2013-10-17
Explanation
The Joke
A woman excitedly announces to another person: "Oh my God! I figured out a way to perform any calculation that can be done on a computer, using only your hands!" A keyboard sits on the table between them.
The punchline is that her "breakthrough" is simply... typing on a keyboard. Any calculation a computer can do can indeed be performed "using only your hands" -- by typing on a computer keyboard. She has excitedly rediscovered the obvious.
The Humor
The comic plays on the common trope of someone presenting a trivially obvious observation as though it were a revolutionary discovery. It also parodies the format of breathless tech announcements. The joke works because the statement is technically true in the most literal sense -- you use your hands to operate a computer -- but it reframes mundane keyboard use as some kind of extraordinary human capability. The keyboard sitting visibly on the table makes the punchline immediately apparent.
Votey
The votey shows the woman looking at her hands and thinking "So much power," completing the joke by showing she is genuinely in awe of her non-discovery, fully committed to the delusion that she has unlocked some incredible human potential.