explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2270: Picking Bad Stocks

2020-02-20T14:02:58Z

108.162.241.202: Cueball Influence on Index vs Basket

clearly nobody told Randall about shorting stocks [[Special:Contributions/162.158.18.160|162.158.18.160]] 20:57, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

I was going to say that [[User:Arachrah|Arachrah]] ([[User talk:Arachrah|talk]]) 09:29, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Can someone create a "stock market" category, or "economics"? There are a lot of comics referencing this. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.89|172.69.33.89]] 23:21, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
:You can start by listing these comics here, someone will pick them up to create the category.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.166|141.101.98.166]] 10:35, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
::Yep. General inofficial rule of thumb is, that a new category should have at least 5 comics or consist of a direct series. (the latter doesn't seem to be tha case here.)--[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 10:41, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
:::Stock market related comics:
:::* [[1570: Engineer Syllogism]]
:::* [[1600: MarketWatch]]
:::* [[2094: Short Selling]]
:::* [[2101: Technical Analysis]]
:::* [[2270: Picking Bad Stocks]]
:::Please add

When he said "camping" I thought more of snipers in MMFPS games (or gate-campers in Eve) and I was imagining the robot waiting patiently hidden under the sofa until someone dropped a crumb, zipping out and hoovering that crumb up then zipping off back again. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.148|141.101.98.148]] 11:30, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Shouldn't they be dropping the companies from a basket rather than an index ? From my understanding, indices refer to "official" lists of stocks, and custom ones are more known as baskets. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.28|108.162.229.28]] 12:46, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
:I suspect Cueball is more influential than expected [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.202|108.162.241.202]] 14:02, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

1489: Fundamental Forces

2019-11-17T20:27:26Z

108.162.241.202:

{{comic
| number = 1489
| date = February 20, 2015
| title = Fundamental Forces
| image = fundamental_forces.png
| titletext = "Of these four forces, there's one we don't really understand." "Is it the weak force or the strong--" "It's gravity."
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] is acting here as someone teaching physics at a basic level, perhaps a high school science teacher. He seems to understand the general idea of the {{w|Fundamental interaction#Overview of the fundamental interaction|four fundamental forces}}, but his understanding gets progressively more sketchy about the details. The off-panel audience, probably a student or class, is interested, but quickly begins to realize Cueball's lack of understanding. Instead of acknowledging the problem directly, Cueball simply blusters onwards.

The comic also outlines how progressively difficult it gets to describe the forces. {{w|Gravitation|Gravity}} was first mathematically characterized in 1686 as {{w|Newton's law of universal gravitation}}, which was considered an essentially complete account until the introduction of {{w|general relativity}} in 1915. The {{w|Electromagnetism|electromagnetic force}} does indeed give rise to {{w|Coulomb's law}} of {{w|electrostatics|electrostatic}} interaction (another {{w|inverse-square law}}, proposed in 1785), but a much more comprehensive description, covering full {{w|Classical electromagnetism|classical electrodynamics}}, was only given in {{w|Maxwell's equations}} around 1861. The {{w|strong interaction|strong}} and {{w|weak interaction|weak}} forces cannot easily be summarized as comparably simple mathematical equations. It's possible that Cueball does understand the strong and weak interactions, but is completely at a loss when he tries to summarize them.

The strong force doesn't act directly between {{w|proton}}s and {{w|neutron}}s but between the {{w|quark}}s that form them. Unlike gravity and electromagnetism, the strong force {{w|Asymptotic freedom|gets stronger with increasing distance}}: It is ''loosely'' similar to the {{w|Hooke's law|restoring force of an extended spring}}. However, all stable heavy particles are neutral to the strong force, due to being made up of three "{{w|quantum chromodynamics|colors}}" (or a color and the appropriate "anticolor") of quarks. Between protons and neutrons there is a residual strong force, analogous in some ways to the {{w|van der Waals force}} between molecules. This residual strong force is carried by {{w|pion}}s and does decrease rapidly and exponentially with distance due to the pions having mass.

The weak force is much weaker than electromagnetism at typical distances within an atomic nucleus (but is still stronger than gravity), and has a short range, so has very little effect as a ''force''. What is has instead is the property of changing one particle into another. It can cause a down quark to become an up quark, and in the process release a high-energy electron and electron anti-neutrino. This is known as {{w|beta decay}}, a form of radioactivity. Over even shorter distances, {{w|electroweak theory|and much higher temperatures}}, the weak interaction and electromagnetism are essentially the same, thus being merged to form the {{w|electroweak force}}. The electroweak force was also mentioned in [[1956: Unification]].

The title text refers to the fact that it is gravity that appears to be the simplest and easiest to understand of the four forces, but turns out to be the {{w|Quantum_gravity|hardest to reconcile}} with a coherent (quantum) understanding of {{w|Theory of everything|all four forces together}}.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is holding his hands up while giving a lecture to an off panel audience.]
:Cueball: There are four fundamental forces between particles:
::(1) '''''Gravity''''', which obeys the inverse square law:
::: Fgravity = G m1m2/d2

:Off panel audience: OK...

:[Cueball is still holding his hands up while continues the lecture to the off panel audience.]
:Cueball: (2) '''''Electromagnetism''''', which obeys ''this'' inverse-square law:
:::Fstatic = Ke q1q2/d2

::...and also Maxwell's equations
:Off panel audience: Also what?

:[Zoom in on Cueball as he continues the lecture to the off panel audience.]
:Cueball: (3) The '''''strong nuclear force''''', which obeys, uh ...
:::...well, umm...
::...it holds protons and neutrons together.
:Off panel audience: I see.
:Cueball: It's strong.

:[Cueball finishes the lecture to the off panel audience and spreads out his arm for the final remark.]
:Cueball: And (4) the '''''weak force'''''. It [mumble mumble] radioactive decay [mumble mumble]
:Off panel audience: That's not a sentence. You just said “Radio-
:Cueball: – '''''And those are the four fundamental forces!'''''

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

2228: Machine Learning Captcha

2019-11-17T14:10:02Z

108.162.241.202: Fixing my fix.

{{comic
| number = 2228
| date = November 13, 2019
| title = Machine Learning Captcha
| image = machine_learning_captcha.png
| titletext = More likely: Click on all the pictures of people who appear disloyal to [name of company or government]
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a HUMAN CAPTCHA. Which of the nine images would you click to prove you were human? A section about this. Also to explain what is actually on the pictures, which is not completely clear. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Many websites have difficulties with spambots, which are automated entities created in order to log onto a website and spam or otherwise wreak havoc upon it. To guard against this eventuality, websites have implemented {{w|CAPTCHA}}s, a challenge used to prove the user is a human and not an automated program. A typical CAPTCHA might distort a random sequence of letters and numbers and put it in a strange and/or mixed font and ask a user to type it, or it might show a set of pictures and ask the user which ones contain fire hydrants; these tasks are meant to be easy for humans but obscenely difficult for computers. [[:Category:CAPTCHA|CAPTCHAs]] are a recurring theme on xkcd.

CAPTCHAs run by Google are also used to train artificial intelligences to get better at these difficult tasks, such as reading poorly-scanned text or identifying objects of interest on the road (the latter being the subject of [[1897: Self Driving]]).

This comic jokes about a malicious CAPTCHA which is being used to train an AI to dominate the world. In order to prevent people from taking shelter, the AI uses the CAPTCHA to ask humans like Cueball to tell it places where they would hide. The implication is that during a robot uprising, the AI, on the side of the robots, would then be able to track down humans much more easily.

There are some decent choices for where a human could hide from an AI in the pictures given. For example, a house or bomb shelter (top left), or even a car (left) or hole (bottom right), would be decent places to hide. However, most of the choices would not make sense for a human; for example, it would be hard to hide on a sidewalk (right) or in a mailbox (bottom). Some may even be {{tvtropes|https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CowTools|Cow Tools}}.

The title text imagines a different malicious CAPTCHA which Randall says is "more likely" than the robot-uprising scenario, in which a company or government asks users to identify "disloyal" members of society. Presumably the company or government would then use this information to eliminate such "disloyal" members, either by firing them (company) or jailing, expelling, or executing them (government). This follows a theme of previous comic strips (e.g. [[1968: Robot Future]]) in which Randall expresses that he is more concerned about humans using AI for evil ends than he is about AI being evil in itself.

Note that while CAPTCHA in the title of this comic is written Captcha rather than in the correct all-caps style, on the xkcd page, [[Randall]] uses small caps, so although there is a distinction between capital and lower case letters, the word Captcha is actually written correctly out as CAPTCHA!

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is sitting in an office chair at his desk with one hand in his lap and the other poised over the keyboard of his computer. A zigzag line is drawn from a starburst on the computer screen going above the computer to where it is shown what is displayed on the screen. At the top there is the following text:]
:Computer: To prove you're a human, click on all the photos that show places you would run for shelter during a robot uprising.

:[Below the text there are nine images arranged in a 3 by 3 square. In reading order they are: A house, possibly with an open carport; a large tree with two trees in the background; a bunker/bomb shelter; a car; a city skyline with several sky scrapers; a sidewalk with road on the left, grass on the right; a log with a board leaning up on the log; a mailbox; and a hole in the ground.]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Robots]]
[[Category:CAPTCHA]]
[[Category:Politics]]

2228: Machine Learning Captcha

2019-11-17T14:08:53Z

108.162.241.202: Remove a duplicate "that" and excessive commas

{{comic
| number = 2228
| date = November 13, 2019
| title = Machine Learning Captcha
| image = machine_learning_captcha.png
| titletext = More likely: Click on all the pictures of people who appear disloyal to [name of company or government]
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a HUMAN CAPTCHA. Which of the nine images would you click to prove you were human? A section about this. Also to explain what is actually on the pictures, which is not completely clear. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Many websites have difficulties with spambots, which are automated entities created in order to log onto a website and spam or otherwise wreak havoc upon it. To guard against this eventuality, websites have implemented {{w|CAPTCHA}}s, a challenge used to prove the user is a human and not an automated program. A typical CAPTCHA might distort a random sequence of letters and numbers and put it in a strange and/or mixed font and ask a user to type it, or it might show a set of pictures and ask the user which ones contain fire hydrants; these tasks are meant to be easy for humans but obscenely difficult for computers. [[:Category:CAPTCHA|CAPTCHAs]] are a recurring theme on xkcd.

CAPTCHAs run by Google are also used to train artificial intelligences to get better at these difficult tasks, such as reading poorly-scanned text or identifying objects of interest on the road (the latter being the subject of [[1897: Self Driving]]).

This comic jokes about a malicious CAPTCHA which is being used to train an AI to dominate the world. In order to prevent people from taking shelter, the AI uses the CAPTCHA to ask humans like Cueball to tell it places where they would hide. The implication is that during a robot uprising, the AI, on the side of the robots, would then be able to track down humans much more easily.

There are some decent choices for where a human could hide from an AI in the pictures given. For example, a house or bomb shelter (top left), or even a car (left) or hole (bottom right), would be decent places to hide. However, most of the choices would not make sense for a human; for example, it would be hard to hide on a sidewalk (right) or in a mailbox (bottom). Some may even be {{tvtropes|https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CowTools|Cow Tools}}.

The title text imagines a different malicious CAPTCHA which Randall says is "more likely" than the robot-uprising scenario, in which a company or government asks users to identify "disloyal" members of society. Presumably the company or government would then use this information to eliminate such "disloyal" members, either by firing them (company) or jailing, expelling, or executing them (government). This follows a theme of previous comic strips (e.g. [[1968: Robot Future]]) in which Randall expresses that he is more concerned about humans using AI for evil ends than he is about AI being evil in itself.

Note that while CAPTCHA in the title of this comic is written Captcha rather than the correct all-caps style, on the xkcd page, [[Randall]] uses small caps, so although there is a distinction between capital and lower case letters, the word Captcha is actually written correctly out as CAPTCHA!

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is sitting in an office chair at his desk with one hand in his lap and the other poised over the keyboard of his computer. A zigzag line is drawn from a starburst on the computer screen going above the computer to where it is shown what is displayed on the screen. At the top there is the following text:]
:Computer: To prove you're a human, click on all the photos that show places you would run for shelter during a robot uprising.

:[Below the text there are nine images arranged in a 3 by 3 square. In reading order they are: A house, possibly with an open carport; a large tree with two trees in the background; a bunker/bomb shelter; a car; a city skyline with several sky scrapers; a sidewalk with road on the left, grass on the right; a log with a board leaning up on the log; a mailbox; and a hole in the ground.]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Robots]]
[[Category:CAPTCHA]]
[[Category:Politics]]

Talk:2101: Technical Analysis

2019-01-21T16:33:35Z

108.162.241.202:

The Tobin citation comes from James Tobin's Fred Hirsch Memorial Lecture "On the Efficiency of the Financial System" in 1984 [https://economicsociologydotorg.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/tobin-on-the-efficiency-of-the-financial-system.pdf].

The explanation says “allego” and “prologue“ are “musical terms such as may be used in the introduction of a performed piece”. That may be true of “prologue” but “allegro”, according to Wikipedia, is “a tempo marking indicate to play fast, quickly and bright”. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.58|108.162.219.58]] 11:40, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

:And, derived from this, a movement of a piece that is performed quickly may be referred to as an allegro. It can also be used to refer to an entire piece, such as this piece by Mozart: [https://www.pianostreet.com/mozart-sheet-music/allegro-k-1-f-major.htm] [[User:Kazzie|Kazzie]] ([[User talk:Kazzie|talk]]) 12:00, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
::But based on the placement of the allego and the way it is written it is most likely a tempo. Tempo goes just above the music and in this case it is the only word on the page that is italicized. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.186.108|162.158.186.108]] 14:09, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

How would this compare with “candlestick patterns” - the bathtub one looks like a funny name for a pattern *meant* to signal that prices could rise https://www.investopedia.com/articles/trading/06/advcandlesticks.asp. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.144.145|172.68.144.145]] 13:55, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Random Walk might refer to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_walk [[User:Curtobi4|Curtobi4]] ([[User talk:Curtobi4|talk]]) 14:00, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_walk_hypothesis [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.202|108.162.241.202]] 16:33, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Talk:2094: Short Selling

2019-01-04T18:04:54Z

108.162.241.202:

It's like he's doing that on purpose to make it extra difficult for this site to explain his comics. :D I at least understood nothing. [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 16:19, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
:@Fabian42, Ha! Yes, I'm in the same boat with you, It's almost like he follows this formula: 1. Pick a topic that very few understand. 2. Make an analogy that is more complicated than a straightforward explanation. 3. Profit.
:I've been reading a page on short selling, it's like they're speaking a foreign language. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.47|172.69.70.47]] 16:42, 4 January 2019 (UTC) sam
::It makes sense from what I remember from economics in high school: you buy stocks in advance for significantly above asking price hoping they gain more value before the deal happens, so let's say 1 share of company X is worth 20$ right now. Now I can offer you a contract that I'll buy this share from you for 50$, but on the condition that the deal happens in a week. If the value of the company stays the same, I make a loss; but if the value rises within that week and one share is suddenly worth, let's say 2000$, I make an immense profit. (divide each value I gave by ten and you have the bean/witch/child analogy from the comic) It's basically gambling on the hope that the value of stock rises. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.50.118|172.68.50.118]] 17:24, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
:::How are stock markets even still legal? This is insane! [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 17:42, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
::It is not that hard to understand. Imagine you own 100 apple-shares and do not plan to sell them for the near future. You lend me these 100-shares for 2 weeks. I sell the 100 shares immediately. Now I have 2 weeks to re-buy them. If I’m lucky the price for these 100 shares will decrease somewhen during this 2 weeks. Imaging that I sold the shares for 200$ each, and could re-buy them for 170$: Then I made 30*100$=3000$. Of course you will get a fee for the borrowing. The 3000$-fee are my profit.
::The risk here is of course that the shares could increase in price during the 2 weeks – then I would be forced to rebuy them for more that I got AND have to pay you the fee. That’s the reason shorts are more dangerous then longs. --[[User:DaB.|DaB.]] ([[User talk:DaB.|talk]]) 17:36, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
:::You sell something that you borrowed? Why would that be allowed? It's not yours! And what happens if you can't buy it back? [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 17:42, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Short selling doesn't seem all that complicated. It's the night before black friday, and your friend has [hot new amazing toy] that they picked up a few months ago before it got popular. You ask if you can borrow it for a week. Then you go out the next morning and scalp it to a frustrated parent that is desperate to get it for their kid but the store is sold out. A week goes by, and you head to the store and pick one up now that they are back in stock and on sale, and give it back to your friend. Your friend has a toy, even if it's not exactly the same one, and the price difference between what you sold it for and what you paid for the new one gave you a bit of holiday spending money. The danger is if the toy doesn't get back in stock or the price goes up due to demand and you have to buy it for more than you sold it. [[User:Andyd273|Andyd273]] ([[User talk:Andyd273|talk]]) 17:45, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

It seems like the title text implies there are multiple witches involved. This should perhaps be mentioned in the explanation. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.202|108.162.241.202]] 18:04, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

2089: Christmas Eve Eve

2018-12-24T05:34:40Z

108.162.241.202: actual content

{{comic
| number = 2089
| date = December 24, 2018
| title = Christmas Eve Eve
| image = christmas_eve_eve.png
| titletext = It turns out that saying "Oh, so THAT'S why they call it Boxing Day" is a good way to get punched a second time.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by SANTA. There appears to be no explanation. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Today -- December 24, 2018 -- is christmas eve.
Some people call December 23 "christmas eve eve".
It follows that December is "Christmas eve eve eve eve eve eve eve ..."

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

{{comic discussion}}

2089: Christmas Eve Eve

2018-12-24T05:29:36Z

108.162.241.202: Created by SANTA

{{comic
| number = 2089
| date = December 24, 2018
| title = Christmas Eve Eve
| image = christmas_eve_eve.png
| titletext = It turns out that saying "Oh, so THAT'S why they call it Boxing Day" is a good way to get punched a second time.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SANTA. There appears to be no explanation. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

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

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:2086: History Department

2018-12-18T01:13:42Z

108.162.241.202:

The business about the 1750s probably has something to do with the British doing their changeover from Julian to Gregorian calendars then, but you can't look too carefully at the details. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.16|108.162.219.16]] 18:51, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm confused. Is there any joke apart from the obvious "haha, studying history by fully covering time slices instead of topics"? [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 19:05, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
: There's also the joke about taking longer to study a period of time than that time took to pass. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.208|108.162.216.208]] 19:31, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
: I think it's also a reference to the fact that we are creating more and more data in the digital age, leading to the problem of there being too much data to keep up with. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.202|108.162.241.202]] 01:13, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
Two sides to the same coin? We normally think about historians studying time periods on the order of years, decades, or even longer periods (e.g. the Dark Ages), which naturally takes less time than the original era. Another joke is the idea that an entire department is devoted to such narrow periods, but maybe it's a really small college.
[[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 20:04, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

It seems to me that the humor is based on the incongruity of thinking in business-like terms of productivity and gains and losses in a history department.

I think the 1750s reference is to Tristram Shandy.

Talk:964: Dorm Poster

2018-11-14T18:44:21Z

108.162.241.202:

I just noticed that he has the same poster, he (cueball) just turned it upside-down and drew a lens on it. [[Special:Contributions/66.217.162.41|66.217.162.41]] 02:53, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
:The poster is '''''not''''' the same poster turned upside-down. If you look at the rainbow, the rainbow still matches up with the original poster on the left, meaning that if you turned the poster on the right "right-side up", the rainbow would be upside-down when compared to the one on the left.--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.155|108.162.238.155]] 06:56, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Note also that cueball's side of the room is an inverse of the left side of the room in other ways. The left bed has linens, the right does not, the left side of the room is messy, the right is not, the person on the left is sitting at a desktop, cueball is standing at a laptop and so on.
: Given that in the first panel the guy is looking at a piece of paper with the room number, and that the right side isn't just clean, it's devoid of any items save the desk and the bed (sans linen), I'd say it's likely the second guy has just moved in, and hasn't had a chance to cause a mess.-Pennpenn [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.162|108.162.250.162]] 02:37, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
:: Possibly, but it might also be that he's an ultra-minimalist obsessed with purity - he's working on his laptop before even finding a chair - and has created this new poster to purify the light and get rid of all those messy colors.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.107.42|141.101.107.42]] 17:37, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Also worth mentioning that this album cover is a very popular - to the point of cliche - poster to have in a student dorm. [[Special:Contributions/31.221.45.4|31.221.45.4]] 14:26, 15 March 2013 (UTC)Chris C

Did anyone notice that the room number is 117? Does Randall play Halo? Or is that just a coincidence?
[[User:NinjaWolf064|You just lost the game. NinjaWolf064]] ([[User talk:NinjaWolf064|talk]]) 05:50, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

The original vinyl sleeve actually looks like those two posters but backwards. The back of the jacket is split light being recombined by a prism and shot at an upwards angle into the prism on the front cover, where it is split again. Demonstrated here: http://mobile.collectorsfrenzy.com/gallery/230925609565.jpg [[Special:Contributions/68.170.77.75|68.170.77.75]] 20:25, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Also, the other figure in the dorm seems to be the "total douchebag" with a goatee and glasses from http://www.xkcd.com/796/. I think this is his only other appearance, does this say something about Randall's view of Pink Floyd and their fans? {{unsigned ip|141.101.99.165}}
: That goatee/glasses figure is also a psychologist in http://www.xkcd.com/435/ and a person riding the escalator in http://www.xkcd.com/954/. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.211|108.162.246.211]] 06:07, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
[Cueball finds home.]

[View into the dorm room. Cueball II lives there.]

[Cueball sees his life unfolding.]

[Cueball fetches his clobber.]

[Cueball returns.]

[View into the dorm room. Cueball / Cueball : Ying / Ying. All is harmony.]

[[User:Weatherlawyer| I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait]] ([[User talk:Weatherlawyer|talk]]) 21:07, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

The second prism is dispersing (un-dispersing?) light the wrong way, in that it is bending red light through a larger angle than purple. The first prism has it correct. As I'm kind of new here, appreciate any thoughts on whether this sort of thing belongs in the explanation, or trivia section, or it's fine just keeping it to the comments section. [[User:Redbelly98|Redbelly98]] ([[User talk:Redbelly98|talk]]) 00:18, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
: The prism is also incorrectly flipped over on the back cover of the actual Pink Floyd album, so it seems likely that R.M. knew about the original album cover design when he drew this comic.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.202|108.162.241.202]] 18:42, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Talk:964: Dorm Poster

2018-11-14T18:42:40Z

108.162.241.202:

I just noticed that he has the same poster, he (cueball) just turned it upside-down and drew a lens on it. [[Special:Contributions/66.217.162.41|66.217.162.41]] 02:53, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
:The poster is '''''not''''' the same poster turned upside-down. If you look at the rainbow, the rainbow still matches up with the original poster on the left, meaning that if you turned the poster on the right "right-side up", the rainbow would be upside-down when compared to the one on the left.--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.155|108.162.238.155]] 06:56, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Note also that cueball's side of the room is an inverse of the left side of the room in other ways. The left bed has linens, the right does not, the left side of the room is messy, the right is not, the person on the left is sitting at a desktop, cueball is standing at a laptop and so on.
: Given that in the first panel the guy is looking at a piece of paper with the room number, and that the right side isn't just clean, it's devoid of any items save the desk and the bed (sans linen), I'd say it's likely the second guy has just moved in, and hasn't had a chance to cause a mess.-Pennpenn [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.162|108.162.250.162]] 02:37, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
:: Possibly, but it might also be that he's an ultra-minimalist obsessed with purity - he's working on his laptop before even finding a chair - and has created this new poster to purify the light and get rid of all those messy colors.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.107.42|141.101.107.42]] 17:37, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Also worth mentioning that this album cover is a very popular - to the point of cliche - poster to have in a student dorm. [[Special:Contributions/31.221.45.4|31.221.45.4]] 14:26, 15 March 2013 (UTC)Chris C

Did anyone notice that the room number is 117? Does Randall play Halo? Or is that just a coincidence?
[[User:NinjaWolf064|You just lost the game. NinjaWolf064]] ([[User talk:NinjaWolf064|talk]]) 05:50, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

The original vinyl sleeve actually looks like those two posters but backwards. The back of the jacket is split light being recombined by a prism and shot at an upwards angle into the prism on the front cover, where it is split again. Demonstrated here: http://mobile.collectorsfrenzy.com/gallery/230925609565.jpg [[Special:Contributions/68.170.77.75|68.170.77.75]] 20:25, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Also, the other figure in the dorm seems to be the "total douchebag" with a goatee and glasses from http://www.xkcd.com/796/. I think this is his only other appearance, does this say something about Randall's view of Pink Floyd and their fans? {{unsigned ip|141.101.99.165}}
: That goatee/glasses figure is also a psychologist in http://www.xkcd.com/435/ and a person riding the escalator in http://www.xkcd.com/954/. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.211|108.162.246.211]] 06:07, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
[Cueball finds home.]

[View into the dorm room. Cueball II lives there.]

[Cueball sees his life unfolding.]

[Cueball fetches his clobber.]

[Cueball returns.]

[View into the dorm room. Cueball / Cueball : Ying / Ying. All is harmony.]

[[User:Weatherlawyer| I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait]] ([[User talk:Weatherlawyer|talk]]) 21:07, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

The second prism is dispersing (un-dispersing?) light the wrong way, in that it is bending red light through a larger angle than purple. The first prism has it correct. As I'm kind of new here, appreciate any thoughts on whether this sort of thing belongs in the explanation, or trivia section, or it's fine just keeping it to the comments section. [[User:Redbelly98|Redbelly98]] ([[User talk:Redbelly98|talk]]) 00:18, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
: The prism is also incorrectly flipped over on the back cover of the actual Pink Floyd album, so it seems likely that R.M. knew about the original album cover design when he drew this comic.--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.202|108.162.241.202]] 18:42, 14 November 2018 (UTC)