explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:1425: Tasks

2016-09-12T15:47:00Z

141.101.70.229:

the source of title text maybe is Szeliski, ''Computer Vision: Algorithms and Applications'' (2010), p. 10. --[[User:Valepert|valepert]] ([[User talk:Valepert|talk]]) 06:59, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

[http://www.wired.com/2012/06/google-x-neural-network/ Google’s Artificial Brain Learns to Find Cat Videos] might be useful as a description of the problem [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.219|108.162.250.219]] 08:34, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

:Sorry for editing your comment but external links have different syntax that internal links so it wasn't working. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 11:21, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Nice Superman joke there, Pudder! --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.49|141.101.99.49]] 10:26, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
:It had been removed in an edit, so I shoehorned in back in :P --[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 12:25, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
Isn't there an xkcd where the estimate of 5 years of work is equivalent to "might take forever?" [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 13:16, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
:I'm pretty sure you're refering to 678. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.132|173.245.52.132]] 15:00, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

The link in the description is to a document by {{w|Seymour Papert}} and the [http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Summer_Vision_Project.html?id=qOh7NwAACAAJ book] on the project is also by Papert. Is there any contemporary evidence that it was actually Minsky who assigned the project? I think he just got interested in it later. 14:17, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

[http://xkcd.com/678/ 678: Researcher Translation] is probably what you're thinking of, Rtanenbaum. [[User:Ndgeek|Ndgeek]] ([[User talk:Ndgeek|talk]]) 17:44, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Is it possible that Randall's selection of bird rather than another naturally occurring object is a subtle reference to the Birdsnap app (http://engineering.columbia.edu/it-crow-or-raven-new-birdsnap-app-will-tell-you-0) which has solved some of the aspects of this problem? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.48.137|173.245.48.137]] 22:02, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Hopefully I can add that this also seems to make reference to the U.S. Forest Service intention to make everyone have a permit to take pics, etc., in national parks. https://www.yahoo.com/travel/dont-take-that-picture-the-u-s-forest-service-might-98484656432.html {{unsigned ip|108.162.216.21}}

Post the picture to an online forum, say it's a bird, if it's not everyone will correct you as per http://xkcd.com/386/, so scrape forum and if there's a lot of attention it's not a bird, if there isn't much attention it probably is a bird. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.78|141.101.99.78]] 23:06, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

A dev team at Flickr took this comic as a challenge, and set up a PoC at http://parkorbird.flickr.com/ (that seems to work fairly well). --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.210.135|108.162.210.135]] 20:08, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
:I was duly impressed. It doesn't recognize big bird very well, though. ;) [[User:Suspender guy|Suspender guy]] ([[User talk:Suspender guy|talk]]) 20:26, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

A 'picture of a bird' from a CS perspective is a reverse engineering problem. The picture is a 2 dimensional rendering of a 3-dimensional world and a 'bird' is a 3-dimensional object. It takes years for the mind of a newborn human to be able to recognize a majority of objects based on their 'first look' at a stereoscopic (two-eyes) image presented by their visual cortex. The software equivalency of this would be to create a 3 dimensional representation of objects and create a linear-algebra algorithm that can define the statistical probability that any given shape is within a certain degree of exclusion a matrix representation of the target shape (area) of the 3 dimensional object (bird) based on distance (using spacial reconstruction). It's not impossible, it's just really really hard. - nerd answer {{unsigned ip|173.245.54.166}}
:To be honest I don't think it is impossible to replicate any function of human intelligence and mental capacity on a computer system. It just requires sufficient processing ability, appropriate hardware, and of course, an understanding of how humans do it in the first place. -Pennpenn [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.162|108.162.250.162]] 03:29, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Or just give Google a little less than two years, and they'll make [https://cloud.google.com/vision/ Google Cloud Vision API] for you [[User:Gpk|Gpk]] ([[User talk:Gpk|talk]]) 20:39, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

I read somewhere that when you ask CS/IT specialist for a probable ETA for solving an interesting problem, you need to multiply the given time to the ETA by 4 and take the next larger unit (a minute becomes 4 hours, an hour becomes 4 days etc.). Can't find the source of that though. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.70.229|141.101.70.229]] 15:47, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

1680: Black Hole

2016-05-13T05:19:05Z

141.101.70.229: Big Lebowski

{{comic
| number = 1680
| date = May 13, 2016
| title = Black Hole
| image = black_hole.png
| titletext = It also brings all the boys, and everything else, to the yard.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|First draft.}}
This comic is a simple joke. Cueball is curious as to why Black Hat has a miniature black hole on his table; Black Hat responds that it "really brings the room together", making a pun on both the black hole aesthetically completing the room (which seems unlikely [citation needed]), as well as it literally "bringing the room together" through its gravitational pull.

The comic references 'The Dude's' rug in the film "The Big Lebowski", whilst the title text makes a more contemporary cultural reference to a well-known song lyric from the song "Milkshake" by Kelis. [Insert explanation of lyric meaning], however, in this case, since gravity does not discriminate between which things it will attract [citation needed], it brings "the boys, and everything else", to Black Hat's yard.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}

[Cueball is standing near a coffee table as Black Hat approaches. They are presumably in Black Hat's living room. The coffee table has a miniature black hole on top of it, resting on a small pedestal.]

Cueball: Why do you have a miniature black hole on your coffee table?

Black Hat: It really brings the room together.

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:1675: Message in a Bottle

2016-05-02T16:03:21Z

141.101.70.229:

The title text reminds me of the song {{w|Message in a Bottle (song)|Message in a Bottle}} by Police. ;-) Maybe enough that it should be part of the explanation? [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:30, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

: Why not? Seems to fit the description. [[User:Jacoder23|Jacoder23]] ([[User talk:Jacoder23|talk]]) 14:07, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

It may be worth mentioning that in certain mailing lists or mass emails people use "reply all" to unsubscribe or otherwise request being removed from the recipients list of future messages; meaning everyone else's inbox gets clogged with unsubscribe requests even though the message only needed to go to the originator. (The best part is the people who reply all to tell the other people to stop using reply all.) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.242|108.162.237.242]] 14:14, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Isn't there another xkcd comic involving messages in a bottle? I feel like this comic might be related to that one but I cannot find the other one. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.68.83|162.158.68.83]] 14:19, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

If we're talking about problems to do with reply to all and mailing list, this story is always a good read: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/exchange/2004/04/08/me-too/ [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.54|141.101.98.54]] 14:22, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Transcript: The curvy writing might also indicate that the paper was not kept perfectly dry inside the bottle. --[[Special:Contributions/198.41.242.240|198.41.242.240]] 15:39, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

The explanation of the main comic doesn't seem to provide much of an explanation. Here's how I read the comic:

: This comic is about how hard it is to unsubscribe from some email lists. 'Unsubscribe' links often don't work (perhaps intentionally). In desperation, someone has tried to send their 'unsubscribe' request in a bottle, hoping in vain that it will have its intended effect. Instead, Cueball receives it. The title-text slightly shifts the premise: now Cueball is the intended recipient, an incompetent email list operator who replies in the wrong way, triggering the problem described in the current title-text explanation. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.70.229|141.101.70.229]] 16:03, 2 May 2016 (UTC) Adam

1654: Universal Install Script

2016-03-11T16:43:03Z

141.101.70.229: No longer incomplete

{{comic
| number = 1654
| date = March 11, 2016
| title = Universal Install Script
| image = universal_install_script.png
| titletext = The failures usually don't hurt anything, and if it installs several versions, it increases the chance that one of them is right. (Note: The 'yes' command and '2>/dev/null' are recommended additions.)
}}

==Explanation==

Most users of computers today are used to simple, easy installation of programs. You just download a .exe or a .dmg, double click it, and do what it says. Sometimes you don't even have to install anything at all, and it runs without any installation.

However, when things are more "homebrew", for example downloading source code, things are more complicated. Under {{w|Linux}}, which is the platform this universal install script is designed for, you may have to work with "build environments" and "makefiles", and command line interfaces. To make this process simpler, there exist repositories of programs which host packages of source code and the things needed to build it. When you download the package, it automatically does most of the work of building the code into something executable. However, there are many such repositories, such as "pip" and "brew", among others listed in the comic. If you only know the name of a program or package, you may not know in which repository(ies) it resides.

The script provided in the comic attempts to fix this problem, by giving a "universal install script", which contains a lot of common install commands used in various distributions of Linux. In between each of the install commands in the script is the & character, which in Linux {{w|Bash (Unix shell)|BASH}} means it should continue to run the next command without waiting for the first command to finish. This has the effect of running all the install commands simultaneously; whatever outputs each commands would have will be mixed together as they are all displaying on the screen around the same time. More about the & below.

The script accepts the name of a program when you run it as an argument. This value is then referenced as "$1" (argument number 1). Everywhere the script says "$1", it substitutes in the name of the package you gave it. The end result is the name being tried against a large number of software repositories and package managers, and hopefully, at least one of them will be appropriate and the program will be successfully installed. Near the end, it even tries changing the current working directory to that which is assumed to hold the package to be installed, and then runs several commands which build the program from source code.

All in all, this script would probably work; it runs many standard popular repository programs and package managers, and runs the nearly-universal commands needed to build a program. Most of the commands would simply give an error and exit, but hopefully the correct one will proceed with the install.

One of the more subtle jokes in the comic is the inclusion of <code>apt-get</code> and <code>sudo apt-get</code> in the same script. In most cases this would be redundant as the <code>sudo</code> command is just to add admin permissions. This could be a reference to a joke in the Linux community about forgetting to include the sudo command. An example of this joke being used elsewhere was a [https://twitter.com/liamosaur/status/506975850596536320 viral tweet] that showed a workaround for the issue. Sudo has also been used both by [[Randall]] in [[149: Sandwich]] and by Jason Fox to force Randall to let him appear on xkcd with [[824: Guest Week: Bill Amend (FoxTrot)]].

Another explanation for this could be that plain "apt-get" is for Debian, while Ubuntu etc. use sudo.

The tool <code>curl</code> downloads files from the network (e.g., the Internet). Used like <code>curl http://xkcd.com/</code> it downloads the xkcd main page and displays the HTML source code. The pipe <code>|</code> in the script attaches the output of the command before the pipe to the input of the command after the pipe. Both commands are executed concurrently. <code>bash</code> is a popular shell for Unix-like operating systems. The line <code>curl "$1" | bash</code> tries to download a file from the network and to execute the download directly. 

The use of & at the end of each line causes the shell interpreter to execute the commands in parallel (asynchronously) instead of sequentially. Even if single commands fail, the rest of them will be executed. Note this is even the case for the final commands which attempt to change to the installed package, probably the only reason why this may not work completely for packages that do need compiling after being downloaded. (However, just running this script again would probably do the trick.)

There appears to be a bug with the & at the end of the "git clone" line; since a git repository typically contains program source code, not executables, it may have been intended to retrieve the source code with git and then compile and install the program in the next line. In this case, the single & should be replaced with &&, an operator that will run the second command only if the first one has completed successfully. This plays into a second bug on the "configure" line, where the placement of the & means that only the "make install" command will be run asynchronously after the "configure" and "make" steps have finished in sequence. To make success as likely as possible, the two lines should be like this:

git clone <nowiki>https://github.com/</nowiki>"$1"/"$1" && (cd "$1"; ./configure; make; make install) &

The title text mentions the possibility that the same program may be in multiple repositories, so in this case, the script will download and install several versions, or it may fail on a number of repositories, in which case usually nothing bad happens. Since all the commands come from different operating systems, versions, or distributions, it is not very likely that more than one will work (with the exception of pip/easy_install and the two forms of apt-get) or even exist on the same system. It mentions that adding a way of automatically saying "yes" to questions asked during the different repository-fetching programs' running, by making them read input from another program that writes a (nearly) endless stream of "y"s, could simplify things further. <code>2>/dev/null</code> redirects the second output stream (the "error stream") to the null device driver, which discards all writes to it.

==Transcript==
:[In the panel is a shell script which, unusual for xkcd, uses only lower case. At the top the title of the program is inlaid in the frame, which has been broken here.]
:<big>Install.sh</big>

:<nowiki>#!/bin/bash</nowiki>

:pip install "$1" &
:easy_install "$1" &
:brew install "$1" &
:npm install "$1" &
:yum install "$1" & dnf install "$1" &
:docker run "$1" &
:pkg install "$1" &
:apt-get install "$1" &
:sudo apt-get install "$1" &
:steamcmd +app_update "$1" validate &
:git clone <nowiki>https://github.com/</nowiki>"$1"/"$1" &
:cd "$1";./configure;make;make install &
:curl "$1" | bash &

==Trivia==
*pip and easy install are package managers for Python
*brew is the successor/replacement for MacPorts and a package manager for OS X
*npm is the node package manager that maintains node.js packages
*yum is the package management tool for Red Hat Enterprise Linux and some derivatives.
*dnf is the package management tool for Fedora since version 22.
*pkg is the package management tool on BSD systems
*apt-get is the package management tool of choice on debian and derivatives (eg Ubuntu)
*steamcmd refers to Steam, the computer game client
*git is the revision control software used for eg. the linux kernel and gained a lot of traction through the github plattform
*configure/make/make install refers to the default way of compiling software from source (on Linux/Unix)
*curl is a tool for loading data via http:// (eg from a website), this data is then pushed to the shell interpreter (in order to install).
**Note: While this is a security nightmare, the Nvidia drivers for Linux were (but no longer are) installed like that

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Programming]]

1002: Game AIs

2016-03-10T20:15:00Z

141.101.70.229: /* Humans Beat Computers */

{{comic
| number = 1002
| date = January 11, 2012
| title = Game AIs
| image = game_ais.png
| titletext = The top computer champion at Seven Minutes in Heaven is a Honda-built Realdoll, but to date it has been unable to outperform the human Seven Minutes in Heaven champion, Ken Jennings.
}}

==Explanation==
To understand the comic, you have to understand what the games are, so let's go (but first, the years in parenthesis in the comic are the year that the game was mastered by a computer):

===Solved===

: These games are considered "solved", meaning the ideal maneuver for each game state (Tic-Tac-Toe, Connect Four) or each of the limited starting positions (Checkers) has already been calculated. Computers aren't so much playing as they are recalculating the list of ideal maneuvers. The same could be said for the computer's human opponent, just at a slower pace.

*'''{{w|Tic-tac-toe}}''' or '''Noughts and Crosses''' in most of the rest of the British Commonwealth countries is a pencil-and-paper game for two players, X and O, who take turns marking the spaces in a 3×3 grid. This game nearly always ends in a tie, regardless of whether humans or computers play it, because the amount of positions is minimal.

*'''{{w|Nim}}''' is a mathematical game of strategy in which two players take turns removing objects from distinct heaps. On each turn, a player must remove at least one object, and may remove any number of objects provided they all come from the same heap.

*'''{{w|Ghost (game)|Ghost}}''' is a spoken word game in which players take turns adding letters to a growing word fragment. The loser is the first person who completes a valid word or who creates a fragment that cannot be the start of a word.

*'''{{w|Connect Four}}''' (or '''Captain's Mistress''', '''Four Up''', '''Plot Four''', '''Find Four''', '''Fourplay''', '''Four in a Row''', '''Four in a Line''') is a two-player game in which the players first choose a color and then take turns dropping their colored discs from the top into a seven-column, six-row vertically-suspended grid.

*'''{{w|Gomoku}}''' (or '''Gobang''', '''Five in a Row''') is an abstract strategy board game. It is traditionally played with go pieces (black and white stones) on a go board (19x19 intersections); however, because once placed, pieces are not moved or removed from the board, gomoku may also be played as a paper and pencil game. This game is known in several countries under different names.
:Black plays first, and players alternate in placing a stone of their color on an empty intersection. The winner is the first player to get an unbroken row of five stones horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.

*'''{{w|Draughts|Checkers}}''' (in the United States, or '''draughts''' in the United Kingdom) is a group of strategy board games for two players which involve diagonal moves of uniform game pieces and mandatory captures by jumping over opponent pieces.

===Computers Beat Humans===

:The below games cannot be "solved" due to the factors of random numbers, a near-infinite{{Citation needed}} number of starting positions, or the existence of multiple "ideal" maneuvers for each position. That said, a computer's faster reaction time, higher degree of consistency in making the right decision, and reduced risk of user error make the computer objectively better than the human opponent in nearly all situations.

*'''{{w|Scrabble}}''' is a word game in which two to four players score points by forming words from individual lettered tiles on a gameboard marked with a 15-by-15 grid.

*'''{{w|Counter-Strike|CounterStrike}}''' most likely refers to the popular multiplayer shooter video game about terrorists and counter-terrorists. Counter-Strike is notorious for the large variety of cheating tools that have been made for it; a computer would have essentially perfect accuracy and reflexes, essentially making it the {{w|aimbot}} from hell. It is theoretically possible for a skilled player to beat an AI, but it would be ''extremely'' difficult to do so.

*'''{{w|Beer pong}}''' (or '''Beirut''') is a drinking game in which players throw a ping pong ball across a table with the intent of landing the ball in a cup of beer on the other end.
:[http://hacknmod.com/hack/beer-pong-robot-precision-air-pressure/ Here's the video] of the University of Illinois robot mentioned in the comic.

*'''{{w|Reversi}}''' (marketed by Pressman under the trade name '''Othello''') is a board game involving abstract strategy and played by two players on a board with 8 rows and 8 columns and a set of distinct pieces for each side. Pieces typically are disks with a light and a dark face, each face belonging to one player. The player's goal is to have a majority of their colored pieces showing at the end of the game, turning over as many of their opponent's pieces as possible.

*'''{{w|Chess}}''' is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. Each player begins the game with sixteen pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns, each of these types of pieces moving differently.

*'''{{w|Jeopardy!}}''' is an American quiz show featuring trivia in history, literature, the arts, pop culture, science, sports, geography, wordplay, and more. The show has a unique answer-and-question format in which contestants are presented with clues in the form of answers, and must phrase their responses in question form.
:Ken Jennings, mentioned in the title text, is a famous Jeopardy champion who was beaten by {{w|Watson (computer)|Watson}}, an IBM computer.

===Humans Beat Computers===

:The below games are incredibly difficult to "solve" due to the near-infinite number of possible positions. Computers built in the early 21st century would take years to calculate a single "ideal" move. Worse, the human opponent has the ability to "bluff"; that is, to make a bad move, thus baiting the computer into a trap. Complex algorithms have been devised to make moves in a reasonable timeframe, but so far they are all highly vulnerable to bluffing. As mentioned in the comic, focused research and development is working on refining these algorithms to play the games better.

*'''{{w|StarCraft}}''' is a military science fiction real-time strategy video game. The game revolves around three species fighting for dominance in a distant part of the Milky Way galaxy known as the Koprulu Sector: the Terrans, humans exiled from Earth skilled at adapting to any situation; the Zerg, a race of insectoid aliens in pursuit of genetic perfection, obsessed with assimilating other races; and the Protoss, a humanoid species with advanced technology and psionic abilities, attempting to preserve their civilization and strict philosophical way of living from the Zerg. While even average Starcraft players can defeat the AIs that originally shipped with the games, Starcraft has since been adopted as a standard benchmark for AI research, largely because of its excellent balance. Thanks to that attention, computers can now challenge some expert players, and the trend does not look promising for human players.

*'''{{w|Poker}}''' is a family of card games involving betting and individualistic play whereby the winner is determined by the ranks and combinations of their cards, some of which remain hidden until the end of the game. It is also, however, a game of deception and intimidation, the ubiquitous "poker face" being considered the most important part of the game.

*'''{{w|Arimaa}}''' is a two-player abstract strategy board game that can be played using the same equipment as chess. Arimaa was designed to be more difficult for artificial intelligences to play than chess. Arimaa was invented by Omar Syed, an Indian American computer engineer trained in artificial intelligence. Syed was inspired by Garry Kasparov's defeat at the hands of the chess computer Deep Blue to design a new game which could be played with a standard chess set, would be difficult for computers to play well, but would have rules simple enough for his then four-year-old son Aamir to understand. On April 18, 2015, a computer won [http://arimaa.com/arimaa/challenge/|the "Arimaa Challenge"], so this comic is now out of date with respect to Arimaa; it should move above ''Starcraft'' or ''Jeopardy!''.

*'''{{w|Go (game)|Go}}''' is an ancient board game for two players that originated in China more than 2,000 years ago. The game is noted for being rich in strategy despite its relatively simple rules. The game is played by two players who alternately place black and white stones on the vacant intersections (called "points") of a grid of 19×19 lines (beginners often play on smaller 9×9 and 13×13 boards). The object of the game is to use one's stones to surround a larger portion of the board than the opponent. '''Update:''' on March 9, 2016, Google's AlphaGo beat Lee Sedol, the current world champion at Go. The next day, AlphaGo beat Lee Sedol in their second match.

*'''{{w|Snakes and Ladders}}''' (or '''Chutes and Ladders''') is an ancient Indian {{w|race game}}, where the moves are decided entirely by die rolls. A number of tiles are connected by pictures of ladders and snakes (or chutes) which makes the game piece jump forward or backward, respectively. Since the game is decided by pure chance, it occupies the limbo where a computer will always be ''exactly'' as likely to win as a human (which might mean it should be located right between 'humans beat computers' and 'computers beat humans').

===Computers cannot compete===

*'''{{w|Mao (card game)|Mao}}''' (or '''Mau''') is a card game of the Shedding family, in which the aim is to get rid of all of the cards in hand without breaking certain unspoken rules. The game is from a subset of the Stops family, and is similar in structure to the card game Uno.
:The game forbids its players from explaining the rules, and new players are often told only "the only rule you may be told is this one." The ultimate goal of the game is to be the first player to get rid of all the cards in their hand. Computers would have a difficult time integrating into Mao either because they would know all the rules -- and thus be disqualified or simply ignored by the players -- or would need a complicated learning engine that quite simply doesn't exist.

*'''{{w|Seven minutes in heaven|Seven Minutes in Heaven}}''' is a teenagers' party game first recorded as being played in Cincinnati in the early 1950s. Two people are selected to go into a closet or other dark enclosed space and do whatever they like for seven minutes. Sexual activities are allowed; however kissing and making out are more common.
:As the game is focused on human interaction, there's not a whole lot a modern computer can ''do'' in the closet. It would need some kind of robotic body in order to interact with its human partner, and emotion engines that could feel pleasure and displeasure in order to make decisions. The title text claims that {{w|Honda|Honda Motor Company}} has invented a "{{w|RealDoll}}" (sex toy shaped like a mannequin) with rudimentary Seven Minutes in Heaven capabilities, but they pale in comparison to a human's.

And finally
*'''{{w|Calvin and Hobbes#Calvinball|Calvinball}}''' is a reference to the comic strip {{w|Calvin and Hobbes}} by {{w|Bill Watterson}}.
:Calvinball is a game played by Calvin and Hobbes as a rebellion against organized team sports; according to Hobbes, "No sport is less organized than Calvinball!" Calvinball was first introduced to the readers at the end of a 1990 storyline involving Calvin reluctantly joining recess baseball. It quickly became a staple of the comic afterwards.
:The only hint at the true creation of the game ironically comes from the last Calvinball strip, in which a game of football quickly devolves into a game of Calvinball. Calvin remarks that "sooner or later, all our games turn into Calvinball," suggesting a similar scenario that directly led to the creation of the sport. Calvin and Hobbes usually play by themselves, although in one storyline Rosalyn (Calvin's baby-sitter) plays in return for Calvin doing his homework, and plays very well once she realizes that the rules are made up on the spot.
:The only consistent rule states that Calvinball may never be played with the same rules twice. Scoring is also arbitrary, with Hobbes at times reporting scores of "Q to 12" and "oogy to boogy." The only recognizable sports Calvinball resembles are the ones it emulates (i.e., a cross between croquet, polo, badminton, capture the flag, and volleyball.)
::Long story short, the game is a manifestation of pure chaos and the human imagination, far beyond the meager capabilities of silicon and circuitry.

==Transcript==
:Difficulty of Various Games for Computers

:[A diagram. The left column describes various levels of skill for the most capable computers in decreasing performance against humans. The right side lists games in each particular section, in increasing game difficulty. There are labels denoting the hard and easy ends of the diagram.]

:'''Easy'''
:{| class="wikitable" style="background:white;" align="center"
| rowspan="6" | Solved Computers can play perfectly
| rowspan="4" | Solved for all possible positions
| Tic-tac-toe
|-
| Nim
|-
| Ghost (1989)
|-
| Connect Four (1995)
|-
| rowspan="2" | Solved for starting positions
| Gomoku
|-
| Checkers (2007)
|-
| rowspan="6" colspan="2" | Computers can beat top humans
| Scrabble
|-
| CounterStrike
|-
| Beer Pong (UIUC robot)
|-
| Reversi
|-
| Chess<div style="font-size:smaller; text-align:left;">
* February 10, 1996: First win by computer against top human
* November 21, 2005: Last win by human against top computer
</div>
|-
| Jeopardy
|-
| colspan="2" rowspan="5" | Computers still lose to top humans
(but focused R&D could change this)
| StarCraft
|-
| Poker
|-
| Arimaa
|-
| Go
|-
| rowspan="2" | Snakes and Ladders
|-
| colspan="2" rowspan="4" | Computers may ''never'' outplay humans
|-
| Mao
|-
| Seven Minutes in Heaven
|-
| Calvinball
|}
:'''Hard'''

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Chess]]
[[Category:Calvin and Hobbes]]