explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1910: Sky Spotters

2017-11-02T14:57:13Z

108.162.221.180: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1910
| date = November 1, 2017
| title = Sky Spotters
| image = sky_spotters.png
| titletext = Where I live, one of the most common categories of sky object without a weird obsessive spotting community is "lost birthday party balloons," so that might be a good choice—although you risk angering the marine wildlife people, and they have sharks.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Close to being complete...}}

In this comic it is explored how people with various hobbies notice strange things in the sky.

In first panel the plane enthusiasts [[White Hat]] and [[Hairy]] notice that there is a {{w|Piper PA-24 Comanche}} in the sky (apparently the most recent of several), belonging to a company that has no flight plans. This makes them wonder why, enough that they decide to post about it on their {{w|Aircraft spotting|plane spotter}} forums. (See [[1669: Planespotting]]).

In the second panel [[Hairbun]] and a male bird enthusiast are wondering why there is a {{w|broad-winged hawk}} in the area in November, which is out of season, and decide to send a message to their {{w|birdwatching}} e-mail list. (See [[1824: Identification Chart]] and [[1826: Birdwatching]]). The two birdwatchers in this panel looks like the old version of [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] in [[572: Together]].

In last panel what looks like a panel from the {{w|National Security Agency}} wonders how to disguise their {{w|Unmanned aerial vehicle|drones}} so that people will not pay attention to them. It seems that the boss at the end of table is lamenting the fact that both their birds and plane disguised drones have been noticed because of all these people constantly checking out the sky, also indicating that there are even more subcultures who are obsessed with things in the sky than the two mentioned already. [[Ponytail]] asks what else they could disguise their (secret) surveillance drones as, and Cueball suggests a {{w|weather balloon}}. But Ponytail shoots this down since such a disguise would attract both the {{w|UFO}} enthusiasts and the "weather people". A joke is then put in as she notes that she doesn't know which is worse. Since most people consider UFO enthusiasts to be in to conspiracies, the "weather people" may be annoyed by this. Maybe [[Randall]] is indicating that people trying to predict the weather are correct as often as those claiming to have seen a UFO...

There are numerous instances of <s>UFOs being labeled as weather balloons by the military</s> weather balloons being labeled as UFOs by enthusiasts, one of the most notable being the {{w|Roswell UFO incident}}, which for years was explained by the US military as a weather balloon crash, but turned out to be a nuclear test surveillance balloon. It is now known as the ''most thoroughly debunked UFO claim''.

In the title text it is suggested that "lost birthday party balloons" should not attract too much attention. But then it is noted that it might make marine wildlife people angry, their concern probably being that balloons ultimately end up in some water body, which causes marine wildlife to get trapped in plastic and other synthetic material that was dumped in the water. (see {{w|Marine debris}}) "Marine wildlife people with sharks" may be a reference to [[585: Outreach]], which also features a balloon carrying a shark. Another possible issue with disguising drones as "lost balloons" is that such balloons are quite rarely seen, and a sudden increase in the number of "lost balloons" seen would certainly raise suspicion even without a "spotting community" that focuses on them.

The reference to red trim on the Piper PA-24 Comanche could be a reference to the livery of {{w|Janet (airline)}} which operates clandestine flights between Las Vegas, Area 51, and other desert military bases, although these planes are in fact registered to the Department of the Air Force, rather than a holding company.

Among other types of people looking at the sky, the comic doesn't even get around to mentioning the subject of comic [[1644: Stargazing]].

==Transcript==
:[White Hat and Hairy are standing in front of some buildings. White Hat points to the sky while holding his smartphone in the other hand, while Hairy holds his smartphone up in both hands as he looks at the screen.]
:White Hat: That's odd—another PA-24 Comanche with red trim. Registered to a holding company, no recent flight plans.
:Hairy: I'll ask the forums if anyone knows who operates those.

:[Hairbun and and old man with white sailor cap, are standing in a field with rolling hills behind them. Hairbun is looking at the sky through her binoculars, that she has in a string around her neck. The man also looks up but he is holding his string attached binoculars down in front of him.]
:Hairbun: Goodness, I think that's a broad-winged hawk!
:Man with sailor cap: In November?! They should be long gone by now!
:Hairbun: I'll email the list.

:[Five people sit around a table in a boardroom, which presumably belongs to the government as the table has a circular insignia with an eagle in the center and unreadable text in the ring around the eagle and and beneath the insignia. A man with slick black hair is sitting at the end of the table in an office chair. The other four is sitting behind the long side of the table, from left they are Cueball, Megan, another version of Hairy, with more spiky hair and to the right Ponytail]
:Man at the end of the table: Dammit, why are there so many different subcultures obsessed with staring at the sky?
:Ponytail: What else could we disguise our surveillance drones as?
:Cueball: Weather balloons?
:Ponytail: No, that gets the UFO people ''and'' the weather people.
:Ponytail: Don't know who's worse.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Drones]]
[[Category:Animals]]

Talk:1537: Types

2015-06-12T20:19:55Z

108.162.221.180:

Relevant: WAT talk https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat {{unsigned ip|‎108.162.254.108}}

Are (6) and (7) about completing sequences?

If the sequence was [1, 2, 3, ?] we would expect the ? to be a placeholder for 4. So [1, 2, 3]+2 is wrong := FALSE. But [1, 2, 3]+4 is correct := TRUE. {{unsigned ip|141.101.99.22}}

"+2 appears to be applying a unary + to the number 2" : or it adds the number of the line, 10, to 2 => 12. Also, the eleventh line, "2+2" may add 2 to all the following 2, explaining line 12. (that theory is from a friend of mine) [[User:Seipas|Seipas]] ([[User talk:Seipas|talk]]) 12:17, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
: Also, for the lines 6 and 7, the operation "[1,2,3]+x" may add x to the set [1,2,3] and return true if the operation succeeded or false if not. Adding 2 to the set [1,2,3] returns false because 2 is already in [1,2,3]. [[User:Seipas|Seipas]] ([[User talk:Seipas|talk]]) 12:23, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Yellowish Blue: http://www.livescience.com/17948-red-green-blue-yellow-stunning-colors.html is NaN! {{unsigned ip|108.162.221.129}}

''"The ironic thing is that fractions with 2 in the nominator are not the kind of numbers that typically suffer from floating point impreciseness."''
- This is not technically correct. Should read "fractions with 'power of 2' in the '''de'''nominator. However, the 3/2 would cause precision errors. {{unsigned ip|108.162.221.129}}
: I don't know proper English wording for things, but 3/2=3*2^-1, so it would be represented exactly under IEEE-754 too. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.217|141.101.89.217]] 13:58, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Is there more to this comic, a fixed set of rules that can tie all the examples together, or does each line make its own joke independently? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.5|108.162.219.5]] 12:54, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

;"normally"

<blockquote>This would make sense if it was <code>[] + 2</code></blockquote>

It really wouldn't. Javascript returns <code>"2"</code> (god knows why) and Python gives an error. Don't really feel like testing many other languages, but I also think it's not really a logical assumption to make at all. Can't think of a reason for <code>[] + 2</code> to return <code>[2]</code>... ever. It ''might'' make a little bit of sense in Randall's oddly typed language, but not in any sane one. --[[User:TotempaaltJ|TotempaaltJ]] ([[User talk:TotempaaltJ|talk]]) 12:35, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

: Javascript first converts <code>[]</code> (the empty array) to the empty string (using the rule "stringify each element and join with a comma"), then treats the operation as <code>"" + 2</code>, which results in conversion of the other operand to string and then concatenation. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.97.214|141.101.97.214]] 12:46, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

line 4: asci code of N + 2 = asci code of P [[User:SirKitKat|sirKitKat]] ([[User talk:SirKitKat|talk]]) 13:07, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

My favourite xkcd in a while. =8o) Of the list I got a good laugh out of numbers 8 and 13. [[User:Jarod997|Jarod997]] ([[User talk:Jarod997|talk]]) 13:11, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

I think a lot of this is his joke about programming languages loving the number 4. 2 + "2" = "4", [1,2,3] + 4 = true, 2+2 = DONE, and the range one all seem to support this. Also reminds me of this: http://xkcd.com/221/ {{unsigned ip|173.245.52.112}}

Why isn't yellowish blue just green? [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 16:18, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

line 4: I read NaP as Not a Problem. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.12|141.101.104.12]] 17:00, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Line 3 is missing its prompt. There does not appear to be any relevance to the joke, nor has anyone yet explained why it should be missing. Typo? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.183|108.162.221.183]] 17:10, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Note that some programming languages avoid the problem of overloaded '+' operator between operands of vividly different types by using other symbols for string concatenation (be it "a"~"b" or "a"."b") and numerical addition. The real WTF is abusing '+' for string concatenation, which has very different properties from numerical addition, not being symmetrical for example: concat("aa", "bb") == "aabb", while concat("bb", "aa") == "bbaa" != "aabb". --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 17:38, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Series of comics? I don't recall any others about Randall's new programming language... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.29|141.101.98.29]] 19:13, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

;+2
I think this is a japanese language joke. The + sign can also refer to the kanji 十, which is 10 in japanese. This would explain the result being twelve. 十二, or 10 2, is twelve in japanese. {{unsigned|Rafaeladson}}

I think number 5 is an escaped quote (two consecutive double quotes yields one double quote), a plus sign, and another escaped quote. The result is shown with an alternate form of escaped quotes (the apostrophe and double quote can both be used to show a string). NSIS scripting language uses this notation.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.180|108.162.221.180]] 20:19, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Clearly this is what the xkcd phone's OS is written in (with some help from StackOverflow)