then I read your comment, my chest tightened up a bit, and I compulsively scanned my yard out my window to make sure I didn't have any new statues watching me.

So that's what happened to the mayor of Tallow...

Spoiler:

You are the only person on the internet who might figure out what I'm talking about.

[Soma]

On XKCD it's called an alt-text.

It’s only you, mate.
There is an alt text. It’s “Front Door”.
And there is a title text. But it’s empty.
Here’s the code:

Code: Select all

<img src="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/front_door.png" title="" alt="Front Door" />

People said “alt text” instead of “title text” in the times before HTML4, when there was only the alt attribute, and browsers erroneously treated it like a title attribute! That has loooong changed. Everyone knows that. So get with the times.

You are the definition of "douche bag".

[jmbryant]

Speeding up is NOT the correct response to a wolf behind you.
Turn and face it.
(When my wife did this she got an enthusiastic face lick - but no attack.)

[VelociraptorEvader]

Ahhh thank you Randall for solving unfounded part in that fear I had. It was a major problem that as the graph showed caused a lot of embarrassment. Now I only have to deal with the wolf bites.