explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1379: 4.5 Degrees

2016-09-13T01:51:16Z

108.162.218.160: /* Explanation */ changed spelling error

{{comic
| number = 1379
| date = June 9, 2014
| title = 4.5 Degrees
| image = 4_5_degrees.png
| titletext = The good news is that according to the latest IPCC report, if we enact aggressive emissions limits now, we could hold the warming to 2°C. That's only HALF an ice age unit, which is probably no big deal.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic represents the impacts due to climate change by demonstrating the changes in climate that should be expected with a given change in global temperature. This is done by detailing the world's climate in geologic periods where the global average temperature has changed by one or more "Ice Age Units," or IAU. The comic defines an IAU as the difference in global temperature between today and the last ice age, about 4.5 °C. An IAU of 0 represents modern global temperature. It was later followed with a similar but much more elaborate chart in [[1732: Earth Temperature Timeline]].

One IAU unit happens to be the expected increase in global temperature the world will see by the end of year 2100. The prediction of 4-5 degrees Celsius of warming may not appear significant, but is easy to see as a substantial difference when comparing today to the last ice age.

: An IAU of -4 is associated with {{w|Snowball Earth}}. Snowball earth is a near-total freezing of the entire surface around 650 million years ago, in the {{w|Cryogenian}}. This may have been the greatest ice age known to have occurred on Earth.

: An IAU of -1 is associated with the last ice age. During this time [[Randall|Randall's]] neighborhood was buried under an ice sheet.

: An IAU of +1 is the predicted global temperature by the end of year 2100. While it makes sense to assume it's just as drastic a difference as -1 IAU, we still don't know the actual nature of what it would be, which is why it is represented by a question mark in the comic.

: An IAU of +2 is associated with the {{w|Cretaceous Thermal Maximum|"Hothouse Earth"}} of the early {{w|Cretaceous period}}. At this time there were "{{w|Arecaceae|palm trees}} at the poles" as there were {{w|Polar forests of the Cretaceous|polar forests}} during Cretaceous summers. (Average temperature of North Pole during the summer is 0 °C or 32 °F. 0+2*4.5 = 9 °C = 48.2 °F, hot enough for trees to grow at the North Pole under hypothetical 2 IAU scenarios)

An increase of 4.5 °C (+1 IAU) seems like a small change in temperature, but the changes it would cause are likely very large as it can also be described as halfway to palm trees at the poles.

The topic of ice coverage over various cities has previously been covered in [[1225: Ice Sheets]]. The image of Boston from that comic is reused at the top of the huge chart in [[1732: Earth Temperature Timeline]].

This comic shows the extreme extend to which {{w|global warming}} can (and will) change our environment. Randall presented this view earlier in [[164: Playing Devil's Advocate to Win]]. Climate change, especially global warming, is a [[:Category:Climate change|recurring theme]] in xkcd and Randall is clearly convinced that we are causing it.

The title text expands, demonstrating that the potential impacts of an increase by the IPCC report's best case scenario of 2 °C, about half an ice age unit, makes controlling climate change seem more urgent. The figure of 2 °C is the most commonly agreed {{w|Climate change mitigation#Temperature targets|temperature target}} that assumes the creation of aggressive emissions limits at the time of the publishing of the comic.

===A1F1 Scenario===
The 4.5 degree increase is predicted by the bern2.5cc simulation (a moderate simulation) of the A1FI scenario. In the A1FI scenario the world has a high dependence on fossil fuels, experiences "very rapid economic growth", a declining world population by 2050, as well as a high rate of increase in energy efficiency after 2050.

===Trivia===
The oldest known animal fossils ({{w|Sponges#Fossil record|sponges}}) are from the Snowball Earth, while {{w|Flowering plant#Evolution|flowering plants}} became the dominant plant species during the Cretaceous period. It is believed that the entire Earth was frozen for the first time about 2,400 to 2,100 million years ago, which could have been a result of the {{w|Great Oxygenation Event}}.

The 200m {{w|Current sea level rise|sea level rise}} given in the last panel for a "Cretaceous Hothouse" (i.e. if all ice on earth melted, including the Antarctic ice cap) could not be explained by this melt-off alone. If all the ice melted the water level would only increase by about 60-80m, according to {{w|Antarctica}}, [http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/ IPCC Third Assessment Report] (section 11.2.3 on Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets) and [http://water.usgs.gov/edu/sealevel.html Sea Level and Climate: USGS Water-Science School]. Additional sea level rise can be expected from thermal expansion of seawater, and indeed the main reason for rising sea level at the moment is actually caused by this expansion of the sea due to increasing temperature. But the high-end 500-year projection for a 4x increase in CO<sub>2</sub>, at {{w|Current sea level rise#IPCC Third Assessment|expansion of the sea}}, is for an additional 2m due to thermal expansion, with a decreasing rate of growth over time. (Some of the sea level change in the Cretaceous are due to changes in bathymetry.)

The 5th and most recent {{w|Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change}} (IPCC AR5) presents four alternative trajectories for future concentrations of greenhouse gasses, termed {{w|Representative Concentration Pathways}} (RCPs): RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6, and RCP8.5. They are named after possible ranges of radiative forcing values in the year 2100 relative to pre-industrial values (+2.6, +4.5, +6.0, and +8.5 W/m2, respectively). The hottest of these, RCP8.5, is predicted to result in a warming of 2.6 °C to 4.8 °C for the 2081−2100 period, and between 3 and 5.5 by the year 2100 ([http://www.climate2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf Working Group I Summary for Policymakers]).

The lack of internationally binding agreements makes breaching an increase of 2 °C more and more likely.

==Transcript==
:Without prompt, aggressive limits on CO<sub>2</sub> emissions, the Earth will likely warm by an average of 4°-5°C by the century's end.
:'''HOW BIG A CHANGE IS THAT?'''

:[A ruler chart is drawn inside a frame.]
:In the coldest part of the last ice age, Earth's average temperature was 4.5°C below the 20th century norm.
:Let's call a 4.5°C difference one '''"Ice Age Unit."'''

:[A ruler with five main divisions — each again with 3 smaller quarter division markers. Above it the five main divisions are marked as follows with 0 in the middle:]
:-2 IAU -1 IAU 0 +1 IAU +2 IAU
:[Next to the 0 marking a black arrow points toward 0.25 on the scale and above it is written:]
:Where we are today

:[The rest of the text is below the ruler.]
:[To the far left below -2 IAU a curved arrow points to the left. Below it is written:]
:Snowball earth (-4 IAU)
:[Below -1 IAU a black arrow point toward this division. Below the arrow is written:]
:20,000 years ago
:[Below this an image of a glacier. At the top of the image is written:]
:My neighborhood:
:[At the bottom of the image is an arrow pointing to the glacier:]
:Half a mile of ice
:[Below 0 IAU a black arrow point toward this division. Below the arrow is written:]
:Average during modern times
:[Below this an image of Cueball standing on a green field with a city skyline in the background. At the top of the image is written:]
:My neighborhood:
:Cueball: Hi!
:[Below +1 IAU a black arrow point toward this division. Below the arrow is written:]
:Where we'll be in 86 years
:[Below this a white image. At the top of the image is written:]
:My neighborhood:
:[Below this is a very large:]
:'''?'''
:[Below +2 IAU a black arrow point toward this division. Below the arrow is written:]
:Cretaceous hothouse
:+200m sea level rise
:No glaciers
:Palm trees at the poles

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Climate change]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

1707: xkcd Phone 4

2016-07-15T13:49:29Z

108.162.218.160: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1707
| date = July 15, 2016
| title = xkcd Phone 4
| image = xkcd_phone_4.png
| titletext = The SpaceX system carefully guides falling phones down to the surface, a process which the phones increasingly often survive without exploding.
}}

==Explanation==
The battery-life is listed as 18,000 μAh (micro-Ampere hours). The SI prefix "micro-" means one millionth, or 10^-6. One micro-hour is 0.0036 seconds, so 18,000 micro-hours is 64.8 seconds. The expected battery life of the XKCD Phone 4 is just over one minute.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:1645: Toasts

2016-02-20T10:00:05Z

108.162.218.160:

Are we sure "single-payer" is not a typo, making it "single-player" to fit with "RealPlayer"? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.202.144|162.158.202.144]] 11:18, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
:That's what I thought as well. [[User:Maplestrip|Maplestrip]] ([[User talk:Maplestrip|talk]]) 11:19, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
::Yes it is not a typo as Single-payer refers to Single-payer healthcare as now explained above. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:27, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

: It seems correct. It is rather abstract, but I guess single-payer here is considered a good thing and RealPlayer a bad thing. Added to rime that a a different type of "player" might be what his single friends need.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.165|162.158.90.165]] 22:38, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm fairly certain this comic is in reference to the "Fall Out Boy" song, entitled "Champagne For My Real Friends And Real Pain For My Sham Friends", from their 2005 album "From Under The Cork Tree"; though he could also be referencing Francis Bacon, Tom Waits, the television show Happy Days, the show One Tree Hill, or Spike Lee's "25th Hour". If you do a Google search for the phrase, it requires some exclusions (like -"fall out boy") to prevent that song from dominating the first page of results. It's one of their most famous titles.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.48|108.162.216.48]] 12:00, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
:Please just include links to these relevant songs etc. in the explanation. And thanks for the comment. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:27, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

:White Hat thus wish that his real friends have access to free health care, and all his single friends will get RealPlayer. Maybe he wishes to impress these singles with a present and hope he gets lucky. (If it has been Hairy this would have seemed very likely… see 1178: Pickup Artists. White Hat has not previously displayed thse tendencies to clearly).
::I doubt this. RealPlayer was a terrible piece of software nobody wanted and was often bundled with spyware (see wikipedia) {{unsigned ip|141.101.70.121}}
:::Well I wrote it and disagree. Since it has been on the market for 10 years, and has just been updated, then it cannot be that terrible, and I cannot find what you say should be on Wikipedia to show that it should be bad still at present. But of course if it has just been upgraded to a new name, then giving the old app is not so hot. Has addressed this in the explanation. Aqlso please feel free to update something you find in error yourself ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:27, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
:::: You wrote the source code for RealPlayer or the explantation here? If first you should know why it has such a bad reputation, if second: RealPlayer was some time ago bundled with spyware that sent unique ID's with other userdata to a server, also it had several other problems and is considered by several tech magazines as one of the worst software programs. It might not mention that in the english wikipedia but the german has a section for it. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/RealPlayer#Kritik To stay on topic: Maybe he wishes his single friends RealPlayer so they need his help to get the malware off their computers and he can impress them? Is way more probable from my experience. [[User:Bobylein|Bobylein]] ([[User talk:Bobylein|talk]]) 12:43, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
:::::And to stay in English for those who are not native Germans... we can also take the English wiki link to the {{w|RealPlayer#Reviews_and_critiques|critique}}! ;-) As I can read from that it was in 1999 and 2007 that it was bad, and as this is now 9 years ago at least, and they keep updating it, the errors may have been improved out? Why would anyone else continue to make it better or using it? But again feel free to update the explanation even more with these kinds of info. I still think it is not so bad to get a free app, unless it is the spy ware version. I expect this doesn't exist anymore, and it is not explicitly stated that he would give them that.--[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:53, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

None of these negative interpretations of RealPlayer fit with White Hat's personality.--[[User:Nekoninda|Nekoninda]] 13:34, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

This is the first comic with [[Hair Bun Girl]] since [[User:Jkshapiro|Jkshapiro]] proposed a name change to for instance Hairbun. I take this chance to get more comments on this subject by posting his note, that is now posted on her site: Should [[Hair Bun Girl]] be renamed to Hairbun? [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Proposals#Rename_Hair_Bun_Girl See here]
--[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:04, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

As a non-native speaker, when I first read it, I though "petty friends" could mean "pet animals" and "real coats" would then refer to them having real fur as coats - which is often an aspect animal friends don't like on certain rich people (wearing real fur coats), but completely normal for the animals itself.
Also "Realplayer", aside from its repuration as not-so-useable software, is used for video streaming, including on porn sites. So (male?) "single friends", being single, might have to resort using Realplayer/porn to satisfy their needs.
[[User:Zefiro|Zefiro]] ([[User talk:Zefiro|talk]]) 13:16, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

In regard to the second tile, I read it at first to mean that the girl's real friends are pseudopods and that all her human acquaintances are "pseudo-friends". This would be like a stereotypical "lab nerd". Doesn't track with any other slide, but I thought it might add to the conversation... {{unsigned ip|108.162.221.15}}

"Real bugs" for my "Lady Friends" - I took that as having sexual undertones. But maybe that was just me. --[[Special:Contributions/188.114.106.47|188.114.106.47]] 19:14, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

The last panel with Beret Guy might be a reference to any French expression using "faucon" ("hawk", sounds like "false cunt") and "vrai con" ("real cunt"). Sorry about the language by the way, but that's exactly what "con" mean, both literally and figuratively. A French equivalent to "Champagne for My Real Friends, Real Pain for My Sham Friends" would likely use those—although I can't think about a perfect one. It's usually along the lines "Quelle différence entre toi et un oiseau? Le faucon est un oiseau, toi t'es un vrai con." meaning "What's the difference between a bird and you? The hawk is a bird, you're a real cunt." Also, the current explanation seems really far-fetched to me. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.159|141.101.104.159]] 20:26, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
: Made the edit. Feel free to argue. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.159|141.101.104.159]] 03:47, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Firstly, I must disagree about "Fauxhawk", that "This '''IS'''" a reference to "faucon"/the french version of this phrase. I might go along with "might be". "Fauxhawk" is a word that really is used in the English language, for the described hairstyle. This connection seems only to be a mild coincidence, something better suited to a Trivia section (it DOES make for an interesting tidbit, but too obscure to be on purpose). Seems like a happy accident.

Secondly, I remain unconvinced about "Single-Payer" not being a typo. Seems like a weird term, uncommon. Maybe this is just because I'm Canadian, maybe this term is very wide-spread to Americans, but due to American TV and content we DO hear a lot of American terms. If the intent was indeed to be "single-player", this could be a reference to how more and more video games these days focus on multiplayer/online play, many of which neglect the single-player content, to the point where it seems like the game makers are assuming nobody is interested. As such, this would mean wishing quality single-player gameplay for their real friends.

Thirdly, about "pods". I understood it to mean "human container", like a stasis pod or escape pod (a common term for the spaceship equivalent of a lifeboat) Examples of such pods would include where Ripley "stored" herself at the end of Aliens, into the beginning of the next movie, or how baby Superman was transported to Earth. So, this person would be wishing these friends go into stasis, that their fake friends simply go away.

And YAY! As of this comic I'm caught up, I've now read every xkcd starting from #1! :) - NiceGuy1[[Special:Contributions/198.41.235.215|198.41.235.215]] 07:36, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Is it just me, or does the fact that several of the words also are the names of cocktails (Ladybug, Tumbleweed) have any significance? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.203.146|162.158.203.146]] 09:23, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
: My initial reaction to this thought was "no", seeing as those drinks aren't that widespread, for example I feel like I might have heard those cocktail names, but if so rarely and I've no idea as to their contents (i.e. as opposed to drinks like a Screwdriver, a Mimosa or a Black Russian, drinks which are rather universal, such that most adults probably know what's in them). However, on reflection, the original toast names a drink, toasts involve drinking, and both of those items - Ladybugs and Tumbleweeds - make for unpleasant gifts. So now I think this might be a genuine possibility. Does anybody know of any drinks sharing a name with any of the others? ("Single-payer" seems unlikely, but "Pseudopod" for example?) - NiceGuy1[[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.160|108.162.218.160]] 10:00, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Talk:305: Rule 34

2016-02-09T13:34:12Z

108.162.218.160:

Who is Lance from the title text, throbbing..., is it Lance Armstrong? Sounds odd.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:06, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
: Very good question. I don't know. In any case, wetriffs.com died less than 3 months ago. What a shame. --[[User:Quicksilver|Quicksilver]] ([[User talk:Quicksilver|talk]]) 21:34, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
::It being Lance Armstrong seems like a stretch to me, but a lance is a kind of spear, and spears are reasonably phallic, so there you go. --[[User:Alex|Alex]] ([[User talk:Alex|talk]]) 13:51, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
:::I'm sorry, but the Rule 34 isn't about gays. The title text is more about shocking youngsters. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:19, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
::::When did I say Rule 34 is "about gays"?? It's just a spelling bee joke about penises. --[[User:Alex|Alex]] ([[User talk:Alex|talk]]) 09:18, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
::::I reverted your edit 'cuz it makes no sense to me whatsoever. If you want, please explain at my talk page. --[[User:Alex|Alex]] ([[User talk:Alex|talk]]) 09:20, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
::::Wait, no, I've figured it out: It's {{w|spelling bee}} porn, so it's rule 34. --[[User:Alex|Alex]] ([[User talk:Alex|talk]]) 10:11, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
:::::Sorry again, and I'm not saying you are wrong. But the explain should be also understood by non US citizens. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:28, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
::::::To clarify: No, Rule 34 isn't about gays, but this particular invocation of it IS. The title text is expanding on the second panel, one of the examples Cueball gives is "homoerotic spelling bees", the example specifies it's homoerotic, and thus homosexual. Furthermore, at least in North America, "Lance" is thought of as a stereotypically common name for a homosexual man, such that some people, upon hearing the name Lance, might simply assume he's a gay man, making this name a perfect choice for the title text in order to increase the connection to Cueball's example. It seems to me that the explanation is missing connecting the title text to Cueball's example in the second panel. - NiceGuy1 [[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.160|108.162.218.160]] 13:34, 9 February 2016 (UTC)