explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:1737: Datacenter Scale

2016-09-23T14:35:47Z

108.162.221.139:

While the comic is obviously exaggerating, there are situations where this could make a certain amount of sense. IF you can design a server so that most or all of the components reach end-of-life at about the same time, then if a hard drive fails on one server, every other component of that server is likely to fail soon as well.

If you install entire server racks or server rooms at the same time, where every machine contains components with the same basic life cycle...

then in theory, once the first component fails, you can ignore it until mass component failures causes the entire rack/room to fall below a certain readiness level.

At that point, there's no reason to pay a technician to spend several days removing and replacing half the individual components throughout that rack/room, when the other half are just going to fail in the next few months anyway. In theory, it might be economically more efficient just to scrap everything at once, bring in brand-new server replacements, and re-sync the needed data from a networked backup.

in real life, it's very hard to build a server that will reliably degrade on schedule.... but with the right tradeoffs, and enough long-term performance data, it might eventually become possible to do so.
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.101|162.158.74.101]] 04:48, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

The title text is referring to [http://multivax.com/last_question.html The Last Question by Isaac Asimov].
[[User:EpicWolverine|EpicWolverine]] ([[User talk:EpicWolverine|talk]]) 04:56, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

I cannot help but read this in a fake Yorkshire accent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Yorkshiremen_sketch [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.113|141.101.98.113]] 09:55, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

I wonder how closely the AC and Douglas Adams' Deep Thought are related? {{unsigned ip|188.114.102.167}}
:Not that close as Deep Thought was build inside this universe and also finished it's job and was recommissioned. They build a new computer (Earth) instead to calculate what the ultimate question was, now they knew the answer was 42. But maybe Adams was aware of AC and based the idea of solving a question with computers on that...? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:56, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

I think the character in Panel 1 is [[Science Girl]] and not [[Hairbun]].
[[User:PoconoChuck|PoconoChuck]] ([[User talk:PoconoChuck|talk]]) 12:20, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
:Agree it fits with her style and she has appeared as an adult before. She also seems smaller than the other people so it could indicate she is still young. I created the Science Girl and the Hairbun categories, so I should know ;-) When a character fail I just throw it out and create a new one... :p --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:52, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

::It's clearly not [[Science Girl]], because, as the linked page says "She became the first child to have its own character category. She is distinguished by being clearly a girl (compared to adults around her or her behavior)". You may create a page called "Datacenter Woman". [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.139|108.162.221.139]] 14:35, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

1737: Datacenter Scale

2016-09-23T14:33:34Z

108.162.221.139: /* Transcript */ It's not Science Girl, it's a woman

{{comic
| number = 1737
| date = September 23, 2016
| title = Datacenter Scale
| image = datacenter_scale.png
| titletext = Asimov's Cosmic AC was created by linking all datacenters through hyperspace, which explains a lot. It didn't reverse entropy--it just discarded the universe when it reached end-of-life and ordered a new one.
}}
==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Is it?}}

{{w|RAID}} ("redundant array of independent disks") is a technology that splits data across several hard-drives as if they were one. RAID comes in several levels for different uses, but one of the big applications of RAID is creating mirrored hard disks that back each other up. If one disk drive in a RAID array fails, no data is lost.

However, RAID is complicated to configure, so you don't want to be constantly setting it up. An alternative technique for data centers is therefore to simply send the data to several servers at once. This makes maintenance easier, but without RAID, one hard disk crash basically breaks the server. However, this is what the woman with a bun's data center is doing since their scale is so large that fixing individual servers do not make sense, and instead of fixing the drive they throw away the machine.

From here, the comic starts to exaggerate. Nowadays, servers can be made extremely small ("{{w|Blade server}}s") and dozens of servers can be attached to one {{w|19-inch rack}} in a data center. Rather than going to the effort of unplugging and unscrewing one blade from the rack, when a blade fails at [[Cueball]]'s data center they just throw away the rack, and [[Ponytail]] agrees and kinda mock the woman with a bun for replacing one server.

[[Hairy]]'s goes one step further - they have so many servers that they would constantly have to be throwing away and replacing racks, so instead they just build a new room when one rack fails. This would be currently possible with small modular data centers that are built in shipping containers for easy transport and can be linked together to expand capacity. Here the cargo-container "room" with the failure would be quickly swapped with a fresh one. Cueball adds "like Google!" - [[Randall]] previously mentioned {{w|Google|Google's}} approach to hard drive failures in the [[what if?]] ''{{what if|63|Google's Datacenters on Punch Cards}}''. Back in [http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/de//archive/disk_failures.pdf 2007] they had one failure every few minutes - that might have increased hugely since then.

Finally [[Megan]] appears and her company of course breaks the scale of silliness in exaggeration. She says that they don't have any fire extinguishers (neither {{w|Fire sprinkler system|regular sprinklers}} or the {{w|Gaseous fire suppression|inert gas systems}} that flood the room with gases like argon which force out oxygen and stop fires - these are better for computers than traditional water or powder systems, but are lethal to people trapped in the rooms!). Rather, they just rope the center off let, thus letting the data center burn down. Then they simply move a town over and build a new one. This may indicate they are so big that the entire town will burn down if their center catches fire, for else they did not have to skip town. Or alternatively they just leave the center burning and this may cause problems in that town, so they are not wanted there anymore, they simply feel the premises.

Most big internet companies do have multiple redundant data centers around the world, in order to increase speeds for users in different countries, but Megan's idea would be very expensive, increase in {{w|Latency (engineering)|latency}} and possibly also kill people, either in their company or other people in the town and since they do not try to turn out the fire, at least cause severe destruction of properties, not only their own.

Still Hairy thinks that it makes sense, whereas Cueball wonders what difference the roping off does. This could again be a reference to the fact that they just let the buildings burn, without bothering about the local consequences. And the next step is just one more step towards the extreme of the title text.

This comic references how, as data requirements expand, companies rarely use more specific, but time costly choices when working with data centers, and use more expensive but faster solutions. While this comic takes this to the extreme, with whole buildings being destroyed for simple flaws, the concept is not as far fetched as it seems if "thrown out" is taken to include being sold to equipment refurbishers. It could indeed be cost effective for a large data services provider to resell racks or even whole data center modules at some significant fraction of their "as new" price as opposed expending the time and effort to attempt a repair. The equipment refurbisher would then rely on a {{w|competitive advantage|cost advantage}} like cheaper labor to repair the flaw and sell it back to Google or another company with less demanding requirements. Equipment rental firms already operate on this model and with the added incentive customers preferring to rent newer models, this means that the equipment is often ''preemptively'' replaced before failures even occur.

The title text refers to {{w|Isaac Asimov}}'s science-fiction novella "{{w|The Last Question}}", where humanity asks, at different stages of its spatial and technological development, the same question to increasingly advanced computers: "How can the net amount of {{w|entropy}} of the universe be massively decreased?". At each point, the computer's answer is that it does not have enough data for a meaningful answer yet. Ultimately, the computers are all linked through hyperspace, outside the physical boundaries of the universe, and make up a single computing entity named AC which keeps pondering the question even as the {{w|heat death of the universe}} occurs and time and space cease to exist. When AC finally discovers the answer, since there is nobody left to report it to, it decides to demonstrate it and says "{{w|Let there be light|LET THERE BE LIGHT!}}", which are the first words said by God during the Creation, according to the {{w|Book of Genesis}}. Here, the title text implies that, as the universe died, AC no longer had a use for it as a physical support and, taking the comic's logic to the next extreme, chose to discard it and get a brand-new one instead of bothering to "fix" it by reversing its entropy.

==Transcript==
:[Zoom in on a woman with a bun holding her hand palm up in front of her taking to people off-panel right.]
:Woman with a bun: RAID controllers don't make sense at our scale; everything is redundant at higher levels. When a drive fails, we just throw away the whole machine.

:[In this frame-less panel it is revealed that the woman with a bun talked to Cueball and Ponytail who is looking her way.]
:Cueball: Machine? We throw away whole racks at a time.
:Ponytail: Yeah, who replaces ''one server''?

:[Hairy has appeared from the left and holds one hand palm up towards the other three where also the woman with a bun has turned towards him.]
:Hairy: We just replace whole rooms at once. At our scale, messing with racks isn't economical.
:Woman with a bun: Wow.
:Cueball: Like Google!

:[Megan walks in from the left, and everyone including Hairy now looks towards her. Cueball has taken a hand up to his chin. The replies to Megan are written with clearly smaller font.]
:Megan: We don't have sprinklers or inert gas systems. When a datacenter catches fire, we just rope it off and rebuild one town over.
:Hairy: Makes sense.
:Cueball: I wonder if the rope is really necessary.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Fiction]]

1735: Fashion Police and Grammar Police

2016-09-20T14:06:51Z

108.162.221.139: /* Table of individual items */ Better link, and vocabulary policing

{{comic
| number = 1735
| date = September 19, 2016
| title = Fashion Police and Grammar Police
| image = fashion_police_and_grammar_police.png
| titletext = * Mad about jorts
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|For those that are not native English speakers, the way the three "T" words are mixed up (and maybe even their meaning) should be explained as that is part of the joke, and can not always be understood by those who are not with the G-force (aka Grammar Police).}}

In this comic, two groups of angry protesters are presented and labeled. They should not be seen as protesting side by side, but rather like two similar groups protesting about different things even though they are in many ways similar.

The left group represents the '''Fashion Police''' with [[Cueball]] holding a sign saying {{w|Crocs}} not allowed (by showing a pair of Crocs shoes in a circle with a strike through it). Crocs are a type of {{w|Clog|clogs}} made of foam. There may be some ergonomic advantages to these special looking shoes, but they will {{w|Crocs#Fashion|never become fashionable}}. It is not the first time [[Randall]] mocks a special type of shoes (although here it may not so much be himself that are against Crocs, but rather he just chose something easy to recognize that the Fashion Police would hate). Previously in [[1065: Shoes]] Randall was after shoes that ''has those creepy individual toes'' like {{w|Vibram FiveFingers}}. They will also never be a hit with the Fashion Police.

The right group represents the '''Grammar Police''' with another Cueball holding a sign with three commonly-confused words beneath each other; [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/their Their], [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/they%27re They're], [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/there There]. The words are written on the sign to explain that there is a difference between these three words, as many people confuses them with each other, and then the Grammar Police ''have'' to correct them (see [[386: Duty Calls]]). See the [https://twitter.com/_grammar_ Grammar Police on Twitter] and also {{w|Grammar Police|Linguistic prescription}} which comes up on Wikipedia when searching for Grammar Police!

The two groups look similar, standing in similar poses and apart from one Cueball holding signs in each group, one [[Megan]] is also in the front line of both groups. [[Hairy]] is only shown with the fashion police, together with yet another [[:Category:Multiple Cueballs|Cueball-like guy]], while [[Ponytail]] is only shown with the grammar police together with a bald man with glasses.

Both types of police are groups of people who make fun of others who wear or say something that doesn't meet their criteria of "good". Fashion police are people who make fun of others who wear clothing that is mismatched, out of style/{{w|fashion}} or straight-up "ugly" to them. Grammar police are people who are "sticklers" to {{w|grammar}} rules and get mad or contradictory if someone uses non-standard grammar in a sentence. The comic explains how the two groups are similar to each other by listing eight points (plus a ninth in the title text) that can be used on both groups. See explanation in the [[#Table of individual items|table below]].

In the caption below the comic Randall notes that he just realized that these are literally the same people because they both exhibit the listed traits. The use of "[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/literally literally]" to emphasize a statement is considered by the grammar police as a dread crime that should be pointed out as such, although the dictionaries already include this definition as acceptable. However it would likely be more appropriate to say figuratively the same people, see [[725: Literally]]. On the other hand, fashion police is known for overusing "literally" in the way the grammar police finds disgusting.

Since it seem like a safe assumption (see [[1339: When You Assume]]) that there are more grammar pedants (see title text of [[1652: Conditionals]]) than fashion police people who read xkcd, and it also would seem likely that many xkcd readers would dislike the Fashion Police (more), it seems likely that Randall is actually mainly targeting the Grammar Police people reading xkcd, than the fashion people who do not. They will not like to be compared to the Fashion Police! Ponytail also represented the grammar police in [[1576: I Could Care Less]], where Megan puts her in place after she polices her sentence. Thus this shows what Randall thinks about such police work and supports the assumption above. Literally was also used here in the title text.

Randall is, with regards to language, definitely one of those that can belong in this group: ''To seem cool and casual, pretend to ignore them while understanding them very well.''

The title is a ninth point on the list with the star in front representing one more bullet (see the last entry in the [[#Table of individual items|table below]]):
*Mad about jorts.

==Table of individual items==
{| class="wikitable"
|+Explanation of individual items in the list
!list item
!Explanation
|-
|Judgemental and Smug || Both types of police will look down upon those who violate their 'laws'.
|-
|Angry about something deeply arbitrary || Both grammar and fashion are, essentially, made-up human constructs.
|-
| Strong opinions backed by style guides || Grammar has ''{{w|The Elements of Style}}'', fashion has fashion magazines.
|-
| Appreciate that the way that you are interpreted is your responsibility || Your choices in both grammar and fashion affect how people see you, and it would be silly to disclaim responsibility for what is essentially your own actions.
|-
| Understand that there's no way to "opt out" of sending messages by how you present yourself, and attempts to do so send strong messages of their own || This means that even if you deliberately choose to not listen to the fashion gurus, then you are actually making a fashion statement anyway, as opposed to those that just don't realize they have a horrible style (and are not dressing wrongly on purpose). Both types can thus be harassed by the Fashion Police. Same goes for those who deliberately do not try to follow the grammar rules. They have thus taken a stance anyway as opposed to those who just do not know how to use grammar correctly. And both types can be harassed for it by the Grammar Police.
|-
|To seem cool and casual, pretend to ignore them while understanding them very well || Deliberately violating fashion or grammar rules gives off a particular 'casual' vibe, distinct from those who violate the rules out of ignorance.
|-
|Vindictive about things that are often uncomfortably transparent proxies for race or social class || "Proper" dress and "proper" language are often defined in terms of how high class people dress and speak. But since "high class" in much of the Western world has generally meant white, alternative ways of dress (e.g. the Afro) or alternative ways of speaking (e.g. Ebonics or Pidgin English) are treated as somehow objectively "wrong", rather than simply as alternatives. Furthermore, dressing or speaking poorly are often marks of "lower class" people who for whatever reason cannot afford fashionable clothing, or don't have access to quality education. So when we judge people for their clothing or their speech, we are often indirectly judging them for their race and class, something that makes Randall uncomfortable.
|-
| Fun to cheer on until one of them disagrees with you|| This may have to do with the human tendency to view the morality of an activity differently when applied to oneself compared to a stranger.
|-
| Mad about jorts (Title text) || "{{w|Shorts#Jorts|Jorts}}" is a {{w|portmanteau}} for a pair of jeans that are made into shorts. The fashion police would be mad about jorts for being unfashionable, while the grammar police would be mad about the word 'jorts' being an inappropriate portmanteau of jeans and shorts, and also for the fact that the sentence could be misinterpreted as if someone like jorts, as in being mad about something in a positive way. Randall has [[:Category:Portmanteau|often used]] portmanteaus as part of his jokes.
|}

==Transcript==
:[Beneath two headings to the left and right are shown two aggressive-looking groups of people with only the four people in the front clearly shown for each group. Behind them five other people can be seen, but they are not drawn with the same solid line and are only partly shown behind the first four, but legs from all five in each group can be seen along with some heads (all Cueball like) and arms etc. The front of the left group consist of Hairy holding a fist up towards left, Megan with her arms crossed in front of her chest, Cueball holding a sign, using both hands, straight up above his head and another Cueball-like guy to the right is holding up a broken branch in one hand toward right. The person behind this last person is shown to hold up his fist towards right like Hairy does to the left. The sign shows a Crocs shoe in a circle with a strike through it going above the Crocs from top left to bottom right. The front of the right group consist of Megan holding both her arms over her head hands folded into fist while looking towards left, Cueball holding a sign, using both hands, towards the right and up above Ponytails head, she is raising one hand in a fist to the left and finally a bald guy with glasses is brandishing a short sword in one hand toward right while holding his other hand palm up. The sign has three similar words written beneath each other.]
:Left: Fashion Police
:Right: Grammar Police
:Sign:
::Their
::They're
::There

:[Below the two groups are eight points with bullets:]
:*Judgemental and smug
:*Angry about something deeply arbitrary
:*Strong opinions backed by style guides
:*Appreciate that the way that you are interpreted ''is'' your responsibility
:*Understand that there's no way to "opt out" of sending messages by how you present yourself, and attempts to do so send strong messages of their own
:*To seem cool and casual, pretend to ignore them while understanding them very well
:*Vindictive about things that are often uncomfortably transparent proxies for race or social class
:*Fun to cheer on until one of them disagrees with you

:[Caption below the panel:]
:I just realized these are literally the same people

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Portmanteau]]

1735: Fashion Police and Grammar Police

2016-09-20T14:03:48Z

108.162.221.139: /* Table of individual items */ &nbsp;

{{comic
| number = 1735
| date = September 19, 2016
| title = Fashion Police and Grammar Police
| image = fashion_police_and_grammar_police.png
| titletext = * Mad about jorts
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|For those that are not native English speakers, the way the three "T" words are mixed up (and maybe even their meaning) should be explained as that is part of the joke, and can not always be understood by those who are not with the G-force (aka Grammar Police).}}

In this comic, two groups of angry protesters are presented and labeled. They should not be seen as protesting side by side, but rather like two similar groups protesting about different things even though they are in many ways similar.

The left group represents the '''Fashion Police''' with [[Cueball]] holding a sign saying {{w|Crocs}} not allowed (by showing a pair of Crocs shoes in a circle with a strike through it). Crocs are a type of {{w|Clog|clogs}} made of foam. There may be some ergonomic advantages to these special looking shoes, but they will {{w|Crocs#Fashion|never become fashionable}}. It is not the first time [[Randall]] mocks a special type of shoes (although here it may not so much be himself that are against Crocs, but rather he just chose something easy to recognize that the Fashion Police would hate). Previously in [[1065: Shoes]] Randall was after shoes that ''has those creepy individual toes'' like {{w|Vibram FiveFingers}}. They will also never be a hit with the Fashion Police.

The right group represents the '''Grammar Police''' with another Cueball holding a sign with three commonly-confused words beneath each other; [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/their Their], [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/they%27re They're], [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/there There]. The words are written on the sign to explain that there is a difference between these three words, as many people confuses them with each other, and then the Grammar Police ''have'' to correct them (see [[386: Duty Calls]]). See the [https://twitter.com/_grammar_ Grammar Police on Twitter] and also {{w|Grammar Police|Linguistic prescription}} which comes up on Wikipedia when searching for Grammar Police!

The two groups look similar, standing in similar poses and apart from one Cueball holding signs in each group, one [[Megan]] is also in the front line of both groups. [[Hairy]] is only shown with the fashion police, together with yet another [[:Category:Multiple Cueballs|Cueball-like guy]], while [[Ponytail]] is only shown with the grammar police together with a bald man with glasses.

Both types of police are groups of people who make fun of others who wear or say something that doesn't meet their criteria of "good". Fashion police are people who make fun of others who wear clothing that is mismatched, out of style/{{w|fashion}} or straight-up "ugly" to them. Grammar police are people who are "sticklers" to {{w|grammar}} rules and get mad or contradictory if someone uses non-standard grammar in a sentence. The comic explains how the two groups are similar to each other by listing eight points (plus a ninth in the title text) that can be used on both groups. See explanation in the [[#Table of individual items|table below]].

In the caption below the comic Randall notes that he just realized that these are literally the same people because they both exhibit the listed traits. The use of "[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/literally literally]" to emphasize a statement is considered by the grammar police as a dread crime that should be pointed out as such, although the dictionaries already include this definition as acceptable. However it would likely be more appropriate to say figuratively the same people, see [[725: Literally]]. On the other hand, fashion police is known for overusing "literally" in the way the grammar police finds disgusting.

Since it seem like a safe assumption (see [[1339: When You Assume]]) that there are more grammar pedants (see title text of [[1652: Conditionals]]) than fashion police people who read xkcd, and it also would seem likely that many xkcd readers would dislike the Fashion Police (more), it seems likely that Randall is actually mainly targeting the Grammar Police people reading xkcd, than the fashion people who do not. They will not like to be compared to the Fashion Police! Ponytail also represented the grammar police in [[1576: I Could Care Less]], where Megan puts her in place after she polices her sentence. Thus this shows what Randall thinks about such police work and supports the assumption above. Literally was also used here in the title text.

Randall is, with regards to language, definitely one of those that can belong in this group: ''To seem cool and casual, pretend to ignore them while understanding them very well.''

The title is a ninth point on the list with the star in front representing one more bullet (see the last entry in the [[#Table of individual items|table below]]):
*Mad about jorts.

==Table of individual items==
{| class="wikitable"
|+Explanation of individual items in the list
!list item
!Explanation
|-
|Judgemental and Smug || Both types of police will look down upon those who violate their 'laws'.
|-
|Angry about something deeply arbitrary || Both grammar and fashion are, essentially, made-up human constructs.
|-
| Strong opinions backed by style guides || Grammar has Strunk and White, fashion has fashion mags.
|-
| Appreciate that the way that you are interpreted is your responsibility || Your choices in both grammar and fashion affect how people see you, and it would be silly to disclaim responsibility for what is essentially your own actions.
|-
| Understand that there's no way to "opt out" of sending messages by how you present yourself, and attempts to do so send strong messages of their own || This means that even if you deliberately choose to not listen to the fashion gurus, then you are actually making a fashion statement anyway, as opposed to those that just don't realize they have a horrible style (and are not dressing wrongly on purpose). Both types can thus be harassed by the Fashion Police. Same goes for those who deliberately do not try to follow the grammar rules. They have thus taken a stance anyway as opposed to those who just do not know how to use grammar correctly. And both types can be harassed for it by the Grammar Police.
|-
|To seem cool and casual, pretend to ignore them while understanding them very well || Deliberately violating fashion or grammar rules gives off a particular 'casual' vibe, distinct from those who violate the rules out of ignorance.
|-
|Vindictive about things that are often uncomfortably transparent proxies for race or social class || "Proper" dress and "proper" language are often defined in terms of how high class people dress and speak. But since "high class" in much of the Western world has generally meant white, alternative ways of dress (e.g. the Afro) or alternative ways of speaking (e.g. Ebonics or Pidgin English) are treated as somehow objectively "wrong", rather than simply as alternatives. Furthermore, dressing or speaking poorly are often marks of "lower class" people who for whatever reason cannot afford fashionable clothing, or don't have access to quality education. So when we judge people for their clothing or their speech, we are often indirectly judging them for their race and class, something that makes Randall uncomfortable.
|-
| Fun to cheer on until one of them disagrees with you|| This may have to do with the human tendency to view the morality of an activity differently when applied to oneself compared to a stranger.
|-
| Mad about jorts (Title text) || "{{w|Shorts#Jorts|Jorts}}" is a {{w|portmanteau}} for a pair of jeans that are made into shorts. The fashion police would be mad about jorts for being unfashionable, while the grammar police would be mad about the word 'jorts' being an inappropriate portmanteau of jeans and shorts, and also for the fact that the sentence could be misinterpreted as if someone like jorts, as in being mad about something in a positive way. Randall has [[:Category:Portmanteau|often used]] portmanteaus as part of his jokes.
|}

==Transcript==
:[Beneath two headings to the left and right are shown two aggressive-looking groups of people with only the four people in the front clearly shown for each group. Behind them five other people can be seen, but they are not drawn with the same solid line and are only partly shown behind the first four, but legs from all five in each group can be seen along with some heads (all Cueball like) and arms etc. The front of the left group consist of Hairy holding a fist up towards left, Megan with her arms crossed in front of her chest, Cueball holding a sign, using both hands, straight up above his head and another Cueball-like guy to the right is holding up a broken branch in one hand toward right. The person behind this last person is shown to hold up his fist towards right like Hairy does to the left. The sign shows a Crocs shoe in a circle with a strike through it going above the Crocs from top left to bottom right. The front of the right group consist of Megan holding both her arms over her head hands folded into fist while looking towards left, Cueball holding a sign, using both hands, towards the right and up above Ponytails head, she is raising one hand in a fist to the left and finally a bald guy with glasses is brandishing a short sword in one hand toward right while holding his other hand palm up. The sign has three similar words written beneath each other.]
:Left: Fashion Police
:Right: Grammar Police
:Sign:
::Their
::They're
::There

:[Below the two groups are eight points with bullets:]
:*Judgemental and smug
:*Angry about something deeply arbitrary
:*Strong opinions backed by style guides
:*Appreciate that the way that you are interpreted ''is'' your responsibility
:*Understand that there's no way to "opt out" of sending messages by how you present yourself, and attempts to do so send strong messages of their own
:*To seem cool and casual, pretend to ignore them while understanding them very well
:*Vindictive about things that are often uncomfortably transparent proxies for race or social class
:*Fun to cheer on until one of them disagrees with you

:[Caption below the panel:]
:I just realized these are literally the same people

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Portmanteau]]

1735: Fashion Police and Grammar Police

2016-09-20T13:58:58Z

108.162.221.139: /* Explanation */ The two Cueballs and two Megans are different people

{{comic
| number = 1735
| date = September 19, 2016
| title = Fashion Police and Grammar Police
| image = fashion_police_and_grammar_police.png
| titletext = * Mad about jorts
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|For those that are not native English speakers, the way the three "T" words are mixed up (and maybe even their meaning) should be explained as that is part of the joke, and can not always be understood by those who are not with the G-force (aka Grammar Police).}}

In this comic, two groups of angry protesters are presented and labeled. They should not be seen as protesting side by side, but rather like two similar groups protesting about different things even though they are in many ways similar.

The left group represents the '''Fashion Police''' with [[Cueball]] holding a sign saying {{w|Crocs}} not allowed (by showing a pair of Crocs shoes in a circle with a strike through it). Crocs are a type of {{w|Clog|clogs}} made of foam. There may be some ergonomic advantages to these special looking shoes, but they will {{w|Crocs#Fashion|never become fashionable}}. It is not the first time [[Randall]] mocks a special type of shoes (although here it may not so much be himself that are against Crocs, but rather he just chose something easy to recognize that the Fashion Police would hate). Previously in [[1065: Shoes]] Randall was after shoes that ''has those creepy individual toes'' like {{w|Vibram FiveFingers}}. They will also never be a hit with the Fashion Police.

The right group represents the '''Grammar Police''' with another Cueball holding a sign with three commonly-confused words beneath each other; [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/their Their], [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/they%27re They're], [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/there There]. The words are written on the sign to explain that there is a difference between these three words, as many people confuses them with each other, and then the Grammar Police ''have'' to correct them (see [[386: Duty Calls]]). See the [https://twitter.com/_grammar_ Grammar Police on Twitter] and also {{w|Grammar Police|Linguistic prescription}} which comes up on Wikipedia when searching for Grammar Police!

The two groups look similar, standing in similar poses and apart from one Cueball holding signs in each group, one [[Megan]] is also in the front line of both groups. [[Hairy]] is only shown with the fashion police, together with yet another [[:Category:Multiple Cueballs|Cueball-like guy]], while [[Ponytail]] is only shown with the grammar police together with a bald man with glasses.

Both types of police are groups of people who make fun of others who wear or say something that doesn't meet their criteria of "good". Fashion police are people who make fun of others who wear clothing that is mismatched, out of style/{{w|fashion}} or straight-up "ugly" to them. Grammar police are people who are "sticklers" to {{w|grammar}} rules and get mad or contradictory if someone uses non-standard grammar in a sentence. The comic explains how the two groups are similar to each other by listing eight points (plus a ninth in the title text) that can be used on both groups. See explanation in the [[#Table of individual items|table below]].

In the caption below the comic Randall notes that he just realized that these are literally the same people because they both exhibit the listed traits. The use of "[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/literally literally]" to emphasize a statement is considered by the grammar police as a dread crime that should be pointed out as such, although the dictionaries already include this definition as acceptable. However it would likely be more appropriate to say figuratively the same people, see [[725: Literally]]. On the other hand, fashion police is known for overusing "literally" in the way the grammar police finds disgusting.

Since it seem like a safe assumption (see [[1339: When You Assume]]) that there are more grammar pedants (see title text of [[1652: Conditionals]]) than fashion police people who read xkcd, and it also would seem likely that many xkcd readers would dislike the Fashion Police (more), it seems likely that Randall is actually mainly targeting the Grammar Police people reading xkcd, than the fashion people who do not. They will not like to be compared to the Fashion Police! Ponytail also represented the grammar police in [[1576: I Could Care Less]], where Megan puts her in place after she polices her sentence. Thus this shows what Randall thinks about such police work and supports the assumption above. Literally was also used here in the title text.

Randall is, with regards to language, definitely one of those that can belong in this group: ''To seem cool and casual, pretend to ignore them while understanding them very well.''

The title is a ninth point on the list with the star in front representing one more bullet (see the last entry in the [[#Table of individual items|table below]]):
*Mad about jorts.

==Table of individual items==
{| class="wikitable"
|+Explanation of individual items in the list
!list item
!Explanation
|-
|Judgemental and Smug || Both types of police will look down upon those who violate their 'laws'.
|-
|Angry about something deeply arbitrary || Both grammar and fashion are, essentially, made-up human constructs.
|-
| Strong opinions backed by style guides || Grammar has Strunk and White, fashion has fashion mags.
|-
| Appreciate that the way that you are interpreted is your responsibility || Your choices in both grammar and fashion affect how people see you, and it would be silly to disclaim responsibility for what is essentially your own actions.
|-
| Understand that there's no way to "opt out" of sending messages by how you present yourself, and attempts to do so send strong messages of their own || This means that even if you deliberately choose to not listen to the fashion gurus, then you are actually making a fashion statement anyway, as opposed to those that just don't realize they have a horrible style (and are not dressing wrongly on purpose). Both types can thus be harassed by the Fashion Police. Same goes for those who deliberately do not try to follow the grammar rules. They have thus taken a stance anyway as opposed to those who just do not know how to use grammar correctly. And both types can be harassed for it by the Grammar Police.
|-
|To seem cool and casual, pretend to ignore them while understanding them very well || Deliberately violating fashion or grammar rules gives off a particular 'casual' vibe, distinct from those who violate the rules out of ignorance.
|-
|Vindictive about things that are often uncomfortably transparent proxies for race or social class || "Proper" dress and "proper" language are often defined in terms of how high class people dress and speak. But since "high class" in much of the Western world has generally meant white, alternative ways of dress (e.g. the Afro) or alternative ways of speaking (e.g. Ebonics or Pidgin English) are treated as somehow objectively "wrong", rather than simply as alternatives. Furthermore, dressing or speaking poorly are often marks of "lower class" people who for whatever reason cannot afford fashionable clothing, or don't have access to quality education. So when we judge people for their clothing or their speech, we are often indirectly judging them for their race and class, something that makes Randall uncomfortable.
|-
| Fun to cheer on until one of them disagrees with you|| This may have to do with the human tendency to view the morality of an activity differently when applied to oneself compared to a stranger.
|-
| Mad about jorts (Title text) || "{{w|Shorts#Jorts|Jorts}}" is a {{w|portmanteau}} for a pair of jeans that are made into shorts. The fashion police would be mad about jorts for being unfashionable, while the grammar police would be mad about the word 'jorts' being an inappropriate portmanteau of jeans and shorts, and also for the fact that the sentence could be misinterpreted as if someone like jorts, as in being mad about something in a positive way. Randall has [[:Category:Portmanteau|often used]] portmanteaus as part of his jokes.
|}

==Transcript==
:[Beneath two headings to the left and right are shown two aggressive-looking groups of people with only the four people in the front clearly shown for each group. Behind them five other people can be seen, but they are not drawn with the same solid line and are only partly shown behind the first four, but legs from all five in each group can be seen along with some heads (all Cueball like) and arms etc. The front of the left group consist of Hairy holding a fist up towards left, Megan with her arms crossed in front of her chest, Cueball holding a sign, using both hands, straight up above his head and another Cueball-like guy to the right is holding up a broken branch in one hand toward right. The person behind this last person is shown to hold up his fist towards right like Hairy does to the left. The sign shows a Crocs shoe in a circle with a strike through it going above the Crocs from top left to bottom right. The front of the right group consist of Megan holding both her arms over her head hands folded into fist while looking towards left, Cueball holding a sign, using both hands, towards the right and up above Ponytails head, she is raising one hand in a fist to the left and finally a bald guy with glasses is brandishing a short sword in one hand toward right while holding his other hand palm up. The sign has three similar words written beneath each other.]
:Left: Fashion Police
:Right: Grammar Police
:Sign:
::Their
::They're
::There

:[Below the two groups are eight points with bullets:]
:*Judgemental and smug
:*Angry about something deeply arbitrary
:*Strong opinions backed by style guides
:*Appreciate that the way that you are interpreted ''is'' your responsibility
:*Understand that there's no way to "opt out" of sending messages by how you present yourself, and attempts to do so send strong messages of their own
:*To seem cool and casual, pretend to ignore them while understanding them very well
:*Vindictive about things that are often uncomfortably transparent proxies for race or social class
:*Fun to cheer on until one of them disagrees with you

:[Caption below the panel:]
:I just realized these are literally the same people

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Portmanteau]]

1735: Fashion Police and Grammar Police

2016-09-20T13:55:37Z

108.162.221.139: /* Explanation */ Policing grammar

{{comic
| number = 1735
| date = September 19, 2016
| title = Fashion Police and Grammar Police
| image = fashion_police_and_grammar_police.png
| titletext = * Mad about jorts
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|For those that are not native English speakers, the way the three "T" words are mixed up (and maybe even their meaning) should be explained as that is part of the joke, and can not always be understood by those who are not with the G-force (aka Grammar Police).}}

In this comic, two groups of angry protesters are presented and labeled. They should not be seen as protesting side by side, but rather like two similar groups protesting about different things even though they are in many ways similar.

The left group represents the '''Fashion Police''' with [[Cueball]] holding a sign saying {{w|Crocs}} not allowed (by showing a pair of Crocs shoes in a circle with a strike through it). Crocs are a type of {{w|Clog|clogs}} made of foam. There may be some ergonomic advantages to these special looking shoes, but they will {{w|Crocs#Fashion|never become fashionable}}. It is not the first time [[Randall]] mocks a special type of shoes (although here it may not so much be himself that are against Crocs, but rather he just chose something easy to recognize that the Fashion Police would hate). Previously in [[1065: Shoes]] Randall was after shoes that ''has those creepy individual toes'' like {{w|Vibram FiveFingers}}. They will also never be a hit with the Fashion Police.

The right group represents the '''Grammar Police''' with another Cueball holding a sign with three commonly-confused words beneath each other; [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/their Their], [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/they%27re They're], [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/there There]. The words are written on the sign to explain that there is a difference between these three words, as many people confuses them with each other, and then the Grammar Police ''have'' to correct them (see [[386: Duty Calls]]). See the [https://twitter.com/_grammar_ Grammar Police on Twitter] and also {{w|Grammar Police|Linguistic prescription}} which comes up on Wikipedia when searching for Grammar Police!

The two groups look similar, standing in similar poses and apart from Cueball holding signs in each group [[Megan]] is also in the front line of both groups. [[Hairy]] is only shown with the fashion police, together with yet another [[:Category:Multiple Cueballs|Cueball-like guy]], while [[Ponytail]] is only shown with the grammar police together with a bald man with glasses.

Both types of police are groups of people who make fun of others who wear or say something that doesn't meet their criteria of "good". Fashion police are people who make fun of others who wear clothing that is mismatched, out of style/{{w|fashion}} or straight-up "ugly" to them. Grammar police are people who are "sticklers" to {{w|grammar}} rules and get mad or contradictory if someone uses non-standard grammar in a sentence. The comic explains how the two groups are similar to each other by listing eight points (plus a ninth in the title text) that can be used on both groups. See explanation in the [[#Table of individual items|table below]].

In the caption below the comic Randall notes that he just realized that these are literally the same people because they both exhibit the listed traits. The use of "[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/literally literally]" to emphasize a statement is considered by the grammar police as a dread crime that should be pointed out as such, although the dictionaries already include this definition as acceptable. However it would likely be more appropriate to say figuratively the same people, see [[725: Literally]]. On the other hand, fashion police is known for overusing "literally" in the way the grammar police finds disgusting.

Since it seem like a safe assumption (see [[1339: When You Assume]]) that there are more grammar pedants (see title text of [[1652: Conditionals]]) than fashion police people who read xkcd, and it also would seem likely that many xkcd readers would dislike the Fashion Police (more), it seems likely that Randall is actually mainly targeting the Grammar Police people reading xkcd, than the fashion people who do not. They will not like to be compared to the Fashion Police! Ponytail also represented the grammar police in [[1576: I Could Care Less]], where Megan puts her in place after she polices her sentence. Thus this shows what Randall thinks about such police work and supports the assumption above. Literally was also used here in the title text.

Randall is, with regards to language, definitely one of those that can belong in this group: ''To seem cool and casual, pretend to ignore them while understanding them very well.''

The title is a ninth point on the list with the star in front representing one more bullet (see the last entry in the [[#Table of individual items|table below]]):
*Mad about jorts.

==Table of individual items==
{| class="wikitable"
|+Explanation of individual items in the list
!list item
!Explanation
|-
|Judgemental and Smug || Both types of police will look down upon those who violate their 'laws'.
|-
|Angry about something deeply arbitrary || Both grammar and fashion are, essentially, made-up human constructs.
|-
| Strong opinions backed by style guides || Grammar has Strunk and White, fashion has fashion mags.
|-
| Appreciate that the way that you are interpreted is your responsibility || Your choices in both grammar and fashion affect how people see you, and it would be silly to disclaim responsibility for what is essentially your own actions.
|-
| Understand that there's no way to "opt out" of sending messages by how you present yourself, and attempts to do so send strong messages of their own || This means that even if you deliberately choose to not listen to the fashion gurus, then you are actually making a fashion statement anyway, as opposed to those that just don't realize they have a horrible style (and are not dressing wrongly on purpose). Both types can thus be harassed by the Fashion Police. Same goes for those who deliberately do not try to follow the grammar rules. They have thus taken a stance anyway as opposed to those who just do not know how to use grammar correctly. And both types can be harassed for it by the Grammar Police.
|-
|To seem cool and casual, pretend to ignore them while understanding them very well || Deliberately violating fashion or grammar rules gives off a particular 'casual' vibe, distinct from those who violate the rules out of ignorance.
|-
|Vindictive about things that are often uncomfortably transparent proxies for race or social class || "Proper" dress and "proper" language are often defined in terms of how high class people dress and speak. But since "high class" in much of the Western world has generally meant white, alternative ways of dress (e.g. the Afro) or alternative ways of speaking (e.g. Ebonics or Pidgin English) are treated as somehow objectively "wrong", rather than simply as alternatives. Furthermore, dressing or speaking poorly are often marks of "lower class" people who for whatever reason cannot afford fashionable clothing, or don't have access to quality education. So when we judge people for their clothing or their speech, we are often indirectly judging them for their race and class, something that makes Randall uncomfortable.
|-
| Fun to cheer on until one of them disagrees with you|| This may have to do with the human tendency to view the morality of an activity differently when applied to oneself compared to a stranger.
|-
| Mad about jorts (Title text) || "{{w|Shorts#Jorts|Jorts}}" is a {{w|portmanteau}} for a pair of jeans that are made into shorts. The fashion police would be mad about jorts for being unfashionable, while the grammar police would be mad about the word 'jorts' being an inappropriate portmanteau of jeans and shorts, and also for the fact that the sentence could be misinterpreted as if someone like jorts, as in being mad about something in a positive way. Randall has [[:Category:Portmanteau|often used]] portmanteaus as part of his jokes.
|}

==Transcript==
:[Beneath two headings to the left and right are shown two aggressive-looking groups of people with only the four people in the front clearly shown for each group. Behind them five other people can be seen, but they are not drawn with the same solid line and are only partly shown behind the first four, but legs from all five in each group can be seen along with some heads (all Cueball like) and arms etc. The front of the left group consist of Hairy holding a fist up towards left, Megan with her arms crossed in front of her chest, Cueball holding a sign, using both hands, straight up above his head and another Cueball-like guy to the right is holding up a broken branch in one hand toward right. The person behind this last person is shown to hold up his fist towards right like Hairy does to the left. The sign shows a Crocs shoe in a circle with a strike through it going above the Crocs from top left to bottom right. The front of the right group consist of Megan holding both her arms over her head hands folded into fist while looking towards left, Cueball holding a sign, using both hands, towards the right and up above Ponytails head, she is raising one hand in a fist to the left and finally a bald guy with glasses is brandishing a short sword in one hand toward right while holding his other hand palm up. The sign has three similar words written beneath each other.]
:Left: Fashion Police
:Right: Grammar Police
:Sign:
::Their
::They're
::There

:[Below the two groups are eight points with bullets:]
:*Judgemental and smug
:*Angry about something deeply arbitrary
:*Strong opinions backed by style guides
:*Appreciate that the way that you are interpreted ''is'' your responsibility
:*Understand that there's no way to "opt out" of sending messages by how you present yourself, and attempts to do so send strong messages of their own
:*To seem cool and casual, pretend to ignore them while understanding them very well
:*Vindictive about things that are often uncomfortably transparent proxies for race or social class
:*Fun to cheer on until one of them disagrees with you

:[Caption below the panel:]
:I just realized these are literally the same people

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Portmanteau]]

Talk:1732: Earth Temperature Timeline

2016-09-12T19:44:34Z

108.162.221.139:

Well, never mind then. Oh well. -- [[User:JayRulesXKCD|JayRulesXKCD]] ([[User talk:JayRulesXKCD|talk]]) 1:02, 12 September 2016
:I acknowledge that the picture is WAY too long, so I added a "skip to explanation" bar, to speed things up. --[[User:JayRulesXKCD|JayRulesXKCD]] ([[User talk:JayRulesXKCD|talk]]) 17:32, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Is it just me or does the picture not render all the way down in full resolution on firefox? I found it worked on Chrome and explorer... And Wauw, just after I had created the new [[:Category:Climate change]]... Was also just watched a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxEGHW6Lbu8 QandA program] yesterday where [[1644: Stargazing|Brian Cox]] tried to convince some Australian politician about global warming, but the other one just cried conspiracy... Will take some time to make this one complete I guess? Great ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 17:53, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
:That's the thing with this kind of stuff. It takes a LONG time to make it just right. --[[User:JayRulesXKCD|JayRulesXKCD]] ([[User talk:JayRulesXKCD|talk]]) 19:08, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Please delete the ridiculous trivia
*The colors used to represent temperature vary from blue (the perceived hue of a black body at 20000K) to pale red (perceived at 2200K).
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.139|108.162.221.139]] 19:44, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

1732: Earth Temperature Timeline

2016-09-12T19:42:10Z

108.162.221.139: /* Explanation */ The P in Pokemon may be an uppercase

{{comic
| number = 1732
| date = September 12, 2016
| title = Earth Temperature Timeline
| before = [[#Explanation|↓ Skip to explanation ↓]]
| image = earth_temperature_timeline.png
| titletext = [After setting your car on fire] Listen, your car's temperature has changed before.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Include table for explanations of each event including the year and the temperature at that time. Please remove this tag only when everything is explained.}}
In the past 100 years, human action produced lots of {{w|CO₂ emissions}}, which have caused a rise in average global temperature through the {{w|greenhouse effect}}. This is called {{w|global warming}} and is part of a {{w|climate change}}, a subject that has become a [[:Category:Climate change|recurrent subject]] on xkcd. There are still many people who claim that this is not happening, or at least that it is not caused by any human actions, called "climate change deniers". One argument of theirs is that global warming is happening for natural causes, summarized with the phrase "temperature has changed before".

This comic shows that while temperature changes have indeed occurred before, the speed of the current temperature rise is much, much faster than those seen (actually: estimated) in the previous thousands of years.

This comic is a [[:Category:Timeline|timeline]] on how the temperature has changed since 20,000 BCE to the present day and extrapolated 84 years on depending on the choice of actions to stop CO₂ emission is taken now or never. It is meant to contrast the slow-paced natural changes with the rapid temperature rise in the recent years. The effect is achieved by forcing the reader to scroll endlessly through slow, building-up changes and then face them with an almost instantaneous, quick rise towards the end.

The title text compares the slow changes to a car that occur over many years with the rapid destruction caused by burning. This joke was made previously in [[1693: Oxidation]].

* 9000 BCE: '''Last North American Pokemon'''[''sic'']''' go extinct''' — as prehistoric [[Megan]] states, this is not a real fact. Pokémon are still thriving throughout the entire world (see [[1705: Pokémon Go]]), and are most commonly found near regions of dense human habitation.
* 2750 BCE: '''Stonehenge completed''' — the drawing is a reference to the 1984 movie "This is Spinal Tap" (A documentary/parody featuring the fake metal band "Spinal Tap", http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088258/), the musicians order a Stone Henge prop for the stage, which turns out to be too small (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAXzzHM8zLw)

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}
*I'm working on it. Hold your breath... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:32, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

==Trivia==
*The timeline starts at 20000BCE (22,000 years ago) and ends near 2200CE, thus covering 22,200 years.
**The colors used to represent temperature vary from blue (the perceived hue of a black body at 20000K) to pale red (perceived at 2200K).
**Since humans generally lack familiarity with extreme temperatures, blue is commonly associated with cold substances such as ice, while red is associated with hot obvious black body radiators, in contrast to the temperatures of objects which predominantly emit those wavelengths.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Large drawings]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Timelines]]
[[Category:Line graphs]]
[[Category:Maps]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]] 
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Climate change]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Music]] 
[[Category:Fiction]] 
[[Category:Sport]] 
[[Category:Religion]] 
[[Category:Internet]]
[[Category:Pokémon]]

1732: Earth Temperature Timeline

2016-09-12T19:39:06Z

108.162.221.139: /* Explanation */ spelling

{{comic
| number = 1732
| date = September 12, 2016
| title = Earth Temperature Timeline
| before = [[#Explanation|↓ Skip to explanation ↓]]
| image = earth_temperature_timeline.png
| titletext = [After setting your car on fire] Listen, your car's temperature has changed before.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Include table for explanations of each event including the year and the temperature at that time. Please remove this tag only when everything is explained.}}
In the past 100 years, human action produced lots of {{w|CO₂ emissions}}, which have caused a rise in average global temperature through the {{w|greenhouse effect}}. This is called {{w|global warming}} and is part of a {{w|climate change}}, a subject that has become a [[:Category:Climate change|recurrent subject]] on xkcd. There are still many people who claim that this is not happening, or at least that it is not caused by any human actions, called "climate change deniers". One argument of theirs is that global warming is happening for natural causes, summarized with the phrase "temperature has changed before".

This comic shows that while temperature changes have indeed occurred before, the speed of the current temperature rise is much, much faster than those seen (actually: estimated) in the previous thousands of years.

This comic is a [[:Category:Timeline|timeline]] on how the temperature has changed since 20,000 BCE to the present day and extrapolated 84 years on depending on the choice of actions to stop CO₂ emission is taken now or never. It is meant to contrast the slow-paced natural changes with the rapid temperature rise in the recent years. The effect is achieved by forcing the reader to scroll endlessly through slow, building-up changes and then face them with an almost instantaneous, quick rise towards the end.

The title text compares the slow changes to a car that occur over many years with the rapid destruction caused by burning. This joke was made previously in [[1693: Oxidation]].

* 9000 BCE: '''Last North American pokemon'''[''sic'']''' go extinct''' — as prehistoric [[Megan]] states, this is not a real fact. Pokémon are still thriving throughout the entire world (see [[1705: Pokémon Go]]), and are most commonly found near regions of dense human habitation.
* 2750 BCE: '''Stonehenge completed''' — the drawing is a reference to the 1984 movie "This is Spinal Tap" (A documentary/parody featuring the fake metal band "Spinal Tap", http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088258/), the musicians order a Stone Henge prop for the stage, which turns out to be too small (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAXzzHM8zLw)

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}
*I'm working on it. Hold your breath... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:32, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

==Trivia==
*The timeline starts at 20000BCE (22,000 years ago) and ends near 2200CE, thus covering 22,200 years.
**The colors used to represent temperature vary from blue (the perceived hue of a black body at 20000K) to pale red (perceived at 2200K).
**Since humans generally lack familiarity with extreme temperatures, blue is commonly associated with cold substances such as ice, while red is associated with hot obvious black body radiators, in contrast to the temperatures of objects which predominantly emit those wavelengths.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Large drawings]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Timelines]]
[[Category:Line graphs]]
[[Category:Maps]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]] 
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Climate change]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Music]] 
[[Category:Fiction]] 
[[Category:Sport]] 
[[Category:Religion]] 
[[Category:Internet]]
[[Category:Pokémon]]

Talk:1728: Cron Mail

2016-09-04T15:08:18Z

108.162.221.139: Yes, the explanation has to be technical.

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

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

The huge question is whether adding an email message to crontab would result in cron producing even more mail - or whether it would cause cron to fail in some way. The latter would do damage by killing some (possibly critical) cron tasks - the former could rapidly fill up the hard drive with an exponentially-growing crontab. An intermediate situation would be that cron simply ignores the junk and continues to function as before - in which case Cueball's change will have little practical impact on disk space consumption - but probably gradually slow cron's crontab parser to a crawl, which would also have rather severe effects. On most Linux setups, the mail directories are on a different partition to /etc. There is often very little spare space on the partition with /etc on it - so it's likely that Cueball's change will eventually do terrible damage in that case too. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.69.98|162.158.69.98]] 14:42, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
:On my Mint/Ubuntu/Debian-based Linux system, adding junk to /etc/crontab put a message is /var/log/syslog about "cron[1495]: (*system*) ERROR (Syntax error, this crontab file will be ignored)". So it looks like appending garbage to the crontab will just break cron entirely (or at least those handled by /etc/crontab; it may be private cron and /etc/cron.d/* jobs may continue to run, but cron.hourly, cron.daily, and cron.weekly jobs on my system are initiated through /etc/crontab so they would not run with a broken /etc/crontab). I don't know if other non-Debian distributions have a cron that behaves differently, however. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 15:18, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
:Seems like it wouldn't break the existing stuff, they'd still get run and then cron would start parsing the noise and complaining - the "intermediate" situation, though the "export MAILTO" seems wrong. If Cueball did it in his .bashrc, it might get into some of *his* cron jobs but unless it's in /etc/crontab (and there, no "export" is needed/used), it wouldn't matter. His jobs probably wouldn't have rights to write to /etc/crontab either. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.48.73|173.245.48.73]] 17:09, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
:Unfortunately this huge question is undecidable (by trivial reduction to halting problem) --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.126|172.68.54.126]] 08:10, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
The current explanation misses a part of the joke present in Cueball's last statement: he is considering the cron program to be somehow sentient and able to make a decision between sending the email (is it really important?) and its self-preservation by not trashing its own config file. He is thus daring cron to continue sending emails at the risk of 'self-destruction'.

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

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

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

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

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

What exactly does "hardball" mean? Is it a US slang term or such?[[Special:Contributions/141.101.91.223|141.101.91.223]] 04:03, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
:"Playing hardball" is an idiom, meaning "to act strong & aggressive about an issue" [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.114|108.162.245.114]] 05:23, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

With "YOUR MOVE, CRON." Cueball adapts a famous movie quote ("Your move, creep.") from Robocop (1987) as if he would strike back against "the machine" from a similar age (admitted, cron is slightly older, but then again Robocop also plays 20 minutes into the future). [[User:Renormalist|Renormalist]] ([[User talk:Renormalist|talk]]) 06:35, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, useless crap. I have smartd on my harddrives and still don't get any warnings that they are about to fail. Well except for all the cron emails I have been ignoring for a decade.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.83.240|162.158.83.240]] 09:15, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

A few corrections: (1) Setting MAILTO=/etc/crontab only affect the system-wide crontab. User crontabs will continue to run as normal. Cueball's cronjob runs under his account (we know that because "he has mail") therefore nothing will change as far as he is concerned. (2) MAILTO appends to the named file, therefore the existing lines in /etc/crontab will not be deleted and will continue to run as normal - the worse that can happen is that new, spurious, cronjobs can be introduced (3) in most modern versions of cron, you can run use a /X syntax which will cause X-1 executions to be skipped (for example 20 10 2 1/5 * will run once every 5 years - assuming the system has not been rebooted in the interim) [[User:Sysin|Sysin]] ([[User talk:Sysin|talk]]) 11:28, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

I agree that the explanation is overly technical, especially considering this Wiki exists largely as a resource to laypeople. A succinct explanation of the joke (the crux of which being that Cueball is actively trying to threaten a computer program) would be preferential to passing off a man page as an ExplainXKCD article. Although linking to a more detailed breakdown of how Cron functions isn't a bad idea at all. This is a pretty good one http://www.unixgeeks.org/security/newbie/unix/cron-1.html

: The joke hinges on a technical matter - and without the technical detail, this would not be an explanation.

: As is often the case with xkcd humor, this cartoon is "layered" so that people with a little knowledge get a joke - but people with deeper knowledge get a bigger joke - or possibly multiple jokes.

: At the topmost layer, Cueball takes a typically unconventional approach to computer problems and is feeding cron with it's own junk - which seems like a small victory - if only a moral victory. Good joke.

: At the second layer, if Cueball can indeed choke cron with it's own junk, then whatever important work that cron is doing will not be done, and this will have a deleterious effect on his computer - so he'll lose out by doing this...but possibly in only a very minor way. This is a better joke because we all love it when an idiotic move results in payback!

: At the third layer, the key to the humor for me is that Cueball has fired the first volley in a "war" - and it is one that he may or may not win. The outcome depends subtly on how his version of cron works...and the outcome is far from certain. If his version of cron ignores errors in the crontab file - then he may cause a violent "explosion" in the number of messages sent by the tool - resulting in his hard drive filling up with crap much more quickly than it was before he knew this was happening...and he'll open up an exploit into his system (the bad guy can send his old-school UNIX account an email containing a cron job request to do something evil (like erasing his entire hard drive, for example). On the other hand if cron refuses to do any work whatever when there is an error then cron's normal activities (mostly organizing and pruning logfiles and such) will be disabled and the hard drive will fill up with those instead. But the idea that there are multiple cron files - per user and per day/week/month - along with personal crontab files that may now fail, or may continue to spew crap, makes this a rather subtle (and DEEPLY technical) question.

: Now this isn't just a joke - it's a deep puzzle with surprising consequences...we have to work hard to decide what the outcome would be. Geeks enjoy that kind of thing - so at the third level, this is a deep and interesting question...and an even better joke for those "in the know".

: Viewed as a "war" between Cueball and cron, I very much doubt that Cueball's first shot will be sufficient to "win" - or indeed improve his situation in any useful way. But unlike most things you can do to screw up a computer, this one could take months or even years to play out...cron's revenge will likely be slow - but possibly devastating.

:* If cron dies because of crap in crontab - and if Cueball's computer doesn't do much of any importance using cron - then Cueball wins.

:* If cron merely ignores the crap at the end of the crontab - then Cueball's hard drive will still slowly fill with crap (albeit in an obscure system file rather than in an obsolete email system)...we can regard this as "draw" between Cueball and cron.

:* If cron produces more error messages because of the crap - and decides to email it to Cueball, then the hard drive may fill up at an exponential rate and cron will steal increasing amounts of CPU time until the laptop locks up and life for Cueball becomes much harder! Cron "wins" and the crowd goes wild! :-)

: But the reasons behind that are very subtle - and need to be explained. Since the role of explainxkcd is to provide these explanations to the semi-layperson - some significant amount of technical information is indeed required here in order to fully understand all of the layers of the joke.

: One often wonders whether Randall fully understands all of the layers! I've been using UNIX, then MINIX, now Linux since around 1976 - and predicting the outcome of Cueball's actions is far from obvious without diving into the manuals. (And, if I'm honest...trying it on an old Raspberry Pi that I happen to have lying around! :-)

: [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.139|108.162.221.139]] 15:08, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

1547: Solar System Questions

2015-08-23T17:47:41Z

108.162.221.139: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1547
| date = July 6, 2015
| title = Solar System Questions
| image = solar_system_questions.png
| titletext = My country's World Cup win was exciting and all, but c'mon, what if the players wore nylon wings and COULD LITERALLY FLY?
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a list of questions which [[Randall]] has about the Solar System, which at first glance may appear to be things that Randall would like to learn about.
In actuality, most of the questions have not been satisfactorily answered or proven by anyone in the {{w|List_of_unsolved_problems_in_physics#Astronomy_and_astrophysics|scientific community}}.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Question given
! Answer given by Randall (in red in the original)
! Comments
|-
| Why is the the Moon so blotchy?
| Lava
| The {{w|Moon}} is in synchronous rotation with Earth, which means that we always can see only one half of the surface of the Moon. And on that side we can see large {{w|lunar maria}} formed by lava from big volcanoes. This surface is very different from all other celestial bodies we know in our Solar system. The double "the the" could be a Randallism — intended or unintended.
|-
| Why are all the blotches on the near side?
| ...
| The nearside of the Moon is dominated by the blotchy 'seas' or maria, the far side by craters. {{w|Far_side_of_the_Moon#Differences|Several explanations}} for this have been proposed, including an overabundance of impacts obliterating the blotches on the more exposed far side, different compositions of heat-producing elements, large collisions, or heat produced by the still-cooling Earth.
|-
| Did Mars have seas?
| Yes (briefly?)
| Recent explorations have confirmed there was once standing (and also flowing) water on {{w|Mars}}. Many rovers and orbiters on Mars give us the evidence on this early development of that planet, but it is still unknown how long such conditions existed in its history. Two of these probes have been the subject of comics before: [[695: Spirit]] and [[1504: Opportunity]].
|-
| Was there life on Mars?
| ...
| One of the big mysteries, {{w|Life on Mars|not yet answered}}.
|-
| What's Titan like?
| Cold, yellow, lakes + rivers (methane)
| The {{w|Cassini–Huygens}} mission confirmed the presence of {{w|Lakes_of_Titan|lakes and rivers}} on {{w|Titan (moon)|Titan}}. The {{w|Huygens_(spacecraft)#Findings|Huygens}} lander itself returned some very yellow images of a dry lake bed from Titan's surface. The possibility of life on Titan was mentioned in [[829: Arsenic-Based Life]].
|-
| What was Earth like during the Hadean?
| ...
| The {{w|Hadean}} was the first geologic era on earth, the planet had just formed and not much is known of that period of Earth. But since it was the time when Earth was formed it was mainly very hot with extreme volcanic activity, with the entire surface melted. This is why the era is named after {{w|Hades}} the ancient Greek god of the underworld, even though Hades was never associated with fire.
|-
| Is the Oort Cloud a real thing?
| ...
| The {{w|Oort Cloud}} is a theoretical spherical cloud of icy planetesimals, maybe dust, and also larger objects at a distance of up to around 100,000 {{w|Astronomical units|AU}} from our Sun. We can see similar clouds at other stars, but there is still no evidence that this cloud exists in our Solar System.
|-
| Why is the Sun's corona so hot?
| Something about magnets?
| The {{w|corona}} of the sun is hotter than it theoretically should be. The looping magnetic fields in this area could be responsible.
|-
| What are comets like?
| Precipitous
| The {{w|Philae (spacecraft)|Philae lander}} finally stopped moving when it ran into a cliff.
|-
| Where's Philae, exactly?
| ...
| ...but we're not sure ''which'' cliff. The landing of Philae was depicted in real time in the dynamic comic [[1446: Landing]]. This lasted for several hours. Later the comic was updated with a new image where Philae is resting on the edge of a cliff.
|-
| What's Pluto like?
| rowspan="2" | [Soon!]
| rowspan="2" | The probe {{w|New Horizons}} may be about to answer both of these questions, as it will reach its closest approach to both {{w|Pluto}} and {{w|Charon (moon)|Charon}} just eight days after the release of this comic. The probe was the subject of the comic [[1532: New Horizons]].
|-
| What's Charon like?
|-
| Why don't we have in-between-sized planets?
| ...
| There is a size-gap between the rocky {{w|terrestrial planets}} up to Earth size and the {{w|gas giants}} very much larger than Earth in our Solar System.
There are many known {{w|exoplanets}} (planets in other solar systems) filling in the range between our rocky planets and our gas giants, known as [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Exoplanet_Mass-Radius_Scatter_Super-Earth.png Super-Earths]
|-
| What's Ceres like?
| [Working on it!]
| The {{w|Dawn (spacecraft)|Dawn probe}} is currently exploring the {{w|dwarf planet}} {{w|Ceres (dwarf planet)|Ceres}} and reveals unseen surface features.
|-
| Why is Europa so weird-looking and pretty?
| Ice over a water ocean
| {{w|Europa (moon)|Europa}} is a moon of {{w|Jupiter}} and the surface is basically thick pack ice covered in {{w|lineae}}.
|-
| Why is Io so weird-looking?
| Sulfur volcanoes (? in the wrong places?)
| The moon {{w|Io (moon)|Io}} is also orbiting Jupiter and is close enough that {{w|tidal forces}} make it the most volcanic object in the solar system. The moon is mainly yellow but there are several other colors on the surface, for instance spots and streaks of bright red that comes from {{w|sulfur}} ejected by the volcanoes. The "wrong places" refer to some volcanoes discovered by the {{w|Voyager program|Voyager missions}} and believed to erupt sulfur. But more recent measurements showed that the temperature inside those volcanoes is about 2.000 °C where this element is not liquid anymore but gas.
|-
| Why are so many Kuiper Belt objects red?
| ...
| Many objects in the {{w|Kuiper Belt}} have a reddish hue. A possible explanation is that they are [http://www.space.com/9418-icy-red-objects-solar-system-edge-point-life-building-blocks.html| covered in organic molecules] formed by the irradiation of their surface ices. The New Horizons probe might also shed light on this.
|-
| What are those spots on Ceres?
| ...
| The Dawn probe found some mysterious spots on Ceres. These [http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA19568.jpg white spots] are still not understood, but the mission is still running and we may figure out the source of the glowing white features. These spots became the punch line of the joke in [[1476: Ceres]].
|-
| What's in the seas under Europa's ice?
| ...
| The {{w|ESA}} selected the mission {{w|Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer|Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer (JUICE)}} to Jupiter. The moon Europa is one target for that mission. But we have to wait, because its launch target is 2022 and the arrival at Jupiter is planned for 2030. But that's not uncommon for missions like this. New Horizons and {{w|Rosetta (spacecraft)|Rosetta}} also traveled approximately ten years to reach their targets. And before such a mission can start many preparations have to be done. {{w|2010: Odyssey Two}} is a 1982 science fiction novel by {{w|Arthur C. Clarke}} in which he envisions life under the ice on Europa. This life becomes a major plot point both in this and in the two sequels.
|-
| Which of the other moons have seas?
| Several
| Randall has already mentioned above that there are liquids on two moons. The Moon Titan at Saturn has lakes on its surface formed by liquid ethane, methane, and propane and the Jupiter's moon Europa has a sea of water covered by a thick sheet of ice. Depending on the definition of 'sea', other less obviously 'frozen water world' moons such as {{w|Ganymede (moon)|Ganymede}} at Jupiter may have {{w|Ganymede (moon)#Subsurface oceans|subsurface}} [http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27151-aurora-reveals-jupiter-moons-secret-subsurface-sea.html oceans] of liquid water and on other moons it could be other substances that are liquid at the relevant temperature, like on Titan.
|-
| What are the big white things in Titan's lakes?
| ...
| This is a joke about some gaps in the radar measurements as shown in this [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PIA10008_Seas_and_Lakes_on_Titan_full_size.jpg image].
|-
| What do Jupiter's clouds look like up close?
| ...
| The Jupiter mission {{w|Galileo (spacecraft)|Galileo}}, operated by NASA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), arrived at Jupiter in 1995 and was sent to impact the planet at the end of that mission in 2003 to eliminate the possibility of contaminating local moons with terrestrial bacteria. Several measurements were done on the atmosphere but no pictures were sent back to Earth. So there is still no answer on this question.
|-
| What's all that red stuff in the Great Red Spot?
| ...
| The {{w|Great Red Spot}} is a storm south of Jupiter's equator. Observations from Earth show a lifespan of more than 150 years. It's unknown why it's stable for that long a time and it's also not clear why the color is red. The probe {{w|Juno (spacecraft)|Juno}} will arrive in July 2016 at Jupiter and maybe answer Randall's question.
|-
| What's pushing the Pioneer probes?
| Heat from the RTG
| Discussed as the {{w|Pioneer anomaly}}. RTG stands for {{w|Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator}}. This effect was mentioned (and explained a little differently) in the title text of [[502: Dark Flow]].
|-
| What pushes spacecraft slightly during flybys?
| ...
| Several spacecraft experienced unexplained speed increases during Earth flybys. This is called the {{w|flyby anomaly}}.
|-
| Where are all the Sun's neutrinos?
| Oscillating
| There are fewer observed electron neutrinos from the sun than the standard model predicts. This is called the {{w|Solar neutrino problem}}. Since the sum of all the neutrinos, regardless of type, that come from the sun add up to the predicted number of electron neutrinos it is theorized that neutrinos can change their type. This is called {{w|Neutrino oscillation}}, and can occur only if {{w|neutrinos}} have mass. Neutrino oscillation is considered a proof that the mass of a neutrino is non-zero. The {{w|Neutrino#Mass|mass of a neutrino}} is not yet measured and is one of the problems on the {{w|List_of_unsolved_problems_in_physics#High-energy_physics.2Fparticle_physics|list of unsolved problems in physics}} on Wikipedia.
|-
| Why is there so much air on Titan?
| ...
| {{w|Titan (moon)|Titan}} has an atmospheric pressure 1.45 times that of Earth, but only 1/7th of the surface gravity which is less than Earth's own airless Moon has, hence the confusion. In fact, Titan actually has almost 20% more atmosphere by mass than Earth, and ''seven times'' more atmosphere across a given surface area! Less influence from the more distant Sun probably helps retain more of the atmosphere's gases (for instance, Mars saw most of its atmosphere blasted away by the sun), and {{w|cryovolcanoes}} may replenish the methane fraction which should by now have ''all'' been converted into the other hydrocarbons present from subsurface reservoirs. Further studies are required to properly answer this question.
|-
| Why does the Kuiper Belt stop?
| ...
| A reference to the {{w|Kuiper Cliff}}. Most Kuiper Belt Objects are found between 42 and 48 {{w|astronomical units|AU}}; calculations predicted that there would be more and larger KBOs beyond 50 AU, but instead very few objects have been found in that region. The reason for this is still unknown.
|-
| Why is Iapetus weird-colored?
| ...
| {{w|Iapetus (moon)|Iapetus}} is a moon of {{w|Saturn}} and always keeps the same face towards Saturn. The trailing side is white while the other side is dark.
|-
| Why does Iapetus have a belt?
| ...
| Iapetus has a 13 km high ridge around most of the equator, and a number of 10-km-high mountains where the ridge is interrupted.
|-
| What's the deal with Miranda?
| ...
| {{w|Miranda_(moon)|Miranda}} is the smallest of {{w|Uranus}}' five round satellites, and it's {{w|Verona Rupes|a bit rough around the edges}} and also has an unusually high orbital inclination that is difficult to explain. Also possibly a [[Firefly|''Firefly'' reference]] since {{w|List of Firefly planets and moons#Miranda|Miranda}} is also the name of a planet in {{w|Serenity (film)|''Serenity''}}, a film based on the {{w|Firefly (TV series)|''Firefly''}} TV series.
|-
| Did Uranus and Neptune change places?
| ...
| The {{w|Nice model}} is a theory of how our solar system formed, which suggests the possibility of Uranus and {{w|Neptune}} having swapped places before reaching their current positions. Work by Professor S. Desch [http://dusty.la.asu.edu/~desch/publications/2007/Desch2007.pdf also came to this result].
|-
| Did the Late Heavy Bombardment happen?
| ...
| The {{w|Late Heavy Bombardment}} is the name given to a theorized bombardment of the planet Earth during its early history, along with the other rocky planets around the Sun. It's believed that during that time many large objects still existed and are likely to have impacted the planets. On Earth the evidence for those impacts would have been destroyed, but on the Moon or Mercury some evidence may be available.
|-
| Did life start before it?
| ...
| For some speculation on this topic, see [http://www.livescience.com/5426-life-survived-earth-early-bombardment.html Life Could Have Survived Earth's Early Bombardment]. It is still a mystery if life was formed on Earth first or if it came from outer space.
|-
| Is Europa covered in ice spikes?
| ...
|Dr Daniel Hobley has put forward a [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21341176 theory] that Jupiter's icy moon {{w|Europa (moon)|Europa}} has the right conditions to form ice spikes called {{w|penitentes}} of up to 10m in height.
|-
| Why haven't we built a big inflatable Extreme Sports Complex on The Moon?
| ...
| Apart from the question on the white on Titan, this is the only really silly question that has nothing to do with science or the solar system. However, it would be fun to watch sports in such a stadium - see the title text. See also, e.g., ''{{w|The Menace From Earth}}'', a 1957 short story by Robert Heinlein.
|}

The title text refers to the {{w|2015 FIFA Women's World Cup}} which was won by the USA the day before. The nylon wings and flying may be a reference to two passages from 3001: The Final Odyssey, one where Frank Poole tries out various wings while in an extremely low gravity environment, and one where he remarks while watching Swan Lake that Tchaikovsky could never have imagined a performance where the dancers were actually flying (due to aforementioned low gravity). This is also a reference to the last point on the list, because if we had such a stadium on the moon, maybe it would be possible to use such wings to make very long floating leaps.

==Transcript==
:'''Questions I have'''
:'''about the solar system'''
:(some answered)

:{| class="wikitable" style="border: 0px;"
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Why is the the Moon so blotchy?
| style="border: 0px; color:red;" | Lava
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Why are all the blotches on the near side?
| style="border: 0px;" |
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Did Mars have seas?
| style="border: 0px; color:red;" | Yes (briefly?)
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Was there life on Mars?
| style="border: 0px;" |
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | What's Titan like?
| style="border: 0px; color:red;" | Cold, yellow, lakes + rivers (methane)
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | What was Earth like during the Hadean?
| style="border: 0px;" |
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Is the Oort Cloud a real thing?
| style="border: 0px;" |
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Why is the Sun's corona so hot?
| style="border: 0px; color:red;" | Something about magnets?
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | What are comets like?
| style="border: 0px; color:red;" | Precipitous
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Where's Philae, exactly?
| style="border: 0px;" |
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | What's Pluto like?
| style="border: 0px; color:red;" rowspan="2" | [Soon!]
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | What's Charon like?
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Why don't we have in-between-sized planets?
| style="border: 0px;" |
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | What's Ceres like?
| style="border: 0px; color:red;" | [Working on it!]
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Why is Europa so wierd-looking and pretty?
| style="border: 0px; color:red;" | Ice over a water ocean
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Why is Io so weird-looking?
| style="border: 0px; color:red;" | Sulfur volcanoes (? in the wrong places?)
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Why are so many Kuiper Belt objects red?
| style="border: 0px;" |
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | What are those spots on Ceres?
| style="border: 0px;" |
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | What's in the seas under Europa's ice?
| style="border: 0px;" |
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Which of the other moons have seas?
| style="border: 0px; color:red;" | Several
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | What are the big white things in Titan's Lakes?
| style="border: 0px;" |
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | What do Jupiter's clouds look like up close?
| style="border: 0px;" |
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | What's all that red stuff in the Great Red Spot?
| style="border: 0px;" |
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | What's pushing the Pioneer Probes?
| style="border: 0px; color:red;" | Heat from the RTG
|-
| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | What pushes spacecraft slightly during flybys?
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| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Where are all the Sun's Neutrinos?
| style="border: 0px; color:red;" | Oscillating
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| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Why is there so much air on Titan?
| style="border: 0px;" |
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| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Why does the Kuiper Belt Stop?
| style="border: 0px;" |
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| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Why is Iapetus weird-colored?
| style="border: 0px;" |
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| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Why does Iapetus have a belt?
| style="border: 0px;" |
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| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | What's the deal with Miranda?
| style="border: 0px;" |
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| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Did Uranus and Neptune change places?
| style="border: 0px;" |
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| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Did the Late Heavy Bombardment happen?
| style="border: 0px;" |
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| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Did life start before it?
| style="border: 0px;" |
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| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Is Europa covered in ice spikes?
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| style="border: 0px; text-align: right" | Why haven't we built a big inflatable extreme sports complex on the moon?
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|}

{{comic discussion}}
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