Can someone explain this for folks whose existence is outside the US
Are not standardised
Wait are the us plugs not standardized???
They are, the joke is that non standardized plugs would be a logistical nightmare…
Oh okay, sorry im pretty bad at getting jokes
Yeah, none of this is real. The idea is that a standards organisation would find that idea of state-specific plugs scary enough to put in a haunted house, since it would be an extreme example of what they work to prevent.
It’s just not a good joke.
The joke is that it’s a haunted house for the standards organizations.
Removed by mod
K
ExplainXKCD to the rescue :D
Thank you! I never knew this existed. Awesome!
Not a yank, but according to my research historically some states (and even some cities) had dissimilar voltages, amperages, and plugs, and even a choice of alternating vs nonalternating current. Sort of like how the poms have 100V instead of our 240V but with only a few kilometres of distance involved, dependant on power company.
It’s not important to the joke.
Knowing what the different States are and different cities (for the title text) is pretty important. As someone who is from outside the United States, I wouldn’t’ve been surprised if “Pennsylvania Wiring” was really a standard of wiring.
It would’ve been the exact same gag if these were Italian or Japanese or whatever.
Welcome! If you need to charge your phones, note that this house has Yokohama wiring, but we have Nagoya and Shikoku adapters available.
You can leave at any time through the door over there. It’s a shoji door, so you’ll need to find a compatible knob. No, don’t be silly, that one is a fusuma knob! Of course it won’t fit.
As someone not from the American northeast, I don’t get it either.
As someone from the American northeast, i don’t get it either.
I think the joke would have been better and more understandable if it had used different corporate names rather than states. But, of course, that might have been legally problematic.
IMO the joke is more “timeless” because it uses state names instead of company names.
Imagine if instead it mentioned Xerox computers, DEC terminals*, IPX, and Ethernet hubs. We’d say “wow that comic didn’t age well”. Even something as recent as “EVGA GPU” will go down in history books instead of commonplace.
*Yes, I am aware that the VT100 terminal spec is from DEC. But they don’t make DEC terminals anymore
10 years down the road, we don’t know what tech will look like. But there is a high likelihood that the state of Pennsylvania will still exist and hold relevance.
Part of the confusion I find is he’s trying to make a tech joke using something inherently non-technical, states’ names.
It’s also just not funny.
Not funny and not about programming.
It’s funny to the right crowd, but not programming.
