explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2604: Frankenstein Captcha

2022-04-08T21:16:38Z

108.162.216.221: /* Explanation */ I didn't interpret it that way at all *shrug*

{{comic
| number = 2604
| date = April 8, 2022
| title = Frankenstein Captcha
| image = frankenstein_captcha.png
| titletext = The distinction between a ship and a boat is a line drawn in water.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by Rated Argh -Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic strip is a play on the meanings (and misunderstanding) of the name "Frankenstein". ''{{w|Frankenstein}}; or, the Modern Prometheus'' is a 1818 novel by Mary Shelley about a medical student called Victor Frankenstein who creates an artificial life-form. The man he creates once describes himself as "the Adam of your (Frankenstein's) labour" in the book, and strictly speaking is properly known as "Frankenstein's ''monster''" (or perhaps "creation" or "son"), but is often erroneously called "Frankenstein" himself.

The Captcha shown in the comic instructs the user to select all tiles containing Frankenstein. The tiles include both a reanimated corpse resembling Frankenstein's monster and a scientist yelling, "It's alive!” who is clearly intended to be Victor Frankenstein. The problem arises from the contrast between the generally accepted and technically accurate definitions of the term Frankenstein. The correct answer to the Captcha is just the left square of the third row, unless you follow comic [[1589]]. If the images in the squares are scenes from the famous {{w|Frankenstein (1931 film)|1931 film}} starring {{w|Boris Karloff}} as The Monster, then they could be correctly said to be "containing ''Frankenstein''”—that is, the work. Because of the ambiguity regarding what Frankenstein refers to, this would not be a good CAPTCHA because many people solving it would use an incorrect definition of Frankenstein and therefore get it wrong. (However, it would be effective in screening for people who know that Frankenstein technically refers to the scientist, not the monster—or, if one also had to mark the boxes depicted Frankenstein's monster, screening for people who don't know.)

This comic strip could also reference [[1897]], which would imply that someone had actually created a Frankenstein's monster which needs to be located.

Many of the other tiles appear to be pictures of entities that inspire similar pedantry. For example, there is a picture of a turtle (or possibly a tortoise, or a reference to the Voight-Kampff test used in a manner analogous to CAPTCHA), a ship (or possibly a boat), Link (the name given to each of several protagonists that appear across generations and timelines, throughout the {{w|Legend of Zelda}} video games, who many erroneously refer to as Zelda), a pond (or possibly a lake, or a {{w|mirage}}), a squash or pumpkin (often subject to the ''fruit or vegetable'' debate), an erupting volcano (with lava, or is it magma?), and an asteroid or planet (or is it a dwarf planet?). Other tiles seem to be inspired by images that commonly occur in actual captchas, like the STOP sign or the traffic light. However, at least some of these may also be meant to fall into the category of entities that inspire pedantry, for exmaple: because traffic lights can also be called traffic signals or stoplights; many people thinking that the shape of a stop sign is a hexagon, not an octagon; and the definition of a sandwich (previously discussed as a “random semi-ironic obsession” in [[1835]]).

The title text refers to the fact that if you draw a picture of a boat/ship on calm water (a straight line), it is usually assumed to be on a lake or pond and is thus a boat, but if it is on wavy water (as in the comic), it's assumed to be on the sea and is thus a ship{{citation needed}}. The title text is also a pun on the common idiom "drawing a line in the sand."

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

> TO CONTINUE, PLEASE CLICK ALL SQUARES CONTAINING FRANKENSTEIN

Pictured (Starting from top left)

Row 1
* Tortoise (or turtle)
* Ship (or boat)
* Frankenstein's monster (often mistaken as Frankenstein) waking up from a slab, while lightning strikes.
::Monster: GRRR
* Link from Legend of Zelda series (often mistaken as Zelda, aka Toon Link in SSB)

Row 2
* Lake (or pond), possibly a mirage, in the Egyptian desert
* Megan
* Lava (or magma)
* Squash or pumpkin (fruit vs vegetable)

Row 3
* A mad scientist (Victor Frankenstein) throwing a switch while lightning strikes outside
::Frankenstein: It's alive!
* Sandwich
* Stop sign
* Girl running away from Frankenstein's monster
::Girl: Monster!

Row 4
* Rocket (spaceship) flying by an asteroid or Pluto (dwarf planet)
* Cueball and Ponytail standing next to each other
* Traffic light (also called a stoplight, possibly mistaken as stop sign?)
* Frankenstein's monster

> OH NO.

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:1301: File Extensions

2013-12-09T18:50:29Z

108.162.216.221:

The title text reference of "hand-aligned data" may refer to ASCII art. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.28|108.162.215.28]] 05:36, 9 December 2013 (UTC) Alan K.

I think it's also a notable point, that the better rated document formats are more data centric while the low rated formats mix text informations with design elements and finally become pure graphic formats, which often is an indication, that the author didn't use the accurate file type for (mostly) pure text informations.
Something I don't understand is the gap between jpg and jpeg. The first suffix is AFAIK only an abbreviation used by older DOS/MS Systems to fullfill the 8.3 limitation for filenames. The note about hand alignment might concern the fact, that hand alignment is more time expensive which might increase the amount of the the author spend in overthink the content before layouting. Also often automated layouting as supported by many modern writing application might lead to unexpected and sometimes wrong results, because the automatism has no semantical knowledge about the authors intention, which might lead to post processed errors
Sorry for my bad english, I'm not a natural writer
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.231.239|108.162.231.239]] 05:45, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
:"hand-aligned data" seems to me like (manually) space-indented paragraphs, perhaps even manual padding to achieve the desired justification (centering and right-and-left-margin-hugging). And of course neatly lining up an 'embedded table', perhaps originally extracted from a .csv output. Although a number of plain-text editors (in the days of CGA and pure terminal/fixedspace fonts) or text formatters and wrappers (e.g. Lynx, man-page creaters, etc) ''would'' do things like this for you. And still do. At least insofar as the justification and margining is concerned. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.229|141.101.99.229]] 08:35, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
If anyone has taken the time to hand align a text file (as in a README, or other info file), they want it to look attractive for people to read. Odd are you're not going to take the time to "hand pretty" the document just to be malicious. Back in the BBS days there were a large number of "online" groups who had "signature" text files which were (very probably) hand aligned, and made extensive use of extended ASCII codes to generate basic graphics. (Granted there were programs to help auto-generate "ascii art".) If you've ever seen these files you'd know. [[http://www.thuglife.org/tlv5/aabout.shtml Example 1]] - [[http://textfiles.com/piracy/NFO/ Example 2]] [[User:Jarod997|Jarod997]] ([[User talk:Jarod997|talk]]) 14:14, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

I find it interesting that .jpg and .jpeg are at different levels. Aren't those the same thing? --[[User:Mralext20|Mralext20]] ([[User talk:Mralext20|talk]]) 05:48, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps the .gif could contain suddenly unexpected scary/surprising frames? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.208.172|108.162.208.172]] 14:54, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

:That JPG/JPEG thing indeed seems strange. The more important distinction is between JPEGs that are photographs (fine) and those that are not (stupid). Also, pre-PNG, non-photograph GIFs could be just fine. And with all the accounting scandals we've seen, why would those spreadsheet formats get any credibility? -- [[User:Dfeuer|Dfeuer]] ([[User talk:Dfeuer|talk]]) 06:06, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
::Alongside .jpeg ('full' extension format) and .jpg (MS '8.3'-compatible extension format), I'd have expected .jpe (often full extension historically truncated on an 8.3 system), I must be honest. (And interesting that .docx doesn't co-inhabit the .doc line... or be somewhere else.) And the disparity betwixt the two versions of JPEG extension ''may'' relate to the tendency for a higher artefact-intensity of images back in the early days (when a better option than GIFs for... certain pictures... e.g. on Usenet between *nix workstations with vastly restricted bandwidths and storage capacities) compared to today's users (cameras that regularly store 10+MP pictures in low-loss JFIF files, and/or in Raw format!). But that may be a spurious or off-track reasoning on my part. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.229|141.101.99.229]] 08:27, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

I measured the bars in photoshop to +/- 2pixels. If we scale .tex to a value of 100 like the transcript says, these are the values I get for the bar lengths (rounded to one decimal place)
.tex 100
.pdf 89.4
.csv 84.9
.txt 66.5
.svg 64.8
.xls 48.6
.doc 21.2
.png 15.1
.ppt 14.5
.jpg 3.4
.jpeg -8.4
.gif -35.8

Dunno if it is helpful - or even trusted given I'm a first time commenter - but there it is. Closer values than just estimating, though the eyeballed estimates aren't bad. Not going to adjust the actual transcript because I feel that's overstepping my bounds. {{unsigned ip|108.162.216.56}}
:Not at all, wikis are free to edit for a reason. If we didn't want new users to be editing pages, we could have turned that off long ago. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:55, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

As the information that is provided by the graph comes as png, we should probably not trust her. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.92.120|141.101.92.120]] 09:03, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
: Ha, +1 Like :-) [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]])

I never saw image of cute cats lying to me ... I mean, the gif is STILL the preferred format for animation, mostly because it's the only one supported. Animation formats based on PNG didn't catched up, hard to say why ... on the other hand, gif animation apparently have huge number of weird extensions, judging by the number of animated images I found which don't render properly in anything EXCEPT the browser. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 10:27, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
:The cute cat may not be lying, but since the format is used in other context -- like banner ads, then the average GIF may well be lying, also I believe there have been many security issues with GIFs and JPGs as they have been used as an attack vector for internet-bad-guys to take over your computer -- so while security issues is not specifically the topic for todays strip, then that may be worth noticing as well [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]])
:It is also possible to create animations with svg which is (for good reason, I like that format) ranked higher. Especially for scientific purposes it can be handy. Unfortunately is the MediaWiki software unable to show them. For example in the previous comic is an animation of the Galilean moons shown. That is an gif but someone also uploaded an [[Wikipedia:commons:File:Galilean_moon_Laplace_resonance_animation_(en_-_monochrome_-_350x217).svg|svg animation]] and I would say it does look smoother than the gif. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.231.215|108.162.231.215]] 14:40, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
:The Grumpy Cat is not grumpy in real life - so cat pictures DO lie! [[User:Schmammel|Schmammel]] ([[User talk:Schmammel|talk]]) 15:40, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
What is the scale of the chart? Does 'top' = most trusted'? Never assume anything with xkcd. [[User:David.windsor|David.windsor]] ([[User talk:David.windsor|talk]]) 18:29, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
Of course Randall does not really think that the file extension determines trustworthiness; the graph is tongue-in-cheek. Information can be trustworthy or untrustworthy no matter the format it's given in. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.221|108.162.216.221]] 18:50, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

1298: Exoplanet Neighborhood

2013-12-02T16:45:56Z

108.162.216.221: better explanation

{{comic
| number = 1298
| date = December 2, 2013
| title = It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood!
| image = exoplanet_neighborhood.png
| titletext = <nowiki>http://xkcd.com/1298/large/</nowiki>
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Why the empty space around Earth?}}
The diagram is a graphically represented prediction of properties of hypothetical nearby exoplanets (planets not in our solar system), based on the assumption that the exoplanets that are currently known have a distribution of orbits, sizes, and star types that is similar to the actual distribution. Astronomers are particularly interested in exoplanets within 60 light years of Earth which lie in a {{w|Circumstellar habitable zone|habitable zone}}; that is, a planet whose orbit is within a certain range of distance from a star such that water could exist in a liquid state. The diagram categorizes exoplanets in two ways. The disc's color indicates the characteristics of the central star, with a reddish tone indicating (hypothetical) planets that orbit stars similar in characteristics to our sun, while grey indicates those that don't. The disc's size indicates the (hypothetical) exoplanet's size, with planets similar to Earth's size depicted in a slightly darker shade of either color.

It appears that the diagram is intended to cause the viewer to conclude that there are a significant number of Earth-sized planets orbiting Sun-type stars which could be habitable (and even more possibly-habitable planets around other types of stars or in other sizes).

The title of the comic "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood!" is an allusion to the former PBS television show [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Rogers'_Neighborhood "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood"] in which the same line presents itself in the opening song, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Rogers'_Neighborhood#Regular_songs "Won't You Be My Neighbor?"].

The title text is a link to a larger version of the comic, found [http://xkcd.com/1298/large/ here].

==Transcript==
:'''OUR NEIGHBORHOOD'''
:A portrait of all habitable-zone planets within 60 light-years of Earth (constructed from statistical data on typical planet sizes and orbits)

:[The image shows many planets in different colors and a legend shows planets at different sizes.]
:Planets around sun-like stars
:Planets around other stars
:[A marker on both sides:]
:Earth-sized planets

:[Center of the image.]
:Earth
{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]

1190: Time/Translator

2013-11-15T18:54:30Z

108.162.216.221: guesses for one of the blots

Here's a list of all the blurry text from the translator, both with the original image and enhanced contrast.

A note about grammar:

* The punctuation appears to be borrowed from the translator's native language.
* The ring diacritic indicates a question mark.
* A single line above a letter is a full stop.
* A double line above a letter is an exclamation mark (or probably a comma).

This might help in determining the native language a bit better.

{| class="wikitable"
! Original
! Enhanced contrast
! Text
! Notes/corrections
|-
| [[File:translator-1.png]]
| [[File:translator-contrast-1.png]]
|
"Somewhat"
|
|-
| [[File:translator-2.png]]
| [[File:translator-contrast-2.png]]
|
"Whence have you traveled here"
|
|-
| [[File:translator-3.png]]
| [[File:translator-contrast-3.png]]
|
"You arose here from the desert below? Nobody [unclear-1] there"
|
Unclear-1: Survives?

Notice that synonyms and extra phrases are often lighter, in the background. For instance in large, light letters of the background here, "to this fortress" is pretty clear, and above "desert" is the word "sand." The word "lives" (or some other short word ending in "ves") seems to be behind unclear-1, so "respires" might be likely as the blurred word.
|-
| [[File:translator-4.png]]
| [[File:translator-contrast-4.png]]
|
"I am sorry. Your language is like those spoken by the [unclear-1] difficult [unclear-2] but I learned it."
|
Unclear-1: ???

Unclear-2: ???
|-
| [[File:translator-5.png]]
| [[File:translator-contrast-5.png]]
|
"Please be patient/have patience"
|
|-
| [[File:translator-6.png]]
| [[File:translator-contrast-6.png]]
|
"They understand nothing[,] so they will tend to matters."
|
|-
| [[File:translator-7.png]]
| [[File:translator-contrast-7.png]]
|
"Your bags"
|
|-
| [[File:translator-8.png]]
| [[File:translator-contrast-8.png]]
|
"They are heavy."
|
|-
| [[File:translator-9.png]]
| [[File:translator-contrast-9.png]]
|
"(You're) welcome"
|
|-
| [[File:translator-10.png]]
| [[File:translator-contrast-10.png]]
|
"Tell me where your home is."
|
|-
| [[File:translator-11.png]]
| [[File:translator-contrast-11.png]]
|
"What river?"
|
|-
| [[File:translator-12.png]]
| [[File:translator-contrast-12.png]]
|
"How many people strong are you?"
|
|-
| [[File:translator-13.png]]
| [[File:translator-contrast-13.png]]
|
"[unclear-1] forty? All my numbers are too small.

"Yes! Good."
|
Unclear-1: "What is forty?"/"How much is forty?"/"What means forty?" possibly
|-
| [[File:translator-14.png]]
| [[File:translator-contrast-14.png]]
|
"Do you carry these people with you?"
|
Possibly meaning, "Did you bring any of those people with you?"
|-
| [[File:translator-15.png]]
| [[File:translator-contrast-15.png]]
|
"Oh." [both times]
|
|-
| [[File:translator-16.png]]
| [[File:translator-contrast-16.png]]
|
"You do not know. [Unclear-1]"
|
Unclear-1: unclear but starts with "I"
|-
| [[File:translator-17.png]]
| [[File:translator-contrast-17.png]]
|
"Your sea does not stand alone, there is another sea [Unclear-1] beyond the shore. It has become [Unclear-2] to yours [Unclear-3] levels differ and thus water flows"
|
Unclear-1: "next to it"?

Unclear-2: "tied"

Unclear-3: "because the"/"but their"
|-
|
| [[File:translator-contrast-18.png]]
|
"In time even the hills change. When people first [Unclear-1] and first built [Unclear-2] cities the seas were joined. But there was a great [Unclear-3] and the passage was closed. Your sea [Unclear-4] with too few rivers. Under the sun it shrank and the water fell. Now the sea has found a way back in."
|
Unclear-1: "walked" or "talked"?
|-
|
|
|
"Do you know where you are?"
|
|-
|
|
|
"I will build you a map to understanding."
|
|-
|
|
|
"The fortress is here." - "This sea is yours." - "This sea is joining yours."
|
|-
|
|
|
"And this is our belief about the sea's new shore."
|
|-
|
|
|
"We learned it has happened before. When our r[Unclear-1]ts were le[Unclear-2]ng to walk upr[Unclear-3]t, the sea [Unclear-4]d and returned."
|
Unclear-1: "parents" with vertical overlay "forefathers"/rabbits?

Unclear-2: learning?

Unclear-3: upright?

Unclear-4: fled?
|-
|
|
|
"N[Unclear-1]t is H[Unclear-2]ing again."
|
Unclear-1: Now it?

Unclear-2: happening?
|-
|
|
|
"Yes."
|
|-
|
|
|
"This Castle/Fortress [Unclear-1] once [Unclear-2] island. We found it and have tried to rebuild it."
|
Unclear-1: was?

Unclear-2: an?
|-
|
|
|
"[Unclear-1] I imagine/suppose/[Unclear-2] it will be an island again."
|
Unclear-1: Now?

Unclear-2: guess?
|-
|
|
|
"We are learners/teachers/scholars. This fortress [Unclear-1] with [Unclear-2] and I am their teacher/leader."
|
Unclear-1: shares?

Unclear-2: teachers/scholars/learners?
|-
|
|
|
"I am so sorry."
|
|-
|
|
|
"When we discovered the sea was [Unclear-1] under the bank we tried to shore it up. We failed. We tried to remove everybody from the basin, but we did not know of your [Unclear-2]."
|
Unclear-1: flowing/rising?

Unclear-2: tribe/group?
|-
|
|
|
"No."
|
|-
|
|
|
"[Unclear-1] the water flows, it widens the breach. The [Unclear-2] is giving way. The sea will rush through in a G[Unclear-3]ent. The planets mightiest river will once again come thundering down the mountainside. The sea will fill - not in years - but in days."
|
Unclear-1: No or As?

Unclear-2: serm or perm or berm?

Unclear-3: gushing torrent? great torrent?
|-
|
|
|
"The journey to your land is much too long. [Unclear-1] not send[Unclear-2] only [Unclear-3] see[Unclear-4] encircled and drowned by the rising/rushing tide/water."
|
Unclear-1: I will?

Unclear-2: you (back/away)?

Unclear-3: to?

Unclear-4: [your]friends/group?
|-
|
|
|
"The world you know is ending. But fortune/fate has delivered you from the flood. You [Unclear-2] not intend to [Unclear-3]ve your home forever, but be thankful/grateful you left when you did."
|
Unclear-1: delivered?

Unclear-2: did?

Unclear-3: leave or love or serve?
|-
|
|
|
"You must say your goodbyes from here. You cannot go back/return down into the abyss. For you have walked too far and now there is no more time to walk. The ocean/sea is coming/here."
|
|}