explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2188: E Scooters

2019-08-14T05:52:21Z

141.101.105.246:

This comic came out early. They don't usually go live till around noon my time. It's 1:20 AM. [[User:Blacksilver|Blacksilver]] ([[User talk:Blacksilver|talk]]) 05:21, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
:Yes, quite early, but about once a month or something it happens. Randall never has fixed upload times. So it is not really uncommon. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:46, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
::It used to be that the comics would come online in the early US hours (morning for Europe), but about 1 year ago this shifted to morning US / mid-afternoon Europe, with some exceptions.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.203|141.101.99.203]] 10:26, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Please tell me I'm not the only one who thought Cueballs first "sound" in panel 6 was 20000000M and was wondering what that number meant? :D [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 09:29, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
:You [where] were the only one I think :-p --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 09:55, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
he wasn't

I have noticed that in several comics Randall doesn't draw a frame around every panel, like panel 5 in this case. Is there any meaning behind this or is it just a random artistic choice? [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 09:32, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
:I think it is a choice, but not random. It gives a certain flow to the comic. He does this a lot. I have begun writing it in the transcript, as I did here (someone else did it partially but I corrected it to "frame-less panel". A quick search [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Special:Search&limit=500&offset=0&profile=default&search=%22frame-less+panel%22 showed 79 pages] using this sentence. So it is quite common, as I have certainly not been around all of the comics doing this. However, I'm probably the one that have edited most transcripts (as the one with the most edits on this wiki, who on top of that has specialized in making the transcripts complete. ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 09:55, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
:In this instance it could mean "Zoom Out" again after panel 4 zoomed in (so basically it looks like a combined panel 4+5 with the zoomed in panel framed). Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.110.70|172.68.110.70]] 12:36, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
:Randall also could be using it to save space. Omitting the two vertical lines of the frame saves a bit of horizontal space, which helps in a comic like this one where there's a lot to squeeze into the bottom row of frames. [[User:DKMell|DKMell]] ([[User talk:DKMell|talk]]) 18:29, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

I didn't really get this explanation. It doesn't really _explain_ why the response is made of whizzing sounds, no? Wouldn't the point of the explanation be to explain the comic? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.114.52|162.158.114.52]] 16:10, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

: Why seemed obvious to me. It could be that there is no *serious* reason for it, that he did it for fun.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.184|108.162.245.184]] 17:24, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

:I added an explanation for his sounds.

"Obviously battery technology and prices have driven a lot of the scooter explosion"... While [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOwhah8AifU ''faulty'' battery technology] has also caused its fair share of scooter explosions... And maybe it also needs to be said that otherwise popular electric scooters are actually ''not legal'' in the UK, to be ridden either on the road (with the cars, lorries, busses, bikes, etc) or the footway (with the pedestrians; and the illegally ridden bikes, who have both their own occasional problems and/or occasionally problematic users to contend with - a whole conversation in itself), which ''may'' have helped delay the occurance of the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Hartridge first UK fataility]. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.246|141.101.105.246]] 05:52, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Talk:2186: Dark Matter

2019-08-09T18:59:18Z

141.101.105.246: request

If dark matter were squirrels, they ''wouldn't'' set off the bird feeders because dark matter can't interact with feeders at all! Especially since it's not to the squirrels' advantage to set them off. Unless, of course, the dark matter squirrels do exist and steal from our feeders freely, but we can't notice because dark matter is unobservable at this scale. In fact, it's entirely plausible that some squirrels evolved to be dark matter for this specific advantage, so I wouldn't rule that out. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.244.174|172.68.244.174]] 12:12, 7 August
2019 (UTC)
:Well if they can't interact with the feeders, they won't be able to steal the food either.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.107.66|141.101.107.66]] 13:28, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
::Not with that attitude. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.4|162.158.126.4]] 14:10, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

I have never seen a spinning bird - can they turn peanuts into gold?
:Yes, but the gold would be radioactive. The much more impressive reaction is to turn gold into peanuts, other than by paying a farmer for peanuts using the gold. [[User:Nutster|Nutster]] ([[User talk:Nutster|talk]]) 14:36, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
::Would I be allowed to pay a merchant for peanuts using the gold? --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 14:38, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

I had to google what a spinning bird feeder is. I had never seen one of these before (I live in Germany). Maybe a link to one of these funny videos should be added. Frank [[Special:Contributions/172.68.110.64|172.68.110.64]] 19:59, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
:{{done}} [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.32|172.69.22.32]] 01:25, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Anyone else who read PBH as PHB, the pointy haired boss from Dilbert? --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:06, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
:I always think "peanut butter and ham," from PBJ+BLT I guess. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.141.148|172.68.141.148]] 07:20, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

In the explanation, I think I missed a step of logic. Are Windows, Icons, Mice and Pointers made up of Dark Matter? It might explain a few lockups in Windows I've been having lately.[[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 11:47, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

How can Megan use the dark matter density across the whole solar system to calculate the density within the Earth? If dark matter interacts with gravity, shouldn't the distribution of dark matter within the Solar system be similar to the distribution of normal matter (i.e. much higher density near massive objects like the Earth)? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.124|108.162.241.124]] 17:40, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

For comparison, it would be nice to have the average density of "regular" matter of the earth, the sun, interplanetary space, interstellar space, etc. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.246|141.101.105.246]] 18:59, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

1932: The True Meaning of Christmas

2017-12-22T16:34:13Z

141.101.105.246: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1932
| date = December 22, 2017
| title = The True Meaning of Christmas
| image = the_true_meaning_of_christmas.png
| titletext = They all made fun of Autometalogolex, but someday there will be a problem with Christmas that can only be solved if Santa somehow gets a serious headache, and then they'll see.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a Grinch. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic is making fun of the common trope in popular media that the {{tvtropes|TrueMeaningOfChristmas|true meaning of Christmas}} is about family, friends, and sharing the Christmas Spirit. It subverts the trope by suggesting that once the stories of the "True Meaning of Christmas" become sufficiently common, the real true meaning becomes to spread those stories. Thus the search for the "True Meaning of Christmas" is itself the meaning of Christmas.

In the last panel and title text, "Autometalogolex" can be broken down to its various prefixes and the root:
:"Auto-" - Greek meaning "self."
:"Meta-" - Greek meaning "after," "beyond," or "in reference to."
:"Logo-" - Greek meaning "word" or "speech."
:"Lex" - "lexis" is another Greek word meaning "word"; but in this case it is more likely to be a shortening of "lexicon" (another word for dictionary), or perhaps a reference to the process of "lexing" (lexical analysis), part of the process of computer analysis of text.

Thus, "Autometalogolex" literally means "A word that refers to itself in the dictionary."

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and a person wearing a Santa hat are standing together.]
:Cueball: You're looking festive.
:Santa Hat: I love Christmas!
:Cueball: Really? Doesn't seem like your kind of thing.
:Santa Hat: It's our most meta holiday!

:Cueball: How so?
:Santa Hat: All our Christmas stories now are about discovering the "true meaning of Christmas."

:Cueball: Huh, yeah. And then sharing it with others.
:[Santa Hat shrugs.]
:Santa Hat: At some point, that quest itself '''''became''''' the true meaning.

:Cueball: Like a word who's definition is "the act of looking up the definition of this word."
:[Santa Hat thinks.]
:Santa Hat: "Autometalogolex"?
:Cueball: My least favorite of Santa's reindeer.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Christmas]]
[[Category:Characters with Hats]]

1854: Refresh Types

2017-06-23T17:29:15Z

141.101.105.246: bleee

{{comic
| number = 1854
| date = June 23, 2017
| title = Refresh Types
| image = refresh_types.png
| titletext = The hardest refresh requires both a Mac keyboard and a Windows keyboard as a security measure, like how missile launch systems require two keys to be turned at once.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This is chaos - multiple explanations should be merged and condensed. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This lists five different ways of refreshing a page. The first three are real ways to refresh a page. The last two are absurd options that would give an ordinary user the power to make large changes to the places where data is hosted and/or the internet as a whole.

The comic makes use of ambiguity of the term 'hard', which can mean both severity of an effect (on the scale of from resetting a part of a page, to the whole page, to its hosting provider and hosting infrastructure), and difficulty of triggering it (on the scale of having to input increasingly complex key combinations). (Think opposability of 'hard' to both 'soft' and 'easy'.)

The difference between the first two options: "soft refresh" and "normal refresh," is that Gmail (Google's email service) allows a user to "refresh" (update) their inbox with a "refresh" button accessed while at a web address, while a "normal refresh" involves pushing the browser's refresh button. The latter option is basically equivalent to closing the web page, then opening up a new window/tab in the browser and going to the same IP address; different websites would handle retaining a user's "logged in" status differently when this is done (often based on options the user selected), while any well-designed webpage would probably not log a user out for using a "soft refresh" on something like an e-mail inbox.

The third option, "hard refresh," refers to a keyboard shortcut to "refresh" their cached files associated with a webpage.

The fourth option, "harder refresh," exaggerates the trend to a silly level by suggesting that a web page user would be allowed to press an increasingly implausible combination of buttons on their keyboard (including the non-standard '[https://askubuntu.com/questions/19558/what-are-the-meta-super-and-hyper-keys HYPER]' key, a feature of the {{w|Space cadet keyboard}}) to reset the power at the entire data center where the web server for the page they are viewing is hosted.

The fifth option, "hardest refresh," implies that if the user activated it, somehow the entire internet would start over from ARPANET, a network funded by the United States Department of Defense that predates the World Wide Web and is important when studying the early history of the internet. (ARPA stands for Advanced Research Projects Agency.) Obviously, this is impossible.

The displayed keyboard shortcuts get longer for the "harder" options. Although probably intended for humor, this makes some sense, as options that are used less often might be assigned less convenient keyboard shortcuts, and the more drastic options (if they existed) might have very long keyboard shortcuts to prevent them from being activated by accident. The first few displayed shortcuts would actually work on many systems.

The title text envisions a security measure for the hypothetical godlike power of the "hardest refresh" that is like the security on missile launch systems. It references the comically long keyboard shortcut for listed for the "hardest refresh" that involves both the Windows key and the Command key (AKA Pretzel key, formerly Apple Key), which would not normally be located on the same keyboard.

Web page developers must keep in mind an ever-increasing number of shortcuts to force a page to refresh more or less thoroughly, i.e. causing cached local resources to be deleted and re-set.

The first option (soft refresh) uses the "refresh" button present as part of the Gmail interface to retrieve new messages from the server without reloading the whole webpage itself.

The second option (normal refresh) uses a browser refresh button which causes the entire page to reload. This will inherently retrieve new messages from the server, but also must do other tasks required to present the page for the first time.

Randall jokingly proposes a fictional "harder still" refresh option is a fictional refresh that sends a command to the Google Gmail server causing the entire data center where the server lives to power down and reboot everything, the Gmail equivalent of "turning it off and on again." This command would be extremely inconvenient for other users, who would be locked out of their emails until the datacenter reboots.

He goes on to propose a "hardest" refresh with a key combination resembling a 'cheat code' that causes the entire internet to be build anew from its origins in {{w|Arpanet}}.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon. No table is the preferred version, just describe what's in the picture including the special keys.}}
:{| class=wikitable
! Refresh Type
! Example Shortcuts
! Effect
|-
| Soft Refresh
| Gmail REFRESH Button
| Requests update within Javascript
|-
| Normal Refresh
| F5, CTRL-R, ⌘-R
|Refreshes page
|-
|Hard Refresh
| CTRL-F5, CTRL-⇧, ⌘-⇧-R
| Refreshes page including cached files
|-
|Harder Refresh
| CTRL-⇧-HYPER-ESC-R-F5
| Remotely cycles power to datacenter
|-
|Hardest Refresh
|CTRL- ⌘ÿ⇧#-R-F5-F-5-ESC-O-0-Ø-⏏-SCROLL LOCK
|Internet starts over from Arpanet
|}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Internet]]

1854: Refresh Types

2017-06-23T17:27:45Z

141.101.105.246: blaabloo

{{comic
| number = 1854
| date = June 23, 2017
| title = Refresh Types
| image = refresh_types.png
| titletext = The hardest refresh requires both a Mac keyboard and a Windows keyboard as a security measure, like how missile launch systems require two keys to be turned at once.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This is chaos - multiple explanations should be merged and condensed. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This lists five different ways of refreshing a page. The first three are real ways to refresh a page. The last two are absurd options that would give an ordinary user the power to make large changes to the places where data is hosted and/or the internet as a whole.

The comic makes use of ambiguity of the term 'hard', which can mean both severity of an effect (on the scale of from resetting a part of a page, to the whole page, to its hosting provider and hosting infrastructure), and difficulty of triggering it (on the scale of having to input increasingly complex key combinations).

The difference between the first two options: "soft refresh" and "normal refresh," is that Gmail (Google's email service) allows a user to "refresh" (update) their inbox with a "refresh" button accessed while at a web address, while a "normal refresh" involves pushing the browser's refresh button. The latter option is basically equivalent to closing the web page, then opening up a new window/tab in the browser and going to the same IP address; different websites would handle retaining a user's "logged in" status differently when this is done (often based on options the user selected), while any well-designed webpage would probably not log a user out for using a "soft refresh" on something like an e-mail inbox.

The third option, "hard refresh," refers to a keyboard shortcut to "refresh" their cached files associated with a webpage.

The fourth option, "harder refresh," exaggerates the trend to a silly level by suggesting that a web page user would be allowed to press an increasingly implausible combination of buttons on their keyboard (including the non-standard '[https://askubuntu.com/questions/19558/what-are-the-meta-super-and-hyper-keys HYPER]' key, a feature of the {{w|Space cadet keyboard}}) to reset the power at the entire data center where the web server for the page they are viewing is hosted.

The fifth option, "hardest refresh," implies that if the user activated it, somehow the entire internet would start over from ARPANET, a network funded by the United States Department of Defense that predates the World Wide Web and is important when studying the early history of the internet. (ARPA stands for Advanced Research Projects Agency.) Obviously, this is impossible.

The displayed keyboard shortcuts get longer for the "harder" options. Although probably intended for humor, this makes some sense, as options that are used less often might be assigned less convenient keyboard shortcuts, and the more drastic options (if they existed) might have very long keyboard shortcuts to prevent them from being activated by accident. The first few displayed shortcuts would actually work on many systems.

The title text envisions a security measure for the hypothetical godlike power of the "hardest refresh" that is like the security on missile launch systems. It references the comically long keyboard shortcut for listed for the "hardest refresh" that involves both the Windows key and the Command key (AKA Pretzel key, formerly Apple Key), which would not normally be located on the same keyboard.

Web page developers must keep in mind an ever-increasing number of shortcuts to force a page to refresh more or less thoroughly, i.e. causing cached local resources to be deleted and re-set.

The first option (soft refresh) uses the "refresh" button present as part of the Gmail interface to retrieve new messages from the server without reloading the whole webpage itself.

The second option (normal refresh) uses a browser refresh button which causes the entire page to reload. This will inherently retrieve new messages from the server, but also must do other tasks required to present the page for the first time.

Randall jokingly proposes a fictional "harder still" refresh option is a fictional refresh that sends a command to the Google Gmail server causing the entire data center where the server lives to power down and reboot everything, the Gmail equivalent of "turning it off and on again." This command would be extremely inconvenient for other users, who would be locked out of their emails until the datacenter reboots.

He goes on to propose a "hardest" refresh with a key combination resembling a 'cheat code' that causes the entire internet to be build anew from its origins in {{w|Arpanet}}.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon. No table is the preferred version, just describe what's in the picture including the special keys.}}
:{| class=wikitable
! Refresh Type
! Example Shortcuts
! Effect
|-
| Soft Refresh
| Gmail REFRESH Button
| Requests update within Javascript
|-
| Normal Refresh
| F5, CTRL-R, ⌘-R
|Refreshes page
|-
|Hard Refresh
| CTRL-F5, CTRL-⇧, ⌘-⇧-R
| Refreshes page including cached files
|-
|Harder Refresh
| CTRL-⇧-HYPER-ESC-R-F5
| Remotely cycles power to datacenter
|-
|Hardest Refresh
|CTRL- ⌘ÿ⇧#-R-F5-F-5-ESC-O-0-Ø-⏏-SCROLL LOCK
|Internet starts over from Arpanet
|}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Internet]]