explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:359: Rock Band

2014-08-22T03:45:18Z

108.162.249.210: clicks

Ben heck managed to make a modification for this.. i cant remember what episode but it was cool.... i would do it, only a lightning storm shorted our rock-band guitar out.

1393: Timeghost

2014-07-11T12:34:52Z

108.162.249.210: Added alternative view about Timeghost's doomsaying.

{{comic
| number = 1393
| date = July 11, 2014
| title = Timeghost
| image = timeghost.png
| titletext = 'Hello, Ghostbusters?' 'ooOOoooo people born years after that movie came out are having a second chiiiild right now ooOoooOoo'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Maybe some expanding? Otherwise this tag can be removed.}}
[[Megan]] and [[Cueball]] are being haunted by a ghost dedicated to making people feel old. It seems to be like the strips [[891: Movie Ages]] and [[973: MTV Generation]] and the blag post [http://blog.xkcd.com/2012/09/29/odd-temporal-milestones/ Odd Temporal Milestones], but then the ghost reveals that Megan and Cueball will die in a shorter amount of time than the ghost's first fact: in a few seconds. For obvious reasons, this disturbs them. An alternative explanation is that the "staaaaart of my haunting" refers to the first time the ghost haunted anyone, and it is possible Timeghost is being deliberately ambiguous in an effort to frighten them more. Alternatively again, Timeghost may be referring simply to the beginning of the comic, which is now three panels away, while the end of the comic is only one panel away; Megan and Cueball's 'death' may refer to their cessation of existence in the comic.

A {{w|factoid}} is a questionable or spurious statement presented as a fact. In this instance, some of the ''factoids'' are easily verifiable, while others are reasonable assumptions based on the number of years passed since the individual events. Several sources advocate the use of the word "factlet" to express a brief interesting fact, while using the word "factoid" for unverifiable or untrue statements passed as fact.

While ''factoids'' tend only to have entertainment value, then the last ''fact'' from the ghost is a prediction of the future (your death) which is actually of some practical value if it can be trusted.

"Timeghost" might be a literal interpretation of {{w|Zeitgeist}}, which is a German term for "spirit of time" and refers to the school of thought that influences or dominates the art and culture of a time period. All the events and people mentioned in this comic have may be considered influences in present day art and culture.

'''Timeline'''
{| class="wikitable"
!Year||Event
|-
|1955-1975||{{w|Vietnam War}}
|-
|colspan="2"|19 years
|-
|1994||{{w|Forrest Gump (film)|Forrest Gump}}
|-
|colspan="2"|20 years
|-
|2014||Year of this comic
|-
|scope="row" colspan="2"|
|-
|1964||{{w|Keanu Reeves}} (Actor) born
|-
|colspan="2"|2 years
|-
|1966||Today's new grandparents born (the average age of grandparents when their first grandchild is born is currently 48 is the US)
|-
|colspan="2"|48 years
|-
|2014||Year of this comic
|-
|scope="row" colspan="2"|
|-
|1989||Today's new parents born (the average age of parents when their first child is born is currently 25 in the US)
|-
|colspan="2"|4 years
|-
|1993||{{w|The Simpsons}} Season 5
|-
|colspan="2"|3 years
|-
|1996||{{w|Eminem}}'s debut album (Rapper, born 1972)
|-
|colspan="2"|18 years
|-
|2014||Year of this comic
|}

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan are approached by a floating ghost]
:Timeghost: ''...ooOOOOOOOOooo...Tiiiime is passiiiing!''
:Megan: Ugh. Timeghost.
:Cueball: Huh?
:Megan: Here come the factoids.

:[Timeghost floats around]
:Timeghost: ''Forrest Gump'' came out closer to the Vietnam War than to the present daaay.
:Megan: Go ''away!''
:Timeghost: The average new grand-parents are younger than Keanu Reeeeves!
:Cueball: That can't be right...

:[Megan clutches her head, possibly attempting to cover her ears]
:Timeghost: ''Today's new parents were ten when Eminem got big. Daaaaaad muuuuusic. They remember Simpsons season 5 or 6 at the '''earliest'''''.
:Megan: Argh!
:Cueball: How long has it been ''doing'' this?

:Timeghost: ''The staaaaart of my haunting is now further away than your deaaaths!''
:Megan: Will you sto—'''''WHAT!?'''''
:Timeghost: ooOOOOOOOoo
{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

Talk:344: 1337: Part 4

2014-06-13T00:29:23Z

108.162.249.210: Katana

It's the piping of "find ~" (all files in Mom's current login's home directory) and "find ~nomad" (all files in the home directory of user "nomad", presumably that's Elaine's account also on Mom's machine, having recently been on a 'life journey' of self-discovery and learning) through the shred command that is doing the directory recursion, as part of the "find" command's default behaviour (IIRC). I've never used the shredding command myself, but I'd say that it's operating on the list given it by the "find", rather than doing the directory-burrowing itself, for which I'd expect parameters of a "~/* ~/.* -r" (or "-R" or "-s") type of variant to activate the "all files, in all directories from here" inspection... ICBW. Best to check the man pages, though... (Also Mom's obviously got maximum rights for herself, or is drilling through su, as I'd expect.) [[Special:Contributions/178.98.31.27|178.98.31.27]] 08:30, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

:"find" is passed a variety of arguments - an argument that is not part of an optional parameter (i.e. -name \*.php would specify all files ending with ".php" - the backslash is used to prevent bash or another shell from expanding the parameter into a full list of .php files) is treated as a file or directory to begin searching. So "find ~" would begin searching in the user's own home directory; "find ~nomad" would begin the search in the home directory of the user "nomad". All file and directory names are sent to stdout (standard output).

:Piping the result requires the use of the | symbol (shift-backslash). It's used to pipe data from stdout to stdin (standard input).

:"xargs" is a Linux command that constructs command lines by reading a list of files from stdin and treating each with a command (and optional arguments) specified after "xargs".

:"shred" is a program that takes a filename as a parameter and overwrites the file repeatedly to keep the original contents, which can be discerned using increasingly-expensive hardware solutions, from being pieced together.

:With this in mind:

::find ~ | xargs shred

:1) finds all files (and directories) in the hierarchy of the user's home directory, and sends the list to stdout;
:2) the list gets piped to "xargs", which
:3) passes each file to "shred" for shredding.

:Issues regarding symbolic links, filtering directory names from the operation, and modifying the operating parameters of "shred" will be left to the aspiring sysadmin to discover for theirself. [[User:Thokling|Thokling]] ([[User talk:Thokling|talk]]) 13:42, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

It should be noted that if you want to have a file system that can shred data reliably you will need to use a file system without journaling or it is possible some of your data can be stored in the journal(The journal describes the nature of a write and its prior state before writing to it in order to safeguard the file system against unexpected shutdown).

What is more a lot of modern hard drive detect bad sectors and move data elsewhere, leaving the old data in a sector marked as "do not use". This data will not be securely deleted from these sectors and can be manually accessed by forensics later.

The commonly accepted solution is to use block device level encryption to prevent sensitive data from ever being written.

In short the '''shred''' command can give someone an unrealistic sense of security. I don't think this is relevant to the comic but I just wanted to share what I knew on the subject. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.117|108.162.246.117]] 08:52, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

"Title IV, Section 408: Authorization of deadly force." Does that make any sense in the real world? I don't see an explanation about this remark. [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 09:48, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Someone should put in that Stallman was given a Katana.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.210|108.162.249.210]] 00:29, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Talk:73: Zeppelin

2014-06-12T23:27:07Z

108.162.249.210: Quarter Past Zeppelin?

Remember, if the watch is made of lead, it's Time to Watch Lead Zeppelin [[User:Para|Para]] ([[User talk:Para|talk]])

Have the urge to change the title text to: "Na, Na-na-na, Na-na, Na-na" 14:11, 8 May 2014 (UTC) {{unsigned ip|173.245.55.75}}

This makes me think its quarter-past zeppelin... i wonder if that's what it was implying [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.210|108.162.249.210]] 23:27, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Talk:242: The Difference

2014-06-11T02:46:07Z

108.162.249.210: Insanity

After reading this, I was just waiting for Hatguy to lure various animals over to the lever in order to test it without being harmed in the process... [[Special:Contributions/115.70.105.180|115.70.105.180]] 11:06, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

;Causality?
"Cueball pulls a lever. The lever causes a bolt of lightning to come down and strike him." I doubt that. "Cueball pulls a lever. A bolt of lightning comes down and strikes him." is correct. It may be coincidence, we cannot know that without testing. [[User:Undee|Undee]] ([[User talk:Undee|talk]]) 10:32, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
: Agreed. And fixed. -- [[Special:Contributions/173.245.51.210|173.245.51.210]] 07:59, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

This makes me think that scientists are, in essence... insane... because isn't that the definition of insanity... pulling the lever again... and expecting different results? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.210|108.162.249.210]] 02:46, 11 June 2014 (UTC)