XKCD: It's more than a comic

Two things I thought I wouldn't see get put together: country music and science.

Why would there be a vent in the floor?

I have wondered that myself, and I think at some point someone told me an answer. I don't remember it, but the fact remains that sometimes there are vents in floors.

There is another problem with it. A phone that has its alarm constantly beeping won't have its battery running for weeks. The speaker can drain a lot of power.

Still could manage days and be a massive headache. Including inducing literal headache.

On the other hand, water may solve it by shorting it!

I have vents in my floor. It's just a place for vents. Cats love 'em when the heater's on.

Floor vents are common in the midwest. The furnace is usually in the basement and it's easier to run the airducts laterally and then upturn them into the floor of the room than it would be to run them vertically to ceiling and then to each room. Fewer turns in your ducting means more efficient airflow/heating. Plus heat rises, so it make sense to be on the floor for more even distribution.

Could you just overheat the phone, then?

Most of the vents are in the floor in my house as well, at least everywhere except the basement. It kind of makes sense since the furnace is in the basement - why would you add all that extra piping to put them through the walls since the floor is closer? I live in Toronto, btw.

edited 29th Apr '15 6:31:46 AM by Cidolfas

I don't think that the heating system could produce enough heat to overheat a phone in the vent. However you can also try to drop some burning material in there to melt it. But don't forget to open the window in this case.

edited 29th Apr '15 6:33:54 AM by petersohn

And then explain later to the fire department why you felt the need to burn your house down to silence your phone...

Why not just disassemble the vent? Heaven knows we did that enough times as a kid when things fell down there.

My parents' house was built in the 30s or 40s and the original structure has floor vents. When they added an upper floor in the 90s, all of the new vents were in the ceiling, except for the intake vent, which is on a wall a few inches from the floor.

Floor vents make sense for heating, and ceiling vents make sense for cooling. Yet they do both.

I liked this one.

A giant magnet on a string?

How much of a phone's composition is ferrous metal? I don't think most phones these days contain enough to be attracted by a magnet.

Perhaps the magnet isn't meant to attract the phone. It's to shut off the alarm by bricking it.

The magnet will probably clamp onto the air duct anyway.

Hmm. Then we can construct a remote controlled electro-magnet. Honey, I'll need 20' of electrical wire, a large block of iron and a car battery...

...don't most phone alarms turn themselves off after a minute?

It depends on the snooze.

I know that my sister's can ring for a full half hour, waking up everyone in the house but her and staying on until someone finally has enough and gets up to turn it off.

Venus. This one made me laugh.

I was half expecting a Destiny reference due to panel 1. Never mind, this is better

I thought the greenhouse effect was where greenhouses would swoop in and attack people for burning fossil fuels? Ah, shows how much I know.