explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

305: Rule 34

2021-12-09T15:47:56Z

108.162.219.11: /* Trivia */

{{comic
| number =305
| date =August 20, 2007
| title =Rule 34
| image =rule 34.png
| titletext =Okay, Lance. For entry into the college bowl, spell 'Throbbing'
}}

==Explanation==

[[Cueball]] is rather surprised to find {{w|slash fiction}} (same-sex erotic fiction featuring characters from popular media, often from unrelated series) featuring characters from the {{w|Thomas the Tank Engine}} television series, but [[Megan]] isn't remotely surprised, citing {{w|Rule 34 (meme)|Rule 34}}: "If it exists, there is porn of it. No exceptions."

Cueball denies the truism of the rule, coming up with several examples of porn that doesn't exist yet, until he comes across one that they both agree would be pretty hot: Women playing electric guitar in the shower. Megan proceeds to get ahead of the curve by registering WetRiffs.com.
By doing this, Megan invoked {{w|Rule 34 (meme)#Variations and corollaries|Rule 35}}, an additional rule based around rule 34. Rule 35 states: "If there is not porn of it, porn will be made of it."

In the title text, we can assume that the presenter in a spelling bee is asking a male participant with the name "Lance" to spell "[http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Throb throbbing]," a term sometimes used to describe the swelling of a person's genitals. The scene thus plays out like the start of a hypothetical homoerotic {{w|spelling bee}} that could contain rude words or innuendo.

Rule 34 is mentioned in the title text of [[505: A Bunch of Rocks]] and [[860: Never Do This]].

==Transcript==
:Cueball: Huh-- Thomas the Tank Engine slash fiction.
:Megan: It's rule 34 of the internet. If you can imagine it, there is porn of it.
:Cueball: Nah. The web is freaky, but it can't begin to have everything.
:Cueball: There's no porn set atop storm-chasing vans. No homoerotic spelling bees. No women playing electric guitar in the shower.
:Megan: Actually, that last one would look pretty hot. As long as they were unplugged or waterproofed...
:Megan: Rivulets of water run down her chest, the smooth body of the guitar firm against her hips.
:Megan: She twangs the E-string and it shakes off tiny droplets in all directions.
:[She rises into a crouch.]
:Megan: You're sure it doesn't exist?
:Cueball: Not yet.
:Megan: I'm registering WetRiffs.com. Let's get on this.

==Trivia==
*Randall actually ''did'' register WetRiffs.com (archive [http://web.archive.org/web/20130518191217/http://wetriffs.com/ here]), and people submitted pictures of themselves in the shower holding electric guitars. Randall would later create a tumblr page called "[http://raccoonsexdungeon.tumblr.com Raccoon Sex Dungeon]" to coincide with Cueball referencing it in [[1025: Tumblr]].
*Since this comic, there has been actual Rule 34 on homoerotic spelling bees: **https://inkbunny.net/submissionview.php?id=8430
** https://archiveofourown.org/works/18585226

And Rule 34 on porn set atop storm-chasing vans:
**https://archiveofourown.org/works/18586171

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

2528: Flag Map Sabotage

2021-10-14T16:31:33Z

108.162.219.11:

{{comic
| number = 2528
| date = October 13, 2021
| title = Flag Map Sabotage
| image = flag_map_sabotage.png
| titletext = Delaware hopes to explore the western edge of areas marked with the Belgian flag, once the tornadoes die down.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a GOD-EMPEROR OF GREATER DELAWARE - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The comic refers to a type of map that colors countries using the national flag designs; see [https://i.pinimg.com/originals/41/0f/36/410f3661d1cee3b255b82a111f99d242.jpg here] for such a map of Europe. Randall proposes a new flag which is specifically designed to troll such maps. Most obviously, the flag includes its own legend, which uses multiple common flag colors to indicate random regional attributes. Hence, the mere act of placing this flag on a map would cause people to misinterpret this legend as applying to the entire map, given wildly false information about regions of other countries. This trick is reminiscent of [[327: Exploits of a Mom]], with Mrs. Robert's son <code>Robert'); DROP TABLE Students;-</code>.

In addition to the legend, the flag consists of two red fields, one of which has an irregular-shaped border, the other of which is a straight line. The irregular shape is similar to a geographical border based on natural features (such as rivers and coastlines), while borders which are not based on such features tend to be straight lines. Red is the most common color on national flags, so if any bordering country had red on their flag, it would risk bordering these red fields, confusing where the border lay (as well as designating the entire red region as "greater Delaware"). If this flag is intended for the USA (although the text mentions "our new country"), the red regions would be continuous with the red strips on both sides of Canada's flag and the red field on the right of Mexico's flag, disguising the border still further.

The title text refers to the flag of Belgium, which consists of three vertical stripes in the order black, yellow, and red. The western part of Belgium would, according to the legend, be unexplored, while the eastern part would be Greater Delaware. The middle would therefore be a tornado zone separating the unexplored area from Greater Delaware. Depending on how the flags are aligned it might be possible to explore from the south, where the blue-white-red stripes of the French flag contain another piece of Greater Delaware that may be conveniently located to help said exploration. Exploring from the Netherlands (red, white, and blue horizontal stripes) is not viable as rebel forces are positioned between Greater Delaware and the unexplored region.

This is not the first time Randall has made a flag for a new country! See [[1815: Flag]]

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[A flag displays a white country-shaped area surrounded by a red field. Inside the shape sits a map legend.]

:Map Legend
:[Bright blue rectangle] Disputed territory
:[Green rectangle] Newly independent
:[Blue rectangle] Demilitarized zone
:[Yellow rectangle] Tornado warning
:[Dark blue rectangle] Held by rebel forces
:[Red rectangle] Greater Delaware
:[Black rectangle] Unexplored

:[Caption below panel]
:Our new country's flag sabotages those maps where geographic areas are colored in with flag patterns.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Maps]]
[[Category:Sabotage]]

Category:Cursed Connectors

2021-08-16T15:04:22Z

108.162.219.11: Add 2503 to the category, and fix some grammar.

This series of "cursed" USB-type connectors began with "Cursed Connectors #187", [[2493: Dual USB-C]], in July 2021. The second installment was released days later with "Cursed Connectors #65": [[2495: Universal Seat Belt]]. This was eventually followed by "Cursed Connectors #102": [[2503: Memo Spike Connector]].

Randall had already made a similar series, [[:Category:Bad Map Projections|Bad Map Projections]], which also uses a similar number system, with the first comic already beginning with a high number for the first bad projection, #107. Similar to this series, the second projection has a lower number than the first (#79).

However, these connectors are not real connectors. What is meant by "cursed" is uncertain; likely, though, they are "cursed" do to not being functional. A jab at all the different connectors in existence, and how they often break down, maybe because people try to jam them into the wrong sockets because they have so many different types.

The connectors get a number, which if taken seriously would mean there are at least 187 cursed connectors. So far they have the following numbers (listed in number order rather than release order; the first two were released in the opposite order).
:<nowiki>#65</nowiki>: [[2495: Universal Seat Belt|Universal Seat Belt]]
:<nowiki>#102</nowiki>: [[2503: Memo Spike Connector|Memo Spike Connector]]
:<nowiki>#187</nowiki>: [[2493: Dual USB-C|Dual USB-C]]

This may give promise of several more comics with cursed connectors.

[[Category:Comic series]]

Talk:2498: Forest Walk

2021-08-07T20:06:43Z

108.162.219.11:

Have just added a transcript. Hope I did good! :) -Lance ([[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.211|172.70.126.211]] 02:40, 5 August 2021 (UTC))
:You did good, Lance. *pats head* [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.197|162.158.74.197]] 18:06, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Wonder what Beret Guy would do if Cooper said, "I don't have it any more," since some of the money was discovered, badly deteriorated and partially buried, along the banks of the Columbia River back in 1980, as verified by serial numbers on the found currency. Given the absence of any other evidence, it was assumed that the hijacker had gotten separated from the money either during or right after the jump, the found currency had been deposited as flotsam at its discovery point through the actions of the river itself, and the rest of the money was still somewhere in the Pacific Northwest awaiting similar discovery, [[User:RAGBRAIvet|RAGBRAIvet]] ([[User talk:RAGBRAIvet|talk]]) 04:23, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

If it can be considered that the comic is a reference to random walk (in a forest), can it also be considered a reference to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_forest random forests] ? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.68.73|141.101.68.73]] 07:14, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
:I don't get why the comic is supposed to be a reference to random walks or to random forests. Nothing points to that. Real forests exists, and people walk in them. The only peculiarity of this particular forest is that D.B. Cooper hangs in one of its trees. --[[Special:Contributions/188.114.103.244|188.114.103.244]] 08:20, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

I feel like there should be a D.B. Cooper category at this point. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.52|141.101.104.52]] 07:51, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Hey there, I think the alt text is also a reference to https://xkcd.com/2390/ ? Kind regards :) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.89.61|162.158.89.61]] 08:13, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Typo: "he might have simply inherited it form his mom". --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.39|162.158.255.39]] 12:40, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
: Done, now. I'd seen it, but apparently missed it, in preparing for my first big corrective edit of the day (little tyops, a lot less awful than ones ''I'' have previously left for others to correct). Or maybe I thought I should leave it suspended from the tree until some other issue had been resolved. :P [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.105|162.158.158.105]] 12:53, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Not to question the artistic representation, but rather than Forest (tree canopy and dense undergrowth), I'd say that was more Woodland Savanna (individual tree growth smattered around grass/shrubland at most). Or maybe we just can't properly see the woods for the trees... (Or the action is set at the edge of a clearing, of course!) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.184|141.101.98.184]] 13:32, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
:It's Southwest Washington, where Pyroculture practiced over centuries changed the nature of the forests. Your average forest, until recently when fire suppression came in, had very little undergrowth, and sometimes whole fields of Camas Lilly or Tarweed or other food plants valued by the Yakima.[[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 19:43, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Doesn't it seem likely, that Beret Guy's trees have soup outlets on them? Like his Business does? (Or, maybe Ghosts (like the business))

'You help me down this instant!' is not an "unlikely combination of words" or an unusual phrase. I'm not sure if it is regional, but as a native US English speaker, this is a completely normal wording to use if you are frustrated and insisting that someone do something, especially someone much younger, so perhaps it is meant to further indicate the man's age. As an example, a parent might say to their unruly child who is refusing to do their chores, "young man, you clean your room this instant!" (or "right this instant") It can also be used playfully: you are taking a walk along a river with some friends, when one of them suddenly playfully splashes water on you and takes off running (to avoid retaliation) and you run after them shouting "I'm going to get you for that! You get back here right this instant!" [[Special:Contributions/172.70.131.28|172.70.131.28]] 15:36, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
:I had the same reaction to both the title text and the explanation (although I believe it refers to the "help me down" part and not the "this instant" part). Either way, neither part of the phrase nor the entire phrase seems unlikely or unusual. I actually first came to this page to see if I was missing a reference in the title text, but it appears Randall just finds our dialectic somewhat strange. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.73|172.70.114.73]] 16:28, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
::IANALinguist, but I took it that "Help me down" is a (potentially, enough to be linguistically nerdsniped upon) ambiguous. 'Down' as a verb is strange, maybe ("to down, I wish you to help me") which might even be more feather-based in regards to the action conveyed. Or "lower the amount of help you shall grant me". Or even "(I) require assistance (for) I (am) feeling a certain amount of ennui". And "I wish to fall" is obviously not meant... Or is it? Some people would wish to consider this... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.211|162.158.158.211]] 19:06, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
:::It was I who added that part about the "unlikely combination of words". Today I have checked it on https://www.english-corpora.org/coca/ (where you have to annoyingly register with your real email address as throwaway mails are effectively blocked). Expression 'right know' has 151 795 results. 'this instant' has only 558 including phrases such as:
:::"Get the fuck out of my office this instant." from Silicon Valley (2017 TV Series, episode The Keenan Vortex);
:::"Shh. Stop that this instant! 'Stop that this instant.' You sound like my teacher." Justice League Action (2016, Galaxy Jest);
:::"Put those drapes down this instant. ... I will grab a spatula and put you Over my knee this instant! - You sound like mommy." The Haunted Hathaways (2014, Haunted Viking);
:::"Applebloom! You come back here right this instant! (blustering)" My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (2010, Bridle Gossip).
:::There were also some result from spoken word, newspapers and blogs but they were not relevant. In conclusion, 'this instant' is much less frequent than more common 'right know', however, it is used. On the other hand, it is infrequent enough that characters in TV series comment on how out of place that phrase sounds. I have deleted my explanation, feel free to undo the deletion, rewrite the explanation or leave it as it is now.
::: To clarify, I have deleted this part of explanation: As mentioned in [[1400: D.B. Cooper]], Cooper was also known for ambiguous, possibly affected speaking style and use of unusual phrases such as 'negotiable American currency', he seems to hold to this habit and instead of much more common 'Help me right now!' or 'Put me down immediately!' he used rather unlikely combination of words 'You help me down this instant!'. [[User:CryptoNut1269|CryptoNut1269]] ([[User talk:CryptoNut1269|talk]]) 11:06, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
::::I assume you mean "right now" not "right know". [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.165|172.70.126.165]] 01:05, 7 August 2021 (UTC)Pat
::: My input: the "this instant" bit is not even mentioned as the focus of the linguist's attention, so I'd not consider that important. D.B. may also have only started to say that ''since'' the prior visitor, or only when directly addressing BG (with the long history of ignoring/refusing him). "Help me down" is an interesting construct in and of itself, as mentioned. But I could not tell you in what ways. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.106|162.158.158.106]] 14:39, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Anyone else think that D.B. Cooper in this comic looks a bit like Don Quixote from alternate energy revolution? --[[User:4D4850|4D4850]] ([[User talk:4D4850|talk]]) 02:13, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
: Kind of, but when you looked closer at [[556: Alternative Energy Revolution]] Don Quixote's beard is definitely better groomed and his hair is trimmed. I would rather compare this Cooper with the guy form [[725: Literally]]. [[User:CryptoNut1269|CryptoNut1269]] ([[User talk:CryptoNut1269|talk]]) 11:06, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
:: <humor> What if literally guy is alternate universe D.B. Cooper? </humor> Seriously speaking though, it seems the similarity is just because there aren't many different ways to draw stick figures. --[[User:4D4850|4D4850]] ([[User talk:4D4850|talk]]) 19:41, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Where's the page for yesterday's 2499:Abandonment Function? I know it was published late (after midnight last night), but is that a reason not to explain it? [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 12:54, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
:Sometimes DGBRTBot (however it's capitalised, etc, I forget) needs a nudge. It's a long long time since I last saw that need so seriously doing, so can't remember how difficult it was when everyone was last complaining about it... I'm sure others are checking that, but I'll poke around to see if it's possible to poke as an AnonIP too... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.12|141.101.99.12]] 17:55, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
:: I think my desire to archive the comic along with everything else in case the universe ends is simplifying down to just pasting a link in here: https://xkcd.com/2499/ . Presently accessible for me on xkcd.com . Has a single panel showing a drone asking to be charged by an owner it gifts itself to. Somewhat triggering around human slavery. Caption describes an abandonment function that provides for unwanted drones to find new owners. Reminds of discarded autonomous robots. archive.org will be crawling it soon, hopefully before the universe ends, but I wrote a small summary here. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.87|172.70.114.87]] 20:04, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
:: commentary: this probably actually works to give drones away, comparable to leaving furniture by the side of the street. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.11|108.162.219.11]] 20:06, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

Talk:1749: Mushrooms

2016-10-21T16:55:25Z

108.162.219.11:

;Meaning of the title text?

The way I'm reading this comic, there are several possible meanings to the title text. One definition of "ghost" is "a faint trace of something" - it's possible that mushrooms are a faint trace of whatever other species bridged the gap between plants and animals.

Alternately, it could just be Randall's way of saying not to trust any sentence beginning with the phrase "Evolutionarily speaking" (see comics [[1240]], [[1475]]). [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.61|108.162.216.61]] 13:55, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

C-C-C-Combo Breaker! [[User:PeanutVendor|PeanutVendor]] ([[User talk:PeanutVendor|talk]]) 14:08, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

;Growl
Not sure I agree with the explanation of the growl. In the first frame cueball insults the mushroom as Megan explains they are more like animals; the casual/layperson implication there is that, while not necessarily sentient, they are more able to respond to surrounding stimuli (like being aware of being called weird.) So the punchline in the penultimate frame has this not-vegetable more-like-animal mushroom "animate" ... growl [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 15:03, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

;Differences mushroom/plants

Just for a quick overview:
* cell walls in mushrooms consist of chitin (like the exoskeletons of insects) and polysaccharids. Plants have cells walls made from cellulose, animals have cell walls made of protein.
* mushrooms are heterotrophic (they need to take up chemical energy from outside of the body) like animals; while plants use sunlight. Though, some fungi have turned to sunlight or gamma rays (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiotrophic_fungus).
* each fungal cell is simple in structure and function, unlike plants which have much more specialized "organs" (leaves, flowers, roots)
--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.150.228|162.158.150.228]] 16:16, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
: Animals do not have cell walls. All cells (including Plant, fungi and animals) have cell membranes made of lipids with embedded proteins. As above, plants and fungi have cell walls in addition to a cell membrane. Some other things such as bacteria (which are not animals) also have cell walls made of various substances.--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.11|108.162.219.11]] 16:55, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Talk:1728: Cron Mail

2016-09-03T05:18:53Z

108.162.219.11:

I think the "MAILTO" variable in "/etc/crontab" is meant, so only only cron-mails would go to this address, not all mails for the user

[[User:Rincewind|Rincewind]] ([[User talk:Rincewind|talk]]) 13:09, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

The huge question is whether adding an email message to crontab would result in cron producing even more mail - or whether it would cause cron to fail in some way. The latter would do damage by killing some (possibly critical) cron tasks - the former could rapidly fill up the hard drive with an exponentially-growing crontab. An intermediate situation would be that cron simply ignores the junk and continues to function as before - in which case Cueball's change will have little practical impact on disk space consumption - but probably gradually slow cron's crontab parser to a crawl, which would also have rather severe effects. On most Linux setups, the mail directories are on a different partition to /etc. There is often very little spare space on the partition with /etc on it - so it's likely that Cueball's change will eventually do terrible damage in that case too. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.69.98|162.158.69.98]] 14:42, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
:On my Mint/Ubuntu/Debian-based Linux system, adding junk to /etc/crontab put a message is /var/log/syslog about "cron[1495]: (*system*) ERROR (Syntax error, this crontab file will be ignored)". So it looks like appending garbage to the crontab will just break cron entirely (or at least those handled by /etc/crontab; it may be private cron and /etc/cron.d/* jobs may continue to run, but cron.hourly, cron.daily, and cron.weekly jobs on my system are initiated through /etc/crontab so they would not run with a broken /etc/crontab). I don't know if other non-Debian distributions have a cron that behaves differently, however. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 15:18, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
:Seems like it wouldn't break the existing stuff, they'd still get run and then cron would start parsing the noise and complaining - the "intermediate" situation, though the "export MAILTO" seems wrong. If Cueball did it in his .bashrc, it might get into some of *his* cron jobs but unless it's in /etc/crontab (and there, no "export" is needed/used), it wouldn't matter. His jobs probably wouldn't have rights to write to /etc/crontab either. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.48.73|173.245.48.73]] 17:09, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

The current explanation misses a part of the joke present in Cueball's last statement: he is considering the cron program to be somehow sentient and able to make a decision between sending the email (is it really important?) and its self-preservation by not trashing its own config file. He is thus daring cron to continue sending emails at the risk of 'self-destruction'.

- I also feel like the part of the joke is the cron has been sending him useless mail for 15 years. So now, he is sending cron useless mail

This states it can be run as infrequently as once a year, however by using February 29th, you can have it run once every 4 years (exc ever 100 inc every 400). But I think you might be able to get better by also setting it to run on a day of the week. e.g. February 29th, which is a Monday, which would then (after this year) not run for another 28 years, next running on February 29th, 2044.

Should that be noted in the article or is it a needless complication? (Also, I don't know what day of the week is what for this syntax).[[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.156|108.162.250.156]] 21:13, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
:That's interesting! but I don't think it's relevant to the joke. [[User:NotLock|NotLock]] ([[User talk:NotLock|talk]]) 23:13, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

:If you specify a day of week and a day of month it runs on both, so "11 59 29 2 1" would run at 11:59 on every Monday in February, as well as on February 29, not just on any February 29 that happened to be a Monday.--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.11|108.162.219.11]] 05:18, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm hesitant to make substantial edits as a random non-registered IP address, but I do feel like this explanation could be improved if a lot of the technical details were removed. For example, the format of a crontab file and how it is parsed distracts a bit from the joke. For a non-technical audience, it would be much more concise to simply note that the file has a specific format, and piping random emails to it would probably break all of cron. In my opinion, the current explanation loses the forest for the trees. For me, the key part of the joke is Cueball doesn't know cron, Ponytail explains it, Cueball conducts a response which is intuitive in the real world ("okay, cron, if you think it's that important then you deal with it!") which would be horrible in a computer. Ponytail's comment on it being harsh, and that it would accidentally solve the problem is the punchline. I think all the other technical details distracts from that simple explanation.
: I would agree. Understanding how exactly cron works isn't really necessary to understand the comic and its humor. Perhaps linking to some "cron for dummies" tutorial for those interested[[Special:Contributions/141.101.91.223|141.101.91.223]] 04:03, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

What exactly does "hardball" mean? Is it a US slang term or such?[[Special:Contributions/141.101.91.223|141.101.91.223]] 04:03, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

1726: Unicode

2016-08-30T23:45:37Z

108.162.219.11: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1726
| date = August 29, 2016
| title = Unicode
| image = unicode.png
| titletext = I'm excited about the proposal to add a "brontosaurus" emoji codepoint because it has the potential to bring together a half-dozen different groups of pedantic people into a single glorious internet argument.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|More details needed?}}

Three highway engineers, [[Cueball]] in the river and two other characters on the distant bank, are placing traffic signs in a river trying to guide the water flow (as made clear in the caption).

As rivers flow according to the landscape, this plan will not work and the river will continue on its course. Cueball is very frustrated by this and is still trying to make the river obey the traffic laws. The caption lays out the punchline: The comic compares the useless approach of Cueball attempting to divert a flowing, moving river with fixed signs that do nothing, with the {{w|Unicode Consortium}}'s attempt to define the diverse and ever-changing human language with strict technical standards.

{{w|Unicode}} is a largely successful attempt to have a standard for representing all possible letters, numerals, digits and symbols that make up human writing in all languages. This includes the roman letters used in this article, characters with modifiers like ê (both with the common characters as well as the modifiers selectable separately), logographic characters like in Chinese, syllabic writing system like Japanese, right-to-left and/or top-to-bottom writing systems, mathematical symbols and many other writing systems.

{{w|Emoji}}, one of the trendier Unicode blocks, are also referenced in the title text (see below). The symbols on the signs in the river are real road signs, but interestingly enough they also both exist in Unicode, with the warning sign triangle with an exclamation mark ⚠ having [http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/26a0/index.htm code (U+26A0)] and the black, rightwards arrow ➡ having [http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/27a1/index.htm code (U+271A)]. As can be imagined, coping with the wide variety of character sizes, orientations, ways they can be modified, capitalization rules, etc. can get to be very challenging as the Unicode Consortium tries to write rules that accommodate how printed language is actually used. Emoji have become a [[:Category:Emoji|recurrent theme]] on xkcd.

The title text refers to [http://unicode.org/L2/L2016/16072-jurassic-emoji.pdf a proposal] to add three dinosaur heads to the official list of emoji.

This is likely to stir a glorious internet argument between the following half-dozen opposing (and {{w|pedantic}}) camps that may now be brought together:
*Those who favor the inclusion of more emoji vs. those who oppose emoji on principle.
*Those who accept the existence of ''{{w|Brontosaurus}}'' vs. those who deny its status as a species unique from ''{{w|Apatosaurus}}''.
**[[Randall]] has made it clear what he believes in [[636: Brontosaurus]].
**Although it seems new development has occurred since the release of that comic, suggesting that Brontosaurus is a specific species. But that is still debated...
*Those who favor a traditional, scaly image of dinosaurs vs. those who have accepted the feathered-dinosaur paradigm.
*Those who prefer a different dinosaur species be included instead.
*Those who point out that two of the dinosaurs in the "Jurassic Emoji" set actually come from the {{w|Cretaceous period}}, and as such renaming is necessary vs. those who think that "{{w|Jurassic}}" is a cooler word (because of the movies).
*Those who for religious or other reasons deny the existence of dinosaurs.

See also this [http://www.unicode.org/mail-arch/unicode-ml/y2016-m08/0103.html discussion about this comic on the Unicode mailinglist]...

Highway engineers were also the subject of [[253: Highway Engineer Pranks]].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is standing in a river close to it's right bank, the water reaching up to his thighs. He is holding on to a traffic sign standing towards right. It has a label and an arrow below this pointing to the right bank. With his other arm he is pointing to the left at the advancing water masses. Further up the river is another street sign this sign has an exclamation mark inside a triangle. The water flow is indicated with several lines on the river surface, mainly moving along the river, but around Cueball and the signs there are circular lines. In the distance on the left bank of the river two people are standing and making gestures with raised arms. The left has white hair (could be either sex) and the other is a Cueball-like guy. A third sign is lying on the ground to the left of them face down. Behind them is a slope up to a road with a parked car. The road continues out over a a bridge that crosses the river. The river which passes under it both left and right of a central pillar. At that distance the right bank of the river (and thus the right end of the bridge) is not visible, being outside the panel. On each river bank grass can be seen and on the right bank also a small stone.]
:Cueball: No, go ''this'' way, not-
:Cueball: Are you even ''listening!?''
:Cueball: ... ''Hey! That's not what that area is for!''
:Sign with arrow: Detour
:Sign with triangle: !

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Watching the Unicode people try to govern the infinite chaos of human language with consistent technical standards is like watching highway engineers try to steer a river using traffic signs.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Apatosaurus]]
[[Category:Emoji]]

1726: Unicode

2016-08-30T23:43:29Z

108.162.219.11: /* Explanation */ emoji aren't the newest thing in Unicode

{{comic
| number = 1726
| date = August 29, 2016
| title = Unicode
| image = unicode.png
| titletext = I'm excited about the proposal to add a "brontosaurus" emoji codepoint because it has the potential to bring together a half-dozen different groups of pedantic people into a single glorious internet argument.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|More details needed?}}

Three highway engineers, [[Cueball]] in the river and two other characters on the distant bank, are placing traffic signs in a river trying to guide the water flow (as made clear in the caption).

As rivers flow according to the landscape, this plan will not work and the river will continue on its course. Cueball is very frustrated by this and is still trying to make the river obey the traffic laws. The caption lays out the punchline: The comic compares the useless approach of Cueball attempting to divert a flowing, moving river with fixed signs that do nothing, with the {{w|Unicode Consortium}}'s attempt to define the diverse and ever-changing human language with strict technical standards.

{{w|Unicode}} is a largely successful attempt to have a standard for representing all possible letters, numerals, digits and symbols that make up human writing in all languages. This includes the roman letters used in this article, characters with modifiers like ê (both with the common characters as well as the modifiers selectable separately), logographic characters like in Chinese, syllabic writing system like Japanese, right-to-left and/or top-to-bottom writing systems, mathematical symbols and many other writing systems.

{{w|Emoji}}, one of the trendier Unicode blocks, are also referenced in the title text (see below). The symbols on the signs in the river are real road signs, but interestingly enough they also both exist in Unicode, with the warning sign triangle with an exclamation mark ⚠ having [http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/26a0/index.htm code (U+26A0)] and the black, rightwards arrow ➡ having [http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/27a1/index.htm code (U+271A)]. As can be imagined, coping with the wide variety of character sizes, orientations, ways they can be modified, capitalization rules, etc. can get to be very challenging as the Unicode Consortium tries to write rules that accommodate how printed language is actually used. Emoji has become a [[:Category:Emoji|recurrent theme]] on xkcd.

The title text refers to [http://unicode.org/L2/L2016/16072-jurassic-emoji.pdf a proposal] to add three dinosaur heads to the official list of emoji.

This is likely to stir a glorious internet argument between the following half-dozen opposing (and {{w|pedantic}}) camps that may now be brought together:
*Those who favor the inclusion of more emoji vs. those who oppose emoji on principle.
*Those who accept the existence of ''{{w|Brontosaurus}}'' vs. those who deny its status as a species unique from ''{{w|Apatosaurus}}''.
**[[Randall]] has made it clear what he believes in [[636: Brontosaurus]].
**Although it seems new development has occurred since the release of that comic, suggesting that Brontosaurus is a specific species. But that is still debated...
*Those who favor a traditional, scaly image of dinosaurs vs. those who have accepted the feathered-dinosaur paradigm.
*Those who prefer a different dinosaur species be included instead.
*Those who point out that two of the dinosaurs in the "Jurassic Emoji" set actually come from the {{w|Cretaceous period}}, and as such renaming is necessary vs. those who think that "{{w|Jurassic}}" is a cooler word (because of the movies).
*Those who for religious or other reasons deny the existence of dinosaurs.

See also this [http://www.unicode.org/mail-arch/unicode-ml/y2016-m08/0103.html discussion about this comic on the Unicode mailinglist]...

Highway engineers were also the subject of [[253: Highway Engineer Pranks]].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is standing in a river close to it's right bank, the water reaching up to his thighs. He is holding on to a traffic sign standing towards right. It has a label and an arrow below this pointing to the right bank. With his other arm he is pointing to the left at the advancing water masses. Further up the river is another street sign this sign has an exclamation mark inside a triangle. The water flow is indicated with several lines on the river surface, mainly moving along the river, but around Cueball and the signs there are circular lines. In the distance on the left bank of the river two people are standing and making gestures with raised arms. The left has white hair (could be either sex) and the other is a Cueball-like guy. A third sign is lying on the ground to the left of them face down. Behind them is a slope up to a road with a parked car. The road continues out over a a bridge that crosses the river. The river which passes under it both left and right of a central pillar. At that distance the right bank of the river (and thus the right end of the bridge) is not visible, being outside the panel. On each river bank grass can be seen and on the right bank also a small stone.]
:Cueball: No, go ''this'' way, not-
:Cueball: Are you even ''listening!?''
:Cueball: ... ''Hey! That's not what that area is for!''
:Sign with arrow: Detour
:Sign with triangle: !

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Watching the Unicode people try to govern the infinite chaos of human language with consistent technical standards is like watching highway engineers try to steer a river using traffic signs.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Apatosaurus]]
[[Category:Emoji]]

Talk:1719: Superzoom

2016-08-14T04:56:07Z

108.162.219.11:

Camera guy is an asshole. {{unsigned ip|108.162.216.76}}
:Didn't realise donkeys could fit in a guy!
:Anyhow, does anyone know if those cameras are really that good?{{unsigned ip|108.162.219.69}}

Alternatively, its possible he's borrowing this camera from beret guy. Too bad he didn't check to see if it dispenses soup; now we'll never know.
[[Special:Contributions/172.68.35.81|172.68.35.81]] 15:08, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't think the comic mentioned anything about the price of the camera. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.116|108.162.215.116]] 16:12, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
:Yes, he does; see the first panel. But I had to look twice after reading your comment. :) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.207|108.162.215.207]] 16:59, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

I think this comic might be inspired by this video I recently saw [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PbUjTxiyNQ] --[[User:Eluvatar|Eluvatar]] ([[User talk:Eluvatar|talk]]) 17:48, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Here's a video of the Nikon P900 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-0X3xJf-kg which has 166x optical zoom {{unsigned ip|108.162.246.111}}
:Thins this last video is more relevant than the one above. Have used this in the explanation. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:30, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

This feels like something Buttercup Festival would think up of. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.44|173.245.54.44]] 19:56, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

I understand cruising altitudes vary, but I've been able to see airplane reg numbers using a 6MP APS-C dslr at 200mm and post-shot image review zoom. Has anyone done resolution math to fact check the assertion? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.87|108.162.221.87]] 23:10, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
:Editing this comment to add: And the title text - note the stain shirt is after the click comment. Really sounds like zooming into the image - which at a high resolution, shows a lot. {{unsigned ip|108.162.221.87}}

Never mind the distance factor. I'd be astonished if he can make out who's working in the store if there are any walls in the way. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.48|141.101.98.48]] 08:54, 13 August 2016 (UTC)Andrew Williams
:Have you heard of windows? ;-p Who says he is that far away. To me it seems that such a small camera as shown here can do all he claims except take pictures of the clouds of Jupiter, see links in the explanation. Also there are no indication of how far away either bird, plane or Kevin is, so it is not possible to say they are too far away to see anything. And of course they have to be visible from Cueball's location, it's not an "x-ray" camera with superman vision! The number on the birds band is probably not readable from just one side of the ring/bird, as it goes around the ring... But to make out those numbers turned his way may be possible. However as he is looking up indicating the bird is flying it would be difficult to get a great picture (especially handheld). But if the falcon is soaring it can stay very still even in the air. So apart from the handheld part it seems very likely that this is possible, and that is a bit scary. Any time you are standing in a spot where someone can see you from afar, then they can tell if you have forgotten to zip up your fly from a couple of miles away! ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:25, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Super zoom doesn't mean super magnification; a zoom lens is a lens which allows the focal length to be varied. Some zoom lenses (e.g., Tamron's 150-600) do give high magnification, but others (e.g. Nikon's 10-24mm) do not magnify. "Super zoom" isn't even a word that has meaning, though I suppose something like a 8-300 could be called super zoom (if it could even be built) A telephoto lens magnifies; a super telephoto magnifies a lot. The opposite of a zoom lens is a Fixed focal length, aka Prime, lens. Long lenses (over 100mm) are telephoto. The 5400mm lens linked to in the explanation is a Prime lens (essentially a telescope with a camera mount; notice it's a reflector design, not a refractor like a zoom lens must be). As far as reading bird bands, I use a Tamron 150-600 at 600mm on my Canon 5D when recording bands during spring snow goose migration; works well for birds up to 150 yards away or so. Note that goose bands are much bigger than those used on Falcons. That lens is properly called a telephoto zoom lens. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.11|108.162.219.11]] 04:56, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

Talk:1707: xkcd Phone 4

2016-07-15T17:11:22Z

108.162.219.11:

The current explanation seems to assume a constant current draw of 1A without explicitly stating it.
[[Special:Contributions/141.101.95.117|141.101.95.117]] 14:04, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

The 12 headphone jacks is probably referring to the rumor that the iPhone 7 may not have a headphone jack. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.90|141.101.104.90]] 14:58, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Fun fact: the Walkman II (the most popular variant) had 2 headphone jacks, so that two people could listen to music at the same time, but the second jack was removed from later designs. This has a few more than that, perhaps there is one for each voice assistant to make it "usable". (this person failed to sign their comment.)

An alternative explanation of "onboard cloud" could be a file server that serves over WIFI, Bluetooth, and NFC, turning the phone into an effective NAS sneakernet [[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 15:30, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

The "certified" feature probably refers to various certifications being used as marketing features. [[User:Joedetode|Joedetode]] ([[User talk:Joedetode|talk]]) 15:33, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

The Julian calendar is used by Orthodox Christians, but not astronomers. Astronomers use something called {{w|Julian day}}. --[[User:Mlv|Mlv]] ([[User talk:Mlv|talk]]) 16:27, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

"Did you know '4' is 'IV' in Roman numerals?" is probably a dig on "Mac OS X", which is supposed to be pronounced "Mac OS 10". Apparently it used to annoy Steve Jobs that it was pronounced "Mac OS EX" by many people.

"The nickel–iron battery does exist, but it's terrible for most applications. Worse, this battery is non-rechargeable, meaning that it would have to be replaced to use the phone again after it is exhausted." is not supported by the link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel%E2%80%93iron_battery. The first line of which begins "The nickel–iron battery (NiFe battery) is a rechargeable battery ... ".--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.11|108.162.219.11]] 17:11, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Talk:1700: New Bug

2016-07-01T04:54:12Z

108.162.219.11:

I'm new. For the explanation: A bug, as in a computer (programming) bug, can be reported and tracked, and many systems allow collaboration on the reporting and tracking of problems, or bugs, in code, and their solutions. Cueball reported a problem (bug) he found in the code, which presumably caused the server (program)—which he wrote as part of his project—to try to read the passwords as URLs before storing them. This exposes serious cross-site scripting attacks and other serious security vulnerabilities, and since handling password and user account information usually requires a lot of programming, this would be difficult to fix, which is why the character off-panel suggests burning the project down, as that would be much easier, and would solve any security problems, much more quickly than fixing the bug would. The comment text refers to Cueball's horrid solution to a horrid problem: Instead of solving the problem that is causing the server to read passwords as URLs, he can instead leverage a known problem in the programme which reads URLs which prevents it from reading a particular way of representing text in binary form, by adding a few characters to the user's password that the URL-reading program can't read. This would also "salt" the user's password, which is a security technique that makes passwords harder to figure out when they are stored properly. Cueball thinks this would solve the original problem, and two other problems at the same time, the second problem being the fact that user's passwords aren't salted (a security problem). The third solved problem is difficult to deduce. &emsp;[[User:Zyzygy|Zyzygy]] 05:40, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

: The third bug is the unicode handling, which would need to be solved in order to salt passwords with emoji since these are unicode only character. Although I'm not sure if salting with emoji really increases security since as a rule i'd say nobody uses emoji in their passwords. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.85.123|162.158.85.123]] 06:34, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

::Password: 👍🐎🔋Π [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.131|141.101.98.131]] 10:11, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
:::That is a really funny password, [[936: Password Strength|but is it strong ennough?]] :-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:22, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

:Actually, nobody using emoji in their password would be reason salting with emoji is MORE effective. Salting doesn't really increase security of single password, but it does increase security of whole password database, because you can hash some string - like, [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/01/26/most-common-passwords-revealed---and-theyre-ridiculously-easy-to/ 123456] and check whole database for users having that as password. If every password is salted with different emoji, this strategy will not work, because while you KNOW which emoji is used - the salt is stored unhashed with the password hash - it's always different so you need to compute new hash for every line in password database. Hashing takes MUCH more time than just comparing strings. And how it's even more effective? Because someone might actually get multiple databases and search for entries with same salt, hoping there will be enough of them to be worth it. And salt with emoji likely wouldn't be so common ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 09:54, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

From 108.162.221.22 (long rant)
:Two comments: first, the explanation on password salting is incorrect. The current version says "Salting passwords increases security by adding random data to the passwords which primarily helps defend against dictionary attacks.". Password salting only protects against particular kinds of (common) attacks in specific situations. Most importantly, it is designed to protect passwords only in the event ofa database breach, when a malicious user has gained direct access to the database itself. Password salting provides no protection when brute force attacks (aka dictionary attacks) are directed at the application itself, as the application automatically takes hashes into account. Instead, proper password salting randomizes the hash for each password, ensuring that if two users have the same password, they will not have the same hash. This makes it much more difficult to guess passwords through attack vectors like lookup tables, reverse lookup tables, and rainbow tables. However, because the salt has to be stored with the password (otherwise the application would not be able to make sense of the hash itself), password salting does not secure passwords against dictionary attacks even in the event that a malicious user has managed to acquire the database itself. I will update the explanation with a brief description of what password salts do.
:Finally, I think there is a big misunderstanding throughout this explanation. In a web services context the "server" (referenced in the comic) is a very different thing than the application that a programmer builds. A server can refer to either the computer itself or the software that is responsible for responding to web requests and executing the actual application. In a professional context, the application (which is what cueball would be building) would never be referred to as the "server". It is possible that this is a mis-use of terminology on the part of cueball or Randall, but I suspect that the term was used properly and intentionally. The reason is because if cueball's application is crashing the *server*, it takes the level of incompetence up to completely new (and unusual) levels, in much the same way that he has done in the past. Normally the programming language used to build the application, the software hosting the application, and the operating system itself have a number of safe guards in place to ensure that if an application misbehaves, the only thing that crashes is the application itself. For cueball's application to break through all those safeguards and crash the server itself (either the operating system or the web server software) would require cueball to have developed a program that operates *well* outside the bounds of normal procedures. Just for reference, as someone who has been building web software for over 15 years, I wouldn't even know where to start to crash the server from within an application. It would probably have to involve either exploiting a previously unknown bug in the programming language or some *very* poorly designed system calls. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.22 15:11, 29 June 2016‎ 108.162.221.22]] (Rememeber to sign your comments)

Regarding those last two points: sorry for my long unsigned rant. Didn't realize I wasn't logged in. Still haven't figured out how to sign comments. Gonna try it this time. [[User:Cmancone|Cmancone]] ([[User talk:Cmancone|talk]]) 16:51, 29 June 2016 (UTC)--
:You made it ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:22, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Explanation says "There is no reason for password handling code to access urls" but that is somewhat wrong -- Password handling code frequently perform heuristics on the password to assess the strength, for example checking if part of the password is a dictionary word -- similar heuristics could be done to check thatthe password is not a URL, such as "xkcd.com" applying DNS and other internet resources as an extention of the concept of "dictionary". [[User:Spongebog|Spongebob]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 16:11, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Currently the explanation says: "Finally, emoji will often include unicode characters, which means that, if one can effectively salt passwords with emoji, then the passwords should be able to be stored in unicode (although that *probably* doesn't require anything outside the Base Multilingual Plane, so that might not need full unicode support after-all)." I'm fairly convinced that this doesn't make sense and is incorrect. Regardless of what character encoding the password is in, hashing will convert the entire thing into binary. This binary is then typically stored as a base64-encoded string in the database. Ergo, it doesn't matter whether the original password strings were in unicode or not: they will be stored in the database as ascii (or binary), not unicode. I'm going to go ahead and remove this comment from the explanation. I'm pretty certain that there isn't enough information in the comic to figure out why salting passwords with emoji would fix a unicode-handling bug in the URL request library. So I suspect that there is no explanation there: either Cueball is entirely confused and his statement makes no sense, or there is simply not enough information given to help us understand why this solution might fix the problem. However, I'm not going to make any updates to the explanation about this yet, because perhaps I'm missing something someone else will notice. [[User:Cmancone|Cmancone]] 12:50, 29 June 2016 (ETC)
:I suspect that the salting with emoji is to ensure that the password does not resolve as a URL (since the library cannot understand the encoding), and thus the issue of the crash is resolved, the issue of unsalted passwords is solved, and the issue of the unicode handling bug is "solved" by virtue of it now being a feature relied on by the system. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.68|173.245.56.68]] 20:50, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

I removed from the explanation the discussion about how Cueball's system might be checking passwords to see if they are resolvable URLs as a check against weak passwords. The problem with this explanation is that if that is where the crash was happening, then salting the password with emoji would not fix the crash. For salting to fix the crash (as Cueball suggests it will) requires that the crash be happening during the hashing process, not during password validation. The reason is because password validation is performed on the original password itself, while only hashing happens on the salted password. So for salting to fix the crash it must be happening during hashing, not validation. If the bug is happening while checking passwords for strength then Cueball's suggestion of fixing it by adding in a salt will not actually fix the crash at all. It could be that Cueball is simply completely wrong about everything, but I think it makes more sense to go with an explanation where the title text didn't just get everything wrong.[[User:Cmancone|Cmancone]] ([[User talk:Cmancone|talk]]) 13:12, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

In the nomenclature I am familiar with mailto:somebody@example.com is a URL. If you accept that mailto (and other protocols) are also URLs some of the description is untrue. Fortunately the untrue bits are also unnecessary and can be deleted or generalized.--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.11|108.162.219.11]] 04:51, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Talk:1700: New Bug

2016-07-01T04:51:44Z

108.162.219.11:

I'm new. For the explanation: A bug, as in a computer (programming) bug, can be reported and tracked, and many systems allow collaboration on the reporting and tracking of problems, or bugs, in code, and their solutions. Cueball reported a problem (bug) he found in the code, which presumably caused the server (program)—which he wrote as part of his project—to try to read the passwords as URLs before storing them. This exposes serious cross-site scripting attacks and other serious security vulnerabilities, and since handling password and user account information usually requires a lot of programming, this would be difficult to fix, which is why the character off-panel suggests burning the project down, as that would be much easier, and would solve any security problems, much more quickly than fixing the bug would. The comment text refers to Cueball's horrid solution to a horrid problem: Instead of solving the problem that is causing the server to read passwords as URLs, he can instead leverage a known problem in the programme which reads URLs which prevents it from reading a particular way of representing text in binary form, by adding a few characters to the user's password that the URL-reading program can't read. This would also "salt" the user's password, which is a security technique that makes passwords harder to figure out when they are stored properly. Cueball thinks this would solve the original problem, and two other problems at the same time, the second problem being the fact that user's passwords aren't salted (a security problem). The third solved problem is difficult to deduce. &emsp;[[User:Zyzygy|Zyzygy]] 05:40, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

: The third bug is the unicode handling, which would need to be solved in order to salt passwords with emoji since these are unicode only character. Although I'm not sure if salting with emoji really increases security since as a rule i'd say nobody uses emoji in their passwords. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.85.123|162.158.85.123]] 06:34, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

::Password: 👍🐎🔋Π [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.131|141.101.98.131]] 10:11, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
:::That is a really funny password, [[936: Password Strength|but is it strong ennough?]] :-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:22, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

:Actually, nobody using emoji in their password would be reason salting with emoji is MORE effective. Salting doesn't really increase security of single password, but it does increase security of whole password database, because you can hash some string - like, [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/01/26/most-common-passwords-revealed---and-theyre-ridiculously-easy-to/ 123456] and check whole database for users having that as password. If every password is salted with different emoji, this strategy will not work, because while you KNOW which emoji is used - the salt is stored unhashed with the password hash - it's always different so you need to compute new hash for every line in password database. Hashing takes MUCH more time than just comparing strings. And how it's even more effective? Because someone might actually get multiple databases and search for entries with same salt, hoping there will be enough of them to be worth it. And salt with emoji likely wouldn't be so common ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 09:54, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

From 108.162.221.22 (long rant)
:Two comments: first, the explanation on password salting is incorrect. The current version says "Salting passwords increases security by adding random data to the passwords which primarily helps defend against dictionary attacks.". Password salting only protects against particular kinds of (common) attacks in specific situations. Most importantly, it is designed to protect passwords only in the event ofa database breach, when a malicious user has gained direct access to the database itself. Password salting provides no protection when brute force attacks (aka dictionary attacks) are directed at the application itself, as the application automatically takes hashes into account. Instead, proper password salting randomizes the hash for each password, ensuring that if two users have the same password, they will not have the same hash. This makes it much more difficult to guess passwords through attack vectors like lookup tables, reverse lookup tables, and rainbow tables. However, because the salt has to be stored with the password (otherwise the application would not be able to make sense of the hash itself), password salting does not secure passwords against dictionary attacks even in the event that a malicious user has managed to acquire the database itself. I will update the explanation with a brief description of what password salts do.
:Finally, I think there is a big misunderstanding throughout this explanation. In a web services context the "server" (referenced in the comic) is a very different thing than the application that a programmer builds. A server can refer to either the computer itself or the software that is responsible for responding to web requests and executing the actual application. In a professional context, the application (which is what cueball would be building) would never be referred to as the "server". It is possible that this is a mis-use of terminology on the part of cueball or Randall, but I suspect that the term was used properly and intentionally. The reason is because if cueball's application is crashing the *server*, it takes the level of incompetence up to completely new (and unusual) levels, in much the same way that he has done in the past. Normally the programming language used to build the application, the software hosting the application, and the operating system itself have a number of safe guards in place to ensure that if an application misbehaves, the only thing that crashes is the application itself. For cueball's application to break through all those safeguards and crash the server itself (either the operating system or the web server software) would require cueball to have developed a program that operates *well* outside the bounds of normal procedures. Just for reference, as someone who has been building web software for over 15 years, I wouldn't even know where to start to crash the server from within an application. It would probably have to involve either exploiting a previously unknown bug in the programming language or some *very* poorly designed system calls. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.22 15:11, 29 June 2016‎ 108.162.221.22]] (Rememeber to sign your comments)

Regarding those last two points: sorry for my long unsigned rant. Didn't realize I wasn't logged in. Still haven't figured out how to sign comments. Gonna try it this time. [[User:Cmancone|Cmancone]] ([[User talk:Cmancone|talk]]) 16:51, 29 June 2016 (UTC)--
:You made it ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:22, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Explanation says "There is no reason for password handling code to access urls" but that is somewhat wrong -- Password handling code frequently perform heuristics on the password to assess the strength, for example checking if part of the password is a dictionary word -- similar heuristics could be done to check thatthe password is not a URL, such as "xkcd.com" applying DNS and other internet resources as an extention of the concept of "dictionary". [[User:Spongebog|Spongebob]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 16:11, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Currently the explanation says: "Finally, emoji will often include unicode characters, which means that, if one can effectively salt passwords with emoji, then the passwords should be able to be stored in unicode (although that *probably* doesn't require anything outside the Base Multilingual Plane, so that might not need full unicode support after-all)." I'm fairly convinced that this doesn't make sense and is incorrect. Regardless of what character encoding the password is in, hashing will convert the entire thing into binary. This binary is then typically stored as a base64-encoded string in the database. Ergo, it doesn't matter whether the original password strings were in unicode or not: they will be stored in the database as ascii (or binary), not unicode. I'm going to go ahead and remove this comment from the explanation. I'm pretty certain that there isn't enough information in the comic to figure out why salting passwords with emoji would fix a unicode-handling bug in the URL request library. So I suspect that there is no explanation there: either Cueball is entirely confused and his statement makes no sense, or there is simply not enough information given to help us understand why this solution might fix the problem. However, I'm not going to make any updates to the explanation about this yet, because perhaps I'm missing something someone else will notice. [[User:Cmancone|Cmancone]] 12:50, 29 June 2016 (ETC)
:I suspect that the salting with emoji is to ensure that the password does not resolve as a URL (since the library cannot understand the encoding), and thus the issue of the crash is resolved, the issue of unsalted passwords is solved, and the issue of the unicode handling bug is "solved" by virtue of it now being a feature relied on by the system. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.68|173.245.56.68]] 20:50, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

I removed from the explanation the discussion about how Cueball's system might be checking passwords to see if they are resolvable URLs as a check against weak passwords. The problem with this explanation is that if that is where the crash was happening, then salting the password with emoji would not fix the crash. For salting to fix the crash (as Cueball suggests it will) requires that the crash be happening during the hashing process, not during password validation. The reason is because password validation is performed on the original password itself, while only hashing happens on the salted password. So for salting to fix the crash it must be happening during hashing, not validation. If the bug is happening while checking passwords for strength then Cueball's suggestion of fixing it by adding in a salt will not actually fix the crash at all. It could be that Cueball is simply completely wrong about everything, but I think it makes more sense to go with an explanation where the title text didn't just get everything wrong.[[User:Cmancone|Cmancone]] ([[User talk:Cmancone|talk]]) 13:12, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

In the nomenclature I am familiar with mailto:somebody@example.com is a URL. If you accept that mailto (and other protocols) are also URLs much of the description becomes untrue. Fortunately the untrue bits are also unnecessary and can be deleted or generalized.--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.11|108.162.219.11]] 04:51, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Talk:116: City

2014-05-30T08:05:27Z

108.162.219.11:

It's a long jump, but could it be a reference to [http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/mayhem/chimera.html#1 Whore], a song by a Norwegian death metal band Mayhem? Similarities include the rhythm and the "alliteration" effect. I wouldn't call it, but with the extra hint in the title text it begins to appear probable. Kos [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.11|108.162.219.11]] 15:56, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
:I don't think Randall knows Norwegian Heavy Metal bands. But maybe I'm wrong, wiki says "Mayhem is a Norwegian black metal band formed in 1984 in Oslo". So the question is: How popular was this band in the US over the last thirty years? --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:58, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
::Popular enough to be easily recognisable by anyone interested in the genre; it even got a major feature in a documentary (Until the Light Takes Us). That said, I understand that black metal itself is too niche to just assume Randall would be into it. Kos [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.11|108.162.219.11]] 08:05, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Talk:116: City

2014-05-27T15:56:42Z

108.162.219.11: reference suggestion.

651: Bag Check

2014-05-23T06:43:13Z

108.162.219.11: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 651
| date = October 19, 2009
| title = Bag Check
| image = Bag_check.png
| titletext = A laptop battery contains roughly the stored energy of a hand grenade, and if shorted it... hey! You can't arrest me if I prove your rules inconsistent!
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] argues with a {{w|Transportation Security Administration|TSA}} agent at an airport security checkpoint over the TSA policy of prohibiting airline passengers from bringing liquids or gels in quantities greater than 3.4 ounces (100 ml) in their carry on items. To prove his point, Cueball points out that modifying the lithium ion battery in his laptop computer to be an explosive poses a more plausible risk to the aircraft than carrying an innocuous bottle of water. The joke is that now the security team is even MORE worried about him specifically and will take away his laptop and most likely detain him for questioning.

The title text continues Cueball's line of argument, segueing into a protest as the situation escalates to the point of Cueball apparently being placed under arrest.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan are at a security checkpoint in an airport. A guard is holding an open backpack and a bottle of water, and Cueball is arguing with him.]
:Cueball: But if you're worried about bombs, why are you letting me keep my laptop batteries? If I overvolted them and breached the cells, it would make a sizeable explosion.
:Megan: Oh god.
:Cueball: It's okay, dear. In a moment he'll realize I have a good point and return my water.

==Trivia==
*The TSA [http://blog.tsa.gov/2009/10/response-to-bag-check-cartoon.html responded to this comic] in a blog post and Randall Monroe [http://blog.tsa.gov/2009/10/response-to-bag-check-cartoon.html#c9173728821851325302 expounded on his intent] in its comments.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

904: Sports

2014-04-28T13:15:56Z

108.162.219.11: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 904
| date = May 27, 2011
| title = Sports
| image = sports.png
| titletext = Also, all financial analysis. And, more directly, D&D.
}}

==Explanation==
First, a random number generator is something that can give a person any number within a range of numbers - or, possibly, any number at all. For example, a single six-sided die will give you any integer between 1 and 6 inclusive.

Second, with an unweighted random number generator each number that is possible has an equal chance of coming up. For example, on a single die there is usually an equal chance of getting a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6.

Third, a weighed random number generator is one where some numbers are more likely to come-up than others. For example, a weighted die might favor the 6 side more, and thus it will come-up more often.

This comic is referencing the fact that sports, all sports, generate numbers that are essentially random. The rules of the sport and the skill of the participants weighs the numbers toward certain outcomes. Every game produces a new batch of numbers: more home runs, more sacks, more passes, more shots, more hits, more misses, more goals. If the generator is weighted to favor a specific team in a specific game, that is discussed. Then the results of the game (more random numbers) are discussed. It's the discussion that is the narrative part. If a player breaks a record, that becomes part of the narrative. The number is random, but weighted because of player skill or the rules of the sport.

This strip is one of several in which Randall attempts to trivialize sports.

The title text applies this to financial/stock results/forecasts as well. And, most appropriately to {{w|Dungeons & Dragons}} (D&D), which is a game where most aspects of the game are determined by rolling dice of various numbers of sides and the numerical results are woven into a narrative by the {{w|Dungeon Master}}.

==Transcript==
:[Two commentators sit behind a desk.]
:Commentator 1: A weighted random number generator just produced a new batch of numbers.
:Commentator 2: Let's use them to build narratives!
:ALL SPORTS COMMENTARY

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Math]]

Talk:1345: Answers

2014-03-21T16:18:36Z

108.162.219.11:

Not true. We know that sleep is important for storing memories and cleaning out toxins. http://www.nih.gov/news/health/oct2013/ninds-17.htm [[Special:Contributions/108.162.222.89|108.162.222.89]] 11:06, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
That report is entitled "Brain may flush out toxins during sleep". Note the "may". Add it to the list of hypotheses. [[User:Jim E|Jim E]] ([[User talk:Jim E|talk]]) 15:49, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Stupid personalized jokes and the like in this explanation... [[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.174|173.245.53.174]] 11:19, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is the correct explanation.
The paradox of being confronted daily with a mystery and not trying to solve it is inconsistent with the title text. So this explanation doesn't sound right to me.
I think it's more about defining humanity as seeking for answers, while spending a huge amount of time closing off from the world for apparently no reason.
In other words, IMHO, it's not about "[not being] distracted by this mystery", but about "not being able to investigate any mystery during 1/3 of our life even if we want to".

Also, with my explanation, the original puchline "touché" works better than the the current explanation's suggestion "Which is why it keeps me awake all night". -- Shirluban@[[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.36|108.162.229.36]] 12:28, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

I disagree with the above poster (and agree with the explanation) on the basis of the boldface text... "And nobody knows why". Every human sleeps, so if humans were really curious, someone should have figured out why by now.[[User:Nsimonetti|NikoNarf]] ([[User talk:Nsimonetti|talk]]) 14:23, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree with the original poster. It is interesting how people spend their entire careers studying a life event that they may never experience (consider a man studying the act of giving birth), yet most of us simply take sleep for granted. Now if we could only make sleep more efficient! I think we could spare a couple months worth of study to this. http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1205 [[User:Puck0687|Puck0687]] ([[User talk:Puck0687|talk]]) 14:53, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

We could spare quite a lot more than a couple months on this. First, 1205 talks about the benefit over five years, and for us the benefit would be over an entire lifetime. Furthermore, far more people don't study sleep than study it, so the "couple months" you talk about can be multiplied by the total population of people who benefit (both alive today and yet to live), and divided by the population of people studying sleep. That gets you quite a lot more than two months. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.11|108.162.219.11]] 16:18, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

I've thought for a while that the ''reason'' we sleep is primarily due to the accumulation of adenosine in the brain (?) - who really knows... [[User:Brettpeirce|Brettpeirce]] ([[User talk:Brettpeirce|talk]]) 16:02, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

1336: Transformers

2014-02-28T12:30:54Z

108.162.219.11: /* Transcript */ nothing indicates whether these are autobots or decepticons

{{comic
| number = 1336
| date = February 28, 2014
| title = Transformers
| image = transformers.png
| titletext = A helicopter bursts from a chrysalis and alights on a rock, rotors still damp.
}}

==Explanation==

The comic is drawing a comparison between {{w|Transformers}}, a fictional species of robots that can transform into vehicles, and butterflies or moths, who can "transform" via {{w|metamorphosis}}.

The first two panels show action scenes that would be appropriate for a Transformers comic. However, the third panel shows the Transformers climbing a tree, and in the final scene, they wrap silk around themselves, similarly to building a cocoon or chrysalis.

The alt text furthers this parallel, comparing a newly transformed helicopter (presumably the post-metamorphosis state of one of the Transformers in the panels) to a freshly-emerged butterfly or moth.

==Transcript==
:[One transformer in the foreground, one in the background.]
:Transformer: ''Transform!''

:[Transformers running.]

:[Transformers climbing trees.]

:[Transformers encasing themselves in caterpillar-style cocoons.]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Biology]]

Blag

2014-02-26T17:30:28Z

108.162.219.11:

The blag is the official blog for the [[xkcd]] [[148: Mispronouncing | wobsite]].

== External links ==
* http://blog.xkcd.com

[[Category:Meta]]

Blag

2014-02-26T17:28:47Z

108.162.219.11:

The blag is the official blog for the [[xkcd]] wobsite.

== External links ==
* http://blog.xkcd.com

[[Category:Meta]]

966: Jet Fuel

2014-02-13T18:04:38Z

108.162.219.11: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 966
| date = October 19, 2011
| title = Jet Fuel
| image = jet_fuel.png
| titletext = The 'controlled demolition' theory was concocted by the government to distract us. '9/11 was an inside job' was an inside job!
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a reference to the "{{w|9/11}} {{w|9/11 truther|Was An Inside Job}}" theory that the {{w|World Trade Center}} in {{w|New York City}} was blown up by a "controlled demolition". The guy with the weird hair only on the back of his head (balding?) uses the typical argument and [[Cueball]] one ups the craziness and of course the balding guy eats it up. The {{w|Chemtrail}}s conspiracy theory is a completely different conspiracy theory which says that (exactly as Cueball does) the US Government puts chemicals and mind control agents in jets and airliners to subtly have US citizens ingest the agents.

And the title text is the natural "double down" on a theory which says that the conspiracy theory itself was concocted by the government and was supposed to distract from the truth.

For those wondering: it is true that kerosene does not burn hot enough to ''melt'' steel, but it does burn hot enough to cut the steel's supporting strength roughly in half, which is more than enough to collapse a building weighing thousands of tons.

Cueball messing with 9/11 truther conspiracy theorists was also the subject of [[690: Semicontrolled Demolition]].

==Transcript==
:[Two people are having a conversation.]
:Person: 9/11 was an inside job! Jet fuel can't burn hot enough to melt steel!
:Cueball: Well, remember — jet fuel wasn't the only thing on those planes. They would've also carried tanks full of the mind-control agents airliners use to make chemtrails. Who ''knows'' what temperature that stuff burns at!
:Person: Whoa. Good point!

:My Hobby: Playing conspiracy theories off against each other.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:My Hobby]]
[[Category:Conspiracy theory]]

236: Collecting Double-Takes

2014-02-13T17:13:51Z

108.162.219.11: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number =236
| date =March 16, 2007
| title =Collecting Double Takes
| image =collecting_double_takes.png
| titletext =Fun Game: find a combination of two items that most freaks out the cashier. Winner: pregnancy test and single coat hanger.
}}

==Explanation==
There's a fairly well-founded meme that singles looking for other singles (''mostly'' that being men for women, and vice-versa, but not exclusively) can make connections with others in the fresh produce sections of a supermarket. From a single lady's point of view, men who are buying such goods are more likely to be unattached, due to the traditionally skewed gender politics of who shops for what in a couple, and at the same time the man is exhibiting good habits in not merely stocking up on ready-meals or subsisting on takeaways while living the bachelor life.

By standing in a produce aisle with a tube of {{w|K-Y Jelly}} (which is most commonly used as a sexual lubricant) in his hand and considering what produce to buy (between bananas, apples, oranges and zucchinis, and doubtless many more off-screen), [[Cueball]] is allowing other people to believe he either has plans to have sex with any connection he might manage to take with him home or also he plans to use the chosen produce item to pleasure himself via anal sex.

Cueball is probably not actually planning on doing either, but he loves to see the look on people's faces; hence, he's collecting double-takes.

In the title text, he says he likes to play a game of "freak out the cashier using two items". Wire coat hangers have been used to perform {{w|Unsafe abortion | do-it-yourself abortions}}, many time with disastrous effect, such as internal hemorrhaging and the death of the woman.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is standing in the middle of the produce aisle in a supermarket, holding a tube of K-Y Jelly in one hand, the other on his chin. The signs read "Bananas" "Apples" "Oranges" and "Zucchini" from left to right.]
:MY HOBBY: Standing in the supermarket's produce section holding a tube of K-Y Jelly, looking contemplative.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:My Hobby]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Sex]]