explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2092: Consensus New Year

2019-01-02T13:55:10Z

108.162.221.227: /* Time zones */ Chile in January is in GMT-3, and in June is in GMT-4. Maybe in 1890 it was in GMT-5.

{{comic
| number = 2092
| date = December 31, 2018
| title = Consensus New Year
| image = consensus_new_year.png
| titletext = The biggest jump is at 11:00am EST (4:00pm UTC) when midnight reaches the UTC+8 time zone. That time zone, which includes China, is home to a quarter of the world's population. India and Sri Lanka (UTC+5:30) put us over the 50% mark soon after.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT. Please complete this explanation once everyone has entered the new year. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

In this [[:Category:New Year|New Year comic]], [[Randall]] is proposing a compromise for when to celebrate, or recognize, {{w|New Year's Day}}. These celebrations traditionally take place at the stroke of midnight between Dec. 31st and Jan. 1st, at the local time of the event's location. With "Consensus New Year", these celebrations would happen at the same time, world over, and would be at exactly 1:30 pm {{w|Eastern Time Zone|EST}} (6:30 pm {{w|Coordinated Universal Time|UTC}}). At this time, about half the world's population would be in 2018 local time and the other half would be in 2019. This is due to the various time zones throughout the world, and the graph is based on the proportion of the population in these zones.

This is based on the assumption that the entire world uses the same calendar system. Randall's graph shows the year starting on the same day for the entire world. While the Gregorian calendar is used as the civil calendar in most countries of the world, the Eastern Orthodox churches uses the Julian calendar, on which the year will begin 13 days later, and the year (as of December 2018-January 2018) is 1440 on the Muslim calendar and 5779 on the Hebrew calendar.

Randall abused the word "consensus" in this comic, reflecting the common misuse of the term {{Wikipedia|consensus}} for the common practice of {{Wikipedia|majority vote}}.

In scenarios involving group decision-making, consensus means that all or almost all members of the group will accept the decision. Depending on how it is done, this generally results in a slower decision-making process due to discussion, but decisions that many more people are happy with. Consensus can scale to large groups of people using approaches such as the [https://seedsforchange.org.uk/spokescouncil spokescouncil model] to speed dialogue. By this definition, Consensus New Year happens at one of the last four time zones as the last to "agree" enter 2019, so (nearly full consensus definition) 4:00 am, 5:00 am, 6:00 am, or (full consensus definition) 7:00 am EST on January 1, 2019.

Consensus lies in contrast to majority vote, where a decision passes when over 50% of the people desire it. Majority vote is used in most current large democracies and is what most people are familiar with. It is quick to describe and implement, but can result in a stark lack of minority rights unless tempered by constitutions and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logrolling logrolling].

It is also possible that Randall is using "{{Wiktionary|consensus}}" in its statistical sense, where it indicates the average projected value of a metric.

The leftmost horizontal axis label (10am EST Dec 31st) was an error. The point marked as 0% should be 5am EST (see table below).

Additionally, some of the lines are shown with a slope, which is inaccurate. Since sun time is not used anywhere, a correct graph line would only consist of horizontal and vertical lines.

===Time zones===

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! Time EST !! Time UTC !! %Population in 2019 !! Regions entering 2019
|-
| 5:00 AM || 10:00 || 0 || Pacific Islands
|-
| 6:00 AM || 11:00 || 0 || Pacific Islands
|-
| 7:00 AM || 12:00 || 0 || Kamchatka (Russia), Fiji, New Zealand
|-
| 8:00 AM || 13:00 || 0 || Magadan (Russia), Pacific Islands
|-
| 9:00 AM || 14:00 || 0 || Vladivostok (Russia), Queensland (Australia)
|-
| 10:00 AM || 15:00 || 5 || Yakutsk (Russia), Japan, Korea, Eastern Indonesia
|-
| 11:00 AM || 16:00 || 25 || China, Irkutsk (Russia), Taiwan, Western Australia, Malaysia
|-
| 12:00 PM || 17:00 || 30 || Krasnoyarsk (Russia), Vietnam, Thailand
|-
| 1:00 PM || 18:00 || 35 || Omsk (Russia), Kazakhstan, Bangladesh
|-
| 1:30 PM || 18:30 || 55 || India, Sri Lanka
|-
| 2:00 PM || 19:00 || 60 || Yekaterinburg (Russia), Pakistan
|-
| 3:00 PM || 20:00 || 60 || Samara (Russia), Georgia, Oman, UAE
|-
| 4:00 PM || 21:00 || 70 || Moscow (Russia), Turkey, Saudi Arabia, East Africa
|-
| 5:00 PM || 22:00 || 75 || Eastern Europe, Egypt, Central & Southern Africa
|-
| 6:00 PM || 23:00 || 85 || Central Europe, Africa
|-
| 7:00 PM || 00:00 || 90 || (GMT) UK, Portugal, Ireland, Western Africa
|-
| 8:00 PM || 01:00 || 90 ||
|-
| 9:00 PM || 02:00 || 90 ||
|-
| 10:00 PM || 03:00 || 90 || Northern Brazil, Argentina, Chile
|-
| 11:00 PM || 04:00 || 90 || Atlantic Canada, Venezuela
|-
| 12:00 AM || 05:00 || 95 || (EST) Eastern USA, Peru
|-
| 1:00 AM || 06:00 || 100 || (CT) Central USA, Mexico, Central America
|-
| 2:00 AM || 07:00 || 100 || (MT) Central USA, Western Mexico
|-
| 3:00 AM || 08:00 || 100 || (PST) Western USA
|-
| 4:00 AM || 09:00 || 100 || Alaska
|-
| 5:00 AM || 10:00 || 100 || Pacific Islands
|-
| 6:00 AM || 11:00 || 100 || Pacific Islands
|-
| 7:00 AM || 12:00 || 100 || Pacific Islands
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[A graph labeled “Percentage of the world's population living in 2019” with Y-axis markers at 0%, 50%, and 100%, and X-axis markers at 10:00 AM EST Dec 31st, 1:30 PM EST, 7:00 PM EST, Midnight EST, 3:00 AM EST Jan 1st, and 7:00 AM EST.]
:[The line graph shows the percentage increasing from 0 to 100% in several steps, with 50% reached at 1:30 PM EST.]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Consensus New Year: as of 1:30PM Eastern Time (6:30PM UTC) a majority of the world's population will be living in 2019.

==Trivia==
Randall has mislabeled the leftmost point of the graph: the Earth's earliest time zone ({{w|UTC+14:00}}) should have the midnight at 5:00 AM EST rather than 10:00 AM EST. The number of one-hour increments on the x-axis does not match Randall's label.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:New Year]]
[[Category:Time]]

Talk:2005: Attention Span

2018-06-11T05:51:17Z

108.162.221.227:

Do you think the book being referenced is a Dragon Lance book?[[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.24|162.158.106.24]] 04:33, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

The comic contains a hyperlink to what appears to be exactly the kind of article Cueball apparently "''just'' finished reading", or at least my mobile reader is picking up a hyperlink. I've added a small note about this; I'm not linking the article directly for personal reasons. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.227|108.162.221.227]] 05:51, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

2005: Attention Span

2018-06-11T05:47:55Z

108.162.221.227: /* Explanation */ add note about hyperlink

{{comic
| number = 2005
| date = June 11, 2018
| title = Attention Span
| image = attention_span.png
| titletext = I didn't even realize they MADE a novelization of "Surf Ninjas." How did you-- Oh my god, it's signed by the author?!
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a FASCIST TRAIN ENGINE - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic is making fun of the somewhat common trend of people complaining about losing interest in books. Instead of suggesting that the lack of interest in useful media is a new trend, Randall depicts it as something Cueball has always done, and that his interests have only changed from one medium to another.

The comic contains a hyperlink to an article with the same content Cueball has apparently finished reading prior to this comic.

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

{{comic discussion}}

129: Content Protection

2018-01-20T23:09:15Z

108.162.221.227: Apparently, the citation needed tag template doesn't exist on this wiki.

{{comic
| number = 129
| date = July 17, 2006
| title = Content Protection
| image = content protection.png
| titletext = If you think the purveyors of DRM simply want to protect artists, check out chapters 13 and 14 in Free Culture, by Lawrence Lessig. Their goal is the elimination of all culture they don't control.
}}

==Explanation==

This comic is a commentary on {{w|HDCP}}, a media standard that requires all the devices from player to cable to display to be "approved" to carry HDCP content. HDCP is intended to protect media encrypted with {{w|Digital rights management|DRM}} from being intercepted between the player and the display. Interestingly, however, it is literally impossible for DRM advocates to completely prevent copying (even with such drastic measures) because of the {{w|analog hole}}: since the content must be shown in a human-perceptible form, it can be captured by analog means, such as recording the display with a video camera.

In addition to illustrating the absurdity of HDCP, the comic presents the darker idea that when your devices control what information you are exposed to, the controlling companies can act as "{{w|thought police}}" and ensure that your mind only contains "approved content."

With the title text, [[Randall]] is referring again to {{w|Digital rights management|DRM}}. The {{w|Students for Free Culture|Free Culture}} movement ({{w|Lawrence Lessig}} being one of their activists) is fighting for free content. DRM advocates claim that their technology "protects" artists by preventing piracy, while in reality DRM is more effective as a means of giving media companies control over devices than it is at preventing piracy.

==Transcript==
:Content Protection System:
:[Megan sits on a couch watching a large flat-panel television, connected to a box labeled HDMI.
:The screen is labeled with "Approved screen"
:The cable is labeled with "Approved connection"
:The HDMI box is labeled with "Approved player"
:Megan's head is labeled with "Approved content".]

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

129: Content Protection

2018-01-20T23:08:25Z

108.162.221.227: Changed a tag to the more proper [citation needed] format.

{{comic
| number = 129
| date = July 17, 2006
| title = Content Protection
| image = content protection.png
| titletext = If you think the purveyors of DRM simply want to protect artists, check out chapters 13 and 14 in Free Culture, by Lawrence Lessig. Their goal is the elimination of all culture they don't control.
}}

==Explanation==

This comic is a commentary on {{w|HDCP}}, a media standard that requires all the devices from player to cable to display to be "approved" to carry HDCP content. HDCP is intended to protect media encrypted with {{w|Digital rights management|DRM}} from being intercepted between the player and the display. Interestingly, however, it is literally impossible for DRM advocates to completely prevent copying (even with such drastic measures) because of the {{w|analog hole}}: since the content must be shown in a human-perceptible form, it can be captured by analog means, such as recording the display with a video camera.

In addition to illustrating the absurdity of HDCP, the comic presents the darker idea that when your devices control what information you are exposed to, the controlling companies can act as "{{w|thought police}}" and ensure that your mind only contains "approved content."

With the title text, [[Randall]] is referring again to {{w|Digital rights management|DRM}}. The {{w|Students for Free Culture|Free Culture}} movement ({{w|Lawrence Lessig}} being one of their activists) is fighting for free content. DRM advocates claim that their technology "protects" artists by preventing piracy, while in reality DRM is more effective as a means of giving media companies control over devices than it is at preventing piracy.{{citation needed}}

==Transcript==
:Content Protection System:
:[Megan sits on a couch watching a large flat-panel television, connected to a box labeled HDMI.
:The screen is labeled with "Approved screen"
:The cable is labeled with "Approved connection"
:The HDMI box is labeled with "Approved player"
:Megan's head is labeled with "Approved content".]

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