Difference between revisions of "Talk:1514: PermaCal"

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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The explanation seems unclear where it addresses the title text.  I'm not sure what is meant by "maybe 100ms every few months," but it seems to miss the point of the comic.  If a leap day is added each time the previous day ends, then at millisecond resolution, a new leap-millisecond would be added every millisecond!  Hence the resulting DDOS when pushing so many NTP notifications... [[Special:Contributions/199.27.133.104|199.27.133.104]] 16:05, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 
The explanation seems unclear where it addresses the title text.  I'm not sure what is meant by "maybe 100ms every few months," but it seems to miss the point of the comic.  If a leap day is added each time the previous day ends, then at millisecond resolution, a new leap-millisecond would be added every millisecond!  Hence the resulting DDOS when pushing so many NTP notifications... [[Special:Contributions/199.27.133.104|199.27.133.104]] 16:05, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 
:I think that's wrong, too.  Just my vote towards encouraging someone who wants to consider rewording it.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.160|141.101.98.160]] 16:10, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 
:I think that's wrong, too.  Just my vote towards encouraging someone who wants to consider rewording it.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.160|141.101.98.160]] 16:10, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
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I am so happy Randall decided to mock leap seconds. The human race just needs to accept that the rotation of the Earth is not a constant and stop pretending that it is. If we ingored leap seconds it would only add up to a few hours a lifetime. So what if 12pm is a different time as the years pass? It may be annoying but that is the world we live one. We can still have noon be the height of the sun if we want, it will just be a different time. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.133.73|199.27.133.73]] 17:25, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Revision as of 17:25, 20 April 2015

In Megan's response, the "h" in "19th" is backwards. 108.162.214.239 05:47, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that's a mistake since lowercase letters normally aren't used. Mikemk (talk) 05:49, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
Looks like he forgot the line on the upper left. He used the capital 19TH for Cueball. 173.245.48.60 07:24, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
I think it's intentional. All the H's after a T have shortened upperleft lines. Probably for nice http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/kerning ToaVin (talk) 10:12, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
I recall other examples where Randall's lettering style includes 'stroke obscurations' (preferable to merging of letters, probably).141.101.98.160 16:10, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Leap seconds have nothing to do with the length of the year: corrected. 108.162.249.162 07:49, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

"Leap seconds normally account for the differences in the length of our 24 hour day and the time taken for the world to rotate 360 degrees on its axis" - this sentence mixes two unrelated concepts. First, a day is not a rotation of 360 degrees. Because the Earth also orbit the sun, the rotation from noon one day to noon the following day is a bit more than 360 degrees (360.9856 or so) (rotation measured relative to the stars) - this is why constellations appear to move throughout the year. Second, leap seconds are required because the leap day corrections of the Gregorian calendar are good, but not perfect, at matching the difference between Earth orbits (years) and Earth rotations (days). Every so often, a small correction is required. The corrections are not regular because the causes of the drift are numerous: tidal effects, orbital eccentricity, the underlying (small) flaws in the calendar, etc. I have not made any changes in the explanation. --141.101.104.66 08:41, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Not unrelated concept. Just not fully understood. Rotate 360 degrees is a simple way of putting things that ignores the diffrence between solar days and sidereal days. Incorrect not because someone doesn't understand the topic being discussed but because someone hasn't studied astronomy or seriously thought about how the movement of the Earth effects the length of the day--108.162.237.183 13:00, 20 April 2015 (UTC).

While you are true on one part, that Earth doesn't take 24 hours to rotate 360 degrees (it takes around 23 hours and 56 minutes if I recall correctly), leap seconds are used to account for differences between 24 hours and a solar day. If it was used to adjust the length of the year the time of day would drift, it would also be fairly pointless as the leap days take us out by 1/4 of a day.108.162.250.175 10:41, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Do we know for sure that this comic was released on a Sunday - the 19th instead of the 20th? The first entry in this page is from the 20th. Of course there are some references to the 19th, but then again it is obvious that it is on the 20th that Megan asks. Anyone who can find out if this is the correct date, or just a mistake by someone who misunderstood something based on the dates in the comic? --Kynde (talk) 11:19, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it was released on the 19th, at about 10 PM CST. All of the recent comics have been released a few hours early though, so if you want the date set at 20, fine. Mikemk (talk) 15:05, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
The archive claims that it was released on the 20th.--17jiangz1 (talk) 15:08, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Apropos a "permanent calendar", Isaac Asimov proposed just such a calendar. http://calendars.wikia.com/wiki/World_Season_Calendar This web page unfortunately doesn't go into details, but there were several advantages. The same calendar is used for all years, your birthday is always on the same day of the week, no need to remember "30 days hath Sept. ...", and several other advantages I can't remember right now. --RenniePet (talk) 12:45, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

There is some confusion between the different types of astronomical time: a day in mean solar time is 24 hours, with a difference of + or - up to 1 second (compared to time on an atomic clock), in apparent solar time is 24 hours + or - up to 30 seconds, and in mean sidereal time is 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4.0916 seconds (according to Wikipedia), and there is one extra sidereal day (about 366.25) in a sidereal year. The Dining Logician (talk) 13:55, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

It seems like our collective favorite word just might be "portmanteau" The Goyim speaks (talk) 13:42, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

The explanation seems unclear where it addresses the title text. I'm not sure what is meant by "maybe 100ms every few months," but it seems to miss the point of the comic. If a leap day is added each time the previous day ends, then at millisecond resolution, a new leap-millisecond would be added every millisecond! Hence the resulting DDOS when pushing so many NTP notifications... 199.27.133.104 16:05, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

I think that's wrong, too. Just my vote towards encouraging someone who wants to consider rewording it.141.101.98.160 16:10, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

I am so happy Randall decided to mock leap seconds. The human race just needs to accept that the rotation of the Earth is not a constant and stop pretending that it is. If we ingored leap seconds it would only add up to a few hours a lifetime. So what if 12pm is a different time as the years pass? It may be annoying but that is the world we live one. We can still have noon be the height of the sun if we want, it will just be a different time. 199.27.133.73 17:25, 20 April 2015 (UTC)