explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2296: Sourdough Starter

2020-04-20T21:10:09Z

108.162.215.12:

{{comic
| number = 2296
| date = April 20, 2020
| title = Sourdough Starter
| image = sourdough_starter.png
| titletext = Once the lockdown is over, let's all get together and swap starters!
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Rcently, because of the coronavirus, many people are forced to stay home in quarantine. Something that many people are doing with their time is baking bread with sourdough starters. In this comic, a joke is made that coronavirus is actually an organism which lives symbiotically with yeast in sourdough starters, and leads a parasitic lifestyle inside of humans, sourdough starter, and bread.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:2295: Garbage Math

2020-04-19T05:25:07Z

108.162.215.12:

== Inclusion in Series ==
This is not a Covid19 comic. One could think that this is a comment on the difficulties of modeling the corona virus outbreak, but since discussions of exponential functions are only a small part in the comic I believe it is just a general comment on floating point arithmetic mixed in with statistical considerations. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.242|108.162.229.242]] 17:28, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
:I disagree that this is not a COVID-19 comic. I also believe the one about visualizing large numbers was COVID-19 related. On the other hand, I like the idea that Randall might produce exactly 19 comics related to SARS CoViD 2019, so I'm prepared to concede the point for the sake of arbitrary numerological appeal.
:[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 18:42, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
::I think Exa-Exabyte was a real stretch (the virus doesn't even have DNA), but there is a tenuous link so whatever. The idea that ''this'' comic is related, on the other hand, stretches past the breaking point. There's hardly anything that can't be linked to global events if we try hard enough, but that doesn't mean there's an actual link. Sometimes a comic about garbage math is just a comic about garbage math. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.58|172.69.71.58]] 19:33, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
:::I think this one's much more likely to be a coronavirus comic than Exa-Exabyte was. There's an awful lot of COVID data, much of it either very imprecise or outright garbage; and the comic directly before this one ([[2294]]) involved bad modeling of said COVID data, so clearly COVID data (and its limitations) is something Randall's currently thinking of and drawing comics about. [[User:Pelosujamo|Pelosujamo]] ([[User talk:Pelosujamo|talk]]) 20:25, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
::::Exa-Exabyte was centered around biology, which gives reason to believe it was covid19 related. This one seems much more uncertain. Any conclusion that it is related is based on garbage. Jokes aside, It seems like much more of a stretch to me. Randall thinking in those terms is a reasonable argument, but personally I am going to assume this is the chain breaker unless a direct reference is made in the next couple comics since ending at 19 is would be appropriate. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.209|172.69.70.209]]
:: While this comic has no ''direct'' reference to Covid-19 it does appear that the math might be related. At this point we can't know if the series has ended. As such I've edited the paragraph in the explanation to identify the known ambiguities. And now I realize I've made an explanatory paragraph about "knowledge error bars" in the explanation of a comic about numerical error bars.[[User:Iggynelix|Iggynelix]] ([[User talk:Iggynelix|talk]]) 14:42, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
:::No. The reason it appears the math might be related is ''because the math relates to everything, everywhere''. That's not enough of a connection. During this pandemic, there will be a lot of comics related to the coronavirus, many of them in a row, but that doesn't mean that every comic that could be tangentially related if you squint just right should qualify as a COVID-19 comic (I ''still'' think Exa-Exabyte doesn't). There needs to be a real link, because just about ''anything'' could be twisted into a relation if you try hard enough. As a test, I hit [[Special:Random]] and got [[346: Diet Coke+Mentos]]. Wouldn't you know, that's a coronavirus comic! The father, you see, actually had COVID-19 and died, but Diet Coke and Mentos has brought him back! No. The line should be drawn here. The streak has ended. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.68.197|172.69.68.197]] 17:02, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
::::I agree this is not a serious contender for inclusion as a COVID comic. Although I'm pretty sure Randall has input to COVID19 models as garbage on his mind. But there is nothing in this comic that suggest this math be used on a pandemic. The exa byte is a different story as it is about how much of biology we cannot know or control in the midst of a lot of comics about some new biology we do not control. I do not expect that this will end the covid19 series, but I will consent that even if the next comic is a clear corona comic, it will no longer be an unbroken streak. Anyway the real streak ended at the end of March with the late April Fool's comic. I also do not at all think that the coke mentos could be seen as a COVID19 comic, that is just bulls**t trying to prove a point that I believe you fail completely. I also tried random comic (I like the idea) and found [[1208: Footnote Labyrinths]]. It is a scientific paper (with nested footnotes) and given science, we could say it was about science about Corona. Naah. But for the same reason this comic should not be considered corona. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:53, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

== Math and Error bars ==

Well this is surprising came here thinking I understood it just to see what the discussion looked like. Ended up learning something new. I was able to understand intuitively the comic. But this is my first exposure to actually doing math on the error bars. I think I was supposed to do that in college but I don't remember anyone ever explaining how it should work. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.63.208|162.158.63.208]] 18:14, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

In recent days, there have been a number of math "quizzes" in this same type of format, albeit generally with only addition and maybe multiplication, appearing on Facebook. Should the explanation include a reference to this as a possible contributing reason for Randall's comic? One could also argue that those quizzes have been appearing on Facebook as a way to spend/waste time during the coronavirus pandemic lock-down, making he comic at least tangentially related to Covid19 LIES.
:: Unsigned vandalism? /\ [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2295:_Garbage_Math&diff=190866&oldid=190856 change history] @user Please feel free to move your discussion to an appropriate forum and remove both the edit and this comment at such time. [[User:Iggynelix|Iggynelix]] ([[User talk:Iggynelix|talk]])

What's the difference between relative error and absolute error? I don't understand these terms. Maybe add?
: Absolute error is the amount of uncertainty in a value measured as a given number. e.g. 5.7 ± 1.2 means that actual value lies somewhere between 5.7 - 1.2 and 5.7 + 1.2 = 4.5 to 6.9. If you change the 5.7 to another value, you still get the same absolute difference of maximum and minimum values. Relative error depends on the value you are comparing to. e.g. 5.7 ± 10% would be between 5.7 - 0.57 and 5.7 + 0.57 = 5.13 to 6.27. The absolute difference of maximum and minimum would change if the main number changes. e.g. 11.3 ± 10% would be between 10.17 and 12.43, which has a greater absolute difference of maximum and minimum than the previous example. [[User:Nutster|Nutster]] ([[User talk:Nutster|talk]]) 01:54, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Are all of these equations consistent with garbage = infinity?
: Unfortunately, as written, these equations would not make sense by defining Garbage as an infinity. Infinity is not a number you can count to or measure in between integers. Infinity is the idea of unending-ness. Trying to use infinity as if it a finite number yields all sorts of invalid results. In this case Garbage is defined as an arbitrary finite number with a large amount of uncertainty in its value. [[User:Nutster|Nutster]] ([[User talk:Nutster|talk]]) 01:40, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
::: That's a pretty good definition of 'garbage' in ''any'' case, plus or minus 10%. ( See also [https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/06/landfill-mining-recycling-eurelco/ valuable garbage]) [[User:Iggynelix|Iggynelix]] ([[User talk:Iggynelix|talk]]) 14:19, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Would the summation divided by ''n'' just give you the arithmatic mean of the data set? [[User:Nutster|Nutster]] ([[User talk:Nutster|talk]]) 01:55, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
:Pretty much, but the point is probably more that (without consistent bias across the set, just 'random' errors for each item) it suppresses the degree of garbagicity as outliers are increasingly nullified by the greater number of more competently accurate values and (if it's a symmetric error) opposing outliers. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.222|162.158.34.222]] 09:29, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

The statement that NaN^0 isn't fully justified and I'm not clear it belongs. [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 18:46, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
: I agree... It also isn't evident to me that this comic has anything to do with floating-point math, which is the only thing that could (even slimly) justify its inclusion. This is about statistics, not programming. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.12|108.162.215.12]] 05:25, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

2260: Reaction Maps

2020-04-18T03:59:19Z

108.162.215.12: /* Transcript */ done

{{comic
| number = 2260
| date = January 27, 2020
| title = Reaction Maps
| image = reaction_maps.png
| titletext = If Google Maps stops letting you navigate to (Clay County District) A in West Virginia, you can try Jump, OH -> Ina, IL -> Big Hole, TX.
}}

==Explanation==
This is another one of [[Randall|Randall's]] [[:Category:Tips|Tips]], this time a Texting Tip. Randall suggests that readers send a set of driving directions as an intense / extremely annoyed response (a "Reaction Map", named after the "[https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/computer-reaction-faces Reaction Face]", "Reaction Gif", and other memes). The words "Reaction Map" in Chemistry refer to a diagram that shows how compounds react to form different compounds; an example can be found [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citric_acid_cycle here].

In this comic, [[Ponytail]] texts the following car pun/joke:
:You should name your new Honda Civic ''The Treaty of Edinburgh''
:Because it's a Tudor compact ["Tudor" pronounced "two-door" in some USA accents, "tyudor" elsewhere.]

The {{w|Treaty of Edinburgh}} was a treaty drawn up in 1560, which falls during the {{w|Tudor period}} of the history of {{w|England}}, while a compact is another word for a treaty -- hence a Tudor compact. A {{w|Honda Civic}} is a {{w|compact car}}, which has a {{w|coupé}} body model with only two doors (there are also hatchback and 4-door sedan versions) -- hence a two-door compact. The joke is thus a double pun on the similarity of the words "Tudor" and "two-door", as well as a pun on the words "treaty" and "compact."

Pronouncing "Tudor" as "Tyoo-dor" (i.e. without American-style [[wikipedia:Yod-dropping|yod-dropping]]) rather than "Too-" may hinder comprehension of this pun.

Puns rise and fall in popularity, and some people dislike them at all times. Recipients [https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/07/why-do-puns-make-people-groan/398252/ often groan], sometimes even while laughing or smiling. Because of this pun, [[Cueball]] gets so mad at Ponytail that he replies twice, first that their friendship is over and second that he hopes she falls in a lake. Both times he uses driving directions to do so because he wishes to show how mad he is by spending time finding cities with relevant names just to do it.

The [https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Truly,+MT+59421/Saari,+L'Anse+Township,+MI+49946/Toulouse,+Kentucky/A,+Clay+County,+WV/Friendship,+South+Carolina/This+Way,+Lake+Jackson,+TX+77566/@37.9396464,-104.4176717,5z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m38!4m37!1m5!1m1!1s0x53424d6552eab029:0xb7fcd8937da3ec25!2m2!1d-111.4413578!2d47.3557881!1m5!1m1!1s0x4d50e1468af1ce9b:0xb02e7ce99f9e641a!2m2!1d-88.3092692!2d46.8784933!1m5!1m1!1s0x8844b40da22762bf:0xee4cd8dba67a2afa!2m2!1d-83.3269444!2d37.1766667!1m5!1m1!1s0x884943786da899b1:0x5eb17b45f77f3480!2m2!1d-81.0533854!2d38.5410076!1m5!1m1!1s0x88ffff04df8a3dc1:0x2e50cd1fdf10df52!2m2!1d-79.4353317!2d34.0168293!1m5!1m1!1s0x864043e6372e0009:0x1372621459655543!2m2!1d-95.4597276!2d29.0382495!3e0 list of map destinations], Truly (MT), Saari (MI), Toulouse (KY), A (WV), {{w|Friendship,_South_Carolina|Friendship}} (SC), This Way (TX) is a way of saying, "Truly sorry to lose a friendship this way".
The [https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Hope,+NY+12134/Yoe,+PA/Fallin+Lake,+Magnolia+Township,+AR/@38.214792,-88.0772473,6z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m20!4m19!1m5!1m1!1s0x89df00206dc519a7:0x8c095186fc80dee1!2m2!1d-74.2431907!2d43.3036812!1m5!1m1!1s0x89c8886da851113b:0x96fa3e47edbd1953!2m2!1d-76.6369116!2d39.9089887!1m5!1m1!1s0x8633c43fa49e5997:0x864650e233fea97b!2m2!1d-93.3167015!2d33.2840166!3e0 list of map destinations], {{w|Hope, New York|Hope}} (NY), {{w|Yoe, Pennsylvania|Yoe}} (PA), Fallin Lake (AR) is a way of saying, "Hope you fall in [a] lake".

"A" is [https://goo.gl/maps/sUm6MtwEvpsBbfLX8 one] of the three districts in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clay_County,_West_Virginia#Geography Clay County, WV]. The others are "B" and "C".

In the title text, [[Randall]] offers a different option if "A" is removed from Google Maps, {{w|Ina, Illinois|Ina (IL)}}, to make [https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Jump,+McDonald+Township,+Ohio,+USA/Ina,+IL,+USA/Big+Hole,+Texas,+USA/@35.8263797,-93.8102845,6z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m20!4m19!1m5!1m1!1s0x883edadb5282cd7d:0xbd26e9e97ce76762!2m2!1d-83.79438!2d40.6158849!1m5!1m1!1s0x8876cfd2b9f24b79:0xa00498b7be5e90c4!2m2!1d-88.9039554!2d38.1511606!1m5!1m1!1s0x863813224a969417:0x61e1c3c664eadc63!2m2!1d-94.8453391!2d31.1918015!3e0 this response]: Jump (OH), {{w|Ina, Illinois|Ina}} (IL), Big Hole (TX) ("Jump in a big hole".)

In [[2245: Edible Arrangements]], Cueball was irritated by a pun from [[Megan]] which was also themed on English history ("Vore of the Roses"), but in that strip, he evidently didn't get angry enough to send a map expressing that he would "[https://www.google.com/maps/dir/29688+Cancelada,+M%C3%A1laga,+Spain/Arrangements+Brown+Sea,+Calle+de+Francisco+Silvela,+Madrid,+Spain/@38.609612,-5.2412907,7.5z/data=!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0xd732ad66c172565:0x65fb5ee2794f4f9d!2m2!1d-5.0540138!2d36.4614784!1m5!1m1!1s0xd4228b822e25179:0xf8f412a49085dc85!2m2!1d-3.6730066!2d40.4327046!3e0 Cancelada Arrangements]" he had bought for her -- he simply told her so in person and then walked away when she kept punning.

==Transcript==
:[Caption to the left of the comic:]

:Texting Tip

:Is your reaction too intense to be expressed in an emoji or gif?
:Try using driving directions!
:The extra research it requires shows how strongly you feel.

:[A split panel, showing Ponytail texting Cueball with her text messages shown above in gray and Cueball reading the texts angrily below]

:Ponytail: You should name your new Honda Civic ''The Treaty of Edinburgh''
:Ponytail: Because it's a Tudor compact
:Ponytail: Get it

:[Cueball replies to Ponytail, with his text messages shown above him. Ponytail's last text ("Get it") is shown. Cueball sends Ponytail a screenshot of driving directions that go through Truly, Saari, Toulouse, A, Friendship, and This Way]

:[Cueball continues to text Ponytail, with his text messages shown above him. He sends Ponytail a screenshot of driving directions that go through Hope, Yoe, and Fallin Lake]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Tips]]
[[Category:Google Maps]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Smartphones]]
[[Category:Puns]]

2153: Effects of High Altitude

2020-04-18T03:54:24Z

108.162.215.12: /* Transcript */ done

{{comic
| number = 2153
| date = May 22, 2019
| title = Effects of High Altitude
| image = effects_of_high_altitude.png
| titletext = If she'd lived in Flagstaff (elevation 6,903 feet), Cruella de Vil would only have needed 89 dalmatians for her coat.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic starts out with three effects of high altitude related to the air getting "thinner" and the lower air pressure. {{w|Denver}} is one mile (5280 feet or 1609 meters) above sea-level (as marked on the steps of the State Capitol). At this elevation, the [http://www.altitude.org/air_pressure.php average atmospheric pressure] is about 83% of sea level pressure, or about 840 mbar instead of 1013 mbar, and [https://www.sensorsone.com/local-gravity-calculator/ gravity] is 99.94% of gravity at sea level at the same latitude, or 9.796 m/s2 instead of 9.801 m/s2. This has a number of effects:

* Water {{w|boiling|boils}} at 202 degrees F (94 degrees C), slightly lower than the baseline 212 degrees F (100 degrees C) it takes at sea level.
* Baseballs and golf balls fly slightly farther (with the same initial velocity, the distance is inversely proportional to gravitational acceleration so it would be 0.06% farther; in addition, the lower air pressure will reduce the resistance from the air the ball will experience, therefore it will slow down at a lower rate and thus fly even farther than the 0.06% due to gravity).
* {{w|Sunburn}} develops faster because there is less atmosphere above to filter out harmful ultraviolet rays.

As usual for xkcd, the effects of high altitude are extended in a comically absurd manner, applying this "slightly less" rule to things that have nothing to do with altitude:

* {{w|Scrabble}} is a board game where each letter is assigned a point value based on its frequency of use in the edition's language. The comic claims all letters are worth 16% more. When applied to the {{w|Scrabble_letter_distributions#English|normal values for the Scrabble tiles in English}}
** Q is worth 12 instead of 10
** X is worth 9 instead of 8
** Y is worth 5 instead of 4
This point increase would have little impact in the board game when two players sit across each other. However, it would imply that scrabble played via internet should require players to state their altitude at the begin of the online game which then assigns advantages to higher-altitude players. This advantage seems arbitrary, unless the altitude difference is really significant enough to impede the thinking ability of the higher-altitude party.
* A common {{w|superstition}} states that breaking a mirror causes 7 years of bad luck. The comic claims that at higher altitudes, only 5½ years are caused. This implies that people living at higher altitudes have less bad luck.
* Marketing campaigns will often state "X is the new Y" to draw the audience of Y in toward the newer X. When used with age, usually at 10 year intervals ("40 is the new 30" is the slogan referenced), it is an attempt to convince an older audience that they can share in an experience commonly associated with a younger audience. At higher elevations, the comic claims, people can use or do things designated for an even younger audience. This is contrary to facts however: Most activities, especially in sports, are more difficult at higher altitudes, not easier.
** In the base 16 ({{w|Hexadecimal|hexadecimal}}) number system, the value 28 represents 2 * 16^1 + 8 * 16^0 = 40. Thus, 40 is the new 28. Likewise, in the base 8 ({{w|Octal|octal}}) number system, 50 represents 5 * 8^1 = 40. Remember that, although {{w| Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything|Douglas Adams doesn't write jokes about other bases}}, Randall [[1000: 1000 Comics|does]].
* German band {{w|Nena (band)|Nena}}'s hit ''99 Red Balloons'' (an English adaptation of the original song called ''{{w|99 Luftballons}}'') is a song about a war started by a large clump of balloons mistaken for enemy aircraft (see [[#Trivia]]). The comic claims that if launched from a higher altitude, 94 balloons would have sufficed.
* {{w|420 (cannabis culture)|4:20}} is a code word for {{w|cannabis}} and has evolved in some circles to be the socially acceptable hour to consume cannabis. This has in turn evolved into a joke that when checking the time and finding it is exactly 4:20, people will add "blaze it" as a reference. The comic claims that, at higher altitudes, the socially acceptable time is earlier, so if there is an elevation of one mile, the socially acceptable time would be 4:17 and therefore, marijuana jokes are made earlier. This joke is probably related to the {{w|Cannabis in Colorado|legalization of recreational marijuana use in Colorado}}.

In the title text, ''{{w|One Hundred and One Dalmatians (franchise)|One Hundred and One Dalmatians}}'' is a Disney franchise (based on a children's book), where the villain, {{w|Cruella de Vil}}, aims to capture and kill 99 Dalmatian puppies (97 in the book) to have the perfect spotted fur coat. (The title includes the parents [book: and other Dalmatian caregivers] of the Dalmatian puppies.) The comic claims that, at a higher altitude in {{w|Flagstaff, Arizona|Flagstaff}} (6903 ft / 2104 m), she would only have needed 89 Dalmatians, possibly implying that puppies at higher altitudes are bigger (perhaps because there is {{w|Decompression (altitude)|less air pressure to compress them}}) or that Cruella de Vil at high altitudes is smaller (possibly because of the {{w|Wrinkle#Water-immersion wrinkling|higher humidity and lower temperature}}).

==Transcript==
:'''Effects of High Altitude'''
:How life is different at one mile above sea level
:(e.g. in Denver)

:[Eight small panels, each containing an image with a caption at the top:]

:[A pot on a stovetop, with steam rising from the pot]
:Water boils at 202°F

:[A baseball flying through the air]
:Baseballs and golf balls fly 5-10% farther

:[Five wavy arrows hitting a curved surface, two at a low point and three at a high point]
:Sunburns develop significantly faster

:[Scrabble tiles for letters Q, X and Y with point values 12, 9 and 5, respectively]
:Scrabble letters are worth 16% more

:[Cueball looking down at a broken hand mirror on the floor]
:Breaking a mirror only causes 5½ years of bad luck

:[Cueball and Megan are talking. Megan is gesturing]
:40 is the new 28
:Megan: 50 is the new 40, and when you account for elevation it's more like 37.

:[Five black balloons floating]
:Nuclear war can be started with only 94 red balloons.

:[Cueball and Ponytail are talking. Ponytail is looking at her phone]
:People make marijuana jokes slightly earlier
:Cueball: Hey, what time is it?
:Ponytail: 4:17 Blaze it!

==Trivia==
*A similar effect on sports caused by different latitudes was the topic of [[852: Local g]].
* ''99 Red Balloons'' is generally assumed to mean a UFO starts a nuclear war, but the craft is not necessarily a flying saucer nor is the war necessarily nuclear. Although the original German song refers to "UFOs aus dem All", the lyrics of the English-language song say "There's something here from somewhere else" which does not imply extraterrestrial origins, merely that the object is not of domestic origin; and "the war machine springs to life", which implies that a rival nation on earth is thought to be the culprit.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Nuclear weapons]]

2153: Effects of High Altitude

2020-04-18T03:52:28Z

108.162.215.12: /* Transcript */ done

{{comic
| number = 2153
| date = May 22, 2019
| title = Effects of High Altitude
| image = effects_of_high_altitude.png
| titletext = If she'd lived in Flagstaff (elevation 6,903 feet), Cruella de Vil would only have needed 89 dalmatians for her coat.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic starts out with three effects of high altitude related to the air getting "thinner" and the lower air pressure. {{w|Denver}} is one mile (5280 feet or 1609 meters) above sea-level (as marked on the steps of the State Capitol). At this elevation, the [http://www.altitude.org/air_pressure.php average atmospheric pressure] is about 83% of sea level pressure, or about 840 mbar instead of 1013 mbar, and [https://www.sensorsone.com/local-gravity-calculator/ gravity] is 99.94% of gravity at sea level at the same latitude, or 9.796 m/s2 instead of 9.801 m/s2. This has a number of effects:

* Water {{w|boiling|boils}} at 202 degrees F (94 degrees C), slightly lower than the baseline 212 degrees F (100 degrees C) it takes at sea level.
* Baseballs and golf balls fly slightly farther (with the same initial velocity, the distance is inversely proportional to gravitational acceleration so it would be 0.06% farther; in addition, the lower air pressure will reduce the resistance from the air the ball will experience, therefore it will slow down at a lower rate and thus fly even farther than the 0.06% due to gravity).
* {{w|Sunburn}} develops faster because there is less atmosphere above to filter out harmful ultraviolet rays.

As usual for xkcd, the effects of high altitude are extended in a comically absurd manner, applying this "slightly less" rule to things that have nothing to do with altitude:

* {{w|Scrabble}} is a board game where each letter is assigned a point value based on its frequency of use in the edition's language. The comic claims all letters are worth 16% more. When applied to the {{w|Scrabble_letter_distributions#English|normal values for the Scrabble tiles in English}}
** Q is worth 12 instead of 10
** X is worth 9 instead of 8
** Y is worth 5 instead of 4
This point increase would have little impact in the board game when two players sit across each other. However, it would imply that scrabble played via internet should require players to state their altitude at the begin of the online game which then assigns advantages to higher-altitude players. This advantage seems arbitrary, unless the altitude difference is really significant enough to impede the thinking ability of the higher-altitude party.
* A common {{w|superstition}} states that breaking a mirror causes 7 years of bad luck. The comic claims that at higher altitudes, only 5½ years are caused. This implies that people living at higher altitudes have less bad luck.
* Marketing campaigns will often state "X is the new Y" to draw the audience of Y in toward the newer X. When used with age, usually at 10 year intervals ("40 is the new 30" is the slogan referenced), it is an attempt to convince an older audience that they can share in an experience commonly associated with a younger audience. At higher elevations, the comic claims, people can use or do things designated for an even younger audience. This is contrary to facts however: Most activities, especially in sports, are more difficult at higher altitudes, not easier.
** In the base 16 ({{w|Hexadecimal|hexadecimal}}) number system, the value 28 represents 2 * 16^1 + 8 * 16^0 = 40. Thus, 40 is the new 28. Likewise, in the base 8 ({{w|Octal|octal}}) number system, 50 represents 5 * 8^1 = 40. Remember that, although {{w| Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything|Douglas Adams doesn't write jokes about other bases}}, Randall [[1000: 1000 Comics|does]].
* German band {{w|Nena (band)|Nena}}'s hit ''99 Red Balloons'' (an English adaptation of the original song called ''{{w|99 Luftballons}}'') is a song about a war started by a large clump of balloons mistaken for enemy aircraft (see [[#Trivia]]). The comic claims that if launched from a higher altitude, 94 balloons would have sufficed.
* {{w|420 (cannabis culture)|4:20}} is a code word for {{w|cannabis}} and has evolved in some circles to be the socially acceptable hour to consume cannabis. This has in turn evolved into a joke that when checking the time and finding it is exactly 4:20, people will add "blaze it" as a reference. The comic claims that, at higher altitudes, the socially acceptable time is earlier, so if there is an elevation of one mile, the socially acceptable time would be 4:17 and therefore, marijuana jokes are made earlier. This joke is probably related to the {{w|Cannabis in Colorado|legalization of recreational marijuana use in Colorado}}.

In the title text, ''{{w|One Hundred and One Dalmatians (franchise)|One Hundred and One Dalmatians}}'' is a Disney franchise (based on a children's book), where the villain, {{w|Cruella de Vil}}, aims to capture and kill 99 Dalmatian puppies (97 in the book) to have the perfect spotted fur coat. (The title includes the parents [book: and other Dalmatian caregivers] of the Dalmatian puppies.) The comic claims that, at a higher altitude in {{w|Flagstaff, Arizona|Flagstaff}} (6903 ft / 2104 m), she would only have needed 89 Dalmatians, possibly implying that puppies at higher altitudes are bigger (perhaps because there is {{w|Decompression (altitude)|less air pressure to compress them}}) or that Cruella de Vil at high altitudes is smaller (possibly because of the {{w|Wrinkle#Water-immersion wrinkling|higher humidity and lower temperature}}).

==Transcript==
:'''Effects of High Altitude'''
:How life is different at one mile above sea level
:(e.g. in Denver)

:[Eight small panels, each containing an image with a caption at the top:]

:Water boils at 202°F
:[A pot on a stovetop, with steam rising from the pot]

:Baseballs and golf balls fly 5-10% farther
:[A baseball flying through the air]

:Sunburns develop significantly faster
:[Five wavy arrows hitting a curved surface, two at a low point and three at a high point]

:Scrabble letters are worth 16% more
:[Scrabble tiles for letters Q, X and Y with point values 12, 9 and 5, respectively]

:Breaking a mirror only causes 5½ years of bad luck
:[Cueball looking down at a broken hand mirror on the floor]

:40 is the new 28
:[Cueball and Megan are talking. Megan is gesturing]
:Megan: 50 is the new 40, and when you account for elevation it's more like 37.

:Nuclear war can be started with only 94 red balloons.
:[Five black balloons floating]

:People make marijuana jokes slightly earlier
:[Cueball and Ponytail are talking. Ponytail is looking at her phone]
:Cueball: Hey, what time is it?
:Ponytail: 4:17 Blaze it!

==Trivia==
*A similar effect on sports caused by different latitudes was the topic of [[852: Local g]].
* ''99 Red Balloons'' is generally assumed to mean a UFO starts a nuclear war, but the craft is not necessarily a flying saucer nor is the war necessarily nuclear. Although the original German song refers to "UFOs aus dem All", the lyrics of the English-language song say "There's something here from somewhere else" which does not imply extraterrestrial origins, merely that the object is not of domestic origin; and "the war machine springs to life", which implies that a rival nation on earth is thought to be the culprit.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Nuclear weapons]]

2292: Thermometer

2020-04-18T03:49:27Z

108.162.215.12: /* Transcript */ done

{{comic
| number = 2292
| date = April 10, 2020
| title = Thermometer
| image = thermometer.png
| titletext = I hate how many times you have to press it to get to the system normal people use, degrees Rømer.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is the 17th comic in a row (not counting the [[2288: Collector's Edition|April Fools' comic]]) in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] related to the {{w|2019–20 coronavirus outbreak|2020 pandemic}} of the {{w|coronavirus}} {{w|SARS-CoV-2}}, which causes {{w|COVID-19}}.

This comic expresses frustration at the multitude of {{w|temperature}} scales. [[Randall]], as a former engineer, has strong opinions about units, as unit conversion is often a gripe for many engineers. (In a special preface in the UK edition of Randall's book ''What If'', he mentions that one does not appreciate the metric system unless they have had to go through a bunch of scientific papers using really unusual units like "kilocubic feet per second" or "acre-feet".) As elevated body temperature is a symptom of COVID-19, the comic is thus also concerning the virus.

[[Cueball]] is holding what appears to be a medical thermometer, implying that he's trying to check his {{w|Human body temperature|body temperature}}. He mentions that the thermometer is in Celsius, and asks how to change it. Many thermometers sold in the United States have settings for both Fahrenheit and Celsius, with an option to change between the two. Americans are almost always more familiar with body temperatures in Fahrenheit, so Cueball presumably expects to change to that scale. However, he finds that the thermometer provides measurements in a series of scales that are increasingly unhelpful. Human body temperature in Celsius is 37 °C.

*Degrees {{w|Celsius}} are used in most of the world. The Celsius scale sets 0 degrees to water's freezing point and 100 degrees to water's boiling point. Few Americans have a clear idea of what normal and elevated ranges of human body temperature are in Celsius.
*{{w|Kelvin}} is a unit often used in scientific fields. It is calibrated on the same scale as degrees Celsius, but 0 K is set at {{w|absolute zero}} or -273.15 °C. This is used in scientific or engineering contexts requiring an thermodynamically absolute temperature, such as {{w|Charles's law}}, but almost never in a medical context, making the report of little use.
*The {{w|Rankine scale}} is another absolute scale, with its zero set at absolute zero, but degrees identical to degrees Fahrenheit. While this scale is still occasionally used in some industrial and scientific settings (being more convenient for absolute temperatures in a system including Fahrenheit), it's essentially never used in medicine, and most people have never heard of it.
*Thermodynamically, temperature is the average translational {{w|kinetic energy}} of a group of particles. ''Translational'' kinetic energy means it doesn’t include rotational and vibrational kinetic energy. The relation between a gas’s translational kinetic energy E and its temperature T is
::<math>E=\frac32 k_B T,</math>
:where kB is the {{w|Boltzmann constant}}, 1.380649×10−23 J⋅K-1. So if this thermometer told you a translational kinetic energy measurement in joules, you could get the measured temperature in the Kelvin scale by dividing by the Boltzmann constant and multiplying by 2/3. Somebody who actually wanted to use this measure of temperature might then find it useful to have Boltzmann's constant printed on the thermometer.

Using these last three units for home temperature gauging would be ridiculous, as Kelvin and Rankine measurements of body temperature are unfamiliar to the average user and even those familiar with them would need to do calculations to translate normal body temperature. Kinetic energy is obscure enough that only physicists, engineers and thermodynamicists, a relative handful of the potential buyers, would likely know what it refers to. Those that do could make use of the value printed on the thermometer, but such would add a great deal of unnecessary complexity to what should be a simple and intuitive task.

In the last frame Cueball calls the thermometer the worst. It seems to lack {{w|Fahrenheit}} entirely, frustrating its American consumer base, including Cueball. From a nerd's perspective this would be an extraordinary device, offering even exotic temperature scales. However, a "normal person" would find this thermometer terribly difficult to use for everyday purposes when set on any of the non-Celsius scales, like checking their body temperature or the temperature of food. As an item of consumer electronics, especially one sold in the United States, it would be almost completely useless.

Deliberately lacking Fahrenheit is a jab against the {{w|Imperial system of units}}, and against the similar but distinct system of {{w|United States customary units}}. Although Imperial units and local traditional units are still used for various limited purposes (and/or by older generations) in different countries, most of the world has switched to using the metric system for most purposes going forward, with the US being relatively unusual in the extent to which it still routinely defaults to the US customary units in daily life. Many proponents of the metric system have long pushed for the US to change over, arguing that Imperial and US customary units (and degrees Fahrenheit, specifically) are archaic and obsolete. [[Randall]] has dealt with this conflict in [[1643|other strips]]; as a physics major, he's partial to the metric system, and finds it frustrating to maintain multiple different scales (which is the basis of the conflict in this strip). On the other hand, he recognizes certain intuitive advantages to Imperial and US customary measurements, and recognizes that the forces of social inertia in US society make change difficult.

The title text references an archaic temperature unit, {{w|Rømer scale|Rømer}}, first proposed in 1701. Unlike the other measurements mentioned in this strip, the Rømer scale is no longer used in any context, and only people interested in the history of temperature scales have any idea that it even exists. This is the ultimate form of obscure and outdated temperature measurements.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball stands in the center of the panel holding a thermometer.]
:Cueball: This thermometer is in Celsius. How do you change it?
:Off-panel voice: Long press the button.

:[Cueball presses the button, and the thermometer beeps]
:''Press''
:''Beep''
:Thermometer: Units: Kelvin
:Cueball: No...

:[Cueball presses the button, and the thermometer beeps]
:''Press''
:''Beep''
:Thermometer: Units: Degrees Rankine
:Cueball: What.

:[Cueball presses the button, and the thermometer beeps]
:''Press''
:''Beep''
:Thermometer: Units: Average Translational Kinetic Energy
:Cueball: This is the worst thermometer.
:Off-panel voice: Boltzmann's constant is on the side if you need it.

==Trivia==

In [[1643: Degrees]], Cueball struggles with which temperature unit to use, and ultimately tells his friend the temperature in {{w|radian}}s, which is not a valid temperature scale.

In [[1923: Felsius]], Randall proposes a combined Fahrenheit/Celsius temperature scale called Felsius.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Physics]]

2292: Thermometer

2020-04-18T03:48:49Z

108.162.215.12: /* Explanation */ done

{{comic
| number = 2292
| date = April 10, 2020
| title = Thermometer
| image = thermometer.png
| titletext = I hate how many times you have to press it to get to the system normal people use, degrees Rømer.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is the 17th comic in a row (not counting the [[2288: Collector's Edition|April Fools' comic]]) in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] related to the {{w|2019–20 coronavirus outbreak|2020 pandemic}} of the {{w|coronavirus}} {{w|SARS-CoV-2}}, which causes {{w|COVID-19}}.

This comic expresses frustration at the multitude of {{w|temperature}} scales. [[Randall]], as a former engineer, has strong opinions about units, as unit conversion is often a gripe for many engineers. (In a special preface in the UK edition of Randall's book ''What If'', he mentions that one does not appreciate the metric system unless they have had to go through a bunch of scientific papers using really unusual units like "kilocubic feet per second" or "acre-feet".) As elevated body temperature is a symptom of COVID-19, the comic is thus also concerning the virus.

[[Cueball]] is holding what appears to be a medical thermometer, implying that he's trying to check his {{w|Human body temperature|body temperature}}. He mentions that the thermometer is in Celsius, and asks how to change it. Many thermometers sold in the United States have settings for both Fahrenheit and Celsius, with an option to change between the two. Americans are almost always more familiar with body temperatures in Fahrenheit, so Cueball presumably expects to change to that scale. However, he finds that the thermometer provides measurements in a series of scales that are increasingly unhelpful. Human body temperature in Celsius is 37 °C.

*Degrees {{w|Celsius}} are used in most of the world. The Celsius scale sets 0 degrees to water's freezing point and 100 degrees to water's boiling point. Few Americans have a clear idea of what normal and elevated ranges of human body temperature are in Celsius.
*{{w|Kelvin}} is a unit often used in scientific fields. It is calibrated on the same scale as degrees Celsius, but 0 K is set at {{w|absolute zero}} or -273.15 °C. This is used in scientific or engineering contexts requiring an thermodynamically absolute temperature, such as {{w|Charles's law}}, but almost never in a medical context, making the report of little use.
*The {{w|Rankine scale}} is another absolute scale, with its zero set at absolute zero, but degrees identical to degrees Fahrenheit. While this scale is still occasionally used in some industrial and scientific settings (being more convenient for absolute temperatures in a system including Fahrenheit), it's essentially never used in medicine, and most people have never heard of it.
*Thermodynamically, temperature is the average translational {{w|kinetic energy}} of a group of particles. ''Translational'' kinetic energy means it doesn’t include rotational and vibrational kinetic energy. The relation between a gas’s translational kinetic energy E and its temperature T is
::<math>E=\frac32 k_B T,</math>
:where kB is the {{w|Boltzmann constant}}, 1.380649×10−23 J⋅K-1. So if this thermometer told you a translational kinetic energy measurement in joules, you could get the measured temperature in the Kelvin scale by dividing by the Boltzmann constant and multiplying by 2/3. Somebody who actually wanted to use this measure of temperature might then find it useful to have Boltzmann's constant printed on the thermometer.

Using these last three units for home temperature gauging would be ridiculous, as Kelvin and Rankine measurements of body temperature are unfamiliar to the average user and even those familiar with them would need to do calculations to translate normal body temperature. Kinetic energy is obscure enough that only physicists, engineers and thermodynamicists, a relative handful of the potential buyers, would likely know what it refers to. Those that do could make use of the value printed on the thermometer, but such would add a great deal of unnecessary complexity to what should be a simple and intuitive task.

In the last frame Cueball calls the thermometer the worst. It seems to lack {{w|Fahrenheit}} entirely, frustrating its American consumer base, including Cueball. From a nerd's perspective this would be an extraordinary device, offering even exotic temperature scales. However, a "normal person" would find this thermometer terribly difficult to use for everyday purposes when set on any of the non-Celsius scales, like checking their body temperature or the temperature of food. As an item of consumer electronics, especially one sold in the United States, it would be almost completely useless.

Deliberately lacking Fahrenheit is a jab against the {{w|Imperial system of units}}, and against the similar but distinct system of {{w|United States customary units}}. Although Imperial units and local traditional units are still used for various limited purposes (and/or by older generations) in different countries, most of the world has switched to using the metric system for most purposes going forward, with the US being relatively unusual in the extent to which it still routinely defaults to the US customary units in daily life. Many proponents of the metric system have long pushed for the US to change over, arguing that Imperial and US customary units (and degrees Fahrenheit, specifically) are archaic and obsolete. [[Randall]] has dealt with this conflict in [[1643|other strips]]; as a physics major, he's partial to the metric system, and finds it frustrating to maintain multiple different scales (which is the basis of the conflict in this strip). On the other hand, he recognizes certain intuitive advantages to Imperial and US customary measurements, and recognizes that the forces of social inertia in US society make change difficult.

The title text references an archaic temperature unit, {{w|Rømer scale|Rømer}}, first proposed in 1701. Unlike the other measurements mentioned in this strip, the Rømer scale is no longer used in any context, and only people interested in the history of temperature scales have any idea that it even exists. This is the ultimate form of obscure and outdated temperature measurements.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball stands in the center of the panel holding a thermometer.]
:Cueball: This thermometer is in Celsius. How do you change it?
:Off-panel voice: Long press the button.

:[Cueball presses the button, and the thermometer beeps]
:''Press''
:''Beep''
:Thermometer: Units: Kelvin
:Cueball: No...

:[Cueball presses the button, and the thermometer beeps]
:''Press''
:''Beep''
:Thermometer: Units: Degrees Rankine
:Cueball: What.

:[Cueball presses the button, and the thermometer beeps]
:''Press''
:''Beep''
:Thermometer: Units: Average Translational Kinetic Energy
:Cueball: This is the worst thermometer.
:Off-panel voice: Boltzmann's constant is on the side if you need it.

==Trivia==

In [[1643: Degrees]], Cueball struggles with which temperature unit to use, and ultimately tells his friend the temperature in {{w|radian}}s, which is not a valid temperature scale.

In [[1923: Felsius]], Randall proposes a combined Fahrenheit/Celsius temperature scale called Felsius.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Physics]]

2291: New Sports System

2020-04-18T03:48:29Z

108.162.215.12: /* Explanation */ good

{{comic
| number = 2291
| date = April 8, 2020
| title = New Sports System
| image = new_sports_system.png
| titletext = Under my system, boxing and football suffered, pair figure skating still worked but had to adapt by dropping some moves, and pro wrestling was actually completely unaffected.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is the 16th comic in a row (not counting the [[2288: Collector's Edition|April Fools' comic]]) in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] related to the {{w|2019–20 coronavirus outbreak|2020 pandemic}} of the {{w|coronavirus}} {{w|SARS-CoV-2}}, which causes {{w|COVID-19}}.

As communities have been ordered to stay indoors to avoid spreading the virus, this has also affected sports leagues around the world, with many of them suspending their seasons, or cancelling them outright. (see {{w|Impact of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic on sports|this Wikipedia article}} for a full list of sports or sporting events impacted) Some leagues have instead promoted e-sports, such as the [https://www.latimes.com/sports/clippers/story/2020-04-06/patrick-beverley-favorite-to-win-nba-2k-players-tournament NBA holding an ''NBA 2K20'' tournament between active NBA players].

[[Randall]], in this comic, proposes an obviously bad "new sports system" of "virtual sports", in which players play with a virtual ball in separate arenas, and are guided by online viewers. This obviously proves to be challenging, as the ball is virtual but the players are not wearing any virtual reality or augmented reality headsets, and thus they do not know how to interact with it properly. Playing in separate arenas would solve the problem of spreading the virus, as the players do not have any direct interactions with each other.

This would be a similar system to {{w|Twitch Plays Pokémon}}, in which Twitch viewers "play" Pokémon video games in a crowdsourced manner. There are also many games that are intentionally constructed so that some players must accomplish a goal they cannot see or with incomplete information, while they are guided by other players. These include common team-building exercises (often involving blindfolds), and the bomb-disposal themed puzzle game {{w|Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes}}.

The NBA also is holding a similar idea, holding a {{w|Variations of basketball#H-O-R-S-E|Horse}} tournament among [https://www.nba.com/article/2020/04/09/nba-air-horse-challenge-espn NBA and WNBA players], which works better than the version of basketball shown in this comic because players don't need to interact with the same ball.

In the title text, Randall claims that boxing and football (unclear if American football or association football) proved to be difficult, with {{w|Pair skating|pairs figure skating}} still possible as long as figures like {{w|Figure skating lifts|elevations}} are removed, and {{w|professional wrestling}} being unaffected. Boxing and any types of football would be impossible to play in these situations; on top of the difficulty of trying to play without knowing where the other players are located, these sports are predicated on contact; a boxer cannot get a knockout without being able to touch the other players, and football players cannot block or tackle even if they mime catching the ball. Pairs figure skating would be possible, excepting "throwing" moves or "lifts", as typically pairs figure skaters skate in unison, replicating the same moves.

Humorously, Randall claims that professional wrestling will be unaffected by his new system. This is in reference to the "open secret" that the matches have predetermined outcomes and are more "entertainment" than actual competition, with much of the 'forced' movement of one competitor being aided or even guided by the 'victim' rather than the 'aggressor' in semi-improvised feats of coordinated athleticism.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Single wide frame representing a basketball court with a basketball goal at each end. There are seven players running around the court, with a virtual ball in the bottom right corner (indicated by being drawn as a dashed circle). Nine off-screen voices of "online viewers" are yelling instructions to the players. A caption is below the frame running nearly the full width of the frame.]

:Viewer One: No!
:Viewer Two: It's on the–
:Viewer Three: Look out!
:[A player with thick hair and a goatee is "air-shooting" into the left-hand basket.]
:Viewer Four: No!
:[A player with thick hair is running to the right.]
:Viewer Five: He's right there. Don’t run into–
:[A player with no hair is air-dribbling to the right.]
:Viewer Six: Riiight!
:Viewer Seven: Go left!
:Viewer Eight: Left!
:[A player with thick hair and a full beard is facing left and jumping, hands raised to intercept a ball.]
:[A player with no hair is facing left and crouching, reaching for a ball.]
:[A player is making an alley-oop motion towards the right-hand basket.]
:Viewer Nine: Stop dunking and find the ball!
:[The virtual ball is slowly moving right, unseen by the players]
:[A player is hanging on the rim of the basket, making a dunking motion.]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:No one liked my new sports system, in which each player is in a separate arena sharing a single virtual ball that they can't see while online viewers yell instructions, but it was fun to watch while it lasted.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:Sport]]
[[Category:Basketball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]

2283: Exa-Exabyte

2020-04-18T03:47:58Z

108.162.215.12: /* Explanation */ good for now

{{comic
| number = 2283
| date = March 20, 2020
| title = Exa-Exabyte
| image = exa_exabyte.png
| titletext = To picture 10^18, just picture 10^13, but then imagine you connect the left side of the 3 to close off the little bays.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is arguably the ninth comic in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] related to the {{w|2019–20 coronavirus pandemic|2020 pandemic}} of the {{w|coronavirus}} - {{w|SARS-CoV-2}}. This comic does not clearly mention the virus but is a deliberate allusion to the biology and complexity behind the Coronavirus outbreak, or, if not a deliberate allusion, its theme of biological complexity could have been inspired thereby.

This is a comic about the difficulty of picturing or understanding large numbers. As mentioned in the comic, an {{w|exabyte}} is 1018 bytes, while an "exa-exabyte"—not a common word, but one that abuses the principles of {{w|metric prefix}}es—would be 1036 bytes. 1036 is properly given the name undecillion (in short scale, and sextillion in long scale).
According to [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/21/science/counting-all-the-dna-on-earth.html a 2015 article] by ''The New York Times'', researchers estimate that there are about 5 * 1037 DNA {{w|base pair}}s on Earth (50 trillion trillion trillion). So [[Miss Lenhart]]'s claim of 10 exa-exabytes—1 * 1037 bytes is a reasonable approximation ({{w|Fermi estimation}}). (The estimate was 5 plus or minus 4 * 1037. There are 4 possible base pairs, or 2 bits per pair, a byte is 8 bits.)

These numbers are larger than most people can imagine. Even much smaller numbers such as a billion (109) or a trillion (1012) are [[2091: Million, Billion, Trillion|hard to imagine.]] For instance:
* 1 billion seconds is equal to 31.7 years; 1 trillion seconds is equal to 31,688.74 years.
* [https://medium.com/@alecmuffett/a-billion-grains-of-rice-91202220e10e 1 billion grains of rice] weigh approximately 34,447 lb (15,625 kg).

Wikipedia has an article on the {{w|exabyte}} and one on large numbers which describes {{w|Orders of magnitude (numbers)#1018|various things close to 1018}}.
* [https://abc7news.com/science/possibly-habitable-planet-found-100-light-years-away/5821548/ TOI 700 d], a potentially habitable Earth-like {{w|exoplanet}} is 100 light years away, which is about 1018 meters.

[[Cueball]] expresses his difficulty in visualizing a number even as large as ''one'' exabyte (1018 bytes).

[[Megan]] trivializes the problem away by describing an exabyte as 10 apples, with "18 smaller apples, floating next to them and a little above", representing the notation 1018 using apples for digits. This is entirely unhelpful, as using apples in a [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unary_numeral_system base-1] enumeration offers no obvious advantages over base-10 in understanding exponents; Megan's bad advice & Cueball's seemingly ready acceptance of it causes Miss Lenhart to yell out "No!" in frustration.

The title text further trivializes the problem of visualizing large numbers by suggesting that you can visualize 1018 as a number by simply visualizing the similar-looking number of 1013 with some extra lines drawn to turn the 3 into an 8. Changes in exponents can cause huge changes in the value shown, and this is no exception: Changing that 3 into an 8 changes the value by a factor of 100,000.

Randall has previously discussed the difficulty of large numbers in [[2091: Million, Billion, Trillion]], [[1894: Real Estate]], and [[558: 1000 Times]].

[[1605: DNA]] also discusses how "hard" biology is.

==Transcript==
:[Miss Lenhart is holding a pointer, and is pointing it towards a blackboard behind her, while she addresses her student Cueball who is sitting on a chair at a desk to the left of her, holding his hands on his knees.]
:Miss Lenhart: Biology is hard because there's so ''much'' of it. Earth hosts about 10 exa-exabytes worth of DNA.

:[In a frame-less panel, the panel has panned to the left and is now showing Miss Lenhart holding the pointer to her side, but without the blackboard. In front of her is now both Cueball and Megan sitting at their desks. Cueball has taken one hand on to the table. Megan has both hands folded on the table in front of her.]
:Cueball: What's an exa-exabyte?
:Miss Lenhart: It's 1036 bytes.
:Cueball: How do I picture '''''that?'''''
:Miss Lenhart: Imagine you had an exabyte of data, but each byte ''contained'' an exabyte of data.

:[Zoom in on Cueball's head. A starburst to the right indicates Miss Lenhart's voice from off-panel.]
:Cueball: I can't even picture what an exabyte is.
:Miss Lenhart (off-panel): It's 1018 bytes.
:Cueball: But how do I picture 1018?

:[Zoomed out to showing Megan, Cueball, and Miss Lenhart along with the blackboard. Megan has raised a hand palm up. Cueball is looking back at her over his shoulders. Miss Lenhart is forming a closed first with her empty hand, the one without the pointer.]
:Megan: Imagine you had 10 apples.
:Megan: Now imagine 18 smaller apples, floating next to them and a little above.
:Cueball: Cool, got it.
:Miss Lenhart: '''''No!'''''

==Trivia==

In [[1519: Venus]], release date May 1, 2015, [[Miss Lenhart]] indicated that she was retiring as a primary or secondary school teacher in a month. Here we see Megan and Cueball, both adults, sitting in a classroom setting with Miss Lenhart providing instruction. A reasonable assumption is that Miss Lenhart has taken some form of {{w|adult education}} job during her retirement. For example, in the United States it is common for {{w|community colleges}} to use low paid {{w|adjunct professors}} who either have a day job or another source of income such as a teacher's pension.

There is also a hint of irony in her having to now put up with the same type of blatantly incorrect explanations that she herself was freely giving out just prior to her retirement.
{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Miss Lenhart]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category: Biology]]

2257: Unsubscribe Message

2020-04-18T03:46:22Z

108.162.215.12: /* Explanation */ good enough for now

{{comic
| number = 2257
| date = January 20, 2020
| title = Unsubscribe Message
| image = unsubscribe_message.png
| titletext = A mix of the two is even worse: 'Thanks for unsubscribing and helping us pare this list down to reliable supporters.'
}}

==Explanation==
When a website offers a subscription service (e.g., an email newsletter), they will offer the opportunity to '''unsubscribe''' from the service in the event that the subscriber is no longer interested in the service, or discovers that the service is not what they thought it was. As with any online process, subscribing and unsubscribing require messages to inform the viewer that the process has completed as intended. Some sites also request confirmation when unsubscribing, to prevent accidentally unsubscribing due to a mistyped URL or a misclicked link.

This comment explores the different "moods" that unsubscribe messages can carry, taking standard examples and pushing them further than is normally seen. It also pokes fun at the trend for websites to guilt users when they unsubscribe (or try to guilt them out of it before they complete the process), which is widespread among new-age website design and some examples of which can be seen at [https://reddit.com/r/Clickshaming/ /r/Clickshaming/]. The first example appears to be a message in the confirmation phase, while the others are messages that the unsubscription is complete.

The first message is of a "very negative" mood, where the "confirmation" message begs to know why the user dared to unsubscribe to the service, sounding either very angry or alarmingly desperate, as if the service is endangered by the user's unsubscribing. This can be very off-putting and would be very likely to confirm to the user that they made the right choice; hearing such an aggressively needy tone when they leave could make them feel like they escaped something instead, and thus it is given three red X marks and ranked "Very Bad".

The second message is of a more controlled "negative" mood; the "process complete" message tells the viewer that they will be missed with a sad emoticon accompanying it. Although not quite so bad as the forceful clinginess of the "very negative" message, this one can still come across as an attempt to guilt the user into re-subscribing; thus it is rated with one red X and the label "Not Great".

The third message is of a fully "neutral" mood; the "process complete" message is simply a matter-of-fact statement that the user has been successfully unsubscribed from the service. Randall seems to consider this the optimal mood for an unsubscribe message to carry; thus it is rated with a green check mark and the label "Perfect".

The fourth message is of a "positive" mood; the "process complete" message cheerfully proclaims that the attempt to unsubscribe has been completed. This is the most common mood for many services that attempt to avoid emotionless, robotic messages; however, in this particular instance, it can come across as somewhat unnerving, since no service should seem happy to see a user leave. The tone also comes across like a proclamation of the sort you would see in a video game text box, making the action feel like an achievement, which wouldn't make sense for a company to do. This mood is rated with a green check mark, but also with the label "A Little Weird".

The fifth message is "very positive", where the "process complete" message expresses ''relief'' that the user has chosen to unsubscribe from their service, as though their subscription in the first place had been some sort of burden upon the service, and indeed, their leaving is stated to be the best thing to happen to the service. Like the "very negative" message, this response is likely to assure the user never returns, since they have been indirectly insulted and told "good riddance".

The title text expands on the joke by combining the positive reaction to unsubscribing with a more negative tone, which supports the user's choice to unsubscribe because they were unwanted. This references the {{w|1% rule (Internet culture)|1% rule}}, which states that for users of an online service only approximately 1% will be significantly active.

==Transcript==
:Caption: Choosing the right emotional tone for your unsubscribe message

:[A window labelled "Very Negative"]
:Website: You want to ''unsubscribe?!?!'' How could you do this to us?! We need you!!!
:✕✕✕
:Very Bad

:[A window labelled "Negative"]
:Website: We're sad to see you go :(
:✕
:Not Great

:[A window labelled "Neutral"]
:Website: You have been unsubscribed.
:✓
:Perfect

:[A window labelled "Positive"]
:Website: Success! You have been unsubscribed!!
:✓
:A little weird

:[A window labelled "Very Positive"]
:Website: You have been unsubscribed. This is the best gift you could have given us. Thank you.
:✕✕✕
:Very Bad

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Internet]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

Category:Incomplete explanations

2020-04-18T03:45:10Z

108.162.215.12: Undo revision 190857 by Meridian Health Protocol Review10 (talk)

This is the category page for incomplete pages that have either incomplete or no explanation, or are missing something else important. To add pages to this category, add {{tl|incomplete}} to their source text.

[[Category:explain xkcd]]

2294: Coronavirus Charts

2020-04-17T00:10:08Z

108.162.215.12: /* Explanation */ more

{{comic
| number = 2294
| date = April 15, 2020
| title = Coronavirus Charts
| image = coronavirus_charts.png
| titletext = Adding data for South Korea but with their cases scaled to match the population of Japan and the land area of Australia, and vice versa.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a poorly constructed graph. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic is the 19th comic in a row (not counting the [[2288: Collector's Edition|April Fools' comic]]) in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] related to the {{w|2019–20 coronavirus outbreak|2020 pandemic}} of the {{w|coronavirus}} {{w|SARS-CoV-2}}, which causes {{w|COVID-19}}.

During the current outbreak of COVID-19, there have been many graphs used by health officials and others to show trends in infection and death rates. Their x-axis is usually time. The curves might represent different countries or different mitigation strategies. But
health officials and media have struggled to decide what to put on the y-axis. Because testing strategies and reporting are so variable across even small regions, their data does not reflect comparable guesses at the true number of cases. So they produce graphs of confirmed cases, confirmed plus suspected cases, deaths, hospitalizations, any of the above per capita, day-to-day changes in any of the above, and [https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/new-york-coronavirus-curve share of test results that are positive for different areas of New York].

This graph, however, while sharing similarities with actual data and graphs is completely useless. This is due to the bizarre data-points being used, as well as the unhelpful graph axes. The caption of the comic notes as much, perhaps indicating that this comic is intended to satirize the useful, but exceptionally detailed graphs that are currently in use. Some of these graphs have a semilog scale, like this graph - but generally the y-axis is the log scale and the x-axis is not. Sometimes the other graphs compare things of vastly different sizes - as demonstrated by showing both the USA and New York. Sometimes they scale the data to population, as referenced by the title text.

In addition, the selection of geographic areas used here is incomprehensible. Two of the lines represent countries (USA and Italy), and another represents part of one of those countries (New York City area). The New York City area may have been chosen because it has a very large number of cases, more than some countries. However, a fourth line combines Norway and Sweden -- two countries which are culturally, economically, and geographically similar [https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-why-the-nordics-are-our-best-bet-for-comparing-strategies-135344 but have imposed very different strategies] regarding closing businesses and schools. Combining Norway and Sweden obscures any differences attributable to their different policies regarding the virus. A fifth line represents not a geographical area but the ''ratio'' between France and Spain, making an already meaningless graph even less comprehensible.

'''Other metrics used'''

X-axis:
*Negative test results: Negative [https://covidtracking.com/ test results] would refer to people who were tested for COVID-19, but who do not have the disease (or were not able to confirm having the disease). If there are any places reluctant to test, in order to artificially suppress the unpopular number of positives, this measure would similarly be unreasonably low. It might therefore be an important key measure, used as just one component of a meta-measurement, to regrade or even highlight such practices. At least until the figures are freshly massaged by instead overtesting people with a low probability of being infected.
* per Google search for "COVID": Meanwhile, [https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%203-m&q=covid Google search results for "COVID"] are search hits for that word. There is no relation between these two, and furthermore, it does not make sense for this to be graphed on a {{w|logarithmic scale}}.
* As mentioned above, the x-axis for most charts is time, as it is valuable to know how the virus or deaths are spreading over time. It's not clear what data points would allow you to chart one country over several values of x. Cumulative results at different times?

Y-axis:
*[https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/worldwide-graphs/#daily-deaths Coronavirus deaths today]: Deaths from the coronavirus "today" are constantly reported by the media, and could be a helpful metric in seeing whether the virus is spreading or not, if deaths "today" are compared to deaths yesterday and previous days.
*[https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/worldwide-graphs/#total-cases Total cases] one week ago: This is a much larger number than deaths and will completely dominate the sum. Cases one week ago might have some predictive value for deaths today or in the near future, but adding them together double-counts many cases.
*{{w|Per capita}}: This is a measure of the amount per person, and is useful for averaging out numbers based on population size. For example, the United States have the most COVID-19 cases and deaths, but also an higher population than the most other industrialized nations, so using per capita numbers tells a different story.

Title text: While adding data for South Korea might be helpful (as it shows an Asian country, compared to just Europe and the US), it is illogical to scale this data to match a population of a different country (Japan), or a {{w|land area}} of a country (Australia).

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

[A graph is drawn.]
:[A curve labeled "United States" starts about halfway up the vertical axis, rises almost to the top, and then levels off about a third of the way along the horizontal axis.]
:Y-axis label: Coronavirus deaths today plus total cases one week ago per capita
:X-axis label: Negative test results per Google search for "COVID" (log scale)
:Caption: I'm a huge fan of weird graphs, but even I admit some of these coronavirus charts are less than helpful.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Line graphs]]

2293: RIP John Conway

2020-04-14T21:29:41Z

108.162.215.12: /* Explanation */ ce

{{comic
| number = 2293
| date = April 13, 2020
| title = RIP John Conway
| image = rip_john_conway.gif
| titletext = 1937-2020
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a GLIDER. Needs more in-depth explanation of how the Game Evolves. Include remaining stills from the GIF in the table below. Should also expand more on why Conway is a person of note. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{w|John Horton Conway|John Conway}}, an English mathematician, passed away of {{w|COVID-19}} on April 11, 2020. Two days later, [[Randall]] created this [[:Category:Tribute|memorial comic]]. It is the 6th memorial comic, but it is the first released in almost 5 years, since [[1560: Bubblegum]].

One of Conway's most famous creations was the {{w|cellular automaton}} known as {{w|Conway's Game of Life}}. A cellular automaton is a machine composed of cells, each of which can be in a different state. Every generation, each cell in the automaton may transition to a new state depending on a set of rules. (Conway's work in mathematics was vast and various, but he is perhaps best known in the field for discovering the {{w|surreal numbers}}, which inspired Donald Knuth to write a novel which may have been referenced back in [[505: A Bunch of Rocks]].)

Conway's Game of Life is a 2-state automaton (i.e., every cell can be "alive" or "dead") that is implemented on a two-dimensional grid of cells using the {{w|Moore neighborhood}} - this means that each cell can only be influenced by the eight cells directly surrounding it, both orthogonally and diagonally. The transition rules that Conway discovered are as follows:

* If an "alive" cell has no live neighbors, or only one live neighbor, it becomes "dead". (This simulates death by isolation).
* If an "alive" cell has four or more live neighbors, it becomes "dead". (This simulates death by overcrowding).
* If a "dead" cell has exactly three live neighbors, it becomes "alive". (This simulates birth).

Despite the simplicity of these three rules, Conway showed that patterns of amazing complexity can nonetheless develop out of simple cell arrangements. Some patterns do not evolve at all ("still lifes"), some enter a cyclic, repeating state ("oscillators"), and some reproduce their own pattern displaced by an offset, resulting in patterns that can move across the grid under their own power ("gliders" and "spaceships"). This last category is of particular interest, as it allows the Game of Life to transmit information from one location to another, allowing for rich, dynamic behavior and even for the creation of computational machines within the automaton itself.

This comic begins with the shape of a stick figure as the starting cell configuration of the Game of Life. The black cells are "alive" and the white cells are "dead". This configuration then evolves via Conway's rules, disintegrating into nothingness and forming the five-cell pattern known as the "glider", which ascends up and to the right. This visually suggests a "soul" breaking away from the disintegrating corporeal body. The glider is perhaps the most iconic pattern of the Game of Life, and is often used symbolically to represent the phenomenon of emergence.

The initial state presented in the comic is real and does actually evolve in that manner, as can be verified by entering the pattern into a cellular automaton simulator such as [http://golly.sourceforge.net/ Golly] or web services such as [https://bitstorm.org/gameoflife/ this one].

The title text simply states Conway's birth and death year: 1937-2020.

==Table of generations==
{| class="wikitable"
!Generation
!Notes
|-
|[[File:Generation 0.jpg|thumb]]||Starting state (or "zeroth generation").
|-
|[[File:Generation 1.jpg|thumb]]||First generation. Note that this image is not aligned with the previous one: the position of all cells has shifted downward by one cell. All further generations are aligned the same as this one.
|-
|[[File:Generation 2.jpg|thumb]]||Second generation.
|-
|[[File:Generation 3.jpg|thumb]]||Third generation.
|-
|[[File:Generation 4.jpg|thumb]]||Fourth generation.
|-
|[[File:Generation 5.jpg|thumb]]||Fifth generation.
|-
|[[File:Generation 6.jpg|thumb]]||Sixth generation. The first appearance of the glider, a well-known formation in Conway's Game of Life.
|-
|[[File:Generation 7.jpg|thumb]]||Seventh generation. The glider takes on its other shape.
|-
|[[File:Generation 8.jpg|thumb]]||Eighth generation. The glider returns to its first shape, pointing right instead of up.
|-
|[[File:Generation 9.jpg|thumb]]||Ninth generation. The glider's second shape again, pointing right instead of up.
|-
|[[File:Generation 10.jpg|thumb]]||Tenth generation. The glider is now in its original form, but one cell higher and one cell to the right. It will continue to progress, cycling through these four states every four generations. The remains of the chaos down below will take two more generations to disappear completely.
|}

==Transcript==
:[A pixelated image of a stick figure using 21 pixels, could be a pixel Cueball, which waves with one hand up while holding the other hand down. The head consist of 7 pixels, the top row of three having two pixels beneath the two outer pixels, thus having two empty pixels beneath the central pixel. The neck and torso is a typical cross made from six pixels. The two legs are to pixels each shifted left and right of the cross. The arm to the left that waves is two pixels one down and the next back up to the level of the cross central beam. The arm to the right has the first pixel similarly but the second pixel continues one further step down. After less than one second it turns out that the image is animated, with the pixels changing according to the rules of Conway's Game of Life. The figure splits into three groups, two of which dissipates in a similar way at the bottom of the panel. The other becomes a 'glider' and moves off to the top-right corner of the image and out of the frame. The animation then repeats.]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Tribute]]
[[Category:Comics with animation]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]

1820: Security Advice

2020-04-10T19:36:13Z

108.162.215.12: /* Security tips */ ce

{{comic
| number = 1820
| date = April 5, 2017
| title = Security Advice
| image = security_advice.png
| titletext = Never give your password or bank account number to anyone who doesn't have a blue check mark next to their name.
}}

==Explanation==
The comic depicts a conversation between [[Cueball]] and [[Ponytail]], discussing the fact that giving people security advice in the past has failed to improve their internet security, and in some cases even made things worse. One such example is telling people to create complicated passwords containing numbers and symbols, which not only made the passwords harder to remember (leading people to create huge security risks by [https://arstechnica.com/security/2015/04/hacked-french-network-exposed-its-own-passwords-during-tv-interview/ leaving post-it notes with their passwords on their computer monitor]), but did not actually make those passwords harder to crack (see [[936: Password Strength]]).

As a result, Cueball suggests using {{w|reverse psychology}} and give out bad advice instead, in hopes of achieving a positive effect. The last panel contains a list with 13 security tips, which are parodies of actual security tips. The title text is just one more tip. See [[#Security tips|table]] below for explanations for all 14 tips.

This comic is yet another [[:Category:Tips|tips comic]].

===Security tips===
{| class="wikitable"
!Security Tip
!Explanation
|- id="tip0"
|Print out this list and keep it in your bank safe deposit box (header)
|This is a standard recommendation for documents that must be kept secure because they are irreplaceable and/or contain sensitive information. However this list itself is easily replaceable and the contents will be well-known, so storing it in a safe place is totally unnecessary. Putting it in a {{w|safe deposit box}} would even be counterproductive since the list can only serve its purpose as a ready reminder if it's easily accessible to everyone. So when people fail to follow this tip, they may end of keeping it in a place where they have easy access to the tips so they may also fail to follow all the others.
|- id="tip1"
|Don't click links to websites
|The usual tip is "Don't click on ''suspicious'' website links" or "Don't click any links in suspicious emails". The comic's variation instead tells users not to click on any links to any websites, which essentially stops them from using the World Wide Web altogether. So this tip is not really helping, as the opposite of this would be to click on all links.
|- id="tip2"
|Use prime numbers in your password
|It is usually recommended that one uses numbers in one's password, to increase its entropy, making it harder to find with a {{w|Brute-force attack|brute force}} attack. In contrast the comic suggests using {{w|prime numbers}} in one's password. Large prime numbers are an essential part of modern cryptography and security systems, when used in algorithms that are computed by machines. They don't have any effect when used by humans in passwords, except for maybe making it harder to remember. In addition, if people were to regularly use prime numbers in their passwords, it would actually make passwords ''easier'' to guess, as it would substantially reduce the number of possible passwords people may choose from.
|- id="tip3"
|Change your password manager monthly
|It is often recommended to change passwords on a regular basis and to use a {{w|password manager}}. Password managers are programs which can help users create, store, and change their passwords easily and securely. Changing password managers monthly would involve copying all stored passwords from one manager to another, which would be quite impractical and has no security benefit.
|- id="tip4"
|Hold your breath while crossing the border
|At some border crossings, government agents may search computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices. The usual advice for such situations ranges from asserting your rights to resetting all devices and deleting all data prior to crossing a border. Holding one's breath can potentially prevent inhaling germs or poisons in some situations, though useless in the context of computer security. These two topics mixed in the same advice won't achieve anything, but if you hold your breath for too long you could pass out when crossing, or look stressed/suspicious and invite even more scrutiny. This could also be a reference to the superstition of holding one's breath when passing a graveyard, or similarly to the movie ''{{w|Spirited Away}}'', where the main character is instructed to hold her breath while crossing the bridge that acts as the border between the human and spirit world. In any case, holding one's breath while browsing the Internet would have no useful effect, supernatural or otherwise.
|- id="tip5"
|Install a secure font
|A real tip might be "Install a secure browser" especially when many people used {{w|Internet Explorer 6}}. Secure fonts do exist and are designed to make checks difficult to alter, but using one on a computer would not help one's internet security. May also refer to Google Chrome [https://www.proofpoint.com/us/threat-insight/post/EITest-Nabbing-Chrome-Users-Chrome-Font-Social-Engineering-Scheme "Install missing font"] malware.
|- id="tip6"
|Use a 2-factor smoke detector
|{{w|Multi-factor authentication|Two factor authentication}} describes the practice of using two different identification factors (such as a password and a code from a secure token) to authenticate the user. A two factor smoke detector presumably uses two or more factors to identify ''smoke'' (such as {{w|Smoke_detector#Ionization|ionization}} and {{w|Smoke_detector#Photoelectric|photoelectric}}). Such devices [https://alarmspecs.com actually exist], but, while improving the user's general safety, they do nothing to improve their internet security.

Also, the logic behind using two-factor authentication is that '''both''' types of credentials must match to grant access. Smoke detectors work otherwise - usually firing if '''any''' of the sensors detect a fire. If the smoke detector worked according to the authentication logic it will be less likely to detect smoke, effectively lessening fire safety as compared to a single sensor one.

A month before this comic the newest [[:Category:xkcd Phones|xkcd Phone]], [[1809: xkcd Phone 5]], was released with a 28-factor authentication.
|- id="tip7"
|Change your maiden name regularly
|Your maiden name is the family name with which you were born. Literally changing your maiden name is impossible by the definition of "maiden name". A common tip is to change your passwords regularly. Some password recovery procedures ask for a security question, like "what is your {{w|Maiden and married names|maiden name}}"? Maiden names and other trivia typically asked by security questions are not secret, so they are inherently insecure.

A real tip for dealing with security questions is to enter false data.
|- id="tip8"
|Put strange USB drives in a bag of rice overnight
|The usual security tip is "Don't plug strange {{w|USB flash drive|USB drives}} into your computer," because sometimes attackers leave USB devices with malicious programs lying around, hoping that people will plug them into target computers out of curiosity. This tip states that you should "put USB drives in a bag of rice overnight" which is a common technique for drying out water-damaged devices, due to rice's absorbent qualities. This would not clean the drive of viruses, and unless the drive was wet (perhaps because you found it outside due to it being called "strange") it would not do anything. In [[1598: Salvage]], another attempt is made to salvage something unconventional with rice, and here it is shown that Randall considers the rice drying of a wet mobile is a myth, so this is yet another jab at the idea.
|- id="tip9"
|Use special characters like & and %
|You can use special characters to increase the entropy/strength of your password, though as described in [[936: Password Strength]], that often leads to passwords that are hard to remember but not particularly strong. The password context is missing here, and in everyday situations the characters & and % are not special. These two characters are often disallowed in passwords because of their relevance to {{w|SQL}} (a common database query language). If these characters were used in a password, a badly written security system using SQL could have severe bugs (and security vulnerabilities) similar to the security flaw in [[327: Exploits of a Mom]].
|- id="tip10"
|Only read content published through Tor.com
|{{w|tor (anonymity network)|Tor}} is a software solution to provide anonymity on the web for its users. The website [https://tor.com Tor.com] is the website of fantasy and sci-fi book publisher {{w|Tor Books}}, which has no relation to the Tor-network.
|- id="tip11"
|Use a burner's phone
|A play on using a {{w|Prepay mobile phone|burner phone}} (a cheap/disposable cell phone like those purchased at 7-11, often used for drug deals or other activity one might not want traced), and using the cell phone of a burner, i.e. a person who habitually uses marijuana (or, less likely, a person who goes to the {{w|Burning Man|Burning Man festival}}).
|- id="tip12"
|Get an SSL certificate and store it in a safe place
|{{w|Transport Layer Security|SSL/TLS}} is a protocol for securing connections on the internet. To check if someone is who they claim to be, you can check the individual's {{w|Public key certificate|certificate}}. Such a certificate has to be public; storing it in a safe place makes the certificate useless. You have to store the private key that matches the certificate in a safe place, else someone could steal the identity.
|- id="tip13"
|If a border guard asks to examine your laptop, you have a legal right to challenge them to a chess game for your soul.
|This tip is a reference to the common trope [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChessWithDeath Chess with Death], in which a mortal challenges a god to a game or challenge, often for their life. This version of the trope traces back to {{w|Ingmar Bergman|Ingmar Bergman's}} film {{w|The Seventh Seal}}, in which the protagonist {{w|The Seventh Seal#Synopsis|challenges Death}} to a game of chess. But instead of avoiding death, this tip suggests you have the right to do the same to get out of handing your devices over to a border guard. (This trope is also featured in [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/393 393: Ultimate Game]).
|- id="tip14"
|'''Title Text''': Never give your password or bank account number to anyone who doesn't have a blue check mark next to their name.
|The usual security tip here is ''"only trust Twitter accounts claiming to be legitimate if they have a blue check mark next to their name"'', which means that the account is verified as legitimate. This tip suggests only giving your ''password'' to verified accounts, although you shouldn't give your password to ''any'' account. Twitter Verification would be revisited in [[1914: Twitter Verification]].

It also refers to problems especially visible in the US banking system, where there is very little security for direct account drafts, and because of that it is advised there to keep the account number as secret as possible. In contrast, in Europe giving your account number to someone is one of the most common ways to get paid.

A related tip might be "Never give your password or bank details to a website that doesn't have a padlock icon next to the URL". In some browsers, if you access a secure website, there will be a padlock icon in the browser indicating you've connected to a secure website using the secure https protocol. So this tip treats the verified account icon the same way you might treat a secure website icon.
|}

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is listening to Ponytail who holds her hands out in front of her.]
:Ponytail: We've been trying for decades to give people good security advice.
:Ponytail: But in retrospect, lots of the tips actually made things worse.

:[Cueball takes his hand to his chin as Ponytail takes her arms down.]
:Cueball: Maybe we should try to give ''bad'' advice?
:Ponytail: I guess it's worth a shot.

:[Below these two panel is one large and long panel with a long list with 13 tips. The underlined heading and the bracket below it are centered above the bullet list below.]
:<big>Security tips</big>
:(Print out this list and keep it in your bank safe deposit box.)
* Don't click links to websites
* Use prime numbers in your password
* Change your password manager monthly
* Hold your breath while crossing the border
* Install a secure font
* Use a 2-factor smoke detector
* Change your maiden name regularly
* Put strange USB drives in a bag of rice overnight
* Use special characters like & and %
* Only read content published through tor.com
* Use a burner's phone
* Get an SSL certificate and store it in a safe place
* If a border guard asks to examine your laptop, you have a legal right to challenge them to a chess game for your soul.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Chess]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Tips]]

1598: Salvage

2020-04-10T19:32:46Z

108.162.215.12: /* Explanation */ ce

{{comic
| number = 1598
| date = November 2, 2015
| title = Salvage
| image = salvage.png
| titletext = My hobby: Taking advantage of the rice myth by posting articles on "how to save your wet phone" which are actually just elaborate recipes for rice pilaf.
}}

==Explanation==
The {{w|RMS Titanic|RMS ''Titanic''}} was a large ocean liner which, when it was completed in 1912, was the largest ship afloat. The ship famously hit an {{w|iceberg}} on its maiden voyage and sank, killing two-thirds of its complement (approximately 1,500 people) in one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters ever.

As it sank, the ''Titanic'' broke into two pieces. The ship was lost for decades until the {{w|Wreck of the RMS Titanic|wreck site}} was discovered in 1985. A number of proposals have been made to salvage the wreck of the ''Titanic'' both before and since the wreck's discovery, famously fictionalised in the thriller novel and film {{w|Raise the Titanic!|''Raise the Titanic!''}} There could be a joke on this title as in ''Rice'' the Titanic, even though it would not be possible to mistake the two words when spoken in the majority of dialects of English.

The general consensus at this time is that the wreck is too fragile to be salvaged intact. Numerous expeditions have been made to the wreck site since its discovery, with several parties (without any outside authorization) taking various artifacts from the site. A popular view is that the wreck is effectively a mass grave and that plundering the site for profitable artifacts is akin to grave-robbing. Most believe the wreck should be left where it is, intact. That said, explorers have already done notable damage to the wreck.

This comic shows a fictional attempt to salvage the two main pieces of the ''Titanic'' wreck, which, as it likely would in real life, garners media coverage as a 'historic salvage'. The salvage seems to consist of several ships raising the hull via cables attached to some sort of buoyant sled placed under the hull (as might actually happen, except that the relative sizes of the ships and the hull are wrong; this method would require the salvage ships be much larger in proportion to what is being salvaged). This is followed by helicopters carrying the hull in unison, again via cables to the cradle (a much less practical operation). The hull halves are then dropped into a giant tub of rice. The entire salvage attempt is increasingly cartoonish and unrealistic, but the tub of rice takes this to another level. Also, the two parts of the Titanic collapsed when hitting the sea floor, and thus could not be moved as shown in the comic. See this video of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSGeskFzE0s How Titanic Sank].

The punchline to the comic references the "rice myth," (as [[Randall]] calls it) a popularly disseminated method of salvaging consumer electronics (usually cell phones) which have been submerged in water. (See [http://www.hud.ac.uk/news/2013/november/researchshowsriceistheanswerforawetmobile.php Research Shows Rice is the Answer for a Wet Mobile]). The method entails burying the wet device in a bowl of rice. This process is commonly claimed to dry the device, but investigation reveals that the process is only mildly effective (though not entirely a myth either, see below). This comic likely plays on the dual meaning of the word "[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/salvage salvage]" in respect of {{w|Salvage data|electronics}} and {{w|Marine salvage|maritime wrecks}}.

The comic suggests that the wreck of the Titanic would benefit from being dried as quickly as possible, in a humorous contrast to actual reality. Surviving non-metallic material on board the ship may not benefit at all from drying. Far more ancient shipwrecks are best preserved by keeping the recovered timbers ''wet'' (but progressively desalinated, where applicable), cool and anoxic, at least while conserving chemicals such as {{w|Polyethylene glycol}} are infused into the wood to allow safe and gradual drying without causing further damage. Leather, cloth and other organic remains may have variations on this regime. Thus the rice might benefit an electronic device briefly exposed to water, but is not likely to benefit a ship that has been immersed for over a century, where the interest is in more than merely stabilizing the remaining metal hull and infrastructure.

There are numerous on-line discussions of the technique with mixed levels of success. Critically, where rice is tested against other methods, rice appears to perform worse than other methods. Controlled experiments on this topic tend to show that {{w|silica gel}} (aka the "Do Not Eat" {{w|Silica_gel#Desiccant|packets}} often found in boxes with electronics or pharmaceuticals) is the most effective drying agent, with mixed results for rice. (see [http://smartphones.wonderhowto.com/how-to/myth-debunked-uncooked-rice-isnt-best-way-save-your-water-damaged-phone-0154799/ Myth Debunked: Uncooked Rice Isn't the Best Way to Save Your Water-Damaged Phone], where it turns out that leaving the phone to air-dry may actually be the best solution).

The title text tells of another [[:Category:My Hobby|hobby]] of [[Randall|Randall's]]. He likes to take advantage of the "rice myth" to post fake articles on how to save your wet cell phone. But the instructions turn out to be elaborate recipes for rice {{w|pilaf}}. It is unclear whether Randall's instructions would explain how to prepare the rice prior to inserting a phone (thus resulting a usable dish), or if the instructions would require the phone to be inserted into the dish before it became clear that the dish was a recipe for food and not a phone-saving measure, thus worsening the condition of the phone. This may also be a "punishment" by Randall to anyone who would follow instructions blindly before reading them through, as a recipe for rice Pilaf would likely be distinguishable from phone-saving instructions by someone who read the instructions through before attempting them. Or it may just be that Randall considers those who would follow instructions for saving a phone with rice that they find on the internet gullible enough to believe the seasonings and other ingredients would have a curative effect on electronics.

The rice myth is revisited in one of the tips in [[1820: Security Advice]].

==Transcript==
:[Megan is shown standing at the rail of a ship with a microphone reporting the event shown in the background. A small helicopter and a larger two rotor model, lowering a rope with hook, are hovering over a crane ship with its hook down line going down in the water. It is depicted like a news screen as seen on TV. Below Megan are two headings. The first in a white insert with double frame, and the other written in white over the gray ocean water.]
:Historic Salvage
:Live

:[Four crane ships are shown lifting the bow part of the RMS Titanic. There are pontoons beneath the ship to help it float up. The name of the ship can be seen.]
:RMS Titanic

:[Both parts of the Titanic are now flown by helicopters, four for the stern and five for the bow. One helicopter for each part is a two rotor model. Ropes go from the helicopters down on each side of the ship parts to pontoons below them. Below in the ocean there are two crane ships.]

:[The two parts of the ship is now lowered in to a huge bowl of rice (labeled) standing at the coast just out of the ocean, which can be seen to the left. One of the five helicopters for the bow is missing. For scale there are drawn two trees to the left, and something is parked to the right, maybe a truck.]
:Rice

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:My Hobby]]

1598: Salvage

2020-04-10T19:31:18Z

108.162.215.12: /* Explanation */ ce

{{comic
| number = 1598
| date = November 2, 2015
| title = Salvage
| image = salvage.png
| titletext = My hobby: Taking advantage of the rice myth by posting articles on "how to save your wet phone" which are actually just elaborate recipes for rice pilaf.
}}

==Explanation==
The {{w|RMS Titanic|RMS ''Titanic''}} was a large ocean liner which, when it was completed in 1912, was the largest ship afloat. The ship famously hit an {{w|iceberg}} on its maiden voyage and sank, killing two-thirds of its complement (approximately 1,500 people) in one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters ever.

As it sank, the ''Titanic'' broke into two pieces. The ship was lost for decades until the {{w|Wreck of the RMS Titanic|wreck site}} was discovered in 1985. A number of proposals have been made to salvage the wreck of the ''Titanic'' both before and since the wreck's discovery, famously fictionalised in the thriller novel and film {{w|Raise the Titanic!|''Raise the Titanic!''}} There could be a joke on this title as in ''Rice'' the Titanic, even though it would not be possible to mistake the two words when spoken in the majority of dialects of English.

The general consensus at this time is that the wreck is too fragile to be salvaged intact. Numerous expeditions have been made to the wreck site since its discovery, with several parties (without any outside authorization) taking various artifacts from the site. A popular view is that the wreck is effectively a mass grave and that plundering the site for profitable artifacts is akin to grave-robbing. Most believe the wreck should be left where it is, intact. That said, explorers have already done notable damage to the wreck.

This comic shows a fictional attempt to salvage the two main pieces of the ''Titanic'' wreck, which, as it likely would in real life, garners media coverage as a 'historic salvage'. The salvage seems to consist of several ships raising the hull via cables attached to some sort of buoyant sled placed under the hull (as might actually happen, except that the relative sizes of the ships and the hull are wrong; this method would require the salvage ships be much larger in proportion to what is being salvaged). This is followed by helicopters carrying the hull in unison, again via cables to the cradle (a much less practical operation). The hull halves are then dropped into a giant tub of rice. The entire salvage attempt is increasingly cartoonish and unrealistic, but the tub of rice takes this to another level. Also, the two parts of the Titanic collapsed when hitting the sea floor, and thus could not be moved as shown in the comic. See this video of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSGeskFzE0s How Titanic Sank].

The punchline to the comic references the "rice myth," (as [[Randall]] calls it) a popularly disseminated method of salvaging consumer electronics (usually cell phones) which have been submerged in water. (See [http://www.hud.ac.uk/news/2013/november/researchshowsriceistheanswerforawetmobile.php Research Shows Rice is the Answer for a Wet Mobile]). The method entails burying the wet device in a bowl of rice. This process is commonly claimed to dry the device, but investigation reveals that the process is only mildly effective (though not entirely a myth either, see below). This comic likely plays on the dual meaning of the word "[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/salvage salvage]" in respect of {{w|Salvage data|electronics}} and {{w|Marine salvage|maritime wrecks}}.

The comic suggests that the wreck of the Titanic would benefit from being dried as quickly as possible, in a humorous contrast to actual reality. Surviving non-metallic material on board the ship may not benefit at all from drying. Far more ancient shipwrecks are best preserved by keeping the recovered timbers ''wet'' (but progressively desalinated, where applicable), cool and anoxic, at least while conserving chemicals such as {{w|Polyethylene glycol}} are infused into the wood to allow safe and gradual drying without causing further damage. Leather, cloth and other organic remains may have variations on this regime. Thus the rice might benefit an electronic device briefly exposed to water, but is not likely to benefit a ship that has been immersed for over a century, where the interest is in more than merely stabilizing the remaining metal hull and infrastructure.

There are numerous on-line discussions of the technique with mixed levels of success. Critically, where rice is tested against other methods, rice appears to perform worse than other methods. Controlled experiments on this topic tend to show that {{w|silica gel}} (aka the "Do Not Eat" {{w|Silica_gel#Desiccant|packets}} often found in boxes with electronics or pharmaceuticals) is the most effective drying agent, with mixed results for rice. (see [http://smartphones.wonderhowto.com/how-to/myth-debunked-uncooked-rice-isnt-best-way-save-your-water-damaged-phone-0154799/ Myth Debunked: Uncooked Rice Isn't the Best Way to Save Your Water-Damaged Phone], where it turns out that leaving the phone to air-dry may actually be the best solution).

The title text tells of another [[:Category:My Hobby|hobby]] of [[Randall|Randall's]]. He likes to take advantage of the "rice myth" to post fake articles on how to save your wet cell phone. But the instructions turn out to be elaborate recipes for rice {{w|Pilaf}}. It is unclear whether Randall's instructions would explain how to prepare the rice prior to inserting a phone (thus resulting a usable dish), or if the instructions would require the phone to be inserted into the dish before it became clear that the dish was a recipe for food and not a phone-saving measure, thus worsening the condition of the phone. This may also be a "punishment" by Randall to anyone who would follow instructions blindly before reading them through, as a recipe for rice Pilaf would likely be distinguishable from phone-saving instructions by someone who read the instructions through before attempting them. Or it may just be that Randall considers those who would follow instructions for saving a phone with rice that they find on the internet gullible enough to believe the seasonings and other ingredients would have a curative effect on electronics.

The rice myth is revisited in one of the tips in [[1820: Security Advice]].

==Transcript==
:[Megan is shown standing at the rail of a ship with a microphone reporting the event shown in the background. A small helicopter and a larger two rotor model, lowering a rope with hook, are hovering over a crane ship with its hook down line going down in the water. It is depicted like a news screen as seen on TV. Below Megan are two headings. The first in a white insert with double frame, and the other written in white over the gray ocean water.]
:Historic Salvage
:Live

:[Four crane ships are shown lifting the bow part of the RMS Titanic. There are pontoons beneath the ship to help it float up. The name of the ship can be seen.]
:RMS Titanic

:[Both parts of the Titanic are now flown by helicopters, four for the stern and five for the bow. One helicopter for each part is a two rotor model. Ropes go from the helicopters down on each side of the ship parts to pontoons below them. Below in the ocean there are two crane ships.]

:[The two parts of the ship is now lowered in to a huge bowl of rice (labeled) standing at the coast just out of the ocean, which can be seen to the left. One of the five helicopters for the bow is missing. For scale there are drawn two trees to the left, and something is parked to the right, maybe a truck.]
:Rice

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:My Hobby]]

540: Base System

2020-04-10T19:25:49Z

108.162.215.12: /* Title text */ kissing is 1st base

{{comic
| number = 540
| date = February 6, 2009
| title = Base System
| image = base system.png
| titletext = I once got to second base with a basketball player. She was so confused.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic comes in two parts and is a pun on the {{w|Baseball metaphors for sex|baseball metaphor}} used to describe how far a date went regarding erotic actions. Many different versions of the baseball metaphor exist, with varying degrees of complexity. But it has rarely been described with as many details as the one drawn by [[Randall]] in this comic.

===First part - the comic strip===
In the first part, a four frame strip along the top, [[Ponytail]] and [[Cueball]] discuss how Cueball's date went. When Cueball answers Ponytail's question with "second base", Ponytail asks what that means exactly. They fumble around with the definition in panel two where Ponytail ask ''is that Below the waist, but... not under the clothes?'' Cueball tries to put this into the base system and suggest that this could be compared to the difficult {{w|shortstop}} fielding position in baseball, between 2nd and 3rd base. This fits with the position of [[#The diamond|Hands on the pants]] metaphor from the picture below the comic strip. Then Ponytail begins with yet another base analogy by mentioning crossing the {{w|Baseball_field#Pitcher.27s_mound|pitcher's mound}}, but then suddenly she brings two more, very different, sports into the metaphor: {{w|American football}} (with the 50 yard line) and {{w|bowling}} (with the {{w|ten-pin}}). It certainly sounds tricky, as Cueball says. Ponytail then brings up a ''third'' sport in her elaboration; her reference to getting a "red flag" could refer to different sports, as {{w|Flag#In sports|many sports use flags}}, some of them red. It is, however, most likely a reference to {{w|Racing_flags#Red_flag|racing in motor sport}} as the red flag is displayed when conditions are too dangerous to continue the session. This makes sense when looking at the "translation" here below. Cueball, however, has not got a clue which he expresses when Ponytail asks him ''If you know what I mean.''
(Note that this comic came out less than a week after {{w|Super Bowl XLIII}}, the final game of the {{w|2008 NFL season}}, which was played on 2009-02-01).

Here is a possible '''translation''' of Ponytails comment:
::Original: You should try crossing the '''pitcher's mound'''. Then down the '''50-yard line''', and right past her '''ten-pin'''.
::Translation: You should try crossing her '''{{w|Mons pubis|pubic mound}}''', then down the '''{{w|Bikini_waxing#The_Landing_Strip|landing strip}}''', and right past her '''{{w|clitoris}}'''.
:::Original: Last time I tried it, '''I got a red flag'''.
:::Translation: Last time I tried it, '''she had her {{w|Menstruation|period}}'''.

This would mean that Ponytail was about to {{w|Cunnilingus|go down}} on another girl, while this girl had her period. Many people would find it disgusting to go down on a girl while she was menstruating, explaining why Ponytail brought it up when Cueball said ''Sounds tricky''. However, Cueball doesn't seem to understand Ponytail's metaphors, explaining his replies of ''Sounds tricky'' and ''I really don't''.

===Second part - the baseball diamond===
The second part, the diagram, depicts a much more complex version of the baseball metaphor, where baseball terms and jargon are used to describe the many and varied things human beings like to do in the bedroom. Explanations have been separated by position. In order to understand the terms used, one may want to consult this picture:

[[File:540baseballdiamond.jpg|The baseball diamond and surrounding areas]]
:Note that Randall did not include any features from within the diamond; the pitchers mound or plate.

====The diamond====

The "{{w|Baseball field|diamond}}" is the geometric pattern formed by the four bases - first, second, third, and {{W|Baseball_field#Home_plate|home plate}}. After the ball is hit by the batter, and is in the air, players have a chance to move to the next base in line, from first, to second, to third, and finally to home plate (scoring only if they make it to home plate), only being removed from play if they are touched by a player carrying the ball in an attempt to move between bases. Thus there is a "progression" from one base to the next of sexual activity in the metaphor, until climax is achieved (getting to 'home plate' and 'scoring a run')

The entries in this section are ordered roughly from home plate to first, to second, to third, and then to home plate again, in the counterclockwise direction that the players move.

*Eye contact is placed just alongside the initial stage where the 'player' has just stepped off the home plate and is starting to move towards first. This is a deliberate setup for the 'thigh contact' pun later just before home plate. First eye, then thigh contact. First then can the sex begin and you have finally scored by reaching the home plate.
*Passing notes refers to a common method of communication in the classroom in school, often used by students as a form of courtship. It is placed halfway between the start and first base - the point at which communication has begun.
*First base is kissing. This is one of the most common assigned meanings for what the 'first base' is in the baseball metaphor - as in, "getting to first base".
*The boring zone is the point between kissing and sexual teasing or activity - the point where intimacy has become normal but sexual behaviors have not been accepted yet. This is boring for many (stereotypically this goes especially for men). It can also be the point at which a workup is attempted from kissing to gentle stroking and finally to the overt sexual teasing that is found by the time you have gotten to second base.
*Second base is licking or hands under the shirt. Overt sexual teasing, in an attempt to get the other person aroused.
*'Hands on the pants' and 'hands in the pants' are two activities that happen in a very short distance of each other during an average sexual encounter. They are also separated by the 'orgasm line', indicating that teasing has stopped and actual sexual activity has begun.
*Third base is oral sex. Oral sex is often used to prepare or arouse another person in preparation for intercourse, although it can be performed until one or both climax. In older versions of the baseball metaphor, third base was "hands in the pants" instead, which has been moved to earlier on the line in this new, "modern" version - or at least, Randall's conception of it.
*The Virginity line, which is also named, in brackets, after the {{w|Maginot Line}}, a series of French fortifications that were thought to be impenetrable during the lead-up to {{w|World War II}}. This line provides a direct "barrier" to the path between third base and a home run. The Maginot Line was thought to be completely impenetrable until it was bypassed by the German army during WW2 through the {{w|Ardennes forest}}, whereupon it was encircled and destroyed. Virginity is often seen as an impenetrable barrier, or an unwillingness, up until arousal and desire conspire to make it go away rapidly.
*Teens, naturally, having a propensity for hormone-driven sex, bypass the Virginity line with ease.
*Sharing root PWs (passwords) is placed very close to home plate. As a {{w|system administrator}}, the one thing you never, ever do is give anyone the {{w|root password|root (core) password}} to an operating system, because anyone with the password is able to get unlimited access to the system to do whatever they please. Sharing a root password with another person is a nerdy way of saying that you trust them on an intimate, deep level. In other words, it requires more trust than oral sex.
*Finally, there is home plate. In this diagram, it is unlabelled, but in all versions of the baseball metaphor, the home plate signifies sexual intercourse and climax. Scoring a "home run" with a sexual partner means you "took it all the way" and "scored a point"; i.e. got laid. Close to the home plate, the virginity line and orgasm line cross, as penetrative sex is rarely the most effective way for a woman to reach orgasm.

====Within the diamond and around the orgasm line====
Inside the diamond, at the center of the mound, is the pitcher. Several odd positions are placed here in Randall's diagram.
*The Orgasm Line, which passes through almost every other play field, seems to be a divider that runs throughout the entire map that separates teasing and arousing behavior from overt sexual behavior intended to pleasure others.
**Using the scroll thingy on that one Apple mouse is presumably here because the small, rounded scroll button can be imagined to be a clitoris. But it does not even get close to cross the orgasm line. (See also [[243: Appropriate Term]].) The Apple mouse mentioned is presumably the {{w|Apple Mighty Mouse}}, which has a small scrolling trackball instead of a scroll wheel, which is the usual method on most computer mice.
**Fursuits (arousing, to some) become crotchless fursuits (overtly a sexual tool) when they cross the orgasm line.
**Hands on the pants and hands in the pants are two related but different activities - hands on the pants is arousing but not past the orgasm line, whereas hands in the pants can give pleasure enough to cross the orgasm line.
**Dry humping is the activity of humping (thrusting against) a partner without one or both of them removing their clothes, in order to arouse or gain sexual satisfaction. The location is probably a combination of the fact that it lies somewhere between hands on/in the pants, is definitely not an activity that is considered "out there" (in the outfield), hasn't quite made it to 3rd base, but at least it crosses the orgasm line.

====Infield====

The {{w|Infield#Baseball|infield}} is a series of catchers stationed immediately outside or just within the diamond, with the goal of receiving the ball from the outfield (or catching it themselves) and using it to tag any running opposing teammates to foil their attempts at moving to the next base on the diamond. Players within the diamond, such as the shortstop, will also be doing this as well - they often receive the ball from the infield. As such, the infield is still "out there", away from the "usual" sexual interactions in the diamond, but they are things you might pass upon the way.

*Napoleon's Forces is a cartography joke, suggesting that all of this complicated positioning makes the image look like a map depicting military maneuvers (and also evoking the comical image of Napoleon's army marching through a land of sexual behaviors). The specific reference is probably to {{w|Charles Joseph Minard}}'s famous [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Joseph_Minard#/media/File:Minard.png diagram of Napoleon's 1812 Russian campaign], often cited as the best statistical graphic ever. It's mentioned in the title text of [[731: Desert Island]].
*Fursuits are anthropmorphic animal costumes worn by some members of the {{w|Furry Fandom}}, people who are fans of anthropomorphized (human-like) animals. Fursuiters are a small fraction of the entire fandom, but are sometimes used in sexual play.
*Fursuits (crotchless) are fursuits with no fabric or covering on the groin (crotch) of the wearer, and as such are specifically intended for sexual play. They are placed slightly further "out there" on the field due to this being more unusual, and across the orgasm line.
*Standing anywhere near Peaches is referring to the musician {{w|Peaches (musician)|Peaches}} who is known for her heavy use of sexual imagery. 

====Outfield====

The "{{w|Outfield#In_cricket_and_baseball|outfield}}" is a group of players who are there to catch the ball if it goes away from the main play area (anything outside the upper curving line) and return it to play in a manner advantageous to their team. As they separated away from the main play area, the things in the outfield are often references to sexual behaviors that are "kinky" and "out there".

*2outfielders1glove is a reference to the infamous {{w|2girls1cup}} scatological site and associated meme.
*The [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=retrograde%20wheelbarrow Retrograde Wheelbarrow] is a sex position, one referenced previously in [[300: Facebook]], making this a callback.
*Eye contact from {{w|Janeane Garofalo}} is a tie-in to the "eye contact" entry positioned near home base. It's possible that this is placed in the outfield because fantasizing about celebrities like Janeane Garofalo is a behavior that is often considered unusual, even though many people do it.

====Foul ball====

A {{w|foul ball}} occurs when a ball ends up in foul territory which is outside the foul line extending from either side of the diamond, the area is "out of play". Anyone who takes the ball into this area has committed a foul, and as such breached one of the acceptable rules of sexual conduct in the metaphor.

*Anal sex is a pun on the term "foul ball", as the anus is where fecal matter collects. The position is placed just outside the foul line.
*Downloading Star Trek fanfiction and replacing Riker's name with your crush is a reference to {{w|Star Trek: The Next Generation}}. Riker, the First Officer of the Enterprise-D, is often a subject of sexual desire among the fandom, and so taking a piece of fanfiction (fan-written, noncanon stories written about a piece of fiction) and replacing Riker's name with that of your crush is an ultra-nerdy way of indicating that they are attractive - so ultra-nerdy, it's creepy.
*The binary (i.e. base 2) numbers are an {{w|ASCII}} representation of the characters "base 2". The base of a number system is the number of unique digits required to represent numbers in that system. Binary is therefore a "base 2" system. This seems to be a little nerd sniping: wasting the time of anyone familiar enough with computing to know how to decode it.
*"Your base" is a reference to the original "base" metaphor mixed with a reference to the Zero Wing {{w|All Your Base}} meme. It is most likely a reference to {{w|masturbation}} (i.e. solo sex or you-sex and is in the foul area). First you make eye contact with a gorgeous girl (boy) and then you go home and satisfy yourself with a fantasy about all the things you would like to do with her (him). It's possible that this being here is also a stealth insult towards the reader - the reader's own base (him/herself) is "out of play" and thus undesirable.

====Title text====
If you are together with a {{w|basketball}} player and then tell her that you are now ''at second base'', she might become very confused as bases are not an element in basketball. Also there is the joke that basketball players never get laid because they always jump before they score.

==Transcript==
:[At the top there is a four panel regular comic strip.]
:[Cueball and Ponytail are talking; Ponytail is sitting on the back of a chair with her feet on the seat, and Cueball is sitting on the floor facing her.]
:Ponytail: So how far did you get with her?
:Cueball: Second base?

:[Zoom in on Ponytail on the chair.]
:Ponytail: Wait, which one is that? Below the waist, but... not under the clothes?
:Cueball (off-panel): I think that's... shortstop?

:[Cueball now almost lies down and Ponytail is sitting on the armrest of the chair.]
:Ponytail: You should try crossing the pitcher's mound. Then down the 50-yard line, and right past her ten-pin.
:Cueball: Sounds tricky.

:[Again a zoom in on Ponytail now on the armrest.]
:Ponytail: Yeah. Last time I tried it, I got a red flag. If you know what I mean.
:Cueball (off-panel): I really don't.

:[Below the strip there is a large frame with a diagram of a baseball diamond.]
:[At the bottom left there is a box with tis text:]
:'''The "Base" Metaphor Explained'''

:[Bases are pointed too with thick black arrows (except home plate) and there are also arrows pointing to different parts of the diagram. All arrows and points marked with "x" have a description, as do the dashed lines covering the field. Below they will be listed anti-clockwise from the home plate.]

:[Along the line towards first base is the following five items in the order they appear:]
::[x slightly right of home plate:]
::Eye contact
::[Black arrow pointing to a base half way to first base outside the line:]
::Your Base
::[x inside the line opposite your base]
::Passing notes
::[Black arrow pointing to a base further along and outside the line:]
::0110 0010 0110 0001
::0111 0011 0110 0101
::0010 0000 0011 0010
::[x Slightly before first base:]
::Downloading Star Trek fanfiction and replacing Riker's name with your crush's.

:[Black arrow pointing to first base:]
::First base: Kissing

:[Further along the line past the first base is one x point in the right outfield:]
::Eye contact from Janeane Garofalo.

:[On the way towards second base there are the following two items:]
::[A region along the line from first to second has been marked off by a dotted line. It has the following text written inside:]
::The boring zone.
::[x some way inside the line next to the boring zone:]
::Using the scroll thingy on that one Apple mouse

:[Black arrow pointing to second base:]
::Second base: Hands under the shirt and/or licking

:[On the route from second to third base are eight items:]
::[A dotted line traveling from near the outfield above second base, then crossing the second baseline about 1/3 of the way to third base, snaking its way almost down to the home plate ending close to the third baseline. The following text is written along the dotted line inside the diamond:]
::The orgasm line
::[Above second base a large black arrow crosses the orgasm line near the outfield:]
::Napoleon's forces
::[x below the Napoleon arrow right before crossing the orgasm line:]
::Fursuits
::[Two arrows points to the second base line on each side of the orgasm line:]
::Hands on the pants
::Hands in the pants
::[x some way into the diamond just past the orgasm line:]
::Dry humping
::[x same distance down the second base line as dry humping, but equally far outside the line still infield:]
::Fursuits (crotchless)
::[x almost at the extension of the 3rd base line close to the outfield:]
::Standing anywhere near Peaches

:[In the left outfield there are two x points:]
::[x in the outfield halfway along the second base line:]
::Retrograde wheelbarrow
::[x in the outfield almost at the extension of the third base line:]
::2outfielders1glove.

:[Foul of the third base line just left of where the grass line divides the in- and outfield:]
::Anal sex (fill in your own "foul ball" pun here.)

:[Black arrow pointing to third base:]
::Third base: Oral sex (formerly "hands in the pants")

:[On the route from third to home plate there are four items:]
::[Between third base and home there is a dotted line that makes a curve from right outside the third base line and ends right afer it has crossed the orgasm line. The text is written inside the diamond with the first word above and the other two below the dotted line:]
::"Virginity" (Maginot) line
::[A large black arrow curves around the end of the "Virginity" line outside of the diamond:]
::Teens
::[A large black arrow points from outside the diamond to a point right between home plate and the virginity line:]
::Sharing root PWs
::[x just before home plate at the end of the orgasm line inside the diamond:]
::Thigh contact

{{comic discussion}}
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