explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2606: Weird Unicode Math Symbols

2022-04-13T22:34:50Z

141.101.104.80:

{{comic
| number = 2606
| date = April 13, 2022
| title = Weird Unicode Math Symbols
| image = weird_unicode_math_symbols.png
| titletext = U+2A0B ⨋ Mathematicians need to calm down
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by SNAKES OVER THERE - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic appears to have been inspired by [https://ionathan.ch/2022/04/09/angzarr.html this blog post], which went viral (in a limited sense) the same day the comic was published.

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Symbols
|-
! Codepoint !! Symbol !! Unicode Name !! Randall's meaning || Explanation
|-
| U+29CD || ⧍ || Triangle with Serifs At Bottom || Shark || May look like a shark fin sticking out of the water
|-
| U+23E7 || ⏧ || Electrical Intersection || Traffic circle || May look like a {{w|roundabout}}?
|-
| U+2A33 || ⨳ || {{w|Smash product}} || ''Hashtag'' || Looks like a {{w|Number sign|hash}} (#) symbol turned by 45 degrees
|-
| U+2A7C || ⩼ || Greater-Than with Question Mark Above || Confused alligator || One metaphor used when teaching inequality signs in primary school is that the sign looks like an alligator mouth "eating" the larger number.
|-
| U+299E || ⦞ || Angle with S Inside || Snack || May look like a mouth eating an S, where the S symbolizes some snack food
|-
| U+2A04 || ⨄ || {{w|Arity|N-ary}} Union Operator with Plus || Drink refill || Looks like a cup with a plus to indicate adding drink to the cup
|-
| U+2B48 || ⭈ || Rightwards Arrow Above Reverse Almost Equal To || Snakes over there || Looks like two squiggles to represent snakes and an arrow indicating the direction where they may be found
|-
| U+225D || ≝ || Equal To By Definition || Definitely, for sure || "Def" is understood as "definitely"; the equal sign looks like a double underline, indicating heavy emphasis.
|-
| U+237C || ⍼ || Right Angle with Downwards Zigzag Arrow || Larry Potter || Looks like the letter "L" and a lightning bolt. {{w|Harry Potter (character)|Harry Potter}} is known for having a lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead.
|-
| U+2A50 || ⩐ || Closed Union with Serifs and Smash Product || Spider caught with a cup and index card
|-
| U+2A69 || ⩩ || Triple Horizontal Bar with Triple Vertical Stroke || ℍ𝕒𝕤𝕙𝕥𝕒𝕘 || Hash symbol with one extra vertical and horizontal line
|-
| U+2368 || ⍨ || APL Functional Symbol Tilde Diaeresis || :/ || Looks like a confused or disappointed face.
|-
| U+2118 || ℘ || Symbol for {{w|Weierstrass_elliptic_function|Weierstrass p-function}}|| Snake
|-
| U+2AC1 || ⫁ || Subset with Multiplication Sign Below || "User experience", written sideways || Looks like the letters Ux written sideways; Ux is an abbreviation for {{w|user experience}}
|-
| U+232D || ⌭ || {{w|Cylindricity}} || Rolling dough between your hands to shape it into a ball ||
|-
| U+2A13 || ⨓ || Line Integration with Semicircular Path Around Pole || Integral that avoids a bee on the whiteboard || Looks like an {{w|integral}} symbol with a bump in the middle.
|-
| U+2A0B (title text)|| ⨋ || Summation with Integral || Mathematicians need to calm down
|-
|}

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

[Title:] Weird Unicode math symbols

[Subtitle:] And their meanings

{|
| U+29CD || ⧍ || Shark
|-
| U+23E7 || ⏧ || Traffic circle
|-
| U+2A33 || ⨳ || Hashtag [the text is slanted counterclockwise]
|-
| U+299E || ⦞ || Snack
|-
| U+2A04 || ⨄ || Drink refill
|-
| U+2B48 || ⭈ || Snakes over there
|-
| U+225D || ≝ || Definitely, for sure
|-
| U+237C || ⍼ || Larry Potter
|-
| U+2A50 || ⩐ || Spider caught with a cup and index card
|-
| U+2A69 || ⩩ || [The word "hashtag" but with extra horizontal and vertical lines]
|-
| U+2368 || ⍨ || :/
|-
| U+2118 || ℘ || Snake
|-
| U+2AC1 || ⫁ || [The words "user experience" rotated counterclockwise 90 degrees]
|-
| U+232D || ⌭ || Rolling dough between your hands to shape it into a ball
|-
| U+2A13 || ⨓ || Integral that avoids a bee on the whiteboard
|}

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Unicode]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Harry Potter]]

Talk:2414: Solar System Compression Artifacts

2022-04-10T23:01:04Z

141.101.104.80:

"([Compression artefacts] may become literally unnoticeable because hexadecimal color values are discrete[...]" - disagree. Artefacts exist ''because'' of a discrete nature. Either of the RGB(/HSV/whatever) granularity, the lower the colour depth, or of the method used to get around the overheads of storing literal 24+ bits of colour-depth across a given image size. TrueColo(u)r should escape ''perceived'' colour-banding, but any image editor knows (or relies upon) that any flood-fill/by-colour-selection used with an absolute drift range away from the datum spot less than that across a gradient spills away from it can highlight 'hidden' edges between (say) #789ABC and #789BBC. What we have here is low bit-depth (grey-shade or equal-RGB, apparently 4-bit(/each), counting the 16 bands thanks to the mach-banding) non-dithered band-shading of a possibly nuanced (fractal?) shade fall-off. Possibly a 2D slice through 3D (or more, e.g. if animated) of voxelated (or hypervoxelated) stored values, which use up a ''lot'' of space in the Universe Simulator. Perhaps there's also something like Discrete Cosine Transform compression for easier block/chunk storage, retrieval and/or generation-on-demand (with detailed deltas for complex overlaying features such as Voyager). Because the Creator/Programmer of the universe has limited storage/processor cycles! [[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.122|141.101.105.122]] 01:39, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
:tl;dr? — [[User:Sqrt-1|The 𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭]] [[User talk:Sqrt-1|talk]] [[Special:Contributions/Sqrt-1|stalk]] 13:16, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
::TLDR is this Tom Scott video on the topic: https://youtu.be/h9j89L8eQQk. Short version: the difference between blacks #010101 and #020202 (a doubling of brightness) is more noticeable than the difference between whites #FEFEFE and #FDFDFD (a 0.00001% change in brightness). If your picture is dark, and especially if it is compressed, you will often get ugly bands of different shades of black. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.28|108.162.237.28]] 16:50, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
:::Nice. — [[User:Sqrt-1|The 𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭]] [[User talk:Sqrt-1|talk]] [[Special:Contributions/Sqrt-1|stalk]] 05:33, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
I would suggest that more emphasis needs to be placed on 'dynamic range' and 'undetectable' in this explanation. Particularly noticeable in streaming video codecs, you often can't decipher any information in dark scenes/regions. So the joke is that the map beyond here is empty, mostly because it is too far down in the dynamic range of our lossy observations. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.80|108.162.219.80]] 17:36, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
:Re "...stretches out over maybe a dozen such low-res pixels/AUs, which is equivalent to slightly more than the radius of Saturn's orbit or the entire diameter of Jupiter's!", this assumes that Jupiter and Voyager are the same distance from the imaginary "camera". I can completely cover the moon with my thumb, but that does not imply that they are similar in size, because my thumb is closer to my eye. ''(Unsigned!)''
::I presume that this is the 'data' version of our system, straight from the 'cosmic computer' behind reality, viewed orthographically like a Minecraft map. But it matters not. The text quoted clearly gives scale context (on the justifiable presumption that the low-res grid is a 1AU-sized display of solar particle distribution) that "the range of the map the Voyager covers is like the size of these orbits". Just like "the area of the sky my thumb obscures is roughly a Moon-width". [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.241|141.101.104.241]] 01:18, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
:Re: "The Voyager image (and track) is overlaid at finer resolution", if it not unheard-of for a compression algorithm to render, say, 32x32 pixel blocks as if they were single, larger pixels if their immediate neighbors are almost the same shade, while rendering small, detailed, and high contrast portions of the image at a higher resolution. No "overlay" required. ''(Still unsigned!)''
::Within an area of finer details, artefacts ''would'' be seen as the "meh, this is just one block" attitude is changed to incorperate detail of interest within a sub-block. There's no sign of fringe-artefacts (other than normal XKCS antialiasing of lines against background). I'd say it was a "solar wind" low-detail layer over which is incorporated a "Voyager" standard-detail layer with transparency, not a single layer of subject-aware tunable blockwise compression. (It might have come out differently if the composition was saved in an actual lossy-compression, by Randall, rather than .png, but for different reasons. Bit that's a meta-discussion issue, not nerd-sniping.) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.241|141.101.104.241]] 01:18, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
This doesn't just happen in old images. I still see this frequently when watching movies, even new ones, where what should be a smooth gradation of tones shows steps. The other obvious defect is poor sprite handling, which causes artifacts like someone's facial features not moving with their head movements.
I'm not sure dithering would be a useful way to dispel the banding, since dithering would increase the compressed data size because you no longer have large areas of all-the-same-pixel-value.
The banding could also be an artifact of the decompression. If you consider that a format like JPEG uses something like Fourier transforms it seems it should be able to represent a gradation easily and the stepped banding with difficulty, so I might be tempted to blame the banding on the decompression code.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.70|108.162.241.70]] 13:46, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

I did a 'best fit' on the probable solar system, across this 'map' (which I think is slightly made up, because of certain issues when I started differentiations of the grey-levels, making me think it has been 'painted', or enhanced, not taking from real data - of the 'real thing' or not). I don't seem to get any Wiki upload/new-media rights, as an IP user, but if anyone wants to look at the image saved at https://imgur.com/KSqC1Nr and consider it/be inspired by it then I offer it up, gratis. It features the orbits of Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in body-appropriate hues, such that they are to scale with the true distance of Voyager from the focus of the likely circular orbts. (I think I left the 'Sun' pixel (image pixel, not 'artefact pixel') magenta, easier to see against the whitist-whiteout core shade.) I only refrained from adding Pluto (and Eris, etc) off because I don't have immediate into on the far more eccentric oval. Darn, I meant to add the asteroid belt. As a suitably fuzzy grey band. Not redoing it. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.77.126|141.101.77.126]] 22:58, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

== Source of Voyager 1 ==

Given Voyager 1's distance and age now, wouldn't it be more appropriate to change the opening explanatory sentence to "Voyager 1 is a space probe launched from Earth in 1977."
The only sentient creatures who may still care about its origins in the United States are probably also from the United States. The next sentient beings to encounter Voyager 1 will have no understanding of what the United States is or was.

One more point: I think this XKCD is a play on the fact that every few years we hear once again that "Voyager has left the solar system". First because it passed the termination shock, then because it passed the heliopause. [https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/784/nasas-voyager-2-probe-enters-interstellar-space/ This article from NASA] says that Voyager won't be officially out of the solar system until it passes the Oort cloud. These milestones seem arbitrary, so why not make up one more? [[User:Efalk|Efalk]] ([[User talk:Efalk|talk]]) 17:13, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

== Bit Depth ==
Using the 2x image I've counted the number of grays used by the map and while some are hard to verify, even at the lowest there are more than 16, so it can't be 4-bit compression.--[[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.80|141.101.104.80]] 23:01, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Talk:1683: Digital Data

2016-05-25T12:08:27Z

141.101.104.80:

Ewww, Verizon? **** them [[User:International Space Station|International Space Station]] ([[User talk:International Space Station|talk]]) 04:58, 20 May 2016 (UTC)
::Don't forget the whole "Verizon Math" incident and Randall's much passed around check image. I'd be surprised if it isn't on 9GAG somewhere.... [[User:Psu256|Psu256]] ([[User talk:Psu256|talk]]) 17:12, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Ironically, the title text on explainxkcd is different from the one on xkcd.com, demonstrating the reinterpretation of text encoded in UTF-8 as if it were encoded in ISO 8859-1. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.85.231|162.158.85.231]] 05:45, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

-Exactly; this nicely proves Randall's point. On my computer, different characters appear in different browsers, but of course in one browser the characters are reproducible.--[[User:Jkrstrt|Jkrstrt]] ([[User talk:Jkrstrt|talk]]) 07:26, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Here is the decoded title text:
“If you can read this, congratulations–the archive youʼre you're using still knows about the mouseover text”!
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.16|108.162.229.16]] 07:51, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

:Grungy details:
:*â€œ -> ''convert to hex'' -> E2-80-9C -> ''UTF8 decode'' -> 0010-000000-011100 -> [http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/201C/index.htm U-201C "LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK"]
:*â€” -> ''convert to hex'' -> E2-80-94 -> ''UTF8 decode'' -> 0010-000000-010100 -> [http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/2014/index.htm U-2014 "EM DASH"]
:*â€™ -> ''convert to hex'' -> E2-80-99 -> ''UTF8 decode'' -> 0010-000000-011001 -> [http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/2019/index.htm U-2019 "RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK"]
:*â€! -> ''convert to hex'' -> E2-80-9D -> ''UTF8 decode'' -> 0010-000000-011101 -> [http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/201d/index.htm U-201D "RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK"]
:[[User:Odysseus654|Odysseus654]] ([[User talk:Odysseus654|talk]]) 17:31, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

::The ''convert to hex'' step is really ''encode with Windows-1252''. Also, in the last sequence, the "!" is not part of the encoded quotation mark. The third byte of the quotation mark comes from an unprintable U-009D between the "â€" and the "!". U-009D isn't a valid Windows-1252 character, so either the encoding is actually a superset of Windows-1252 that includes U-009D, or the encoding process just allowed it.
:: [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.103|162.158.255.103]] 17:26, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

He's written you're twice, but one is with a curly apostrophe, often favoured by americans (and maybe brits?), possible because of their keyboard. The simple apostrophe is “just” html-formatted, whereas the curly one has been molested by a UTF-8 / ISO-8859-1 misreading.
--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.16|108.162.229.16]] 07:51, 20 May 2016 (UTC)
: I'm British, and I don't have the curly apostrophe anywhere on my keyboard. [[User:Enchantedsleeper|Enchantedsleeper]] ([[User talk:Enchantedsleeper|talk]]) 11:01, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

: I'm American, and I also don't have the curly apostrophe anywhere on my keyboard, but word processing programs (like MS-Word) are configured by default to automatically replace an ASCII apostrophe in a conjunction with the fancy right-single-quote mark. Also when using quotation marks around text those programs automatically replace the repeated single ASCII quotation marks with the fancy left and right quotation marks (single if using single quotes, double if using double quotes). Most people don't care enough to disable that "feature"... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.252.143|162.158.252.143]] 15:13, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

:: Ok. I've never experienced that from any text processor (incl. MS Word), so maybe it's dependant on the system locale or another mysterious factor. I've just noticed a prevalence in english language texts online, but an absence in other european languages. Not even french, which has as many or more contractions. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.16|108.162.229.16]] 08:11 21 May 2016 (UTC)

This is a phenomenon that has always both fascinated me and frustrated me. I find it fascinating how, even today, data degrades as more and more people copy it (remember the old days when people used to copy VHS tapes, and the further you were from the original tape the more copying artefacts your copy had in it?). It also frustrates me, though, when I'm trying to find an original, undegraded image or video and it seems impossible to find. It's also annoying because it's actually pretty easy to copy something without causing any quality loss, yet practically every copied image on the internet has been degraded in some way or another. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.130|141.101.98.130]] 07:08, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

:If you haven't yet, you should check out this guy who ripped and reuploaded his own Youtube video 1000 times: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEIzS_27Vt0 [[Special:Contributions/162.158.222.150|162.158.222.150]] 08:28, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

::...and after 100 iterations https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6GMvihskBQ ...and the summary of all of them https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icruGcSsPp0 [[User:Odysseus654|Odysseus654]] ([[User talk:Odysseus654|talk]]) 16:50, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

:It can be frustrating to try to convince new people drawing schematics on the computer to not use 4-way junctions because they don't expect digital images to degrade over multiple generations of copying. This xkcd demonstrates the way multiple generations can degrade even digital images, potentially making it difficult to differentiate two crossing (but electrically separate) signal lines from a 4-way junction on a schematic. Sorry, I'll get off my soap box now. ;-) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.252.143|162.158.252.143]] 15:13, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

It's also funny because just a few moments ago I was trying to compress some video to send to someone. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.130|141.101.98.130]] 07:12, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

http://fotoforensics.com/analysis.php?id=274fcf46426f2da31b057f1652ae5269cfdbd70a.190103 this page highlights the encoding blocks so that the degration of quality can be seen better. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.91.205|141.101.91.205]] 09:42, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

:Nice example. Their picture is already a bad copy. While it's still a PNG, it's already reduced in size (600x228 instead of 720x282, 131381 byte instead of 190103). Btw. the file used in this wiki is also slightly different from what I see on xkcd. It's just 3 minutes older and 308 bytes larger. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.83.48|162.158.83.48]] 01:28, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

The phenomenon that Randall is making fun of in this comic is actually called a "shitpic" http://www.theawl.com/2014/12/the-triumphant-rise-of-the-shitpic The explanation should probably make reference to that. [[User:Enchantedsleeper|Enchantedsleeper]] ([[User talk:Enchantedsleeper|talk]]) 10:57, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

I think the watermarks on the last frame are from an unregistered screenshot tool, not "9gag" or similar. The references to shit pics are interesting, but aren't you over interpreting the whole thing? {{unsigned ip|162.158.83.174}}
: ...You realise that over-interpreting is what this wiki is ''for'', right? Also, not really, since all I said was that a "shitpic" is what this type of degraded image is called. [[User:Enchantedsleeper|Enchantedsleeper]] ([[User talk:Enchantedsleeper|talk]]) 15:03, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

There's a 9gag thing in the image, clean your glasses and look again. --[[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.46|173.245.54.46]] 12:15, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Both screenshots from iOS definitely. Safari browser and… anybody knows? Some kind of other web browser? Maybe Chrome or Opera? <Need to finally create account> [[Special:Contributions/162.158.202.152|162.158.202.152]] 15:32, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Apparently Russians have been getting this a lot, as they (up to the point of the existence of UNICODE) have had to deal a lot with people using bad codepages. Example of their post office dealing with a physical package addressed with a bad codepage: http://worldlanguages.wikia.com/wiki/Mojibake?file=Letter_to_Russia_with_krokozyabry.jpg [[User:Odysseus654|Odysseus654]] ([[User talk:Odysseus654|talk]]) 16:54, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Here is the progression as I see it:
*Frame 1 - The original PNG
*Frame 2 - The PNG converted to a JPEG
*Frame 3 - The JPEG as viewed on a mobile browser (Safari on iOS in this case)
*Frame 4 - A screen-shot of the mobile browser uploaded to Tumblr and then stolen by 9GAG
[[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.62|173.245.52.62]] 19:37, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Note that while the term "digital" is new, first digital format of information appeared long ago, with the development of standard alphabet. Images hand-drawn on paper can't be copied without loss, but if you write letters in fixed alphabet, it can be copied without errors forever (not counting errors caused by some letters getting out of use through history). Egyptian literature is probably lost due to us not knowing the (very big) full set of hieroglyphs, but [https://el.wikisource.org/wiki/%CE%9F%CE%B4%CF%8D%CF%83%CF%83%CE%B5%CE%B9%CE%B1/%CE%B1 Odyssey] could (and hopefully even was) be stored exactly how it was written. Wouldn't help read it, of course, language changed since then and it would need to be translated which, again, can lose some meaning ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 16:16, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

There's a much much older example. RNA and subsequently DNA are digital representations of the protein structures (also digital representations of 3-D molecular shapes). Degradation through copying is 1 source of variation which evolution selects over.[[User:MerlinMM|MerlinMM]] ([[User talk:MerlinMM|talk]]) 11:28, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Is it possible that the watermark in the bottom left of the last panel is supposed to read "drama.tumblr.com"?
--[[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.67|173.245.52.67]] 20:42, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

The alt text has been fixed, the second "You're" has been removed.

Talk:1574: Trouble for Science

2015-09-07T13:17:03Z

141.101.104.80:

Sentence case, or down style, is one method, preferred by many print and online publications and recommended by the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. The only two rules are the two rules mentioned above: Capitalize the first word and all proper nouns. Everything else is in lowercase. http://www.dailywritingtips.com/rules-for-capitalization-in-titles/ [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.154|173.245.50.154]] 12:30, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

== Problems with the p-value as an indicator of significance ==

The p-value alone can never be an indicator of significance. However, it is still often used as the only indicator, because a full set of parameters (including sample size, test setup, etc.) can't easily be packed into a single number. There's a nice article in nature about this problem: [http://www.nature.com/news/scientific-method-statistical-errors-1.14700]
I can also recommend [http://io9.com/i-fooled-millions-into-thinking-chocolate-helps-weight-1707251800this story] about (ab-)using hacked p-values to get maximum publicity. I hope this helps :-) --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.183|141.101.105.183]] 12:41, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

I think the joke is that these newspapers are talking about how bad science is, and yet they manage to come up with a stupid story about Bunsen burners, presumably being too scientifically illiterate to know the problem. [[User:Timband|Timband]] ([[User talk:Timband|talk]]) 12:55, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

== Controlled trials show Bunsen burners make things colder ==

Actually, I can easily imagine a way to use a Bunsen burner to make something colder. Involving an unlit Bunsen burner that has been placed in the freezer for a couple hours, for example. Nowhere in the headline is there any mention of a flame. --[[User:Svenman|Svenman]] ([[User talk:Svenman|talk]]) 12:59, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

I think the joke is in the wording of the headlines. The fact that a replication study fails to reproduce can be seen as a contradiction. Overfeeding rodents leads to fat rodents. This compromises their ability to function als animal (runway) models. I haven't figured out the other ones yet. But that's çause I'm dumb :-). Alva.

Talk:1574: Trouble for Science

2015-09-07T13:15:56Z

141.101.104.80:

Sentence case, or down style, is one method, preferred by many print and online publications and recommended by the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. The only two rules are the two rules mentioned above: Capitalize the first word and all proper nouns. Everything else is in lowercase. http://www.dailywritingtips.com/rules-for-capitalization-in-titles/ [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.154|173.245.50.154]] 12:30, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

== Problems with the p-value as an indicator of significance ==

The p-value alone can never be an indicator of significance. However, it is still often used as the only indicator, because a full set of parameters (including sample size, test setup, etc.) can't easily be packed into a single number. There's a nice article in nature about this problem: [http://www.nature.com/news/scientific-method-statistical-errors-1.14700]
I can also recommend [http://io9.com/i-fooled-millions-into-thinking-chocolate-helps-weight-1707251800this story] about (ab-)using hacked p-values to get maximum publicity. I hope this helps :-) --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.183|141.101.105.183]] 12:41, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

I think the joke is that these newspapers are talking about how bad science is, and yet they manage to come up with a stupid story about Bunsen burners, presumably being too scientifically illiterate to know the problem. [[User:Timband|Timband]] ([[User talk:Timband|talk]]) 12:55, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

== Controlled trials show Bunsen burners make things colder ==

Actually, I can easily imagine a way to use a Bunsen burner to make something colder. Involving an unlit Bunsen burner that has been placed in the freezer for a couple hours, for example. Nowhere in the headline is there any mention of a flame. --[[User:Svenman|Svenman]] ([[User talk:Svenman|talk]]) 12:59, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

I think the joke is in the wording of the headline. The fact that a replication study fails to reproduce can be seen as a contradiction. Overfeeding rodents leads to fat rodents. This compromises their ability to function als animal (runway) models. I haven't figured out the other ones yet. But that's çause I'm dumb :-). Alva.

Talk:1556: The Sky

2015-08-17T11:25:03Z

141.101.104.80: Relevant "what-if" entry

Typical, I think nobody's actually going to try to explain this, and I get Save Conflicted. My (wordier) version. In case any of it is useful.
:The sky is ever changing, and can often give interesting views such as that illustrated in the comic. Cueball and Megan seem to be agreeing about this, and its pleasing nature.
:As (ignoring particularly unusual viewpoints, severe topography and obscuring vegetation/architecture) the sky is pretty much the upper hemisphere of any external view, it is inded a "half". It would seem to be redundant to say it is "one of my favourite halves", as that indicates both a list of at least two items to choose from ''and'' more than one 'favourite'. Being in 'the top two of a list of two' actually means nothing. But the other half could be the ground ''or'' the sea, ''or'' a composite of the two, so conceivably there ''might'' be more than two 'halves' to choose from in this case. Not that the statement makes much more sense.
:The title-text acknowledges the fact that the other half can have snakes (the land), shipwrecks (the sea) and rocks (either), in a manner that sounds like justifications for any non-sky 'halves' being interesting too, to the kind of people Cueball and Megan seem to be. But it also suggests that by removing all of these you'd be seeing sky, below, that people on the other side of the 'rocks' (the whole Earth) had been seeing as their own 'sky above'. At least until the effects of entirely removing the substance of the planet start to show, of course.
...for what it's worth. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.168|141.101.98.168]] 11:57, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Maybe, maybe the comic is a slight refference to the recent observetory of plutos athmosphere. [[User:ẞ qwertz|ẞ qwertz]] ([[User talk:ẞ qwertz|talk]]) 12:55, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Maybe this comic is related to comic [[1368]]? [[User:Gartenzaun|Gartenzaun]] ([[User talk:Gartenzaun|talk]]) 13:16, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
:Or this [[1524: Dimensions]]. Regarding the favourite of a small set.-[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:52, 27 July 2015 (UTC)I do
:I do not agree with [[1368: One Of The]] as it has nothing to do with the way this sentence is used here. I have removed it from the explanation.--[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:24, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I can't defend this position properly (other than by appealing to shipwrecks) but I'm pretty sure "the other half" is the ocean (or water in general) and that this is a callback to something in early XKCD (the halves thing.) I don't care enough to find the reference though, so FFTI. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.88.224|141.101.88.224]] 13:18, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

My read on the "halves" bit is the Biblical Genesis bit where the world was split into sky and sea, "And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day." -[[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.112|173.245.56.112]] 14:36, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

: Agreed, this appears to be a biblical reference - [[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1&version=GNT| this version]] explains it pretty clearly. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.177|108.162.249.177]] 14:41, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
: Thus taking "halves" as a verb. Nice. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.239.32|198.41.239.32]] 23:33, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

I can't tell if the sky is a photograph with a digital filter or a painting. [[User:Smperron|Smperron]] ([[User talk:Smperron|talk]]) 14:49, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

:I'm pretty sure it's a digital painting. For one thing, there's a little artistic license in the transition from sunset at the left to evening stars at the top right. [[User:FourViolas|FourViolas]] ([[User talk:FourViolas|talk]]) 14:58, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

:: I don't see it -- has the picture changed? [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 16:31, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

::: I didn't notice the stars at the top right until [[User:FourViolas|FourViolas]] pointed it out. [[User:Smperron|Smperron]] ([[User talk:Smperron|talk]]) 16:37, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

:It's almost definitely a digital painting. As far as I know, Randall has never used photographs in his comics; I'd be surprised if he suddenly changed that. Moreover, the point of this comics seems to be mostly to showcase Randall's digital artwork (see also [[1024: Error Code]], which admittedly had slightly more surrounding humor) than to make a particular joke.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.250|162.158.255.250]] 02:54, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I think it's important that Megan says the sky is ONE of her favorite halves, and that the explanation "at least at their present location...the ground is dark, flat, and otherwise boring" is thus too simplistic. The ground where they are standing is in silhouette (it's presumably sunrise or sunset), but I think the implication is that C. and M. (who are obviously not finding words adequate to express how they feel about what they're seeing), are awed by the beauty of Nature, regardless of whether it's sky, sea (shipwrecks), land (rocks) or living things (snakes).[[User:Jv|Jv]] ([[User talk:Jv|talk]]) 15:01, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
:The general idea here seems most reasonable to me. The sky is great (see also [[1117: My Sky]]), but so is the Earth. I find all this debate over possible implications of "one of the" almost absurd.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.250|162.158.255.250]] 02:44, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Is it possible that the meaning of Megan's statement is that there are other binary sets where she prefers one over the other? For example, her favorites might include (in addition to sky) female, light, and loud. [[User:Smperron|Smperron]] ([[User talk:Smperron|talk]]) 16:43, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps Megan is a reporter https://xkcd.com/1368/ [[User:Xquestion|Xquestion]] ([[User talk:Xquestion|talk]]) 16:51, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

What i understand under "favorite halves" is not about the mentioned tautology but about other things you can differentiate two halves and you like one more than the other.
My personal favorite halves in this sense would be; Sky(vs Earth), women(vs men), low alcohol drinks(vs liquors), etc 17:11, 27 July 2015 (UTC)[[Special:Contributions/141.101.103.202|141.101.103.202]] Bkack

There are multiple ways to split the earth into halves, so I don't think having one favorite way makes any tautology. For example, you can split North/South, East/West, sky/earth, water/earth, day/night. [[User:DMiller|DMiller]] [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.150|173.245.50.150]] 18:28, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't think it is a "tautology": a trivially true fact, eg "all red shoes are red". If anything it is an oxymoron (as it implies both halves are favourite, and so neither is). [[User:Zeimusu|Zeimusu]] ([[User talk:Zeimusu|talk]]) 18:58, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Am I the only one who sees a possible (additional) visual joke in the second panel? (The drawing is divided along the diagonal: One half is mainly cloudy, another mostly clear sky.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.92.44|162.158.92.44]] 19:37, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

In terms of two halves, should we mention https://xkcd.com/731/ "Desert Island?" It seems to be relevant in this situation, but I want someone else's opinion first. Also, mobile sucks for that kind of stuff, so... [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.110|108.162.216.110]] 20:45, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

"Mathematically, stating one of my favorites it must imply that there must be at least one other favorite" - Not mathematically, but intuitively (unless you can prove the implication). Mathematically, this just says that "Sky" is a member of the set "Favorite Halves", which may or may not include more elements. Intuitively, we don't talk like that unless there is another favorite.-[[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.91|173.245.50.91]] 21:38, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

This could be a reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_the_Sky [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.131|173.245.56.131]] 04:06, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm not so sure that the sky being one of Megan's favourite halves is either tautological or an oxymoron. It could simply mean that, of any given pair that can be described as two halves, she always has a preference for one over the other. Thus, of "earth / sky", "sky" is her favourite half, whereas perhaps of "Bonnie / Clyde", "Bonnie" might be her favourite half. In this way one could have many favourite halves. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.162|141.101.98.162]] 08:02, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
: this ties in well with the recently popular theme of sets with the same number of elements being similar. (So even as Characters can't tell the dwarves from the days of the week, they also separate all pairs into 'favorite' and 'meh' piles.) This made more sense in my head, huh? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.88.224|141.101.88.224]] 14:06, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't think "one of my favourite halves" ''needs to'' be a tautology. It only is if we consider it one of the favourite halves of the same whole, but the set of favourite halves could easily be something like [the sky, yolk, front meant, dark side of the Moon,...], that is, favourite halves of various things. Of course, it would be rather quirky to keep track of favourite halves like that, but I think it is not beyond xkcd. [[User:Jaalenja|Jaalenja]] ([[User talk:Jaalenja|talk]]) 15:07, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Might the fact(?) that the cloud is a mamatis cloud be relevant? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.47|141.101.104.47]] 20:40, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Looks to me like the stars in the upper right are almost but not quite in the pattern of the Pleiades. [[User:Taibhse|Taibhse]] ([[User talk:Taibhse|talk]]) 10:20, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Isn't it possible that this is a reference to the famous proclamation by Mao Zedong that "women hold up half the sky"? There are books, organizations, and more that use this "half the sky" reference in this sense. - [[User:Dravecky|Dravecky]] ([[User talk:Dravecky|talk]]) 06:08, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

:I've reinserted this explanation. It's no more far-fetched than the existing explanation, and Randall has occasionally involved himself in sociopolitical analysis before. A Google search for "half the sky" turns up plenty of related material, and it's not a common-enough phrase to be able to believe that it hasn't been deliberately chosen as a reference here. [[User:Pookybot|Pookybot]] ([[User talk:Pookybot|talk]]) 07:29, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Often, I hear "better half" being used as almost a nickname for your significant other. I think we're looking into it too much- Megan might be saying that the sky is one of her "favorite halves", with Cueball being the other "favorite half". After all, this is one of the comics that isn't supposed to be humorous. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.139|173.245.50.139]] 04:30, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Tom Petty has a song 'Circus' with lyrics "Half of me is ocean, half of me is sky" - http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/tompettyandtheheartbreakers/wallscircus.html [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.162|108.162.237.162]] 03:40, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

What If entry "Jupiter submarine" seems to indicate that the oceans are suppoed to be the other half:
''Air and water are different. This seems straightforward enough, but they're also the same in a lot of ways. They're both "fluids," and some of the same rules apply to each. In some sense, when you look up at the sky, you're looking up from the bottom of a deep sea of air.'' [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.80|141.101.104.80]] 11:25, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

1483: Quotative Like

2015-02-06T13:57:41Z

141.101.104.80: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1483
| date = February 6, 2015
| title = Quotative Like
| image = quotative_like.png
| titletext = God was like, "Let there be light," and there was light.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, [[Megan]] mentions an article on the use of the word "{{w|Like#As a colloquial quotative|like}}" as a {{w|quotative}}. [[Cueball]] makes a joke on this by managing to use the word "like" three times in a seven word sentence.

The "quotative like" is regularly given as an example of the decline of the English language. It is used to introduce a quotation or impersonation, although what follows may not be a verbatim quote, but rather conveys the general meaning of the original phrase. Although it is modern in terms of the English language, examples of its use can be found all the way back in 1928. In the early 1980's, the stereotypical {{w|Valley Girl}} made substantial use of the quotative like, which may be the main origin of its contemporary use.

In the second panel Megan mentions that in the [http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2015/01/25/linguists-are-like-get-used/ruUQoV0XUTLDjx72JojnBI/story.html article] the {{w|linguist}} [https://faculty.unt.edu/editprofile.php?pid=1485 Patricia Cukor-Avila] is like: "Eventually all the people who hate this kind of thing are going to be dead, and the ones who use it are going to be in control."

While it has long been popular to criticize modern developments that are seen as steps backward (see [[1227: The Pace of Modern Life]]), such criticisms are almost always in vain, as they are typically made by the older generation against the younger generation, and the latter is always guaranteed to outlive the former.

The quote, however, doesn't actually say ''why'' the older generation will die out, leading Cueball to speculate that Dr. Cukor-Avila is plotting (or warning of) some sort of {{w|genocide}} against people who dislike the use of the quotative like. Megan points out a much more likely interpretation (although this is not mentioned directly the article), that those people will die of old age, but Cueball persists, saying he'll err on the side of caution and make sure to use the quotative like more often, thereby hoping to be spared from the genocide.

The title text applies quotative like to the {{w|Book of Genesis}} (specifically, {{w|Genesis 1:3}}: "God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light"), the first book of the Hebrew Bible (the Tanakh) and the Christian Old Testament. When researching the history of language {{w|Etymology|etymologists}} take great effort to find the earliest usage of a word or phrase, which may be used to show a historical precedence.

==Transcript==
:[Megan referring to a published article she is holding.]
:Megan: I found this article on the linguistics of the "Quotative Like".
:Cueball: Like, when you're like, "She was like"?
:Megan: Yea.
:Megan: It features a quote from a linguist, Patricia Cukor-Avlia: "Eventually all the people who hate this kind of thing are going to be dead, and the ones who use it are going to be in control."
:Cueball: Wow. Turns out linguists are pretty hardcore.
:Megan: I ''think'' she means dead from old age.
:Cueball: I'm gonna start using "like" more, just in case.

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