explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2122: Size Venn Diagram

2019-03-11T18:36:04Z

108.162.219.160: /* List of Items in the Diagram */

{{comic
| number = 2122
| date = March 11, 2019
| title = Size Venn Diagram
| image = size_venn_diagram.png
| titletext = Terms I'm going to start using: The Large Dipper, great potatoes, the Big Hadron Collider, and Large Orphan Annie.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a Large Terror. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic is a {{w|Venn diagram}} illustrating the complete set of possible intersections of five different size descriptors: "little, "large", "small", and "great", “big”. Each unique intersection contains a short list of terms that can be preceded by each applicable descriptor. For example, "flying fox" (a type of bat) appears at the intersection of "large", "small", and "great", because the species {{w|large flying fox}}, {{w|small flying fox}}, and {{w|great flying fox}} all exist, but there is no such species as a "big flying fox" or a "little flying fox". {{w|Small intestine}} and {{w|large intestine}} both exist, not the rest.

Some descriptors are applied in pairs; for example, "planet" is placed to be in both the "little" and "big" groups, a reference to the video game Little Big Planet.

The title text has Randall suggesting he will start using term combinations that don't appear in the above diagram.

==Transcript==


:Big: Bang Theory, Enchilada, Board, Sur
:Little: [[wikipedia:Little Orphan Annie|Orphan Annie]], [[wikipedia:Little House on the Prairie|House on the Prairie]], [[wikipedia:Little Richard|Richard]]
:Large: [[wikipedia:large format|format]], [[wikipedia:Large Millimeter Telescope|Millimeter Telescope]], [[wikipedia:Large Hadron Collider|Hadron Collider]]
:Small: [[wikipedia:small claims court|claims court]], [[wiktionary:small potatoes|potatoes]]
:Great: [[wikipedia:Great Barrier Reef|Barrier Reef]], [[wikipedia:Great Wall of China|Wall of China]], [[wikipedia:Great Depression|Depression]], [[wikipedia:Great Terror|Terror]], [[wiktionary:great-aunt|aunt]]

:Big/Great: Bend, Bear Lake
:Big/Small: time, screen
:Big/Little: [[wikipedia:Big Dipper|Dipper]]/[[wikipedia:Ursa Minor|Dipper]], [[wikipedia:LittleBigPlanet|Planet]], [[wikipedia:Little Lies|Lies]]/[[wiktionary:big lie|lie]], [[wiktionary:little sister|sister]]/[[wiktionary:big sister|sister]]
:Little/Great: Blue Heron
:Little/Large: [[wikipedia:Little Professor|Professor]]/[[wikipedia:Large Professor|Professor]], Forest Bat
:Big/Large: Toothed Aspen
:Large/Small: intestine, Magellanic Cloud
:Little/Small: wonder, soldiers
:Small/Great: pox, cardiac vein
:Large/Great: Billed Seed Finch

:Big/Large/Great: hearted
:Big/Small/Great: end
:Big/Little/Small: foot
:Big/Little/Great: league
:Little/Large/Great: (none)
:Big/Little/Large: foundation
:Big/Large/Small: Eyed Conger, Blue
:Little/Large/Small: emerald
:Little/Small/Great: circle, room
:Large/Small/Great: flying fox

:Big/Large/Small/Great: game, white
:Big/Little/Small/Great : world, one
:Big/Little/Large/Great : (none)
:Big/Little/Large/Small : frog
:Little/Large/Small/Great : (none)

:Big/Little/Large/Small/Great: Island

==List of Items in the Diagram==
{| class="wikitable"
!Item
!Big
!Great
!Large
!Little
!Small
|-
|'''Aunt'''
|
|The sister of one's grandparent
|
|
|
|-
|'''Bang Theory'''
|currently-accepted {{w|Big Bang|scientific theory}} that explains the origin of the universe; also a {{w|The Big Bang Theory|TV sitcom}}|| || || ||
|-
|'''Barrier Reef'''
|
|{{w|Great Barrier Reef|world's largest coral reef system}}, off the coast of Australia
|
|
|
|-
|'''Blue'''
|Nickname for [https://www.ibm.com IBM] and the {{w|New York Giants}}, also [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095250 a movie]
|
|butterfly
|
|butterfly
|-
|'''Board'''
| Nickname for the {{w|New York Stock Exchange}} || || || ||
|-
|'''enchilada'''
|[[wiktionary:big enchilada|important person]] || || || ||
|-
|'''Depression'''
|
|{{w|Great Depression|Period of prolonged economic downturn}} that affected the world economy in the 1930's
|
|
|
|-
|'''Eyed Conger'''
|eel
|
|eel
|
|eel
|-
|'''Forest Bat'''
|
|
|bat
|bat
|
|-
|'''Format'''
|
|
|{{w|Large format|anything larger than 4x5 inches in photography}}
|
|
|-
|'''Hadron Collider'''
|
|
|particle accelerator
|
|
|-
|'''House on the Prairie'''
|
|
|
|novel (and TV)
|
|-
|'''Intestine'''
|
|
|gut
|
|gut
|-
|'''Island'''
|{{w|Big Island|largest island in Hawaii}}
|{{w|Great Island|in Cork Harbour, Ireland}}
|{{w|Large Island|island in the Antilles, owned by Grenada}}
|{{w|Little Island|several islands named such}}, plus a song in ''{{w|Randy Newman's Faust}}''
|{{w|Small Island (novel)|novel which was made into a movie}}
|-
|'''Magellanic Cloud'''
|
|
|galaxy
|
|galaxy
|-
|'''Millimeter Telescope'''
|
|
|radiotelescope
|
|
|-
|'''Orphan Annie'''
|
|
|
|comic strip
|
|-
|'''Pox'''
|
|an old name for {{w|syphilis}}
|
|
|{{w|smallpox|a deadly disease}} which was effectively eradicated by 1977
|-
|'''Professor'''
|
|
|rap artist
|calculator (also Asperger's)
|
|-
|'''Richard'''
|
|
|
|{{w|Little Richard|musician}}
|
|-
|'''Screen'''
|another name for movies
|
|
|
|another name for TV
|-
|'''Sur'''
|{{w|Big Sur|coastal region of California}} famed for its mountain scenery
|
|
|
|
|-
|-
|'''Terror'''
|
|One of two periods of violent political repression; one during {{w|Reign of Terror|the French Revolution}} between 1793 and 1794, the other in {{w|Great Purge|the Soviet Union under Josef Stalin}} between 1936 and 1938
|
|
|
|-
|'''Time'''
|major
|
|
|
|minor
|-
|'''Toothed Aspen'''
|tree (bigtooth)
|
|tree
|
|
|-
|'''Wall of China'''
|
|{{w|Great Wall of China|Series of fortifications}} over 13,000 miles long that served to protect various Chinese empires from raids and invasion from their north
|
|
|
|-
|'''White'''
|{{w|Big White Ski Resort|ski resort in British Columbia}}
|{{w|Great white shark|species of shark}} or a {{w|Great White|rock band}}
|{{w|Pieris brassicae|a butterfly}} or {{w|Large white pig|a now-extinct pig}}
|
|{{w|Dixeia|multiple species}} of {{w|Pieris rapae|butterflies}} are known as small whites
|}

{{comic discussion}}

2122: Size Venn Diagram

2019-03-11T18:22:23Z

108.162.219.160: /* List of Items in the Diagram */

{{comic
| number = 2122
| date = March 11, 2019
| title = Size Venn Diagram
| image = size_venn_diagram.png
| titletext = Terms I'm going to start using: The Large Dipper, great potatoes, the Big Hadron Collider, and Large Orphan Annie.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a Large Terror. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic is a {{w|Venn diagram}} illustrating the complete set of possible intersections of five different size descriptors: "little, "large", "small", and "great", “big”. Each unique intersection contains a short list of terms that can be preceded by each applicable descriptor. For example, "flying fox" (a type of bat) appears at the intersection of "large", "small", and "great", because the species {{w|large flying fox}}, {{w|small flying fox}}, and {{w|great flying fox}} all exist, but there is no such species as a "big flying fox" or a "little flying fox". {{w|Small intestine}} and {{w|large intestine}} both exist, not the rest.

Some descriptors are applied in pairs; for example, "planet" is placed to be in both the "little" and "big" groups, a reference to the video game Little Big Planet.

The title text has Randall suggesting he will start using term combinations that don't appear in the above diagram.

==Transcript==


:Big: Bang Theory, Enchilada, Board, Sur
:Little: [[wikipedia:Little Orphan Annie|Orphan Annie]], [[wikipedia:Little House on the Prairie|House on the Prairie]], [[wikipedia:Little Richard|Richard]]
:Large: [[wikipedia:large format|format]], [[wikipedia:Large Millimeter Telescope|Millimeter Telescope]], [[wikipedia:Large Hadron Collider|Hadron Collider]]
:Small: [[wikipedia:small claims court|claims court]], [[wiktionary:small potatoes|potatoes]]
:Great: [[wikipedia:Great Barrier Reef|Barrier Reef]], [[wikipedia:Great Wall of China|Wall of China]], [[wikipedia:Great Depression|Depression]], [[wikipedia:Great Terror|Terror]], [[wiktionary:great-aunt|aunt]]

:Big/Great: Bend, Bear Lake
:Big/Small: time, screen
:Big/Little: [[wikipedia:Big Dipper|Dipper]]/[[wikipedia:Ursa Minor|Dipper]], [[wikipedia:LittleBigPlanet|Planet]], [[wikipedia:Little Lies|Lies]]/[[wiktionary:big lie|lie]], [[wiktionary:little sister|sister]]/[[wiktionary:big sister|sister]]
:Little/Great: Blue Heron
:Little/Large: [[wikipedia:Little Professor|Professor]]/[[wikipedia:Large Professor|Professor]], Forest Bat
:Big/Large: Toothed Aspen
:Large/Small: intestine, Magellanic Cloud
:Little/Small: wonder, soldiers
:Small/Great: pox, cardiac vein
:Large/Great: Billed Seed Finch

:Big/Large/Great: hearted
:Big/Small/Great: end
:Big/Little/Small: foot
:Big/Little/Great: league
:Little/Large/Great: (none)
:Big/Little/Large: foundation
:Big/Large/Small: Eyed Conger, Blue
:Little/Large/Small: emerald
:Little/Small/Great: circle, room
:Large/Small/Great: flying fox

:Big/Large/Small/Great: game, white
:Big/Little/Small/Great : world, one
:Big/Little/Large/Great : (none)
:Big/Little/Large/Small : frog
:Little/Large/Small/Great : (none)

:Big/Little/Large/Small/Great: Island

==List of Items in the Diagram==
{| class="wikitable"
!Item
!Big
!Great
!Large
!Little
!Small
|-
|'''Bang Theory'''
|{{w|Big Bang|scientific theory}} that is the currently-accepted explanation for the origin of the universe; also a {{w|The Big Bang Theory|TV sitcom}}|| || || ||
|-
|'''Blue'''
|Nickname for [https://www.ibm.com IBM] and the {{w|New York Giants}}, also [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095250 a movie]
|
|butterfly
|
|butterfly
|-
|'''Board'''
| Nickname for the {{w|New York Stock Exchange}} || || || ||
|-
|'''enchilada'''
| [[wiktionary:big enchilada|important person]] || || || ||
|-
|'''Eyed Conger'''
|eel
|
|eel
|
|eel
|-
|'''Forest Bat'''
|
|
|bat
|bat
|
|-
|'''Format'''
|
|
|{{w|Large format|anything larger than 4x5 inches in photography}}
|
|
|-
|'''Hadron Collider'''
|
|
|particle accelerator
|
|
|-
|'''House on the Prairie'''
|
|
|
|novel (and TV)
|
|-
|'''Intestine'''
|
|
|gut
|
|gut
|-
|'''Island'''
|{{w|Big Island|largest island in Hawaii}}
|{{w|Great Island|in Cork Harbour, Ireland}}
|{{w|Large Island|island in the Antilles, owned by Grenada}}
|{{w|Little Island|several islands named such}}, plus a song in ''{{w|Randy Newman's Faust}}''
|{{w|Small Island (novel)|novel which was made into a movie}}
|-
|'''Magellanic Cloud'''
|
|
|galaxy
|
|galaxy
|-
|'''Millimeter Telescope'''
|
|
|radiotelescope
|
|
|-
|'''Orphan Annie'''
|
|
|
|comic strip
|
|-
|'''Pox'''
|
|an old name for {{w|syphilis}}
|
|
|{{w|smallpox|a deadly disease}} which was effectively eradicated by 1977
|-
|'''Professor'''
|
|
|rap artist
|calculator (also Asperger's)
|
|-
|'''Richard'''
|
|
|
|{{w|Little Richard|musician}}
|
|-
|'''Screen'''
|another name for movies
|
|
|
|another name for TV
|-
|'''Sur'''
|{{w|Big Sur|coastal region of California}} famed for its mountain scenery
|
|
|
|
|-
|'''Time'''
|major
|
|
|
|minor
|-
|'''Toothed Aspen'''
|tree (bigtooth)
|
|tree
|
|
|-
|'''White'''
|{{w|Big White Ski Resort|ski resort in British Columbia}}
|{{w|Great white shark|species of shark}}
|{{w|Pieris brassicae|a butterfly}} or {{w|Large white pig|a now-extinct pig}}
|
|{{w|Dixeia|multiple species}} of {{w|Pieris rapae|butterflies}} are known as small whites
|}

{{comic discussion}}

2122: Size Venn Diagram

2019-03-11T18:04:04Z

108.162.219.160: /* List of Items in the Diagram */

{{comic
| number = 2122
| date = March 11, 2019
| title = Size Venn Diagram
| image = size_venn_diagram.png
| titletext = Terms I'm going to start using: The Large Dipper, great potatoes, the Big Hadron Collider, and Large Orphan Annie.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a Large Terror. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic is a {{w|Venn diagram}} illustrating the complete set of possible intersections of five different size descriptors: "little, "large", "small", and "great", “big”. Each unique intersection contains a short list of terms that can be preceded by each applicable descriptor. For example, "flying fox" (a type of bat) appears at the intersection of "large", "small", and "great", because the species {{w|large flying fox}}, {{w|small flying fox}}, and {{w|great flying fox}} all exist, but there is no such species as a "big flying fox" or a "little flying fox". {{w|Small intestine}} and {{w|large intestine}} both exist, not the rest.

Some descriptors are applied in pairs; for example, "planet" is placed to be in both the "little" and "big" groups, a reference to the video game Little Big Planet.

The title text has Randall suggesting he will start using term combinations that don't appear in the above diagram.

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

The comic is a five-variable venn diagram, with some words that fit with those prefixes.



:Big: [[wikipedia:Big Bang Theory|Bang Theory]], [[wiktionary:big enchilada|Enchilada]], [[wikipedia:Big Board|Board]], [[wikipedia:Big Sur|Sur]]
:Little: [[wikipedia:Little Orphan Annie|Orphan Annie]], [[wikipedia:Little House on the Prairie|House on the Prairie]], [[wikipedia:Little Richard|Richard]]
:Large: [[wikipedia:large format|format]], [[wikipedia:Large Millimeter Telescope|Millimeter Telescope]], [[wikipedia:Large Hadron Collider|Hadron Collider]]
:Small: [[wikipedia:small claims court|claims court]], [[wiktionary:small potatoes|potatoes]]
:Great: [[wikipedia:Great Barrier Reef|Barrier Reef]], [[wikipedia:Great Wall of China|Wall of China]], [[wikipedia:Great Depression|Depression]], [[wikipedia:Great Terror|Terror]], [[wiktionary:great-aunt|aunt]]

:Big/Great: Bend, Bear Lake
:Big/Small: time, screen
:Big/Little: [[wikipedia:Big Dipper|Dipper]]/[[wikipedia:Ursa Minor|Dipper]], [[wikipedia:LittleBigPlanet|Planet]], [[wikipedia:Little Lies|Lies]]/[[wiktionary:big lie|lie]], [[wiktionary:little sister|sister]]/[[wiktionary:big sister|sister]]
:Little/Great: Blue Heron
:Little/Large: [[wikipedia:Little Professor|Professor]]/[[wikipedia:Large Professor|Professor]], Forest Bat
:Big/Large: Toothed Aspen
:Large/Small: intestine, Magellanic Cloud
:Little/Small: wonder, soldiers
:Small/Great: pox, cardiac vein
:Large/Great: Billed Seed Finch

:Big/Large/Great: hearted
:Big/Small/Great: end
:Big/Little/Small: foot
:Big/Little/Great: league
:Little/Large/Great: (none)
:Big/Little/Large: foundation
:Big/Large/Small: Eyed Conger, Blue
:Little/Large/Small: emerald
:Little/Small/Great: circle, room
:Large/Small/Great: flying fox

:Big/Large/Small/Great: game, white
:Big/Little/Small/Great : world, one

:Little/Big/Large/Great: (none)
:Little/Big/Large/Small: (none)
:Little/Big/Great/Small: (none)
:Little/Large/Great/Small: (none)

:Little/Big/Large/Great/Small: Island

==List of Items in the Diagram==
{| class="wikitable"
!Item
!Big
!Great
!Large
!Little
!Small
|-
|'''Blue'''
|Nickname for [https://www.ibm.com IBM] and the {{w|New York Giants}}, also [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095250 a movie]
|
|butterfly
|
|butterfly
|-
|'''Eyed Conger'''
|eel
|
|eel
|
|eel
|-
|'''Forest Bat'''
|
|
|bat
|bat
|
|-
|'''Format'''
|
|
|{{w|Large format|anything larger than 4x5 inches in photography}}
|
|
|-
|'''Hadron Collider'''
|
|
|particle accelerator
|
|
|-
|'''House on the Prairie'''
|
|
|
|novel (and TV)
|
|-
|'''Intestine'''
|
|
|gut
|
|gut
|-
|'''Island'''
|{{w|Big Island|largest island in Hawaii}}
|{{w|Great Island|in Cork Harbour, Ireland}}
|{{w|Large Island|island in the Antilles, owned by Grenada}}
|{{w|Little Island|several islands named such}}, plus a song in ''{{w|Randy Newman's Faust}}''
|{{w|Small Island (novel)|novel which was made into a movie}}
|-
|'''Magellanic Cloud'''
|
|
|galaxy
|
|galaxy
|-
|'''Millimeter Telescope'''
|
|
|radiotelescope
|
|
|-
|'''Orphan Annie'''
|
|
|
|comic strip
|
|-
|'''Pox'''
|
|syphilis
|
|
|disease
|-
|'''Professor'''
|
|
|rap artist
|calculator (also Asperger's)
|
|-
|'''Richard'''
|
|
|
|musician
|
|-
|'''Screen'''
|movies
|
|
|
|TV
|-
|'''Time'''
|major
|
|
|
|minor
|-
|'''Toothed Aspen'''
|tree (bigtooth)
|
|tree
|
|
|-
|'''White'''
|ski resort
|shark
|pig
|
|butterfly
|}

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:1576: I Could Care Less

2019-03-06T19:25:18Z

108.162.219.160: "I strongly disagree with whatever work this quote is attached to." -Randall Munroe

Another excellent comic by Randall. In case of interest to anyone a different perspective, David Mitchell did a wonder rant on this... "Dear America... | David Mitchell's SoapBox"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om7O0MFkmpw {{unsigned ip|‎141.101.98.100}}

The only people who complain about this phrase are pedantic morons who have never heard such things as "head over heels".

Here, I've composed a list of common vernacular/slang idioms which are valid, clear, and diametrically opposed to their original meaning:
* "Head over heels"
* "Break a leg"
* "It's the shit"
* "That's bad"
* "She's phat"
* "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar"
* "Irregardless"{{unsigned|Cwallenpoole}}
: "Diametrically opposed" is redundant. The words mean the same thing. Sorry, when the topic of conversation is pedanticism I couldn't resist :P [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.170|108.162.221.170]] 22:17, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
: I think "diametrically opposed" is not redundant. I visualize "opposed" = could be points of a circle greater than 90 degrees but less than 180 degrees apart. "diametrically opposed" = exactly 180 degrees apart, to the maximum extent possible. Whereas "opposed" implies only one dimension of opposite-ness, "diametrically opposed" implies multiple (or colloquially, even all) dimensions of opposite-ness, emphasizing that there is no common ground between the sides in question. 21:07, 15 February 2019 (UTC)
:The reason I dislike "I could care less" is because it just grates me. It disrupts the flow of parsing language in my brain, throwing up a "wait, what?" exception that I have to expend far more mental energy than usual to correctly interpret the meaning of something in my head. I'm not being pedantic for the sake of uptight rule adherence and feeling superior (I play around with language and use it in non-standard forms all the time), I'm pedantic because it causes my brain real difficulties in processing the meaning of what a person's said. I mean I'm a woman with Asperger's (and a British one at that) so maybe things are a little different for me, but that's just why I personally strongly dislike this usage. The things on your list though are all different in some way to "I could care less", at least for me, for example:
:* "Head over heels" - How is this an opposite meaning, exactly? Doesn't it give a rather nice metaphor for being giddy about something? Being hyperbolic and metaphorical doesn't make it an opposite meaning.
::*Because your head is ''normally'' over your heels. Nothing special about it. Heels over head would be much more interesting...[[User:Silverpie|Silverpie]] ([[User talk:Silverpie|talk]]) 17:52, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
:::*Personally I always think of it as your head being bowled over your heels - not the sort of "over" as in "higher gravitational potential energy", but in the same "around" sense of being "turned over" or "starting over". [[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.47|108.162.218.47]] 03:58, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
::::*Yes, this never sounded "opposite" to me. Imagine a contortionist with knees and toes on the ground, bent over backwards so that his head is literally over his heels. This is absolutely not normal. I took it as meaning something is so exciting/surprising that one contorting himself in unnatural ways. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.124|162.158.255.124]] 21:14, 15 February 2019 (UTC)
:* "Break a leg" - This is closer to being an opposite, but the exact opposite to wishing an actor good luck would be to wish them bad luck. The mutation to a slightly absurdist statement marks it out as having a different meaning, especially as "break a leg" isn't really used in any other context than to wish a person good luck. While it may be the case that "I could care less" is rarely (if at all) used in its literal form, there's still nothing to mutate it and obviously mark it out as a linguistic special usage case. It's also still how I'd expect someone to phrase it if they were actually telling me they could care less about something.
::: The "Vaudeville theory" on this page is where I got my understanding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Break_a_leg --EE [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.135|108.162.216.135]] 13:52, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
:* "It's the shit" - Again, this is mutated. People aren't saying "it's shit", the word "the" handily tags it for my brain parser to handle differently.
:* "That's bad" - Well, you've got me here actually. I mean, context (and tone) makes the meaning obvious but I can't objectively understand why this phrase doesn't cause me the same sort of difficulties at all. Perhaps because I grew up in the 80s, and a big part of my musical upbringing was Michael Jackson. ''♬ A-hee-hee! Hoo! ♬''
:* "She's phat" - This is completely literal, "phat" is a slang term meaning excellent or attractive. It may be a mutation of the word "fat" or not, its etymology is uncertain, but it is indisputably a very different word now (much like how "orchids" means a species of flower rather than testicles, and "sinister" hasn't meant left in centuries).
::: I understand it's an acronym: Pretty Hot And Tempting. --EE [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.135|108.162.216.135]] 13:52, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
:* "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar" - This is also completely literal, Freud meant that while he believed many things ''could'' have hidden, psychosexual meanings... that while sometimes a person might be puffing on a cigar due to some suppressed phallic desires... they could also just be puffing on a cigar because they're enjoying a nice cigar. That is to say, not everything has a hidden subconscious meaning, and sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, not a substitute object to fellate.
:* "Irregardless" - Well yes, the suffix added to "regardless" here would usually invert its meaning, but "irregardless" isn't actually a word that existed before it came into use with its current meaning so it's not like saying a previously established and defined word (or phrase).
: Anyway, while I do believe language is flexible and mutable, this particular phrase fails the easily interpretable test for my brain. I try not to be too uptight about it, but it really does irritate me in a way I can't help. Obviously my opinion is not the only one, so that's just my 1.29587 British pence on the matter :D [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.195|141.101.98.195]] 12:52, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
::(In response to Cwallenpoole, not 141.101.98.195, who makes good points that I didn't actually read first!) "Head over heels" is of course "head over (and down), heels (upwards) (...and continue this rotation to its logical conclusion)"; "Break a leg" has {{w|Break_a_leg|a number of possible origins}} (I always assumed wishing luck was unlucky, thus the inverse, but several "the leg not being yours" versions also ring true); "It's the shit" is using a somewhat unfortunate object (certainly if you miss out the "the") that is a short-cut off-colour superlative like "the dog's bollocks"; "bad==good" I always assumed was "what's bad to the establishment is good for our own clique"; "phat" is far too modern for me, but probably arises a similar positive superlative with some counter-culture anti-standard spelling; Cigars being cigars don't sound diametrically opposed, to me, although who knows ''what'' went on in Freud's head!; "Irregardless" is an obvious portmanteau/malapropism blend that is so easy to create. - Or so I would personally explain these.
:: Here's an additional one, though, if you care for it: "Cheap at half the price". It sounds wrong if you dig deep and work out that it must mean "It is not more than or equal to twice the actually fair price you should have been asking" (i.e. it's less than double the price). But I've always internally rationalised it as really saying "If this figure you mention actually were only half of the full price you are ''truly'' asking for, the real price would still be considered cheap" (i.e. it's less than half price). Or it could just be obfuscated salesman patter, i.e. telling the truth (still making a profit, but less than a 100% mark-up) but using weasel-words and terminology that create misleading imagery in the listener's mind. i.e. No crime, no foul, should Trading Standards happen to come-a-visiting, one day... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.32|141.101.98.32]] 13:21, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
:::''Actually'', to follow-up on myself: "It's cheap(, it being in this instance) at half the price (I would normally charge)" works best. Why has that only just occured to me? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.32|141.101.98.32]] 13:33, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

:::Attempting to interpret "head over heels" to somehow mean "head down, heels up" isn't etymologically accurate; it's simply a reversal of the original expression, which was "heels over head." There's a similar expression in German ("Hals über Kopf") and Scandinavian (Norwegian "hals over hode", Swedish "hals över huvud") literally "neck over head," which means "in great hurry or disarray, without thinking" and is also sometimes (particularly in Norwegian) reversed for no particular reason: perhaps it's just the "mouth feel" that makes it tempting. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.92.19|162.158.92.19]] 10:40, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

'I couldn't care less' is the standard formulation in the UK, for one. I always assumed that the US version was originally a variant on this which was later contracted, eg 'I could care less, but not much'.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.106|141.101.99.106]] 07:10, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Given that xkcd is so pro-science, I don't think the analysis here should endorse the peeve that there's anything wrong with "I could care less" (or use of "literally" as an intensifier), since most actual linguists, experts on how language works, think it's fine. See for example the list of posts dealing with the question here: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=21170#more-21170 And of course, the comic itself points out how petty an besides the point this kind of "correction" is. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.92.19|162.158.92.19]] 07:43, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

: As a linguist, regarding the claim that most actual linguists think it's fine, I'd have to respectfully say HELL NO! There is a difference between acknowledging the pragmatic implementation of the phrase, that is, its use in common parlance and the general acceptance and understanding of it, and the question wether or not it is "fine". The comic exemplifies a rather extreme version of the idea "Whatever people use is proper language" - in other words, as long as everybody involved in a conversation gets what is meant, there is no point in arguing semantics, grammer, etc. This is, however, neither the only, nor the dominant approach to language and linguistics. For exapmle, it doesn't answer the question how such an ostensibly paradox use of this phrase came to happen, where (geographically, socially, etc.) the phrase might have originated, and other puzzless regarding the origin of the phrase; this attitude also dismisses any inquiry into how humans process (or ignore) such discrepancies between literal meaning and actual use, and in general, how humans organise, structure, and conecptualise language. Additionally, this comic adds a radical deconstructional (and maybe existential) twist to this perspective by basically saying, "We're all alone, and can never really know or understand anybody else".
: Such an attitude of total relativism ("Every experience ist entirely subjective and unique") makes my skin crawl. It is by far more presumptious than being a little pedantic about grammar and the use of expressions.
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.114.176|162.158.114.176]] 11:35, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
:: Agreed. Words have meanings and reducing the amount of trust you can place in those meanings decreases the value of the language. "You could never understand me, so I might as well not even try to make myself understood" is a cop-out. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.23|108.162.219.23]] 15:22, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

:: I stand by my comment that most linguists would argue that the phrase does not warrant censure, on the grounds that it is (1) in very common use, probably about 5 times as common as "couldn't care less" in American speech, including educated speech, and about half as common in writing, (2) long established, with the OED's first reference back in 1966, only twenty years after it first notes "I couldn't care less" (and with Google Book Search, we can push this back to the 1940s: it occurs repeatedly in the official transcript of a House Congressional Hearing in 1947, for example), (3) idiomatic, so that logical analysis of its strict literal content is not helpful, and (4) analogous to other constructions (in English and other languages) that don't raise any eyebrows or hackles. That does not mean that they don't consider it interesting and worthy of explanation, of course. Indeed, almost all the work of actually trying to explain how "could care less" arose has been done by people who are at pain to point out that they find the phrase unobjectionable (while those who disapprove of it don't seem to get much further than calling it "an ignorant substitution" or a result of "sloppy speech and sloppy writing"). It's of course hard to prove that this is the majority view in academic circles, but I refer to Lawler, Liberman, Pullum, Okrent [http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2014/03/18/why_i_could_care_less_is_not_as_irrational_or_ungrammatical_as_you_might.html], Pinker, the various dictionaries that list it without deprecation (e.g. RH Webster's: "usage: could care less, the apparent opposite of couldn't care less, is actually used interchangeably with it to express indifference. Both versions occur mainly in informal speech."), and linguistic popularizers such as Grammarist [http://grammarist.com/usage/could-care-less/]. This clearly reflects the descriptivist paradigm that seeks to understand language as it actually occurs, and looks skeptically on attempts to impose "rules" that are often demonstrably wrong. In other words, treating linguistics as an empirical science. The version of this position that Megan argues in the comic is obviously heightened for comic effect (she's also using a sort of mock-Gricean analysis to impute a possible helpful intent to Ponytail). You can find most of these points endorsed in a very reasonable [http://blog.dictionary.com/could-care-less/ blog post by dictionary.com]. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.152|141.101.105.152]] 09:25, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master — that's all.'
[[http://www.linkedin.com/in/Comet Comet]] 23:35, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

As it's currently written, the explanation seems to suggest that "I could care less" is the American form and "I couldn't care less" British. In fact, both forms are in use in the US, and it wouldn't surprise me if "I could care less" occurs occasionally in British English as well. There are also other English-speaking countries in the world. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.92.19|162.158.92.19]] 07:47, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
:As a Brit, I can't think of any time I've heard a fellow Briton say "I could care less", it's always seemed very much an American phenomenon. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.195|141.101.98.195]] 12:52, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

:Another American chiming in here to say that I never, ever, ever say "I could care less" when I mean "I couldn't care less". Characterizing it as "*the* American form" is incorrect. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.167|173.245.56.167]] 15:20, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

As for the title text, I'd disagree with "The sentence is also ambiguous, as it may mean that literally or figuratively, the speaker could or couldn't care less." I think that Randall is pretty clear here: he ''should'' ('could' as in polite request) care less about irrational idioms instead of wasting time drawing comics about it. But he just can't resist. And without him doing so, we wouldn't be here. So in fact, it is nonsense for Randall to care less, and this contradiction is the point of the title text joke. But then again, I'm not native English speaker, and even less of a thought reader to understand what was on his mind. -- kavol, [[Special:Contributions/141.101.96.224|141.101.96.224]] 08:30, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
:I had an alternate take on the title text. Since I could care less literally means I care some but could stand not to care as much, I took it to mean that for all the comic says about the true spirit and nature of communication and the evils of forcing linguistic absolutism onto other people, at the end of the day Randall still does care about people using correct phraseology. Yes, language is so much more than words and sounds but without clear grammatical usage rules communication could descend into chaos. This is actually one of the pivotal points in Jet Li's movie Hero which is a great commentary on this comic's profundity. The deep resonating pools of meaning that communication stores is only useful for peace and coexistence if we can all understand each other and come together as one. --[[User:R0hrshach|R0hrshach]] ([[User talk:R0hrshach|talk]]) 15:48, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
::I'm solidly with the IP. Randall is saying that, evidently, this is something which is important to him, and something he's put a lot of thought into. [[User:FourViolas|FourViolas]] ([[User talk:FourViolas|talk]]) 17:33, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

I think "I could care less" is completely unheard of in Britain - I had to come here to find out what this was all about! In the UK the correction wouldn't be seen as pedantic, but rather that you had said something really rather odd, possibly for effect. I'm guessing in the US this doesn't stand out, and the phrase is "familiar" so the brain will run with it, but it just sounds really weird and jarring to me. That's not being pedantic, we toss double negatives around all over the place. Randall's point is that it how you interpret the words, rather than exact rules. So if ponytail is British then she is genuinely just trying to check that it wasn't a slip of the tongue and not meant for effect. To experience how odd it sounds its like a similar phrase "I don't give a s**t", but someone saying "I do give a s**t" (unless you guy's say that as well?!). {{unsigned ip|141.101.98.205}}

: You're right, the British National Corpus has essentially no hits for "could care less" [http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/]. However, Ponytail's "correction" doesn't sound like she's unfamiliar with the expression, but more like the common pedantic objection to it, so I doubt that she's intended to be British, or that it's anything other than "showing off how well she knows some mental checklist." The Lawler link above ([http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jlawler/aue/giveadamn.html]) discusses the example "They could give a damn about Whitewater" (as in they '''don't''' actually give a damn about it). I think you could get away with "I give a shit?" or "[Like] I give a shit!" (with the "like" elided) as implicitly negative, but no, you can't put in an affirmative "do." [[Special:Contributions/162.158.92.19|162.158.92.19]] 10:05, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm fighting a long lost battle, I know, but can I mention my fight against the (long-standing) misuse of Decimation when the speaker/writer probably means Devastation? These days it's often assumed to be its own mathematical complement (around ~10% survival, rather than the intended ~10% depletion). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.32|141.101.98.32]] 13:47, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

I am right with you on this one. Although I don't think the users are mistaking the Dev- for the Dec-, they have just forgotten or never learned that "decimate" had anything to with percentages. Heck, many English speakers don't grasp that percent has anything to do with percentages. [[User:NoniMausa|NoniMausa]] ([[User talk:NoniMausa|talk]]) 15:20, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Either one works, depending on how the sentence is finished:
* I could care less...about this than other things.
* I couldn't care less...about this than I already do.
--EE [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.135|108.162.216.135]] 13:52, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
:Indeed, but "I could..." also begs the question "...but will I?" and so does not actually affirms that "I ''will'' care less (than with other things)", whilst "I couldn't..." is more imperative as in "...and therefore I wouldn't". (Unless you want to read the latter as "I couldn't care less because I actually care quite a lot already and I know that this will never change", I suppose! Oh dear, we uregently need to start using one of those totally-umambiguous ConLangs based upon predicate logic!) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.32|141.101.98.32]] 15:48, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

On a different note: The way the panels are set up is pretty interesting. Anyone a idea, why he set it up like that? Does he want to tell us something? --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.92.196|162.158.92.196]] 17:20, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
:The panels seem to form a logical story progression: introduction / development / conclusion, each on 3 lines. The panel on solitude and darkness is inverted -- it's literally dark -- which is a common comics idiom to emphasize a specific panel and break monotony {{Citation needed}}. [[User:Ralfoide|Ralfoide]] ([[User talk:Ralfoide|talk]]) 20:41, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

This is starting to feel like the [http://english.stackexchange.com/ English Language & Usage Stack Exchange] :-)

It's quite amusing as most of the discussion here is about the pedantic usage solely focused on how the listener perceives the expression irregardless (;-p) of what the speaker tried to express, which is is exactly what the comic is ranting about.
If we want to be all pedantic, I'd offer the alternative that "I could care less" is a literally (;-p) perfectly sound form in itself. It's all about expressing the emotional value that someone attaches to a concept or thing -- think of it as an emotional energy or charge. Since everything is inter-dependent, there is no such thing as an absolute zero, it's the relation to other things that matters. The expression "I don't care" would imply the speaker devotes a neutral emotional energy value to the subject. Since it's a relative value, there are no boundaries in either direction and consequently "I could care less" and "I couldn't care less" are perfectly valid. It's all relative, as used to say Frank. [[User:Ralfoide|Ralfoide]] ([[User talk:Ralfoide|talk]]) 20:28, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

'I know what you're thinking about,' said Tweedledum; 'but it isn't so, nohow.'
'Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, 'if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'
[[http://www.linkedin.com/in/Comet Comet]] 23:26, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

"I could care less, but I would have to try" is the phrase as I have always known it (shortened to "I could care less...). I always took this to mean that someone was indifferent to a thing. It is a bit of an oxymoron since to try would mean you care more when your goal is to care less. My assumption has always been that the way someone feels about something generally exists on a scale from love to hate with the dead center being indifference. To care more from an indifferent standpoint is too move towards one of the poles (love or hate) and thus the oxymoron.--[[User:The elusive pickle|The elusive pickle]] ([[User talk:The elusive pickle|talk]]) 22:27, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
Is it proper to use citations or should we just link to the source? {{User:17jiangz1/signature|10:44, 12 September 2015}}

;Negation by association in French

The [http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jlawler/aue/giveadamn.html assertion] that ''could care less'', or ''give a damn'', is "negative in its own right" in the same way as ''pas'' in French sounds dubious to me to say the least, if not downright bovine excrement. In French, the original word for negation is ''ne'', it came to be associated with ''pas'', so that there was a perceived redundancy. Dropping ''ne'' when ''pas'' is used clearly conserves the negative meaning (it is only usual in oral French though, and frowned upon in written French). The same applies with adverbs that have a negative meaning, like ''jamais'' (never). But this is a very generic process, and thus completely different from very specific cases like ''could care less''. [[User:Zoyd|Zoyd]] ([[User talk:Zoyd|talk]]) 17:28, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
:Absolutely off-topic: there's a fairly good overview of the evolution leading to ''ne... pas'' in French [https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%A9gation_en_fran%C3%A7ais#.C3.89volution_de_l.27expression_de_la_n.C3.A9gation over there in The Other Wiki]. The link (or lack thereof) with ''could care less'' would definitely qualify as ''capilotracté''. [[User:Ralfoide|Ralfoide]] ([[User talk:Ralfoide|talk]]) 00:02, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

I've heard people say they ''couldn't'' give a damn. Never heard someone say they ''could''. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.195|141.101.98.195]] 13:17, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

It's a shame we don't know Ponytail's name. If we did, this would pass the Bechdel test. Out of interest, are there any xkcds which pass the Bechdel test? {{unsigned ip|108.162.249.183}}

I could care more. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.238.33|198.41.238.33]] 00:35, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

This was done on [http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2015/08/03 Pearls Before Swine] a couple of weeks ago. --[[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.118|173.245.54.118]] 13:53, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps she's saying she could care a lot about the correction if it's intended to help her, but she could care less than that if the correction stems from the desire to complete a mental checklist.
In other words, there are two interpretations of the significance of Ponytail's correction. If the first interpretation is correct, she will care a lot. If the second interpretation is correct, she will care less. But she's not sure which is the case right now, so she could either care a lot or care less.[[Special:Contributions/172.68.78.10|172.68.78.10]] 13:53, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

I literally could care less about this. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.160|108.162.219.160]] 19:25, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

2119: Video Orientation

2019-03-05T18:10:45Z

108.162.219.160: /* Transcript */ minor usage: tall vs high

{{comic
| number = 2119
| date = March 4, 2019
| title = Video Orientation
| image = video_orientation.png
| titletext = CIRCULAR VIDEO - PROS: Solves aspect ratio problem. CONS: Never trust anyone who talks to you from inside a circle.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This was created by a TRUSTWORTHY CIRCULAR VIDEO. Need to make interpretation of circular text neutral, ideally by enumerating all the interpretations listed in the comments. Is the following relevant? Nothing about Bold and Dynamic. Better explanation on horizontal and vertical needed. DO NOT DELETE THIS TOO SOON (It already was once.)}}

This comic compares selected pros and cons of 3 video "orientations" (also known as angling), one of which is entirely made-up. This comic could have been inspired {{Dubious}} by articles like https://mashable.com/2017/12/28/vertical-video-mainstream-year/#GEK.NgJ74mqR, and https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/video-looks-most-natural-horizontally-but-we-hold-our-phones-vertically/, which comment on how videos are now filmed vertically through smartphones.

From Randall's comments on horizontal vs vertical, it seems that he is in favor of horizontal videos. However, he does love a good [[690|compromise]][[Category:Compromise]], so he suggests "Diagonal Orientation" as a third option to equally dissatisfy both types of user. The issue with this is that diagonal angling fails to fully capture the benefits of either horizontal or vertical angling.

'''Horizontal orientation'''
# Good for people not used to phones, and has been used for centuries for capturing video.
# Not the best at capturing a human's entire body, without also capturing much of their surroundings.
# Potentially uncomfortable for the one making the recording to maintain over a long period of time, as most phones were designed for vertical holding.

'''Vertical orientation'''
# The norm for most users capturing video on their smartphone.
# Not ideal for capturing the background, as our world is mostly a "horizontal plane".

'''Diagonal orientation'''
# Not a standard format of video, thus "bold and dynamic". {{Citation needed}}
# Equally annoying to all viewers.
# Flawless, as in perfect in every way.{{Dubious}}

Diagonal angling is commonly known as "oblique angle" or "{{w|Dutch angle}}" in cinema and is often used to portray psychological uneasiness or tension in the subject being filmed.

The title text quip about circular video could be a reference to having a demon trapped inside a summoning circle, or being spoken to by members of a select or secretive circle of people, hence not trusting anything what is said to you due to perhaps lacking evidence of their motivations, or HAL 9000 from {{w|2001: A Space Odyssey}}. It could also be a reference to Loki in The Avengers, who is the god of trickery and is held at one point in a circular cell. The title text quip may also be a reference to an advertising trope where a talking head in a circle is superimposed over images of the product being advertised, usually this is a the case in low budget productions for "as seen on TV" products.

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

:[The image shows three columns by three rows with the following headers:]
:'''Video Orientation'''
:'''Pros'''
:'''Cons'''

:[First row:]
:[A wide picture with a text above:]
:Horizontal
:[Pros are:]
:*Looks normal to old people
:*Format used by a century of cinema
:[Cons are:]
:*Humans are taller than are wide
:*I'm not turning my phone sideways

:[Second row:]
:[A tall picture with a text above:]
:Vertical
:[Pros are:]
:*How most normal people shoot and watch video now so we may as well accept it
:[Cons are:]
:*Human world is mostly a horizontal plane

:[Third row:]
:[A picture rotated by 45 degrees with a text above:]
:Diagonal
:[Pros are:]
:*Bold and dynamic
:*Equally annoying to all viewers
:*Good compromise
:[Cons are:]
:*None

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Compromise]]

Talk:2117: Differentiation and Integration

2019-03-02T13:48:18Z

108.162.219.160:

Darn, I have no idea what this comic is about. Randal has eluded my yet again. [[User:Linker|Linker]] ([[User talk:Linker|talk]]) 17:43, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
:Calculus. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.79.143|162.158.79.143]] 18:16, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
Basically, integration is easy to do by hand, but integration, even of things that look simple on paper, can be very difficult, as well as easy to mess up or get lost in.
And Calc 2 is why I stopped being a Computer Science major and moved (eventually) to majoring in English. Consistent 4.0s in math through Trig and Calc I ... 1.6 in Calc II, retook and got a 1.8. Without the Calc, couldn't do the physics; without the physics, couldn't get my 2-yr degree and move on from community college to a full university. I don't know what all the integration stuff in the flowchart is (since I didn't do well in Calc and it was a long time ago), but there's so very many things that become [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonelementary_integral nonelementary integrals] that all sorts of special tricks have to be employed for things that look like they should be easy. It's like having a problem that's very easy to do division on, but requires special advanced mathematical tricks to use multiplication upon.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.208|108.162.216.208]] 19:07, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Basic ideas:
Integration by parts is the reverse of the Product Rule.
Substitution is the reverse of the Chain Rule.
Cauchy's Formula gives the result of a contour integration in the complex plane, using "singularities" of the integrand.
Partial fractions is just splitting up one complex fraction into a sum of simple fractions, which is relevant because they are easier to integrate.
Stokes theorem is the relationship between an integral over an area, and an integral over the boundary of said area.
Riemann integration was the first rigorous definition of integration. This has been superseded by Lesbesgue integration.
Bessel functions are like 2d versions of sin and cos, and turn up sometimes when doing integration.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.89.61|162.158.89.61]] 20:14, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
:"Lesbesgue integration." Best. Freudian. Slip. Ever. SCNR :P [[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.59|162.158.91.59]] 08:28, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
I know what you mean ;). After all, Gen 8 Pokemon was announced the other day, so you read it as "Pokemon League Integration". Completely understandable. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.78.28|172.68.78.28]] 14:40, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
Shouldn't Wolfram Alpha be somewhere in that flowchart? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.142|162.158.255.142]] 20:54, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Glad to see I'm not the only one who is too dumb to integrate [[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.36|162.158.90.36]] 21:02, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
:Symbolic differentiation is just going through algorithm ; there are few functions which don't have it but they tend to be constructed in complicated way, and if function have differentiation it's usually easy to find it. Symbolic integration requires lot of thinking and trial and error ; even very easy function may lack primitive function and even if they don't, you may be unable to find it except randomly. If it's exercise in book, the ones for differentiation are done by thinking about some interesting function and putting it there. The ones for integration are done by thinking about some interesting function and putting it's differentiation there. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 23:38, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Oddly enough it mentions Riemann integration, but that is the integral most people know how to use. Turns out there are a lot more (e.g. lebesgue and generalized riemann integrals). I'm halfway through a second semester of real analysis and was floored by how involved integration can be. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.34.106|172.68.34.106]] 21:36, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

One of my professors once said: "Never try to integrate a function. Almost all (in a strict mathematical sense) functions are impossible to integrate, so there is no reason why you should even try." --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.88.128|162.158.88.128]] 07:52, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

How is there no "+ C" joke in there [[User:Blagae|Blagae]] ([[User talk:Blagae|talk]]) 13:16, 28 February 2019
(UTC)

Probably because he put a +C joke in 1201:_Integration_by_Parts. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.160|108.162.219.160]] 13:48, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

== Risch algorithm ==

I thought I could contribute to the article with a better explanation of the Risch algorithm, since I have a bit of expertise here -- I've read all the original papers, plus the Cherry papers that add the extra features like Li and erf. I pulled out some of the old papers to review my knowledge of symbolic differential algebra (it's been a while!) then typed up a careful explanation which corrected some errors in the original description and fleshed out many more details... possibly excessively, but hey, that's kind of our calling here.

Then I saw that Glassvein completely removed my version for what appears to be the original without so much as a mention in the edit description. What gives? I

[[User:CRGreathouse|CRGreathouse]] ([[User talk:CRGreathouse|talk]]) 04:59, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
: Probably due to simultaneous editing. I've restored your definition. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.88.128|162.158.88.128]] 16:52, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

:: OK, wasn't sure if it was intentional (if somehow it was worse). Thanks! [[User:CRGreathouse|CRGreathouse]] ([[User talk:CRGreathouse|talk]]) 01:34, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

== Numerical Integration ==
Better still...plot the graph - cut along the line - weigh the part under the line. :-) [[User:SteveBaker|SteveBaker]] ([[User talk:SteveBaker|talk]]) 20:46, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

687: Dimensional Analysis

2018-06-25T16:45:53Z

108.162.219.160: /* Explanation */ Removed inaccurate and unnecessary Trivia section.

{{comic
| number = 687
| date = January 11, 2010
| title = Dimensional Analysis
| image = dimensional_analysis.png
| titletext = Or the pressure at the Earth's core will rise slightly.
}}

==Explanation==
Cueball has a [[My Hobby|hobby]] — showing correct calculations according to the {{w|dimensional analysis}} — but with ridiculous correlations of uncorrelated events and measurements. Here Cueball is teaching a class and uses this trick to ''convince'' his students that the {{w|Toyota Prius}} combined {{w|United States Environmental Protection Agency|EPA}} gas mileage is somehow connected to the constant ''{{W|Pi|π}}'' via the {{w|Planck energy}}, the pressure at the {{w|Inner_core|Earth's core}} and the width of the {{w|English Channel}}.

Scientists — often physicists — use dimensional analysis to quickly check if a given formula can possibly relate to a physical system, because if you end up with an equation claiming that joules are meters, something is clearly wrong. Dimensional analysis here refers to the check if both sides of the equation arrive at the same physical unit when the units of all variables get plugged into the equation. This requires knowledge of the system of units and the relation between different physical units.

Cueball uses the following equation to make a mockery of the practice:

(Planck energy) / (Pressure at the core of the Earth) * (Prius combined EPA gas mileage) / (minimum width of the English Channel) = π

===Dimensional analysis===
The right hand side is dimensionless, it's the constant ''π'' = 3.14... which is defined by the relation of two lengths, the circumference and the diameter of a circle. The left hand side requires to plug in the dimensions of the named physical quantities:

*Planck energy: given in Joules [J]
*Pressure at the core of the Earth: given in Pascals [Pa]
*Prius combined EPA gas mileage: miles per gallon, given in meters per cubic meter [m/m³]
**Fuel efficiency has two formats that are commonly used: length per volume and volume per length. The former must be used here in order to get the units to cancel correctly.
*minimum width of the English channel: given in meters [m]

When plugged into the left hand side this amounts to:

[(J / Pa) * ((m/m³) / m)] = [(Nm / (N/m²)) * ((m/m³) / m)] = 1

Using the following unit relations (this does not reduce units to the seven SI base units, but does use some derived units for cancelation):

*1 Joule [J] = 1 Newton-meter [Nm]
*1 Pascal [Pa] = 1 Newton per square meter [N/m²]

Note that for dimensional analysis constant factors are not taken into account. Here square brackets are used to denote dimensional analysis. In the above equation the unit of force (newton) as well as all the units of length (meter) cancel out each other.

Another aspect of the comic is, that sometimes dimension analysis of equations that were not derived but rather "made up" can provide insight. However, in reality such an equations would have to be somehow "motivated", which is more of an art than science and requires great experience in the field the equation should relate to. The presented equation combines values that have no immediate causal relation with each other, so it does not make sense. Furthermore, since the values have absolutely no causal relation to each other, the ratios presented are simple coincidence; despite Cueball's claim, building a better Prius would not cause any changes to the English Channel.

The title text also refers to this, as a higher pressure at Earth's core could also balance the equation, keeping the result constant equal to ''π''. The Planck energy is an absolute, however, so it is not mentioned as a way to balance the next version of Prius.

===Some numbers for this calculation===
The {{w|Planck energy}} is the only nearly exact value we do have. Compared to other Planck values it is very large (macroscopic).
E_planck = 1.956 x 109 J = 1.956 x 109 Nm

Pressure at the {{w|Inner_core#Temperature_and_pressure|core}} of the Earth ranges from 330 to 360 gigapascals.
Using a simple value like this:
P_core = 350 GPa = 3.5 x 1011 N/m²

Prius combined {{w|Toyota_Prius#Fuel_economy_and_emissions|EPA gas mileage}}:
For the third generation (from 2010) the City mileage is 51 mpg and the Highway mileage is 48 mpg. But it is the [http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=26425 combined EPA gas mileage] which is used in the equation and that is 50 miles per gallon.
50 mpg => 21,000,000 m/m³

Minimum width of the {{w|English Channel}} is about
33.1 km = 33,100 m

Calculating from these values you will get ''π'' = 3.54... that is pretty close to ''π'' = 3.14... while using a Planck value. According to Cueball this will be within the experimental error (the combined error for all four numbers - none are exact numbers). For instance if you tried the ePrius you would probably get closer to that target — as the mileage in real life usually is somewhat lower than the value given — and that would reduce the result.

[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28Planck+Energy%29%2F%28Pressure+at+the+Earth%27s+core%29*%282010+Prius+combined+EPA+Gas+Mileage%29%2F%2833.1+km%29 Wolfram|Alpha can find most of the statistics and do the calculations.]

==Transcript==
:My Hobby:
:Abusing dimensional analysis

:[On a blackboard.]
:(Planck energy/Pressure at the Earth's core) x (Prius combined EPA gas mileage/Minimum width of the English Channel) = π

:[Cueball indicates this equation with a pointer in front of a class.]
:Cueball: It's correct to within experimental error, and the units check out. It must be a fundamental law.
:Student: But what if they build a better Prius?
:Cueball: ''Then England will drift out to sea.''

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics with inverted brightness]]
[[Category:My Hobby]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Physics]]

1972: Autogyros

2018-03-27T03:16:20Z

108.162.219.160: /* Explanation */ Fix minor errors.

{{comic
| number = 1972
| date = March 26, 2018
| title = Autogyros
| image = autogyros.png
| titletext = I understand modern autogyros are much more stable, so I've probably angered the autogyro people by impugning their safety. Once they finish building the autogyros they've been working on in their garages for 10 years, they'll come after me.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Have created sections for explaining each of the statements, but they need to be expanded. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

[[Randall]] has been looking at the facts about [[wikipedia:autogyro|autogyro]]s, hence the title of the comic. He has drawn [[Megan]] flying in such a vehicle with several statements of the facts he has unveiled.

Randall states that an autogyro is nothing like a [[wikipedia:helicopter|helicopter]] (which it looks like), nothing like a [[wikipedia:airplane|plane]] (but flies like one) and works like a powered [[wikipedia:parachute|parachute]] (without anything looking remotely as such). He continues to make a total of 12 [[#Statements|statments]] which will be explained individually below.

The final statement at the bottom right is the punch line of how strange these flying machines are, because they are safe, as long as you do not do what a pilot instinctively would do in a plane in case of a stall, because if you do so the autogyros will crash immediately... See the [[#Extremely safe|explanation below]]. That sentence is almost rendered unnecessary by the one above it that states that autogyros [[#Never stalls|never stalls]]!

Randall's conclusion is clear: Autogyros are '''''weird'''''.

In the title text Randall continues on the last statement by saying that today autogyros are much more stable. Which must refer to that this was not always the case. And this new stability probably means that a [[#Never stalls|stall situation]] is much less likely and the last statement is then not so relevant anymore.

Randall then goes on to suggest that ''the autogyro people'' will be angered by this comic, which [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/impugn#English impugns] (i.e. attacks) the safety of their beloved machines. But he keeps on mocking them. In fact, he states that they will come after him, once they have finished building the autogyros they have been working on in their garage for the last 10 years. By this, he implies that the people who work on them do this as a home garage project so they will never get them finished and able to fly. Thus, they will probably never come after him.

But if a bunch of them do manage to finish their autogyros simultaneously and come after him as a pack, Randall will have trouble escaping the angry autogyro mob.

==Statements==
*Below each of the statements in the comic are explained
**The optimal reading order is to read them in the four columns they are arranged in:
**The left with four, the two single in the middle and the six on the right.

===Nothing like a helicopter===
''Looks like a helicopter, but is nothing like a helicopter''

===Nothing like a plane===
''Flies like a plane but is nothing like a plane''

===Powered parachute===
''Sort of like a powered parachute''

===Rare in the US===
''Rare in the US, usually homemade. Common in Europe. ''

===Big blade on top===
''Big blade on top is not powered and spins freely''

===Flown without a license===
''Can often be flown without a license''

===Cheap===
Helicopters are notorious for being extremely expensive to operate. At a typical general aviation service in the US, a two-seat aircraft may rent for under $100/hr, while a helicopter runs over $200/hr. Similarly, a small used helicopter may cost almost $200,000 while a small new autogyro may cost under $25,000. Since many people home-build their autogyros, it would often be even cheaper.

===Needs a runway to take off===
''Needs a runway to take off, but not a long one''

===Can land vertically===
An autogyro can land vertically: for that matter, so can any airplane. What matters isn't ground speed but airspeed, and as long as there's as much headwind as the landing airspeed of the aircraft, it will land vertically. Now, with fixed wing airplanes the landing speed is at least 40-50 mph, and you don't often find headwinds like that. The much lower landing airspeed of an autogyro makes vertical landings feasible.

===Cannot hover===
True hovering would require the rotor to be powered. However, an autogyro must be moving forward in order for the rotor to generate lift.

===Never stalls===
This is not entirely correct. If you reduce the forward speed of an autogyro, the rotor slows down, reducing lift so the autogyro will descend. Under most circumstances, this would lead to a controlled landing. However, if it happens at high altitude, you can run out of lift completely while still high above the ground causing a stall. This is more likely to happen if there is a strong tailwind.

===Extremely safe===
''Extremely safe, unless you do the one thing you instinctively do to escape a stall in a normal airplane, in which case it will crash immediately''

On a normal airplane, one will push the yoke forward in a stall or engine out situation, to regain airspeed and to stabilize the plane. On an {{w|autogyro}}, this leads to negative angle of attack, decelerating the rotor, which may lead to a crash. Also pushing the yoke hard forward while flying full throttle may lead to a crash.

==Transcript==

:[A picture of Megan wearing aviator goggles, sitting in an autogyro and holding the control stick. The autogyro is surrounded by sentence fragments, explaining characteristics of it. The one above the blade that concerns the blade has an arrow pointing from the text to the blade. The sentences in columns from the left (i.e. left sentences first, then the two above the autogyros body and finally the sentences to the right):]
:Looks like a helicopter, but is nothing like a helicopter
:Flies like a plane but is nothing like a plane
:Sort of like a powered parachute
:Rare in the US, usually homemade. Common in Europe.
:Big blade on top is not powered and spins freely
:Can often be flown without a license
:Cheap
:Needs a runway to take off, but not a long one
:Can land vertically
:Cannot hover
:Never stalls
:Extremely safe, unless you do the '''''one''''' thing you instinctively do to escape a stall in a normal airplane, in which case it will crash immediately.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Autogyros are '''''weird'''''.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

Talk:153: Cryptography

2017-10-29T16:08:12Z

108.162.219.160: What needs editing here?

I think that executing that S-box twice would get you back where you started. [[User:gijobarts|gijobarts]] ([[User Talk:gijobarts|talk]]) 05:28, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
:Actually that's not true. Regardless of the bit in position 1 to begin with, you will always have a 1 in position 8 in the result. When you shift, you're adding a 0 in position 1 (assuming a 0 shift in), then the inverse is 1, and flipping would put the 1 in position 8. [[User:Jarod997|Jarod997]] ([[User talk:Jarod997|talk]]) 14:06, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
::I was expecting the last bit to wrap around to the front. It could go either way. [[User:gijobarts|gijobarts]] ([[User Talk:gijobarts|talk]]) 05:57, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
:I think it would actually take a few rounds, but yes will eventually get back to the same as the input. Remember that you aren't just doing this operation, you are doing it to one half of the block and then XORing with the other half of the block. But yes I think after a few rounds the XOR's would combine to the identity. (assuming that it wraps, which makes sense to me). Also it is not shown at all how the key would be incorporated into this... so maybe that would help? (or you just add a round key in after doing this operation?) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.142|108.162.218.142]] 16:32, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
" and so is the author Randall Munroe at [http://pycon.blogspot.com/2009/02/randall-munroe.html PyCon]"
:I think that post is a joke.
:* It links to [[541: TED Talk]].
:* It says "Registration volunteers have been instructed to refuse admission to Randall Munroe personally, and in fact, to any '''stick figures''' who may attempt to register"
:* There isn't anything on YouTube or {{w|Randall Munroe}}'s Wikipedia page about it.
:* [http://www.blog.pythonlibrary.org/2009/02/11/xkcd-artist-banned-from-pycon/ Another Python blog] says that it was a publicity stunt, citing the organizers' mailing list archives. I didn't bother to sign up for access to the archive.
:[http://catherinedevlin.pythoneers.com/leadership.html Catherine Devlin] claims that she banned Randall, so we could try asking her if she's serious.
:[http://holdenweb.blogspot.com/2009/02/randall-munroe-banned-from-pycon.html Another blog post about it]
:[[User:gijobarts|gijobarts]] ([[User Talk:gijobarts|talk]]) 16:48, 2 September 2013 (UTC) (edited 20:29 UTC)
::I've signed up for access to the mailing list, and am currently waiting for moderator approval. [[User:gijobarts|gijobarts]] ([[User Talk:gijobarts|talk]]) 20:38, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

''In the same way, a steps to a feistel cipher based algorithm are executed in reverse to obtain the original plain text from a cipher text.'' is not true. The whole point of a Feistel network is that you execute the same steps ''in the same order''. The only thing that is reversed is the key. You can do almost any amount of mangling of the input, without having to worry about how to reverse it, because the magic of XOR ensures that All Will Be Well when you come to decrypt. There are limits to the kinds of mangling you can do, of course, but the basic principle is that the same function used for encryption is also used for decryption. It's quite startling, really. Horst Feistel - kudos!
--[[User:BinaryDigit|BinaryDigit]] ([[User talk:BinaryDigit|talk]]) 15:08, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
:+1 [[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.142|108.162.218.142]] 16:32, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

"This part needs editing" in what way? It looks fine to me. Clarify, or better yet, edit it in what way you think it needs editing.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.160|108.162.219.160]] 16:08, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Talk:1037: Umwelt

2017-04-19T05:59:20Z

108.162.219.160:

Normally I understand xkcd. But this one hurts my head. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 20:35, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
: I sorted all of them out. Phew!!! That was some work. The ones at the end have no appropriate picture in the image part. Atleast the hurricane one should be added. Please do so. [[User:TheOriginalSoni|TheOriginalSoni]] ([[User talk:TheOriginalSoni|talk]]) 11:09, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
:: I live in one of Umwelt's "hurricane areas", and that's the one I see. How do we add it? [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 06:06, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

There is a fixed image used if your browser does not support javascript, which is missing. Additionally, the alt text varies at times. [[User:Divad27182|Divad27182]] ([[User talk:Divad27182|talk]]) 20:16, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I can't see any of them neither in Firefox nor in IE :( --[[User:Kronf|Kronf]] ([[User talk:Kronf|talk]]) 11:32, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

This has got to be one of my favourite xkcd's! That amount of ingenuity in one edition! [[User:D3KN0W|Dean]] ([[User talk:D3KN0W|talk]]) 22:33, 01 January 2013 (UTC)

There is now also a category page for Jurassic Park, but I'm not sure how to work that into the explanation. [[User:Kaa-ching|Kaa-ching]] ([[User talk:Kaa-ching|talk]]) 09:04, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I can't resist noting that Chrome is sadly mistaken in thinking that its puzzle piece links up to a corner piece - it would have to be an edge piece to do that. Firefox would never have that kind of issue... [[User:Natf|Natf]] ([[User talk:Natf|talk]])
: Supposedly, if there were a puzzle with inner corners, such as one with a plus cut out of it, this could link up as shown. ... I wanna make a puzzle like that now. [[Special:Contributions/99.44.200.140|99.44.200.140]] 08:00, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

It would be difficult to compile, but I think this page would benefit from having the conditions along with the image (for instance, "Displays when running Netscape:") [[Special:Contributions/24.41.66.114|24.41.66.114]] 03:27, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Hey, um, I think there is an AniMega Mega Mega Mega Maniacs reference. Namely, the question about hot dogs resembles Yakko's question to the Wally Llama except it dealt with packages of eight and packages of ten. (I forget which is which) {{unsigned ip|71.166.47.84}}

I came here to seek informartion about how each strip was seen. Disappointed... Especially after seeing there is a hebrew one!?!?!?!? (number 29) Is it real? Because I assume it should be visible from Israel and I can't see it [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.228|141.101.99.228]] 22:26, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Added two location references to the 2Fast2Furious and Snake comics, with browser references. Anyone know why I got those results? {{unsigned ip|173.245.50.77}}
: I don't, especially since I live in the UK (not Texas) and yet I see the Snake comic? [[User:Enchantedsleeper|Enchantedsleeper]] ([[User talk:Enchantedsleeper|talk]]) 14:14, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I found a new one, it seems to display when using TOR. Should I add it? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.49.60|173.245.49.60]] 02:22, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
:Yes definitely. [[User:Chriswampler|Chriswampler]] ([[User talk:Chriswampler|talk]]) 16:07, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
::The Reviews comic just as appearing under TOR is actually comic #1036. Can you confirm that it is actually showing up under Umwelt? [[User:Chriswampler|Chriswampler]] ([[User talk:Chriswampler|talk]]) 20:34, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
:::Yes. I checked like ten times. I just did it again.[[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.153|173.245.53.153]] 20:40, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
:Honestly I can't do much explaining. Does anyone get it? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.61|108.162.219.61]] 20:54, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
:For me, using TOR, it displayed the full Aurora comic. [[User:Zorlax the Mighty|Zorlax the Mighty'); DROP TABLE users;--]] ([[User talk:Zorlax the Mighty|talk]]) 17:50, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Has anyone tested the Steam browser, whatever it is, with this comic? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.66|108.162.219.66]] 18:50, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

I tested the Steam browser and got the "This plugin requires Sergey Brin's permission to run" comic, same as when I use Chrome.[[User:RobotSnake|RobotSnake]] ([[User talk:RobotSnake|talk]]) 18:16, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
:That is because the Steam browser is WebKit/Chromium-based. (Now you know something!)[[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.88|173.245.50.88]] 03:34, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

For the Yahoo Chrome one with Sergey Brin, it reminds me a bit like how GerMega Mega Mega Mega Man tanks were unable to be moved on D-Day because Hitler, whose order was needed to move them, slept through the first five hours of the batter. It's the same theme of failure due to having only one person able to give permission, and that person being asleep.[[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.188|173.245.54.188]] 14:53, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

I get Pond on both my laptop (Firefox) and iPhone 3. I live in North Holland. Hope it helps, ask some other Dutch people about it for affirmation. On Opera, I get the turtle one. I should also note that if I make my browser window smaller, the right part of it is cut off. This page is clearly incomplete... -Maplestrip

...Uhm, have you guys ever tried looking at this page in Lynx? Because, seriously, this is amazing. It's basically this entire page. The start in particular is hilarious: "<nowiki>[[two people...]]</nowiki> <<..wait.. <scrolls through a listing of everything> oh goddammit Randall. Thanks a bunch, dude. I better get a raise for typing out all of this>> [[Two people standing next to eachother..." Reading some of this, is this where you got all the transcripts for these comics from? -Maplestrip

In Ireland I get no comic strip loading at all! Just nothing in between the direction buttons, on Chrome or Safari! :/ {{unsigned ip|173.245.53.215}}

Just something I feel should be added to the "Blizzard" comic: it seems to also change the distance measurement (magnitude and system), in the last panel, depending on your location; for instance, the final panel refers to them only having [https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/22279334/Screen%20Shot%202015-03-25%20at%2010.03.06%20PM.png six more kilometres to travel] for me: fitting given that I'm located in central Ontario. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.17|108.162.216.17]] 02:23, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm in Georgia but I still got the Hurricane image. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.187|108.162.238.187]] 14:12, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

I have the "Reviews" one. With Firefox/Linux without referer and without javascript, from France. With javascript I don't have any comic. Edit : I checked, it's because I have the "Reviews" one but inside a <noscript> tag, so it doesn't display when javascript is activated. [[User:Seipas|Seipas]] ([[User talk:Seipas|talk]]) 14:20, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

And now we need Randall to make an Umwelt page for Microsoft Edge.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.61|108.162.221.61]] 02:06, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Note of interest: Windows 10, Georgia Tech campus in Atlanta, GA. Currently receiving "The Void" on both Chrome and Microsoft Edge unless Javascript is disabled. When disabled, "Reviews" is shown instead. Also: Chrome on HTC One M8 shows "Corporate Networks" with yellow triangle and Google - a combination which incidentally does not seem to be on this page. [[User:Castriff|Jimmy C]] ([[User talk:Castriff|talk]]) 05:11, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm on Windows 10 in NJ and I'm getting "Snake" instead of "Hurricane" on Opera, Chrome, Edge and Maxthon. Has this happened to other NJ users, or is "Hurricane" in only some parts on New Jersey? Maybe it's because it's on Windows 10. {{unsigned ip|69.123.50.168}}

I'm in Idaho using Firefox, and I get Reviews whenever I go to this comic. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.74|108.162.246.74]] 18:41, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Should I add to the article that I'm seeing "Snake" on Chrome version 49.0.2623.112 on Windows 8 in Massachusetts? --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.72|108.162.219.72]] 00:13, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
:I posted that comment before I had an account. Now that I'm looking back at this article a year later, I've gone ahead and done it. —[[User:CsBlastoise|CsBlastoise]] ([[User talk:CsBlastoise|talk]]) 22:28, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

I got a variant of the snake one in Ohio using Windows 7 and Google Chrome Version 49.0.2623.112 m. As of now, it should only be visible in "Texas (on Chrome Version 33.0.1750.154 m), New Jersey, California (on Chrome Version 39.0.2171.95), Maryland, Massachusetts (Safari for iOS), Connecticut (Safari for iOS)."[[User:Bbrk24|Bbrk24]] ([[User talk:Bbrk24|talk]]) 16:35, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

I'm getting Plugin Disabled in Safari, Firefox, Safari mobile, Chrome mobile, and the Google app. The only anomaly is Chrome desktop, where I'm getting Tornado (located in "the Midwest"), and I'm all out of browsers. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.72.113|162.158.72.113]] 21:37, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

I get the review strip when sharing http://xkcd.com/1037/ on FB, and the full aurora strip using chrome on my android t-mobile phone [[Special:Contributions/173.245.48.89|173.245.48.89]] 17:55, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm in Virginia, but when i look at umwelt in firefox, it gives me the tornado, whith ohio in the third panel, and on chrome, it does aurora, still saying ohio. {{unsigned ip|172.68.78.127}}

== Comic Might Now be Broken? ==

For some reason, this comic does not seem to be working now. It doesn't work on Chrome version 57.0.2987.133 on Windows 8 in Massachusetts, even though it worked a year ago on this very same computer with version 49.0.2623.112 of Chrome in the same location; I tried it on Internet Explorer on the same computer (only because it's the only other browser I have on it), and it didn't work there either; my brother grudgingly agreed to try it on Firefox on his Ubuntu 14.04 machine (in the same room), and it didn't work on that either.

No, I'm not talking about the void; here, there is absolutely no image at all. It seems to be the same as the experience that an anonymous user posted above about two and a half years ago:
<blockquote>In Ireland I get no comic strip loading at all! Just nothing in between the direction buttons, on Chrome or Safari! :/ [[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.215|173.245.53.215]] 18:41, 13 November 2014 (UTC) <code>''(Comment was actually unsigned; contributor and timestamp are implied by <nowiki>{{unsigned ip}}</nowiki> template and edit history, respectively)''</code></blockquote>
Now, every time I tried on my computer, the browser said that the page was trying to load unsafe scripts. Maybe this is somehow linked to the fact that within the past few months, Randall (or more likely Davean) made all xkcd links secure (<nowiki>https://</nowiki>), and the now secure nature of the page could be blocking the location- and browser-sensing scripts in the comic itself. However, the comic still didn't work when I opted to "Load Unsafe Scripts", so maybe it isn't that simple.

Also, it might be helpful to note that [[User:Seipas|Seipas]] posted on here that he was having an issue that is probably quite similar to this one:
<blockquote>I have the "Reviews" one. With Firefox/Linux without referer and without javascript, from France. With javascript I don't have any comic. Edit : I checked, it's because I have the "Reviews" one but inside a <noscript> tag, so it doesn't display when javascript is activated. [[User:Seipas|Seipas]] ([[User talk:Seipas|talk]]) 14:20, 9 December 2015 (UTC)</blockquote>
Anyway, with all that said, is there anyone else who is having this issue and/or knows what might be causing it?

—[[User:CsBlastoise|CsBlastoise]] ([[User talk:CsBlastoise|talk]]) 23:48, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

when using chromium on ubuntu 16.04 32 bit (yeah yeah yeah) I get no comic loaded, there is no element present. --> http://i.imgur.com/KZwpN8y.png have fun all. -[anon]

Talk:1809: xkcd Phone 5

2017-03-10T18:18:46Z

108.162.219.160:

Darn, I was almost fast enough to get the cot-caught merger explanation in there. That being said, now I really want a phone with a Zelda style hook shot. [[User:Andyd273|Andyd273]] ([[User talk:Andyd273|talk]]) 14:02, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
--I just came to say the same. I want the hookshot! [[Special:Contributions/172.68.78.100|172.68.78.100]] 14:05, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

It's way more likely that this refers to the Zelda hook shot, as it looks like a little tube where some sort of grappling hook could potentially shoot out from. It doesn't look like it could shoot out basketballs, though. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.17|108.162.238.17]] 15:28, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

It looks like "Hook Shot" is a clever suggestion for a feature name: the lens attaches to the camera with a 'hook' so you can take great 'shot's. [[User:Schnitz|Schnitz]] ([[User talk:Schnitz|talk]]) 18:01, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

It's worth noting that most of the Loran-C system (which presumably is what would be used on a phone) has been decommissioned in the last decade or so, including all the stations operated by the US and Canadian governments. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.201|162.158.62.201]] 15:52, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

'''Notice''' the new [[what if?]] ''{{what if|156|Electrofishing for Whales}}'' released the day before this comic! Only 9 days between releases... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 16:33, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

LORAN -- I was under the impression that the US LORAN base stations were turned off in 2010. Perhaps a few years later in some other parts of the world. So a LORAN reciever is of less use than a chocolate teapot.--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.21|162.158.62.21]] 18:08, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

I understand "Can Feel Pain" as the next step up for Siri (or Google or Alexa or...) to become conscious. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.160|108.162.219.160]] 18:18, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

863: Major in the Universe

2017-01-28T03:07:03Z

108.162.219.160: /* Explanation */ fixed grammar

{{comic
| number = 863
| date = February 21, 2011
| title = Major in the Universe
| image = major in the universe.png
| titletext = I hear Steven Levitt is writing a book analyzing A.J. Jacobs' quest to spend a year reading everything Malcolm Gladwell ever wrote. The audiobook will be narrated by Robert Krulwich of Radiolab.
}}

==Explanation==
Several authors are referenced here. {{w|Malcolm Gladwell}} is a Canadian author who wrote such books as "The Tipping Point", "Outliers" and "Blink." {{w|Steven Levitt}} is one of the co-authors of the book, "{{w|Freakonomics}}" and also the Freakonomics blog on NYTimes.com.

{{w|Robert Krulwich}} is a science correspondent for {{w|NPR}} (National Public Radio, for those outside of the US) and a co-host of the show {{w|Radiolab}}.

{{w|A. J. Jacobs}} is a journalist who immerses himself in different ideas and lives them out for periods of time. For example, he lived for a year according to {{w|The Year of Living Biblically|all the rules in the bible literally}}.

In this comic, [[Cueball]] as a college student, meeting with his adviser or professor trying to decide what to major in. He decides to major in "The Universe", but when his adviser details the real work required of that major, Cueball scratches his head and tells what he really means. If you have not read Malcolm Gladwell's books, they all are slightly similar and detail Gladwell's different "discoveries" about the world based on things that have happened.

Randall might be trying to make fun of people who claim to have a broad range of interests, but apparently just to deflect attention from the fact that they are too lazy to master even one field.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball before a professor.]
:Cueball: How can I pick a major? I'm interested in everything! Can't I major in "the universe"?

:Professor: Okay. First, I'll need papers on every European trade summit that did not result in an agreement. Then, spend a year memorizing every microprocessor instruction set ever used in a production chip.

:[Cueball scratches head.]

:Cueball: What I meant was I just want to read Malcolm Gladwell books and drink.
:Professor: We all do, sweetie.

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

Talk:1540: Hemingway

2015-07-01T04:00:21Z

108.162.219.160:

Did Randall miss the slash before the second blink? Or is there a More Profound Meaning. Possibly higher chance of typos when publication is late (deadline struggle?). [[User:Jkrstrt|Jkrstrt]] ([[User talk:Jkrstrt|talk]]) 14:07, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
:Wow, you're right! [[User:Nk22|The Twenty-second. The Not So Only. The Nathan/Nk22]] ([[User talk:Nk22|talk]]) 14:08, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
::Perhaps that is the error which causes the HTML tags to be visible text? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.83|108.162.218.83]] 15:30, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
:::Unlikely. The opening tag turns on the effect for all the text that follows until a closing tag is found. No closing tag, and the effect doesn't stop. - Equinox [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.172|108.162.238.172]] 16:32, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
::::Randall actually fixed it today! Somebody who knows how to properly edit this wiki should update the picture and description. EDIT: I already fixed the description, now it's only the picture.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.217|141.101.105.217]] 10:09, 20 June 2015 (UTC)
:::::Picture update is done but the old one is still in the cloud cache. So wait a while until it will be shown. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 16:08, 20 June 2015 (UTC)
::::::After a couple of hours I now can see the change. Look at the timestamps of this and my former post!!! And my BOT is also affected by this damn cloud cache, others can see updates before I can... --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 18:33, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

I think (-1) [cursed] may be a reference to the card game Dominion? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.183|108.162.219.183]] 17:51, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
*Actually this is more likely a reference to a cursed item in an RPG (DnD, WoW, etc.), where a cursed item often gives a negative stat bonus instead of a positive one. A magic item might be indicated as Magic Hammer (+2). [[User:Veleek|Veleek]] ([[User talk:Veleek|talk]]) 18:12, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

It is from a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike rogue like] game. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.56.143|162.158.56.143]] 18:41, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Why is there a bit about HTML sanitization? It's in an image file.. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.22|108.162.221.22]] 18:56, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

The effect of the marquee tag is to create an area of scrolling text. So with the blink tag the html would produce a box of text that will scroll from right to left and have a blinking background akin to annoying internet banner ads. So it's not about html sanitation, the html is visible so you can see the word count, it is up to the reader to interpret it as an annoying internet ad. (Source: mozilla documentation). [[User:Aide7|Aide7]] ([[User talk:Aide7|talk]]) 19:06, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

I hate that I only just learned about the 6-word story on TV Tropes a few days before this comic was posted. I wonder if Randall and I have similar browsing habits. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.210.177|108.162.210.177]] 21:06, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

;Explanations of each "story"
* '''For sale: This Gullible Baby's Shoes''' - I don't quite get this one. Maybe it's just not very funny. Anyone?
* '''Baby Shoes For Sale By Owner''' - Funny if one imagines an internet-capable baby posting its own shoes for sale.
* '''<strike>Actually, There's no evidence Hemingway wrote</strike>''' - A fragment of a preemptive rebuttal to the comic's premise (or at least its title), for some reason.
* '''Free Shoes, Provided You Overpower Baby''' - Funny if one imagines a sufficiently powerful baby, or a sufficiently weak shoe seeker.
* '''For Sale: Weird Baby's Toe Shoes''' - "Toe shoes" like the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibram_FiveFingers FiveFingers] are weird, even too weird for a weird baby perhaps. Previous distaste for toe shoes is evident in [[1065:_Shoes|xkcd 1065]].
* '''For Sale: Baby Shoes (Prime eligible)''' - This is a pretty good ad; Hemmingway is selling the shoes through Amazon and is willing to deliver them quickly and without additional shipping costs.
* '''<strike>Though popularly attributed to Hemingway, the</strike>''' - Another fragment of a rebuttal, written in an encyclopedic style.
* '''This Weird Trick Covers Baby Feet!''' - An ad in clickbait style, nobody's going to click on that though.
* '''For Sale: Baby Shoes, Just Hatched''' - Funny if one imagines shoes as living creatures that lay eggs, from which baby shoes hatch.
* '''Sale: Seven-League Boots (Expedited Shipping)''' - These are magic boots that allow one to walk seven leagues (about 3 miles) with each step. Presumably they'll be delivered by someone wearing the boots.
* '''Complete this survey for free shoes!''' - Another clickbait type ad.
* '''Shoes, by Ernest Hemingway [citation needed]''' - Another reference, wikipedia-style, to the dubious authorship of the original short story.
* '''This is my greatest short story.''' - Self-referential meta-fiction, somewhat reminiscent of Randall's proposed autobiography of Douglas Hofstadter in [[917:_Hofstadter|xkcd 917]].
* '''For sale: Baby shoes (-1) [cursed]''' - The shoes are described in the manner of armor in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike Roguelike games]. These particular shoes will reduce the wearer's protection by one point and cannot be removed.
* '''<blink><marquee>Baby Shoes!</marquee><blink>''' - An ad in old-school annoying HTML style.
* '''For Sale: Baby-sized Saddle, Bobcat''' - Hemmingway is choosing to falsely advertise mere baby shoes as a rather more exciting means of locomotion. Is this wise?
* '''Hemingway Busted for Craigslist Shoe Scam''' - I guess not, he got caught for lying in his ad.
* (hover text) '''Instead of bobcat, package contained chair''' - A reference to [[A-Minus-Minus|xkcd 325]], this indicates that either Hemmingway is now running a new scam (or just "making the world a weirder place"? or a less weird place?) by advertising bobcats and mailing chairs.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.160|108.162.219.160]] 21:14, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

The current version of the comic has a [http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/hemingway.png correctly nested set of tags]. __rvx [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.96|108.162.221.96]] 09:05, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

On first read, I though this is what search engine returns when searching for that short novel. Then I noticed the heading. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 14:35, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

I just added the reference to Hemingway's practice of obsessively re-drafting his novels; but I'm not sure the explanation captures the humour in this allusion. -- [[User:Vespertine|Vespertine]] ([[User talk:Vespertine|talk]]) 05:01, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

See also [http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=3582 SMBC 3582] [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.160|108.162.219.160]] 04:00, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Talk:1540: Hemingway

2015-06-19T21:14:19Z

108.162.219.160: /* Explanations of each "story" */ new section

Did Randall miss the slash before the second blink? Or is there a More Profound Meaning. Possibly higher chance of typos when publication is late (deadline struggle?). [[User:Jkrstrt|Jkrstrt]] ([[User talk:Jkrstrt|talk]]) 14:07, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
*Wow, you're right! [[User:Nk22|The Twenty-second. The Not So Only. The Nathan/Nk22]] ([[User talk:Nk22|talk]]) 14:08, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
**Perhaps that is the error which causes the HTML tags to be visible text? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.83|108.162.218.83]] 15:30, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
***Unlikely. The opening tag turns on the effect for all the text that follows until a closing tag is found. No closing tag, and the effect doesn't stop. - Equinox [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.172|108.162.238.172]] 16:32, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
I think (-1) [cursed] may be a reference to the card game Dominion? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.183|108.162.219.183]] 17:51, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
*Actually this is more likely a reference to a cursed item in an RPG (DnD, WoW, etc.), where a cursed item often gives a negative stat bonus instead of a positive one. A magic item might be indicated as Magic Hammer (+2). [[User:Veleek|Veleek]] ([[User talk:Veleek|talk]]) 18:12, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

It is from a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike rogue like] game. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.56.143|162.158.56.143]] 18:41, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Why is there a bit about HTML sanitization? It's in an image file.. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.22|108.162.221.22]] 18:56, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

The effect of the marquee tag is to create an area of scrolling text. So with the blink tag the html would produce a box of text that will scroll from right to left and have a blinking background akin to annoying internet banner ads. So it's not about html sanitation, the html is visible so you can see the word count, it is up to the reader to interpret it as an annoying internet ad. (Source: mozilla documentation). [[User:Aide7|Aide7]] ([[User talk:Aide7|talk]]) 19:06, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

I hate that I only just learned about the 6-word story on TV Tropes a few days before this comic was posted. I wonder if Randall and I have similar browsing habits. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.210.177|108.162.210.177]] 21:06, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

== Explanations of each "story" ==

* '''For sale: This Gullible Baby's Shoes''' - I don't quite get this one. Maybe it's just not very funny. Anyone?
* '''Baby Shoes For Sale By Owner''' - Funny if one imagines an internet-capable baby posting its own shoes for sale.
* '''<strike>Actually, There's no evidence Hemingway wrote</strike>''' - A fragment of a preemptive rebuttal to the comic's premise (or at least its title), for some reason.
* '''Free Shoes, Provided You Overpower Baby''' - Funny if one imagines a sufficiently powerful baby, or a sufficiently weak shoe seeker.
* '''For Sale: Weird Baby's Toe Shoes''' - "Toe shoes" like the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibram_FiveFingers FiveFingers] are weird, even too weird for a weird baby perhaps. Previous distaste for toe shoes is evident in [[1065:_Shoes|xkcd 1065]].
* '''For Sale: Baby Shoes (Prime eligible)''' - This is a pretty good ad; Hemmingway is selling the shoes through Amazon and is willing to deliver them quickly and without additional shipping costs.
* '''<strike>Though popularly attributed to Hemingway, the</strike>''' - Another fragment of a rebuttal, written in an encyclopedic style.
* '''This Weird Trick Covers Baby Feet!''' - An ad in clickbait style, nobody's going to click on that though.
* '''For Sale: Baby Shoes, Just Hatched''' - Funny if one imagines shoes as living creatures that lay eggs, from which baby shoes hatch.
* '''Sale: Seven-League Boots (Expedited Shipping)''' - These are magic boots that allow one to walk seven leagues (about 3 miles) with each step. Presumably they'll be delivered by someone wearing the boots.
* '''Complete this survey for free shoes!''' - Another clickbait type ad.
* '''Shoes, by Ernest Hemingway [citation needed]''' - Another reference, wikipedia-style, to the dubious authorship of the original short story.
* '''This is my greatest short story.''' - Self-referential meta-fiction, somewhat reminiscent of Randall's proposed autobiography of Douglas Hofstadter in [[917:_Hofstadter|xkcd 917]].
* '''For sale: Baby shoes (-1) [cursed]''' - The shoes are described in the manner of armor in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike Rougelike games]. These particular shoes will reduce the wearer's protection by one point and cannot be removed.
* '''<blink><marquee>Baby Shoes!</marquee><blink>''' - An ad in old-school annoying HTML style.
* '''For Sale: Baby-sized Saddle, Bobcat''' - Hemmingway is choosing to falsely advertise mere baby shoes as a rather more exciting means of locomotion. Is this wise?
* '''Hemingway Busted for Craigslist Shoe Scam''' - I guess not, he got caught for lying in his ad.
* (hover text) '''Instead of bobcat, package contained chair''' - A reference to [[A-Minus-Minus|xkcd 325]], this indicates that either Hemmingway is now running a new scam (or just "making the world a weirder place"? or a less weird place?) by advertising bobcats and mailing chairs.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.160|108.162.219.160]] 21:14, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

1515: Basketball Earth

2015-04-22T04:46:35Z

108.162.219.160: started description

{{comic
| number = 1515
| date = April 22, 2015
| title = Basketball Earth
| image = basketball earth.png
| titletext = How many points do you get for dunking every basketball in existence at once?
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This has not been started.}}
Cueball is seen trying to explain the relative sizes of the earth and moon by comparing
the earth to a basketball and the moon to what looks like a golf ball. This explanation
is constantly thwarted by passerby interacting with the basketball while Cueball is
explaining it.
For the title text, the answer is zero, since it is against basketball rules.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript| Formatting and description of images}}

:Cueball: If the Earth were the size of a basketball,
:Cueball: The Moon would be -
:Black Hat: Hey, cool!
:Cueball: Um.
:AAAAAAAA

:Cueball: Let's try that again. If the Earth were the size of a basketball,
:Cueball: The Moon would be -

:Cueball: If the Earth were the size of a basketball,
:Cueball: The Moon- would...
:Cat: MROWL!
:Cat: RRRRR!

:Cueball: If the Earth were the size of a basketball,
:Cueball: The Moon would, uh...

<noinclude>{{comic discussion}}</noinclude>



[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]

Talk:921: Delivery Notification

2015-02-21T15:02:40Z

108.162.219.160:

They sometimes don't even knock... I was in the living room, less than ten feet from the front door, when I got a notification in my email that the delivery had failed, while I was sitting there less than ten minutes before. Opened the door and just like Cueball... 'Brown' is a good name for them. --[[Special:Contributions/68.200.188.141|68.200.188.141]] 02:39, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

When it becomes part of the culture then it is entirely due to the way management is mishandling their service.

:I like how in the explanation, it says that deliverymen only make a '''Token''' effort to deliver a package. That is a lot like '''Tolkien''', who wrote Lord of the Rings. What a pun! [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.4|108.162.216.4]] 19:21, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Talk:1135: Arachnoneurology

2015-02-21T15:02:03Z

108.162.219.160:

Somehow, I don't believe that ANY object would make the spiders to weave something so thick as a usable shirt. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 09:26, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
:Maybe he arranged the fork thing so that broken and falling spiderwebs would fall in just the right way to form a shirt. It's possible. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>(talk)</tt>]] 09:38, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
:It's beret guy. The same guy with endless wings. What do you expect? [[Special:Contributions/76.122.5.96|76.122.5.96]] 13:46, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

However, something similar is used by Canadian artist Aganetha Dyck to persuade bees to create art on forms. An example here: http://inspiration-of-the-nation.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Aganetha-Dyck-bee-art.jpg Noni Mausa {{unsigned|64.254.188.208}}

It looks more like a sweater to me. [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 14:16, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

I came across the {{w|effect_of_psychoactive_drugs_on_animals|Effect of psychoactive drugs on animals}} once while researching caffeine and now is the PERFECT time to share. Spiders are right up front. [[User:DanB|DanB]] ([[User talk:DanB|talk]]) 16:49, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
:That's super interesting! Thanks for sharing! It's interesting that the article suggests that in contrast to the other drugs, LSD actually caused the spiders to build even more ordered webs than before. [[User:Erenan|Erenan]] ([[User talk:Erenan|talk]]) 16:39, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

I would think that arachnoarachnology would be the study of how spiders study spiders. Or the study of spiders by spiders. [[User:Bugefun|Bugefun]] ([[User talk:Bugefun|talk]]) 04:50, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Bugefun: That puzzled me too--does "arachno" have some alternate meaning there, or is he just implying that the study of spiders by spiders involves far too many spiders? [[Special:Contributions/128.252.102.199|128.252.102.199]] 12:33, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
arachnoarachnology = aarrrrch nooo arachnology

Talk:846: Dental Nerve

2015-02-21T15:01:12Z

108.162.219.160:

Modern science has yet to come up with any plausible theories as to ''why'' Ke$ha would even want to brush her teeth with a bottle of Jack Daniel's in the first place. [[Special:Contributions/71.201.53.130|71.201.53.130]] 20:33, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

How important is brushing and flossing really? Take a look at these Before & After images courtesy of a Shellharbour Dentist (http://shellharbourcitydental.com.au) {{unsigned ip|108.162.250.219}}

The page was the home page with no obvious link to whatever.

What's with the stressed syllables in caps in the title text? [[Special:Contributions/103.22.201.226|103.22.201.226]] 12:02, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
:It's to clarify which syllables are stressed. If you read it that way, it sounds like the original lyrics. [[User:Mezgrman|Mezgrman]] ([[User talk:Mezgrman|talk]]) 18:08, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Talk:1025: Tumblr

2015-02-21T15:00:30Z

108.162.219.160:

To me this is a lesson that without romance in our lives, our love may as well degrade to sex in a dungeon. Perhaps it's a sign that there is not enough bands singing about romance these days, just tits, ass and more tits and ass. - e-inspired [[Special:Contributions/98.211.199.84|98.211.199.84]] 15:32, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

:...dot Tumbler dot com. [[Special:Contributions/66.29.191.32|66.29.191.32]] 08:52, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I have no idea why, but for some reason, the comic image is blocked by AdBlock as an ad. (Fix please? :( )[[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.29|173.245.52.29]] 22:25, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
:I believe it's trying to be clever and match the image as a slightly modified 240x400 vertical rectangle ad. We can't change anything about the image on our end without compromising accuracy, but whitelisting us in Adblock should solve the problem. Alternately, there might be settings in Adblock to make it less paranoid about what classifies as an ad that you could tweak. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 22:38, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
::I found what was wrong, for anyone else who has this problem. The filter called "Fanboy's annoyances" was classifying this comic as an advertisement, so if anyone else has this problem, just turn off that filter in the Adblock settings. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.29|173.245.52.29]] 20:57, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Ha ha It bit off his penis has got to rank with he fell in the water for funny.

Talk:1107: Sports Cheat Sheet

2015-02-21T14:58:03Z

108.162.219.160:

Thanks to whoever added the hockey mention ("no love" in the comic, for sure). Maybe the comic needs another column for Canada, where hockey can be argued about year-round. (Yes, it's an exaggeration for comic effect.) As for the rest of the world, or at least ex-Commonwealth and neighboring countries (e.g. Australia, India, New Zealand), what about rugby and cricket? --'''BigMal27''' (no account) / [[Special:Contributions/192.136.15.177|192.136.15.177]] 15:29, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

What point in the season do hockey sticks get bandages?
I used to think at about the half way point they started using them as repairs but now I am wondering if they start off the season with bandages as padding until the players get seasoned.

:Forgot to mention that these sports don't have to be professional in nature. I know of plenty US collegiate arguments in both football (e.g. Michigan vs. Notre Dame or Michigan State or Ohio State) and basketball (everyone vs. everyone during the NCAA tournament a.k.a. "March Madness" (TM)). --'''BigMal27''' / [[Special:Contributions/192.136.15.177|192.136.15.177]] 17:33, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
::I'm with you on cricket, though I was always under the impression that rugby was pretty much isolated to ''dahwn undah.'' Nonetheless, I took a slightly different read of the comic, possibly biased by this quip a friend shared: during the SuperBowl, if a team scores, the US reacts. During the cricket world cup, if a team scores, the commonwealth reacts. But if, during the football (aka soccer) world cup, a team scores, the ''world'' reacts. -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 13:39, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
:::Irony, you're thinking of Australian Football. Rugby is a different game and much more widespread. It's arguably the national sport of New Zealand, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and Wales. It's a major sport in South Africa, Britain, Ireland, France, Italy and Australia. Argentina are rapidly improving and now compete every year in the southern hemisphere Rugby Championship with Australia, NZ and South Africa. -- [[User:Concrete Gannet|Concrete Gannet]] ([[User talk:Concrete Gannet|talk]]) 14:05, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
:::For us Aussies it this comic would be would be "Cricket + Football + Football + Football + Football" all year round with "Tennis" added in 1-2 weeks, four times a year (the Majors tournaments, aka the Grand Slam tournaments). The four Football codes played professional in Australia are: Australian Rules (major sporting body is the AFL), Rugby League (NRL), Rugby Union (ARU) and Association Football/Soccer (FFA). Unfortunately, Cricket, Football, Football, Football and Football tend to dominate the Australian sporting media so there isn't much opportunity for people to argue about other sports. [Apologies if I've stuffed up any formatting/broken any rules, this is my first time posting] -- '''Grantwhy'''[[Special:Contributions/115.64.240.30|115.64.240.30]] 15:32, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Cricket is a south Wales sport. It is only as popular in north Wales as it is in England. Cricket was once a gentleman's game as it was more akin to watching people shooting at target ...in a game related to chess.

But now that cheating is widespread in Asia and even the British are getting caught at it, nobody watches it these days. People still interested in cricket go to their local clubs and have a pint with friends while reality goes on in the back-ground.

I get the impression that nobody is interested in American Rugby because they all wear padding and the rules are either too complex to follow or too stupid to believe. Probably both. Basketball looks interesting but hard work. Why not just play a longer game outside, with your feet? (Nobody is going to watch men play rounders, its too gay.)

The problem with the suggestion in the mouse over text is that everyone would have the same opinion on the same day! A better idea would be to have an App which selects from two or more oposing opinions and feed you a random one each day. (Personally being 'European' I'd prefer it to be more like the US! Sooo fed up with football discussions.) Steve B
:Then you run into the problem of two people who rely in that app falling into a sports discussion with each other rather than something else. If I were to find someone expressing the same canned opinion that I have from the twitter feed, at least I can say "who cares about sports, let's talk about something important: vi or emacs?". The twitter feed is best for someone who wants to fake sports knowledge to fit in. [[User:Blaisepascal|Blaisepascal]] ([[User talk:Blaisepascal|talk]]) 16:12, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
:The idea behind the twitter feed is to give people who really isn't interested in sport (aka. nerds) the opportunity to interact with so called normal people. It is just a variation on the http://bluffball.co.uk/ site refered to by [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKHyqjHqQLU#t=32s an The IT Crowd episode]. Two users of the twitter feed would have more important subjects to discuss (like for example vi vs. emacs) [[User:Pmakholm|Pmakholm]] ([[User talk:Pmakholm|talk]]) 18:12, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
:: I would suggest that after two or three days having the same (tweeted) opinion, two people in that situation would begin to suspect they are soulmates, and fall in love - I mean recognize the strange similarities and figure out a way to indicate their source subtly and then agree they don't have to be posers -- [[User:Brettpeirce|Brettpeirce]] ([[User talk:Brettpeirce|talk]]) 14:15, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
What is with the sports bent that Randall is on? Two sports comics in three weeks? Has this happened before? [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 15:36, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

:He was on a Wikipedia kick about a year ago . . . 4 comics in about 5 weeks or so.--[[User:Joehammer79|Joehammer79]] ([[User talk:Joehammer79|talk]]) 22:07, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Would that opinion even fit into a Twitter post? [[Special:Contributions/76.122.5.96|76.122.5.96]] 20:55, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

:You are right. The sample tweet in the title text is 164 characters long. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 21:18, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

::It would fit if the parenthetical explanations were removed though. [[Special:Contributions/76.127.162.20|76.127.162.20]] 12:03, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

:::Kind of need those if you don't understand the sport to begin with. They provide necessary context. For example, disambiguation between teams: I could mention "Minnesota" and without context it could mean either the Twins (MLB), Vikings (NFL), Timberwolves (NBA), Wild (NHL), Lynx (WNBA), other various professional teams ("lesser" sports, womens teams, minor leagues), or any of the University of Minnesota (NCAA Div. I) teams: football, basketball (mens & womens), hockey (mens & womens), baseball & softball, wrestling, gymnastics, swimming & diving, golf... --'''BigMal27''' / [[Special:Contributions/192.136.15.149|192.136.15.149]] 12:18, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Here's a comment I was thinking about integrating into the explanation, but decided it was probably too picky.
:Arguably, Randall cut this off too early; over years, the Major Leagues have added additional rounds of playoffs, so that the championship round, the World Series, sometimes now spills over into November, rather than ending in mid October as the graph would suggest. (It varies because the {{w|Major League Baseball postseason}} consists of one single elimination round, one best of five round, and two best of seven rounds.) It may be a meta-joke: the guy who needs the cheat sheet to keep track of sports seasons lacked the info to compile the cheat sheet.
I do have a slight tendency to overthink things. Anyone who thinks it adds to the explanation is welcome to insert it. [[User:DCB4W|DCB4W]] ([[User talk:DCB4W|talk]]) 19:25, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

It's entirely missing a third category named "South Korea", whose entire column should be Starcraft 2.[[User:Chaoslux|Chaoslux]] ([[User talk:Chaoslux|talk]]) 20:53, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Here's an actual Twitter feed inspired by this comic: https://twitter.com/XKCDSports
:This Twitter feed is now defunct. :( --[[User:Ricketybridge|Ricketybridge]] ([[User talk:Ricketybridge|talk]]) 16:53, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

The opinion here between "US" and "Non-US" is a caricature of US-centric view. First it dismisses all other countries, as the world would be cut between the US and another country "Non-US". The consequence is to ignore Canada. Then it confuses single sport to argue about and common topic of understanding, maybe as a frustration of not sharing this topic. {{unsigned|Eric957}}

Talk:938: T-Cells

2015-02-21T14:57:20Z

108.162.219.160:

Does anyone have a link to the actual article? Or possibly a proper citation? {{unsigned ip|192.17.144.82}}
:I have added such a link in the explanation. Unfortunately, you have to subscribe to the magazine asterisked in the comic, so the link goes to another one. It also helps to Google "nejm aug 10 2011". Anonymous 04:51, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Trial appears to have been a success, although the patient now has no B-cells and thus a compromised immune system (will need regular gamma globulin transfusions and the like). [[Special:Contributions/75.103.23.206|75.103.23.206]] 16:54, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Looks to be this article here [http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1103849] and [http://kiefercon.tumblr.com/]. I'll stick with chemo, thanks. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.87|173.245.54.87]] 16:36, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

I know it's a joke, but just in case people are taking this seriously, this is worth a read. [http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2013/06/25/no-doctors-did-not-inject-hiv-into-a-dying-girl-to-treat-her-cancer/] The key word should have been "lentivirus", not "HIV". The T cells were modified using a heavily altered lentivirus derived from HIV. The virus shouldn't be referred to as HIV, though it makes for some great headlines. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.167|199.27.128.167]] 20:40, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Before WWII there was an succesful method of curing syphilis with malaria (malariotherapy). Maybe a reference[[Special:Contributions/141.101.96.217|141.101.96.217]] 11:32, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Interesting. I had heard a "story" some time ago that disease brought to higher latitudes from newly discovered tropical countries laid waste to myriads due to the fact that the climate was cooler. Maybe it was related to the lack of suitable pathogens in the communities.

Isn't "HIV virus" redundant? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.42|108.162.245.42]] 02:24, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
:Yes, yes it is. Anonymous 20:25, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Talk:941: Depth Perception

2015-02-21T14:56:34Z

108.162.219.160:

Somebody needs to try this. Couldn't be that hard.
[[Special:Contributions/71.178.11.180|71.178.11.180]] 21:27, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Those must have been some tall goalposts if his point of view is above the clouds! -- mwburden [[Special:Contributions/70.91.188.49|70.91.188.49]] 13:16, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Also, the cameras should be mounted on servos so that when the phone is moved or tilted the cameras can follow, so your viewpoint isn't fixed in one direction. -- mwburden [[Special:Contributions/70.91.188.49|70.91.188.49]] 13:18, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

:That wouldn't work. The entire football field would have to swivel, or else he'd get some wicked image shearing... [[Special:Contributions/108.28.72.186|108.28.72.186]] 01:42, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

::actually, it might be possible to correct for that, using bipolar geometry. Essentially, you can derive a 3d model from 2 images from different view points. [http://danielwedge.com/fmatrix/ Here] is a (very geeky) demontration of what can be done. Watch the end, where they construct a fly-around video from two images of the opera house in sidney. -- [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.22|141.101.104.22]] 21:10, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

An updated solution would be to put the two stabilised cameras on quadracopters which are coded to remain a set distance apart. When you want to look left/right it would take a while for the pair of drones to rotate around their centre point but not too long..... Then you could also get a perspective from the height of a giant (drones can go to any height) and with their degree of parallax (from whatever value of height and eye spacing you choose). {{unsigned ip|108.162.250.225}}
:This is a very cool project indeed! Some hardcore image stabilizing software would be required too, since you would get nauseous if the two images weren't perfectly aligned at all times. But this setup is the only one I could think of that would enable you to perceive the view from the last frame. [[User:Mumiemonstret|Mumiemonstret]] ([[User talk:Mumiemonstret|talk]]) 08:44, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Look at this in stereo mode: http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/Solar and cross your eyes so you see three images, then hold your hands up so you only see the one, then...
I forget...

I used to do that all the time at one time ... until I got a l...ot of things different to do..

Talk:977: Map Projections

2015-02-21T14:55:09Z

108.162.219.160:

I have a Plate Carrée hanging on my wall myself. Never failed me yet. '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:05, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

;Dymaxion
Dymaxion is clearly the best. There's nothing like a map made out of an unfolded d20. [[User:Alpha|Alpha]] ([[User talk:Alpha|talk]]) 19:43, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

: Makes you wonder what if a dodecahedron had been used instead of an icosahedron. --[[User:Quicksilver|Quicksilver]] ([[User talk:Quicksilver|talk]]) 18:02, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

;Quincunx
Peirce Quincuncial has 4 non-conformal points, but not the 4 corners, which are the south pole, but instead are the 4 midpoints of the sides. These are on the equator and seem to be 90 degrees apart.--DrMath 06:30, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
: I love Peirce Quincuncial, yet I slept throughout that "Inception". [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.228|141.101.99.228]] 11:36, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
: I'm surprised nobody thought of "''really'' looking at your hands" as a hint that person that likes this projection is under influence of LSD or similar drug. As this surely is a thing that you do. (and you'll think of it next time you smoke your joint - inception!) --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.137|108.162.254.137]] 17:29, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Plus it has a picture of a man looking at his hand and a man looking at the man looking at his hand.

xkcd 1051's title text - "meta lucid dreaming". I really got excited that there was an article about and ironically, it leads to meta and lucid dreaming separately. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.67|173.245.55.67]] 21:23, 25 March 2014 (UTC)BK201
;Waterman

In actual fact, the Waterman butterfly map used a truncated octahedron based upon the mathematics of close packing of spheres and is not at all based upon any of CaHill's work/math.
-- steve waterman {{unsigned ip|65.92.20.61}}
:Perhaps the explanation should mention that Waterman himself signed up at forum.xkcd.com and vigorously denied that his map has anything to do with Cahill. At the time, it was unclear whether the account was really Waterman, or just a troll trying to make him look bad. - [[User:Frankie|Frankie]] ([[User talk:Frankie|talk]]) 21:39, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

;Kavrayskiy VII
Kavrayskiy is the best projection, despite being so far out of the mainstream that no-one west of Ukraine has seen one for the past 20 years. {{unsigned ip|173.245.54.64}}
:Wow, I looked into it and it really seems like an excellent projection. It's been a while since I've looked at projections but I think it's my new favourite as it has everything that I've been looking for in a projection. It's a more accurate (in extremes) and more pleasing Robinson projection that still has a reasonable amount cut off the top. Also, the indicatrix for it is very simple, as is the formula, and simple things please simple minds (like mine, apparently) -- without taking it to an extreme like the equirectangular projection does. I swear I've come across it before, but then again I grew up in a country which wasn't far from the Eastern Bloc. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.214|141.101.98.214]] 14:51, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

;Sphere
To be fair, what is drawn is an orthographic azimuthal projection.--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.153|108.162.216.153]] 18:59, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

The explanation for the Peirce Quincuncial seems to miss the fact that Randall is implying that anyone who likes this map is most likely high. Getting lost in deep thought over things like your hands, or sitting in a dark theater for 6 hours to wrap your head around Inception...these are all very stereotypical "has smoke a lot of marijuana" behaviors. {{unsigned ip|108.162.216.21}}

Talk:1070: Words for Small Sets

2015-02-21T14:54:21Z

108.162.219.160:

I disagree on "A Handful" and "Several". A Handful should be about 4 to 7 and several should be 6 to 8, averaging about 7, which sounds just like several. The other two are within the range that makes sense to me. Also, check out how he sneaks "a couple of friends" and "all three of them" into the image text very sneakily. [[User:Jeff]] - From the blog
:Dude, that's the point. You've been trolled. --[[User:Castriff|Jimmy C]] ([[User talk:Castriff|talk]]) 11:43, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Several is two or more.

A handful to me is just that. A dozen berries, one hand grenade, 2-3 sticks of TNT, a bird (2 in a bush else where gives 3) or a wild blonde (more than 1 way to be a handful I guess). [[User:DruidDriver|DruidDriver]] ([[User talk:DruidDriver|talk]]) 07:09, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

English isn't my natural language, but how common is the word "acrimonious"? Should it be explained? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.56|108.162.254.56]] 03:40, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
:Online dictionaries should help. I'm using some addons to my Firefox to help me. The simplest meaning for "acrimonious" should be "bitter", but this is still one of those words hard to describe. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:56, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm inclined to interpret the hover text as him saying that a couple does mean more than two. A couple of friends, and then all three of them. However, the entry does not agree with me. Thoughts? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.28|173.245.52.28]] 09:10, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
: My guess is that the entry interpreted "all three of them agree" as "your couple of friends agree with you". I think Randell would sooner troll than use inconsistent grammar so, I also think Randell was using couple to mean 3 friends. [[User:Who PhD|Who PhD]] ([[User talk:Who PhD|talk]]) 13:58, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

There is a similar ambiguity in German, where "ein paar", which literally means "a couple", is used to say "a few". In Italian the ambiguity is even stronger, as certain regions tend to use "un paio" only in the literal sense, while others mean it figuratively. A friend of mine came from Tuscany to Sardinia and one day told me: "I asked for a couple of cigarette packs, and the clerk said ok, how many? and I said, a couple, and he answered yes, how many precisely, and I had to say, uh, two? What an idiot". I had to explain to her that where I live it was not THAT straightforward that couple == 2 --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.31|108.162.229.31]] 08:01, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

This question has been settled before. A few = 1—4, several = 5—9, a pack = 10—19, a lot = 20—49, … --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.192|141.101.105.192]] 13:14, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

How much/many is/are a cupfull?

[Yoseph] - all those words change based on context, for example: A handful of ants(that would probably reffer to something like 60 ants), but a handfull of crackers(would be like 12 crackers), and a handful of batteries(would be something like 6). and so goes for couple(a couple of cars[thats like 2], but a couple weeks ago[thats like 2-3]). {{unsigned ip|199.27.133.56}}

Talk:792: Password Reuse

2015-02-21T14:53:43Z

108.162.219.160:

And now it turns out that Google gives our data to NSA....sigh. [[Special:Contributions/24.7.241.154|24.7.241.154]] 07:58, 11 June 2013 (UTC)Monica

What happened in March of 1997? [[User:MR|MR]] ([[User talk:MR|talk]]) 18:23, 4 April 2013 (UTC)MR

Hi! After consulting Wikipedia's article about March 1997 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997), I think there are two main incidents Black Hat could refer to:
*The '''Phoenix Lights''', a group of supposed UFOs, turned out to be probably military aircrafts.
*The mass suicide committed by 39 '''Heaven's Gate''' cultists.
Since we know little about Black Hat's life in 1997, we could argue that he was expecting an extra-terrestrial contact or that he was attracted by the ideas of that creed - and that the disillusion brought him his present disbelief in things.
Of course those are just hypotheses, and don't seem to fit the character as we know him...[[User:Inverno1407|Inverno1407]] ([[User talk:Inverno1407|talk]]) 11:30, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

----
: 
:"In the conclusion, Black Hat reveals that the only thing he's doing with all his hacked user accounts is to post slightly inaccurate content on Wiki sites."

This paragraph has been present since this explanation was added. I can't see how it is arrived at from the comic. (So I wonder who [[User:148.87.67.212]] might have been...) [[User:Markhurd|Mark Hurd]] ([[User talk:Markhurd|talk]]) 14:10, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I removed some slightly inaccurate content from this wiki. It was the bit about Black Hat posting slightly inaccurate content on wiki sites.[[Special:Contributions/86.40.93.217|86.40.93.217]] 00:33, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Does anyone know if he had anything to do with the article on "taking the piss"?
----
How does this compare in light of [[792:_Password_Reuse|792:Password Reuse]]? [[User:Saibot84|Saibot84]] ([[User talk:Saibot84|talk]]) 05:06, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

The "March 1997" issue is still a mystery to me. May be a global computer virus attack? I will go through all days on wikipedia. The month summery presents not the solution.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 17:27, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Conisdering how blackhat loves messing with people, I seriously doubt anything at all hapened in March 1997. He's just messing with us! [[Special:Contributions/189.5.106.228|189.5.106.228]] 02:43, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Oooo, I dunno. Given Black Hat's odd tastes, *anything* from March 1997 could have caused him to lose his faith: Paul McCartney being knighted, Tom Cruise winning an Oscar, the U.S. Supreme Court hearing arguments on Internet Indecency, India's Ministry of Charity choosing a successor to Mother Theresa, Gene Roddenberry's ashes going into orbit, the Brazil Senate finally allowing women members to wear slacks... Anything!! [[http://www.historyorb.com/events/date/1997/march]]
:Wow, look at this historical CNN page: [http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1997/03/19/scotus.cda/ http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1997/03/19/scotus.cda/]. The {{w|Communications Decency Act}} is the most likely item from your list.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 08:21, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
:39 Heaven's Gate cultists committed mass suicide

If he was upset at causing their deaths or having accomplished their deaths, has little to prove now nor reason to repeat the act, he is on pause; we wait.
----
My opinion is that Black Hat referred to Bill Clinton banning federal funding for research on human cloning in March 1997.{{unsigned ip|108.162.242.5}}
:How would that create an hiatus in Back Hat's career?

Talk:675: Revolutionary

2015-02-21T14:52:56Z

108.162.219.160:

Looks like this guy doesn't know about Lorentz contraction and time dilation. That or he's so confident about his idea that he hasn't bothered to look further into the subject. --[[User:ParadoX|ParadoX]] ([[User talk:ParadoX|talk]]) 09:24, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
Looks like this guy

They both look the same to me. Which one do you mean?

I guess that the mouseover text refer to the Occam's razor, a favourite tool of many philosophers. --[[User:Barfolomio|Barfolomio]] ([[User talk:Barfolomio|talk]]) 14:07, 21 August 2014 (UTC)
:Welcome '''Barfolomio''', but I think the {{w|Occam's razor}} principle wasn't in mind of Randall when he wrote this comic. But it's a nice find and maybe it should be mentioned. Nevertheless the title text explain is wrong, reading all the math and physics books is much harder then just inventing a "racecar on a train" theory as a philosopher. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:09, 21 August 2014 (UTC)
::The title text specifically compares two things.
::*That I have uncovered fundamental flaws in this field that no one in it has ever thought about (implying that decades of work by numerous physicists is wrong)
::*That I need to read a little more.
::The actual invention of the idea doesn't come into it. It takes minimal effort to invent an incorrect theory.
::In the vast majority of these cases, reading a little bit more into the subject results in finding out that the flaw you think have found is in fact already explained.
::As an example, lets say a high school student happens to do sqrt(5-6), he thinks he has uncovered a sum which has no answer. His calculator tells him 'Error'. In fact, with a little more reading, he would discover that mathematicians have a whole area devoted to this type of maths, namely {{w|Imaginary unit|imaginary numbers}}. --[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 15:43, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

The relativity sections of physics forums like www.physicsforums.com, despite having FAQs and pinned posts with explanations, are often full with new threads claiming that relativity is obviously wrong because of "insert simple example here that uses normal velocity addition instead of Lorentz transforms", maybe Randall is a participant in such a forum? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.93.206|141.101.93.206]] 08:32, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
: None the less the fact remains that there are at least three completely different explanations known. Or at least there were, the last time I spent a couple of hours on the subject (one hell of a while back.)
:Once I got to the fact that there were a lot of alternative values for time -let's face it, that is what it is all about in the first place... I just lost interest.

Dgbrt, I have reverted your edit which removed the example using imaginary numbers. I understand that the example uses imaginary numbers which are not referenced in the comic, however rather than removing a paragraph which gives a succinct example of the comics content (and points out that it is only an example), it would be far more useful to change the paragraph to reference special relativity instead of imaginary numbers. There are two reasons I didn't do this when I wrote the paragraph: Firstly, I don't understand special relativity in enough detail to give an example where a 'flaw' is easily explained, and secondly most readers probably don't either. Because of this I used imaginary numbers which I would think a larger proportion of people have come across in some form before. --[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 10:15, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
:I removed this paragraph because "sqrt(5-6)" or "imaginary numbers" do not help to explain the comics content — less than 5% will understand only that phrases. We can't explain special relativity — using "imaginary numbers" — to a common reader. BUT we can explain how or why some people NOT understanding Einstein still trying to invent better solutions... without any knowledge of the real matter. I did not remove it again, so it's up to you to give a better explain.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:27, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
::I disagree that it doesn't help the explanation. It gives a fairly simple example of somebody who thinks they have found a flaw, but where it would take minimal extra reading to realise its actually not a flaw (which is the whole concept of this comic). I would argue that substantially more than 5% of readers will have come across imaginary numbers, if they haven't then the wiki link is there for them to look them up. The fact that it refers to imaginary numbers is actually not even particularly relevant, only that there is a field of mathematics to explain the sqrt(5-6) "flaw". Maybe the explanation could be improved by changing the example to relate to special relativity, but as I said before I'm not qualified to write that. --[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 09:21, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Talk:984: Space Launch System

2015-02-21T14:51:24Z

108.162.219.160:

But then we built a whole pile of rockets after that. Apollo, moon landing, mars rover, etc. Boo Black Hat.06:53, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
:"Apollo, moon landing" -- that is, in fact, the Saturn V, built by von Braun, captured Nazi scientist, and his team, largely captured Nazi scientists. Yes, other rockets were built after the Saturn V, but as pointed out in the strip, none have been bigger or more powerful. "Finally, rockets that improve on the ones we had 40 years ago."
:The first Mars lander (true, not a rover), Viking I, was launched on an Titan/Centaur. The Centaur was a co-creation of Krafft A. Ehricke, nazi scientist.
:Mars Sojourner, a rover, part of the Mars Pathfinder mission, was launched on a Delta II rocket. The Delta family of rockets are based on the Thor ballistic missile. The Thor was originally co-developed by Dr. Adolph K. Thiel, Nazi scientist.
:You see where this is going? {{unsigned|212.149.48.43}}

Technically, von Braun wasn't captured. He voluntarily defected. He was wandering Germany because he had chosen to no longer support Hitler, so to stay at the concentration camp where he worked, or anywhere where a Nazi soldier could find him was suicide, so he escaped and was wandering out alone. He surrendered and defected to the first allied troops he saw, which just happened to be American. This is why he worked on the space programme instead of being shot on sight. By the time he was building American rockets, he hadn't been a Nazi for years.[[Special:Contributions/76.29.225.28|76.29.225.28]] 14:40, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
:You're way off the mark. He was never opposed to the Nazis per se, but did understandably start grumbling a bit when he realized this Endsieg thing wasn't really working out. He and his team left the base because they, again understandably, did not want to be prisoners of the Red Army and Soviet Russia. Then, when the Americans finally caught up with them, he surrendered himself, avoiding execution by guards at the same time. --[[User:Qwach|Qwach]] ([[User talk:Qwach|talk]]) 02:19, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

So he was one of the good guys?
Not like the other guards and related personnel who didn't want anyone to know they were intimately involved in any of what they were so intimately involved with?
Someone tell me how the USA isn't a working example of Nazi Germany.

;Incomplete

Oh, this comic is one of the "more complex" ones. The time line (not the comic sequence) is starting with the US failures to archive space flight in the 1950's, then referring to Nazis, and by the end we are on the current US space policy, which is also highly questionable.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:51, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean by one of the "more complex" ones, it is actually pretty straightforward. Some nitpicking though: there was no US failure to achieve space flight in the 50s; both the US and the USSR did it within 4 months of each other at the end of 1957/beginning of 1958. A little history lesson:
The Space Race didn't begin until July of 1955, when the US announced its intention to launch Earth-orbiting satellites sometime between July 1st 1957 and December 31st 1958. The USSR followed suit shortly afterwards, and by the end of August 1955 the Soviet Academy of Sciences created a commission (i.e. offered support and possibly some sort of incentive) for the sole purpose of beating the US into space - which they ended up doing with Sputnik 1 (10/04/57) and 2 (11/03/57). The creation of that commission is considered the start of the space race. The US launched its first successful satellite a few months after the Sputniks, the Explorer 1, on February 1, 1958, well within what most people would call the 1950s. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.80|108.162.216.80]] 19:53, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Which is not to say that Maria Cary is a rocket scientist or not, as the case may be.
Doh Shania Twain. (It's amazing what you can learn when you check your spelling.)

Talk:1078: Knights

2015-02-21T14:49:23Z

108.162.219.160:

At the beginning of a chess game, neither knight can move to e3. The proper move (and the move actually made, in the picture) is Nf3. The Nc3 move is correct.
[[Special:Contributions/128.187.97.21|128.187.97.21]] 23:44, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

: Indeed, thanks for pointing that out; the move was corrected on xkcd.com, so I did the same here. - [[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 13:53, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Why didn't black move? {{unsigned ip|108.162.246.120}}
:He did. The lines represent black pawns raining down a hail of arrows to kill the knights. {{unsigned ip|173.245.56.61}}

I seem to remember that the bows and arrows at Agincourt (and thereby taking down the horses) was something of a surprise -- as it would be in chess, as well (otherwise, they wouldn't have made their horses so vulnerable). I'm too lazy to look this up myself, so if anyone already knows a bunch about that, that'd be something to add. --[[User:Ricketybridge|Ricketybridge]] ([[User talk:Ricketybridge|talk]]) 23:05, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

:It was a surprise because on other terrain it wouldn't have worked (the ground was muddy, impeding cavalry, and the approach was narrow, making it a shooting gallery; under more favorable conditions for cavalry, the knights would have closed and slaughtered bowmen before the bowmen managed to take down more than a handful of them). Plus the French were stupid; obviously, they must have noticed that the terrain was not ideal, but apparently they vastly underestimated how much difference it would make. [[User:Protagoras|Protagoras]] ([[User talk:Protagoras|talk]]) 04:08, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Someone wins and someone loses every game. We don't know what really happened. Wikipedia tells us the ground was muddy without explaining why or why it was an hindrance to the white team. Why (for example) would the ground have been ploughed in October (the season of mellow fruitfulness)?

Presumably there is no limit to how many troops the locals can muster; just a limit to how many they could train and deploy correctly. But Henry was the challenger, fighting was on his side, a winter war with the logistics problem was not.

The story is the stuff of comics.

There was no such thing a French in those days. All loyalties were a political net that would change like the wind. Popular misconception is the the English would not have to so much to win. In fact they would have had to do nearly everything and at the double. (Example gratis:) Moving the stake barrages closer to the French arrows. How would they have done that?
Who knows?
They were low Welsh and English hoi palloi of little account.

Talk:900: Religions

2015-02-21T14:48:14Z

108.162.219.160:

Where's the experimental evidence that there is actually a god? '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 02:01, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

:Consider who is proposing such an experiment. QED. [[Special:Contributions/184.66.160.91|184.66.160.91]] 03:10, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Subjectivism is the provenance of earth-scientists and the devout. But god preserve us from the devout earth-scientists. (That's the thing about god, he's the only one who can get the monkey off your back.)

:The Bible, duh!  [[User:Alpha|Alpha]] ([[User talk:Alpha|talk]]) 00:22, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

:I'm sure you can find not one but several definitions of god with experimental evidence. Of course, this says more about how vague definitions of god are that about the god. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 00:06, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

::Agreed. There are no proof that no god exist, only some proof that certain definition of god cannot be true. [[User:Arifsaha|Arifsaha]] ([[User talk:Arifsaha|talk]]) 20:49, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Oddly considering Paul was Jewish (as was Jesus) most Christian versions of the bible have slanted their beliefs to allow a comma after the word father in the verse quoted. Just found out that so do Unitarian bibles. Does Jewish have commas?

The play on the quote in the comic is that it is plus or minus Jesus as god in that verse. Rather a loaded quote from a trained lawyer!

PPS: IANAL.

:Assuming you mean the quote from Corinthians, that's in the New Testament only. Jews don't have that book at all.--[[Special:Contributions/199.27.133.131|199.27.133.131]] 02:19, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Talk:967: Prairie

2015-02-21T14:47:07Z

108.162.219.160:

Except it's not a perfect analogy because each grain is a separate entity, and it's an external force, the wind, that produces the wave motion. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|purple|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:24, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

: It actually works out better than you think, because a laser requires an external energy source to {{w|Laser pumping|pump}} it. Colorado is also shaped like a {{w|Optical cavity|laser cavity}}. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.48.125|173.245.48.125]] 06:36, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

;Purple Mountains Majesties
The song America the Beautiful was written by Katharine Lee Bates, originally in the form of a poem entitled "Pikes Peak", which is a 14,000+ foot peak in Colorado Springs. I changed the phrasing of the article from "which '''may''' in fact allude to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado" to "which '''does''' in fact allude to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado." There is no question of whether the song refers to the Colorado Rocky Mountains.--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.55|108.162.215.55]] 20:36, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

"There is a long running joke in the Rocky Mountain West of completely obliterating nearby states, and in particular Nebraska."
Can someone explain this? Maybe it's just because I'm from the east coast, but I have never heard anything about this. Where does the joke come from? How does it go? [[User:Leafy Greens|Leafy Greens]] ([[User talk:Leafy Greens|talk]]) 23:26, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
: First you kill all the bison then eradicate the remains of the population and replace them with a people who have no knowledge or respect for the land.

In one generation the waves are harnessed to destroy.

HTH.

No I don't think it's one of your best ones either.

One thing to note, the Greeks used the word ēlektron to designate amber, which they observed to have an attractive effect on small objects when rubbed with fur. The electron was the subatomic particle observed in the famous double slit experiment to exhibit properties of both particles and waves. [[User:Grizzly1|Grizzly1]] ([[User talk:Grizzly1|talk]]) 06:46, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Talk:978: Citogenesis

2015-02-21T14:46:02Z

108.162.219.160:

Bonus points if the editor citing the work is also the person who created the fake source!'''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 06:59, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

The title text is not addressed in the explanation. I've read some popular science books, but they do not seem to suffer the problem cited there. Maybe there's a particular brand of pop science that is very susceptible to that sort of problem? --[[User:Quicksilver|Quicksilver]] ([[User talk:Quicksilver|talk]]) 17:48, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
:We probably never will know, but as the comic itself says: Google is your friend! I found a nice story at the [http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?t=76475 xkcd forum] belonging to the German minister {{w|Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg}}. I have added this to the trivia section.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 12:00, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

On a more amusing note, it is impossible to actually verify half of the obscure references on Wikipedia, as they are often magazines or books unlikely to be kept by typical libraries. One could easily fake an obscure reference if you know of a book with a title that seemingly pertains to the subject matter, but you know that the book had a printing run of less then 10,000 copies.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.63|108.162.215.63]] 18:09, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

On a less amusing note it costs 30 dollars/pounds/euros to get a copy of a scientific article that may or may not be useful for journalists that may or may not have free access to said data. Or you could get a pirated copy of it from a suicidal source and have the FBI come after you instead.

This article doesn't actually explain the self-sustaining cycle that is the point of the article. It references citogenesis and where the word was derived, and references wikipedia. None of that explains the "fake article" -> "news writer references article" -> "wiki editor adds citation of news writer" -> "fake article referenced in other news". [[User:Cflare|Cflare]] ([[User talk:Cflare|talk]]) 18:56, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Actually in the comic, citogenesis looks very similar to cyclogenesis.

Talk:1315: Questions for God

2015-02-21T14:44:47Z

108.162.219.160:

Hey, Arnold! [[User:Greyson|Greyson]] ([[User talk:Greyson|talk]]) 13:51, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

The Shadow cannot provide an answer because steamboats--boats and ships specifically, and generally anything you ride on--are gendered as "women" in the English language. [[User:Kevin11 11|Kevin11 11]] ([[User talk:Kevin11 11|talk]]) 14:30, 10 January 2014 (UTC)Kevin 11_11

The description of The Shadow is not quite right. The radio character had "the power to cloud men's minds so they cannot see him", but the pulp magazine character did not. He used his black cloak and slouch hat to blend into the shadows and he was a master of disguise. {{unsigned ip|199.27.128.139}}

Hi? As a Mathematician, I feel the Shadow should just program around quantum mechanics in general. Simplifies the problem. This is the algorithm now. 07:15, 12 January 2014 (UTC) {{unsigned|Anomulus}}
I think Eric Laithwaite on gyroscopes unknowingly explained the behaviour of storms. Three tropical storms on the go simultaneously will on cyclosis resolve or devolve into a VEI event.
When they hit a continental shelf (thus causing cyclosis) the tilt causes a fundamental change in fluid dynamics and a change of state takes place as the energy moves underground.
In an as yet inexplicable paradox(?) there are NO tropical storms when a super-quake strikes. The base-line appears to be 5.6 M after a lull in medium sized quakes.

Talk:1059: Bel-Air

2015-02-21T14:43:43Z

108.162.219.160:

Doggerel verse? Mixed with rap? What is this blasphemy? '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 13:46, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

It seems that the 'click' was precisely timed so that Cueball could avoid hearing 'philadelphia' rhyme with 'adele for you'. I strongly support this decision. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.223|108.162.219.223]] 06:10, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

:Agreed, added to explanation. --[[User:Someone Else 37|Someone Else 37]] ([[User talk:Someone Else 37|talk]]) 03:29, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

So kick back, relax, lemme put on some Adele for ya, while I tell you why I'm running for mayor of Philaphiu?

They made me do it

And then they ran away.

Talk:965: Elements

2015-02-21T14:42:47Z

108.162.219.160:

Where did Mendeleev get the polonium from? Can he transmute elements or something? '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|purple|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:26, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
:Did someone say transmute? {{unsigned ip|108.162.219.5}}

Just because he died in the dawn of the era of modern fission research it doesn't necessarily follow he disbelieved in the previous manifestation of that branch of physics.

:If the water in Aang's body (or the water he's bending) came from the Lohontan valley region of Nevada, then his body can have as much as .2 picocuries per liter.[http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/fallon/polonium_faqs.pdf] this is not enough to kill you or even get you sick, but if Aang is bringing enough water into this epic battle Mendeleev could pull a lethal dose from that. The odds that this battle is taking place in Nevada are probably on a par with the actual Mendeleev meeting the fictional Aang. {{unsigned ip|170.170.59.139}}
Sodium bending would have been much more spectacular, due to the water.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.202|108.162.219.202]] 04:19, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

"2. Elements which are similar regarding their chemical properties have atomic weights which are either of nearly the same value (e.g., Pt, Ir, Os) or which increase regularly (e.g., K, Rb, Cs).

3. The arrangement of the elements in groups of elements in the order of their atomic weights corresponds to their so-called valencies, as well as, to some extent, to their distinctive chemical properties; as is apparent among other series in that of Li, Be, B, C, N, O, and F."

Mendeleev was the inventor of the original periodic chart which looks nothing like the modern one. The inventor of the Modern periodic chart was Glenn Seaborg. Kinda sorta. At least you would recognize Seaborg's chart as the modern one where if you saw Mendeleev's you would just go "WTF?". OTOH, both Seaborg and Mendeleev have elements named after them and you do not. --[[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.11|173.245.54.11]] 17:53, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Even though he never finalised it, it is pretty obvious that it was going to unfold exactly as he supposed it would.

Talk:862: Let Go

2015-02-21T14:34:59Z

108.162.219.160:

Try an RSS feed. You only have to refresh one source, which cuts back on all the links that you visit daily massively. Google reader is what I prefer myself, but that's just me. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|purple|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 10:04, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
:RIP Google Reader. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 19:17, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

First of all, please pardon my english, I am not a native speaker. I'm afraid I don't entirely share your point of view about Oman and the Indian Ocean. First because what I see on the map is not the Indian Ocean. It's Cyprus, Northern Egypt and the Middle East (lands are white) and the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf (seas are grey).
'''I agree that we can't see Oman on this map''', though. But (99% of) Oman is not situated on the Persian Gulf; it's on the Gulf of... Oman and on the Arabian Sea, both of which can be considered as parts of the Indian Ocean.
Nevertheless, thanks for your explanation. I love xkcd and I am sure I used to miss a lot of the fun, when I read it without knowing this wiki. Xavier [[Special:Contributions/82.226.129.79|82.226.129.79]] 12:40, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

:That's the joke, right? That they don't know where it is or can't find it. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.158|108.162.215.158]] 12:28, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
::So, where are the bees?
I get the impression that dormant African bee genes won out over the Italian strain when they were confronted with the poisonous residue from careless orchard owners. It would explain that some bees remained whilst whole colonies deserted.

Wherever they are: May the force be with you, little sweeties.

Talk:867: Herpetology

2015-02-21T14:32:25Z

108.162.219.160:

At their own conference, they retaliate with a chart that purports to demonstrate that douchebags and ornithologists are more closely related to each other than either are to "nice people", and they can therefore be grouped into an encompassing "asshole" classification. Since the intent of the earlier presentation was presumably to rile herpetologists rather than achieve any particular scientific goal, this response seems appropriate.

Such a response is more likely to place you into the hands of someone who is planning to set you up. When you are attacked the first, reaction is to close-up. Next you check for damage and alert damage control if you have damage to report. Next you post watches and keep on the alert.

Once you have information on the source of the attack, the likely intent and how well it was accomplished you draw up a guarded response. You are still not going to be sure that an attack from you will be successful.

If it is going to be successful an attack will be the last thing you need to do.
If it isn't going to be successful an attack is the last thing you ought to do.
(Unless you want to join the dinosaurs in a game of how high can you jump from a tree (with enough rope.))

Talk:870: Advertising

2015-02-21T14:30:21Z

108.162.219.160:

But the Geico commercial doesn't say up to, it says 15% or more... ~Jfreund
:That may depend on your region. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.30|108.162.216.30]] 03:24, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
:Saying that something "could save you 15% or more" and saying it "could save you ''up to'' 15% or more" are the same thing. Both statements take into account the very real possibility that some percentage less than 15 could be saved.[[User:Orazor|Orazor]] ([[User talk:Orazor|talk]]) 13:37, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Not to mention that Geico says "'''Could''' save you..." (In combination with "up to", the "could" should be "will".) [[User:Z|Z]] ([[User talk:Z|talk]]) 03:09, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

A justification for "The more you buy, the more you save" is that the more discounted products you buy, the more money you save as opposed to buying them at list price. For things we will buy anyway (e.g. food), it may be true. --[[User:Troy0|Troy0]] ([[User talk:Troy0|talk]]) 20:01, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
:Added to the article. --[[User:Troy0|Troy0]] ([[User talk:Troy0|talk]]) 04:10, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
::It doesn't work when the items can expire. [[User:Cflare|Cflare]] ([[User talk:Cflare|talk]]) 14:38, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
:::it does to a certain point- my family can eat a lot of food before it expires, especially if it's something we like. {{unsigned ip|108.162.237.163}}

Brilliant comic Randall. I wonder what your next one is about.

Talk:876: Trapped

2015-02-21T14:29:09Z

108.162.219.160:

That's an extremely well-read 911 call operator... {{unsigned|‎202.85.6.33}}

I can't believe I am the first to note the irony.

Talk:875: 2009 Called

2015-02-21T14:27:46Z

108.162.219.160:

I was too busy trading fashion tips, and they hung up before I could tell them. '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 00:38, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

The '90s called. They wanted my pogs back. But, due to inflation, they couldn't offer me enough money for me to be willing to sell. I told them my friend, Oscar, has some Pokémon stuff, but the '90s had no interest in that crap. I made the right choice to choose pogs over Pokémon. Society made the wrong one. But, I digress. The '90s are doing rather well, and they miss us.[[Special:Contributions/76.29.225.28|76.29.225.28]] 18:20, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

2017 called, but I couldn't understand what they were saying over all the screams.

I bet it was something about them being attacked by 4 Replicants.

Talk:874: Time Management

2015-02-21T14:24:52Z

108.162.219.160:

The last sentence in the explanation was accidentally. I can't heads or tails out it. [[User:Cflare|Cflare]] ([[User talk:Cflare|talk]]) 14:49, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

I was supposed to take a friend to the eye hospital today.

SCHEDULE
9:30am Wake up
11:15am got up
1:36pm-realised I'd fucked around on the computer replying to stupid comic talk pages all morning
2:00pm Arrive at friend's house as taxi turns out of street.
2:30pm Back on http://www.explainxkcd.com
Sorry Paul.

Talk:872: Fairy Tales

2015-02-21T14:20:50Z

108.162.219.160:

What about the grasshopper one?

: There is an Aesop fable about {{w|The Ant and the Grasshopper|an Ant and a Grasshopper}}. Maybe the connection is that "contracting to a point etc" is a frivolous activity (like playing fiddle & dancing)? - [[Special:Contributions/38.113.0.254|38.113.0.254]] 01:07, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Can someone make the Eigenvector explanation a little more "plain language" for those of us who are mathematically challenged? <--feeling dumb... [[Special:Contributions/108.28.72.186|108.28.72.186]] 05:45, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
:Thanks for your comment, I did mark this as incomplete and start to do an explain for non math people. But consider this: xkcd is "A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language." Nevertheless, I try to work on this comic right now.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:11, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

The prefix 'eigen-' applied to the term is adopted from the German word eigen for "self-" or "unique to", "peculiar to", or "belonging to." As the eigenvector remains unchanged through the transformation of the matrix it can be used to describe something unique about that matrix.

The self for the shoe disappeared into the matrix leaving behind a transparency that could be used to decouple the background, thus exposing the required self. Several parts of the background are damaged in the search. On paper this is permissible. (Especially in fairy-stories.)

I find it amusing that the Poincaré conjecture is still called a conjecture. Wikipedia starts with the amusing statement "the Poincaré conjecture ... is a theorem." I couldn't find it, but I'd guess that there's probably a lovely discussion on that topic on the talk page. [[User:Gman314|Gman314]] ([[User talk:Gman314|talk]]) 22:30, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Has anyone written any of these stories? I want to read them now. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.188|199.27.128.188]] 19:31, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Talk:871: Charity

2015-02-21T14:18:01Z

108.162.219.160:

What's with the '0 internet arguments' in the title text? I don't get that part. [[User:Runxctry|Runxctry]] ([[User talk:Runxctry|talk]]) 15:04, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
:I did add a small explain on this but I think it's still incomplete.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 18:16, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Talk:555: Two Mirrors

2015-02-16T03:04:39Z

108.162.219.160:

Am i the only one who think of the ne555?
[[Special:Contributions/87.179.191.141|87.179.191.141]] 21:46, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
:No idea. What I was thinking was who reads books like that?
(There again who responds to sites like this?)
And: Shouldn't the mirrors be at a slight angle to one another?

Talk:535: It Might Be Cool

2015-02-16T02:29:13Z

108.162.219.160: Blanked the page

Talk:509: Induced Current

2015-02-16T01:16:16Z

108.162.219.160: Two historical flares that had real consequence

I slightly disagree with the run-through of the "hopes to see it tested on mythbusters, and then scaled up to astronomical proportions" bit. Perhaps refine the first part by ending with something like "...in order to give them enough myths to be worth filming another series". The latter (a reference to the title-text, I assume) should then be dealt with in a separate para by explaining that Mythbusters ''tests'' myths experimentally, but that even the basic "use an LHC to get black holes" idea isn't going to be practically replicatable by them, let alone being able to replicate the possibility (or impossibility) of said black holes consuming the Earth. Unless TV budgets and resources are somewhat more capable than I imagine they are... [[Special:Contributions/178.107.63.150|178.107.63.150]] 21:41, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

I think the title text is also referring to the second half of the Mythbusters’ “replicate the circumstances, then duplicate the results” method. Basically, the Mythbusters would see what it ''would'' take to destroy the world (and, in the process, actually do so). Maybe they could get help from [http://qntm.org/destroy Sam Hughes] [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.87|199.27.128.87]] 08:14, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Two interesting historical examples are [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859 the solar flare of 1859] in which telegraph wires had enough induced voltage to cause sparks on the telegraph poles, and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1989_geomagnetic_storm the geomagnetic storm of 1989], which caused the power grid in Quebec, Canada to fail. The latter demonstrates that in this modern era we are certainly not immune to such "outlandish" scenarios.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.160|108.162.219.160]] 01:16, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

1179: ISO 8601

2014-08-20T22:02:06Z

108.162.219.160: some cleanup; fixed a few errors and added some style attributes that hopefully don't break

{{comic
| number = 1179
| date = February 27, 2013
| title = ISO 8601
| image = iso_8601.png
| titletext = ISO 8601 was published on 06/05/88 and most recently amended on 12/01/04.
}}

==Explanation==
When abbreviating the date into numerical form, {{w|Date format by country|various areas of the world}} tend to list the year, month, and day in different orders (as well as with different delimiting symbols), which can cause confusion particularly when the day value is 12 or lower allowing it to be easily interpreted as the month and vice versa. As a {{w|public service announcement}}, this comic states that there is in fact one international standard for writing numeric dates, set by the {{w|International Organization for Standardization}} in its {{w|ISO 8601}} standard.

The comic then proceeds to list several discouraged ways of writing out the date, as they do not match the standard. It begins with several commonly used ones in countries around the world, but then begins to list increasingly uncommon ways, ranging from strange (Roman numerals) to quirky (binary, Unix time) to essentially impossible (painting the numbers onto a black cat).

The title text provides a perfect example of the kind of ambiguity that can arise when non-standard formats are used. The ISO standard was in fact published on 5 June 1988 and amended on 1 December 2004. This is mentioned in the title text in mm/dd/yy format; however, there is no way to naturally figure this out, particularly with the second date. With the year truncated to two digits and all three numbers at 12 or lower, the date may well be interpreted as 12 January 2004, or 4 January 2012.

Date formats was again the subject in [[1340: Unique Date]].

The other mentioned formats are:

{| class=wikitable
! Date !! Explanation
|-
| 02/27/2013
| MM/DD/YYYY, used mostly in the United States.
|-
| 02/27/13
| MM/DD/YY, same as above but with the year shortened to two digits.
|-
| 27/02/2013
| DD/MM/YYYY, used variously in South America, Canada ({{w|Date_and_time_notation_in_Canada|officially uses ISO 8601}}), Australia, New Zealand and Europe.
|-
| 27/02/13
| DD/MM/YY, same as above but with the year shortened to two digits.
|-
| 20130227
| YYYYMMDD, same as ISO 8601 without delimiting punctuation. Allowed by the standard. Technically not ambiguous but is hard to read as a date at first glance.
|-
| 2013.02.27
| YYYY.MM.DD, used in Japan. Same as ISO 8601 except with different punctuation.
|-
| 27.02.13
| DD.MM.YY, used in Germany, Russia, etc.
|-
| 27-02-13
| DD-MM-YY, used in Denmark, Netherlands, Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, etc.
|-
| 27.2.13
| D.M.YY. It is common in several areas to abbreviate the month or day to a single digit and drop the leading zero when possible.
|-
| 2013. II. 27.
| YYYY. MM. DD., with month as {{w|Roman numerals}}, used in Hungary.
|-
| 27⁄2-13
| D⁄M-YY, traditional format in Sweden
|-
| 2013.158904109
| Year and decimal fraction of year. 0.158904109 is a decimal approximation of 58/365, with February 27 being the 58th day of the year. Allowed in ISO 8601 as it is not ambiguous; presumably easier to read for computers/programs but difficult for humans.
|-
| MMXIII-II-XXVII
| The ISO 8601 standard but written in Roman numerals. Never used as a traditional standard anywhere as it is hard to read, parse, and interpret for no benefit.
|-
| MMXIII LVII⁄CCCLXV
| Year followed by its partial fraction 57/365, all in Roman numerals. Equally useless as the above. As a note, apparently this 'standard' is different from the decimal fraction two rows above, as the decimal fraction notation uses the ''end'' of the day (first day of the year is 1/365 while the last is 365/365), while this uses the ''beginning'' (first day is 0/365 and last is 364/365).
|-
| 1330300800
| {{w|Unix time|UNIX Timestamp}}, a standard method of storing absolute time in many computer systems and defined as the number of seconds since 00:00:00 on 1 January 1970 (UTC). The Unix time listed here appears to mistakenly be for '''2012'''-02-27.
|-
| ((3+3)×(111+1)-1)×3/3-1/33
| A useless format where the numbers 2013, 2, and 27 written as needlessly long arithmetic expressions using just the digits 1 and 3. For additional confusion, the values are delimited by slashes, enabling confusion with the fraction bar.
|-
|   2013   227
| A nearly impossible to read date "format" that can be considered a parody "compromise" between different formats: rather than argue about the order in which the year, month, and day should be, they are simply all written on top of each other. As a 'bonus', there is also no arguing over which separator character to use.
|-
| 10/11011/1101
| The US mm/dd/yy format in {{w|Binary number|binary}}, corresponding to 2/27/13. Never used for obvious reasons.
|-
| 02/27/20/13
| MM/DD/CC/YY, where C stands for century. Never used. Note that while months and days count starting from 1, centuries and years in this format count from 0 for extra confusion.
|-
| 2'''0'''53'''1'''1'''2'''674'''3'''2'''7'''8
| An obfuscated format where the small numbers indicate the positions where the large digits should be placed. In this reading, 0 is used at positions 2 and 5, 1 is used on position 3, etc.; the result being 20130227
|-
| ''A cat with'' "2-27-13" ''painted on it, going'' HiSSSS
| In Western cultures, black cats and the number 13 are associated with bad luck. The cat might also just be angry that someone covered it in paint.
|}

==Transcript==
:Public Service Announcement:

:Our different ways of writing dates as numbers can lead to online confusion. That's why in 1988 ISO set a global standard numeric date format. This is '''''the''''' correct way to write numeric dates:

::2013-02-27

:The following formats are therefore discouraged:
:*02/27/2013
:*02/27/13
:*27/02/2013
:*27/02/13
:*20130227
:*2013.02.27
:*27.02.13
:*27-02-13
:*27.2.13
:*2013. II. 27.
:*27⁄2-13
:*2013.158904109
:*MMXIII-II-XXVII
:*MMXIII LVII⁄CCCLXV
:*1330300800
:*((3+3)×(111+1)-1)×3/3-1/33
:*  2013   227 [the numbers 2013, 02, and 27 written overlapping each other]
:*10/11011/1101
:*02/27/20/13
:*2'''0'''53'''1'''1'''2'''674'''3'''2'''7'''8
:*[A black cat with 2-27-13 scrawled across its body in dripping white paint.]
:**Cat: ''Hissss''

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