Main Page

Welcome to the explain xkcd wiki!
We have an explanation for all 2940 xkcd comics, and only 10 (0%) are incomplete. Help us finish them!

Latest comic

Go to this comic explanation

|< < Prev Comic #2940 (May 31, 2024)

Modes of Transportation

Title text: My bold criticism might anger the hot air balloon people, which would be a real concern if any of them lived along a very narrow line directly upwind of me.

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a Transportationally convenient but insidiously dangerous robotic car - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.

Randall's chart shows that hot air balloons are an inconvenient and dangerous outlier compared to other modes of transportation. Therefore, if an optimization algorithm considers it the optimal mode of transportation, it must be the result of a sign error (e.g. having a minus sign where a plus sign is supposed to be, or vice versa), giving the opposite result by mistake. Presumably, modes of transportation similar to hot air balloons (like zeppelins and blimps) are left off of the chart to increase the gap for comedic effect. This comic is the second comic in a row to feature an algorithm.

The title text makes a joke that if an angry hot air balloon enthusiast disagrees with the ranking, they will have a difficult time getting to Randall's house with their preferred mode of transportation. In reality, hot air balloons have some freedom to choose their direction of travel, since by controlling their altitude they can access different wind directions at different heights. Randall should, therefore, be concerned about hot air balloonists who live within a wedge spanned by the various wind directions accessible on a given day. In principle, if the weather conditions are favorable, this could cover every direction from Randall's house. The phrase "hot air balloon people" is reminiscent of "autogyro people" from the title text of 1972: Autogyros.

Transcript

This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.

[A chart is shown, where the Y axis is labeled "Convenient for travel" and has an arrow pointing up and the X axis is labeled "Dangerous" and has an arrow pointing right.]

[The following modes are shown in the "Zone of practicality" (a large irregular area fitting in to the top left corner of the chart), highlighted with a gray background, starting with the first few bunched at highest convenience, :]

Trains [very convenient, very safe]

Airliners

Cars

Scooters [the most dangerous of this set, at medium-low danger]

Bicycles

Boats [medium-high convenience, a slight amount of danger]

Walking [the least convienient, at roughly half, and lowest danger of this set]

[The following modes are shown in the "Zone of specialty and recreational vehicles" (a large irregular swathe from the top right to the bottom left, not quite touching the prior zone), highlighted with a gray background, the nodes spread in rough order from high convenience/danger to low convenience/danger:]

Motorcycles [highly convenient, nearly maximum danger]

Helicopters [not quite fully convenient, most danger]

Light aircraft

Go karts

Skateboards

Rollerblades

Skis

Unicycles

Sleds

Bumper cars [lowest convenience and lowest danger item]

[The following is labeled "?????" (in the bottom right corner), and has a gray background all to itself in a small blob notably distant from the nearest other group:]

Hot air balloons [placed as almost the least convenient and most dangerous, of all labels]

[Caption below the panel:]

Hot air balloons are the optimal mode of transportation, if your optimization algorithm has a sign error.

Is this out of date? .

New here?

Last 7 days (Top 10)

Rank Score Pages Changes Username 1 21 17 21 TheusafBOT 2 21 15 24 Elektrizikekswerk 3 19 19 19 Psychoticpotato 4 15 9 19 Charlie Spring 5 13 6 18 Apollo11 6 9 5 10 Kynde 7 9 3 11 Asdf 8 7 2 9 DKMell 9 6 3 6 These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For 10 3 3 3 Solomon Ucko

Lots of people contribute to make this wiki a success. Many of the recent contributors, listed above, have just joined. You can do it too! Create your account here.

You can read a brief introduction about this wiki at explain xkcd. Feel free to sign up for an account and contribute to the wiki! We need explanations for comics, characters, themes and everything in between. If it is referenced in an xkcd web comic, it should be here.

• If you're new to wiki editing, see the explain xkcd:Editor FAQ for a specific guidance to this Wiki and the more general help on how to edit wiki pages. There's also a handy wikicode cheatsheet.

• Discussion about the wiki itself happens at the Community portal.

• You can browse the comics from List of all comics or by navigating the category tree at Category:Comics.

• There are incomplete explanations listed here. Feel free to help out by expanding them!

Rules

Don't be a jerk!

There are a lot of comics that don't have set-in-stone explanations; feel free to put multiple interpretations in the wiki page for each comic.

If you want to talk about a specific comic, use its discussion page.

Please only submit material directly related to (and helping everyone better understand) xkcd... and of course only submit material that can legally be posted (and freely edited). Off-topic or other inappropriate content is subject to removal or modification at admin discretion, and users who repeatedly post such content will be blocked.

If you need assistance from an admin, post a message to the Admin requests board.