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Title text:
For the first time in history, it will be possible for a Democratic Senator from Kansas to see a programmable automatic digital computer.
Transcript:
Transcript will show once it’s been added to explainxkcd.com
Source: https://xkcd.com/3320/
What's the joke?
The last majority like this was before websites.
There was a 257 in 2008, which is pretty close.
The 267 in 1990 was probably before results were on websites.
Yeah, but the 1990 one was readily accessible on gopher if you knew the right server to tunnel into.
not quite. Democrats had a 267 majority between 1990-1992. Websites existed in 1992.
True but I think the implication is that news agencies weren't running websites.
I guess it depends on how one interprets "news website" If taken as "a website that has news on it" it's quite plausible the 1990-1992 majority was documented, especially given this archive from Nov 1992: https://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/Products/WAIS/Sources/Political.html has various links to things about the 1992 election
Right now, it is news that Democrats have won such a big majority. It's a new development, that journalists are writing articles about, and those articles are being published on nevs websites.
The first website as we know it didn't come around until 1991, so no news websites existed for them to be posted on.
By 1992, it wasn't news anymore, it was just the way things were at the time. People wouldn't exactly have been writing articles in 1992 treating the majority like it was a noteworthy new development.
Also, don't underestimate just how small the world wide web was back then, it's hard to nail down exact numbers, but there were probably only a few dozen websites by the end of 1992, and a decent chunk of them were tech companies, universities, research centers, etc.
And the web was a different place then too, websites were much more static and simple things, you usually didn't have constant updates, live feeds, or the kinds of user-generated content we get these days.
That election was in 1990. Maybe there were some usenet with news about the elections but not websites. The first website that may have had covered something like that was Bloomberg in 1993
Not news websites like today though
A historic fact about the election:
The last time a Democrat held the seat Amy Andrews just won, the Democrat was Strom Thurmond.
That's what's wrong with America, nobody naming their kids Strom anymore.
i know a strom
My son is also named Strom
We're running out of Strom Signs again!
I see, and appreciate, the reference
Strom Bones, Sleepy Hollow
I do too and he's a mortician
Ah yes, Strom Thurmond of the States' Rights Democratic Party. I'll give you one guess what their party flag was...
was it this?
So this is the first non-KKK Democrat Senator from Kansas?