explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2838: Dubious Islands

2023-10-07T17:52:44Z

108.162.221.135:

As a native of the North Country of Northern New York, I'm really disappointed that Randall didn't label the St. Lawrence river. :-( [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.253|162.158.158.253]] 22:49, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Had a go at the Transcript. Plenty of problems with it, but I was attempting to be partway methodical (generally heading north-to-south, seemed easier than "north-and clockwise" or any other sweep, once I started to do it) and not actually mention 'quoted' words more than once. Unless they're actually written multiple times. (looking at you, Mississippi!) 
But had no option but to repeat some of the quoted text ''within'' the label-descriptor 'tags', perhaps each actual fragment should indeed by given ''all'' boundaries, but I think that's better left for the table that will inevitably have to be put into the main Explanation. There one can actually list the named ''and unnamed'' bordering waters (river, canal, lake, sea and ocean) for actual reference. 
Also the wording. Tried not to repeat "bounded by" synonyms too much, but maybe I should just have chosen one option and repeated it anyway, given the difficulties and contextual issues of doing it absolutely unrepeatably. But it's my best try (at just gone midnight, indicating how personally familiar I might be with the continental US's geography, or not). And thus over to you people who actually know more about the Mississippi than merely how to spell it. (Not sure I've read, and thus spelt, some of the other names given right, either. Definitely check and edit as necessary.) Perhaps a geographic map could (e.g.) even identify the "Nunavuk+" territory with a better actually known descriptor, too! Canada is even less my forté than the US. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.63|162.158.74.63]] 23:50, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Im shocked that Randall conflated the hudson and Champlain when the two dont connect, missing each other by a slim margin.
Source: i live close to lake george, the missing point [[Special:Contributions/172.69.59.47|172.69.59.47]] 00:52, 7 October 2023 (UTC)
: The Champlain Canal crosses that gap. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.63|162.158.154.63]] 06:13, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Southern NJ is made an island by the Delaware River, the Delaware and Raritan canal and the Raritan river. -- [[User:162.158.158.98|162.158.158.98]] ([[User talk:162.158.158.98|talk]]) 03:06, 7 October 2023 (UTC) ''(please sign your comments with <nowiki>~~</nowiki>~~)''

I came to this comic hoping to learn the names of the islands, and then to the explanation hoping they were present but hidden in some way. Irrational! [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 07:43, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

;Where is Long Island?
Oh! Wait. The map only shows _dubious_ islands. {{unsigned ip|172.70.38.72|06:28, 7 October 2023}}
:All actual islands (Hawaii, the myriad of ones in the Canadian arctic, etc) are not there, so I take it as read that this is the contiguous mainland continental North America (stopping at the Panama cut) with divided by all cross-waterways of any significance. i.e. major rivers, hence why no lichen-like tributary 'fan' incursions into these areas; major canals, which means massive irrigation projects (and any actual ship-navigable ones, I presume) or else ever ditch or drain would count, lakes of course (but there's a lot of lakes in the Canadian north that are not shown, let alone used as might be hydrodynamically linked).
:Compared with [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/Map_of_canals_of_the_United_Kingdom.png what Great Britain might look like], so subdivided, it looks positively restrained. I mean, you can probably remove all those with dead-ends to make the 'disconnection map' simpler. And, in today's age, all stretches that are no longer viable/continuous/navigable for various reasons like railways and major roads being slapped over/next to them and rendering them obsolete/uncared-for/etc, but that still leaves quite a lot of [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/England_Wales_Waterway_Map_Simplified.svg islands], such the cut(s, several!) between Thames and Severn, the Humber to various Lancashire 'outlets', etc. And that link doesn't even show the Caledonian Canal cross (alongside/within the Great Glen), the more southerly Forth And Clyde route, etc. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.19|141.101.98.19]] 16:08, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

No mention of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Ocean_Pass Two Oceans Creek]?

Talk:1459: Documents

2014-12-12T17:01:33Z

108.162.221.135: question about ordering

742 Evergreen Terrace.docx
742 Evergreen Terrace (2).docx

[[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.51|141.101.99.51]] 07:24, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm sure everyone can relate to using poor filenames occasionally. As far as default filenames go:

*Notepad (XP) = *.txt - Cannot save without choosing a new filename.
*Word (2003) = Title (if set by template) > First sentence of document > Doc1.doc, Doc2.doc, etc
*Paint (XP) = untitled.bmp
--[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 08:58, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Using the image format (.jpg) to store text information (like addresses) will also contribute to an annoying future if you ever need to copy data from that file into some other programme. [[User:SirKitKat|sirKitKat]] ([[User talk:SirKitKat|talk]]) 09:58, 12 December 2014 (UTC)
: oo good point -- [[User:Brettpeirce|Brettpeirce]] ([[User talk:Brettpeirce|talk]]) 13:13, 12 December 2014 (UTC)
:: Could be a JPEG because it's a camera photo of the address on something. That'd make it even more perverse because most cameras create files with names like DSC01234.jpg meaning he's given it the "Untitled" moniker on purpose. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.78|141.101.99.78]] 14:23, 12 December 2014 (UTC)
: Placing an email address in a graphic is often used when the email address is to be displayed on a web page to make it difficult for email-address harvesting programs to grab the email address for spamming. But that's probably not relevant here.--[[User:RenniePet|RenniePet]] ([[User talk:RenniePet|talk]]) 15:28, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Something I come a cross now and then is the result of the following situation: You are in the process of selecting multiple files while holding CTRL. During the process of quickly selecting the next file, you accidentally move your cursor/mouse while clicking the next file, resulting in copying all the selected files on the same location :) [[User:SirKitKat|sirKitKat]] ([[User talk:SirKitKat|talk]]) 13:36, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Title is an impossible file name in most operating environments because it is too long at 277 characters. 255 characters is the limit for any file or folder name in Linux, and is the limit for a fully defined file name (file and full path the file is in) in Windows. So the Title/Alt text is 22 characters too long for Linux and at least 25 characters too long for Windows since being in the root of drive takes 3 characters, each folder adds at least 2 characters (a letter and the slash). I encounter clients pushing this limit all the time, complaining why they can't access their files with the novel length file names, so this comic REALLLYYY spoke to me. As an IT consultant, I get to see and occasionally cleanup such poor file naming conventions.
[[User:Chaosadventurer|Chaosadventurer]] ([[User talk:Chaosadventurer|talk]]) 15:34, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

I suppose it's just the OCD but the fact that the filenames are not in alphabetical order is the first thing that hit me. They're not even alphabetical by file type/extension. About the only thing that would result in this ordering is if the files were sorted by timestamp (which we don't see). Of course, if I were looking over someone's shoulder at their timestamp sorted list of files, I might be just as horrified by the ordering as I would by the names.
[[User:MrBigDog2U|MrBigDog2U]] ([[User talk:MrBigDog2U|talk]]) 15:40, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Does anyone know why "Untitled 241.doc" and "Untitled 40 MOM ADRESS.jpg" are out of order. The rest seem to be in accending order?

Talk:1421: Future Self

2014-09-15T20:18:41Z

108.162.221.135: bacwards h

<nowiki>#</nowiki> Dear Future Editor 
<nowiki>#</nowiki> As author of the first explanation, I know of what I write. Perhaps minus the snarky code-commenting. 
<nowiki>#</nowiki> But I've a feeling there's a better way of writing it, and possibly a different context that I've missed. 
<nowiki>#</nowiki> 
<nowiki>#</nowiki> ...so over to you.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.7|141.101.99.7]] 08:20, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

The last paragraph was written with assumption no other content is here yet (because there wasn't) - can someone incorporate it correctly with the rest, please? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.217|141.101.89.217]] 08:19, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
:(Dealing with edit conflict) Let me check what you mean. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.7|141.101.99.7]] 08:20, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
:Ahah! Yes, we were ''both'' dealing with edit conflicts, only in different orders (me in here, you in the main article). I think I'm going to let a third party resolve the explanation, it'd probably be best.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.7|141.101.99.7]] 08:23, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
::aaaand dodged by yet another editor [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.206|108.162.249.206]] 08:47, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure I totally agree with the sentence: "The parsing function seems to have lasted one year longer than expected by the younger Cueball." Younger Cueball expected that the parsing function would fail on or after 2013, which is pretty accurate if it failed in 2014. [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 14:22, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
:"It's at least 2013" parsed to me as "this will probably work until part-way through 2013", so the fact that the message in a bottle is uncovered in 2014 says a year longer than expectations. OTOH, an alternate interpretation would be "this can't fail before 2013". Maybe, just maybe, Past Cueball is smart enough to say that, so... Who knows. (Also, related to what @Artyer below says, I reconsidered my ideas about this. Maybe Past Cueball is actually just going "I wonder what it was like in Iceland?", but of course Present Cueball has a guilty conscience about this. And I'm also seeing a lot of cynicism about Regexps... Using regexps is usually the best way to ''allow'' easy 'rekludging'. Indeed, import pattern-strings from a plain-text flatfile, branching options with and the like with sufficient power from an external flat-file and you needn't touch the ''code'' at all, just modift the associated "config file". Again, this is something I've done, for frequently permutating sources. But, even without, with access to the source code hard-coded regexps aren't necessarily the disaster.) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.7|141.101.99.7]] 20:16, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

There's nothng wrtten about the trip to Iceland that cueball was plannng to go on (procrastination caused him not to). Maybe something like "in this case, it was that cueball knew he wouldn't go on the trip he planned" but I rewrote it like 5 times, and it didn't work. —[[User:Artyer|Artyer]] ([[User talk:Artyer|talk]]) 16:45, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

I think the sentence about context free and regular grammars over-interpretates this a bit. First of all, there are many regex engines which support back-references, thus allowing more than regular grammars; second of all, a "kludged" parser very often assumes that the input is grammatically correct and just wants to extract the required information. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.32|108.162.254.32]] 17:01, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

The first 'h' is backwards in the line " The parse function finally broke" 20:18, 15 September 2014 (UTC)