explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

850: World According to Americans

2025-05-08T13:21:40Z

141.101.98.82: /* Table of items in the map */

{{comic
| number = 850
| date = January 21, 2011
| title = World According to Americans
| image = world according to americans.png
| titletext = It's not our fault we caught a group on their way home from a geography bee. And they taught us that Uzbekistan is one of the world's two doubly-landlocked countries!
}}
*A [http://xkcd.com/850_large/ larger version] of this image can be found by clicking the image at xkcd.com - the comic's page can also be accessed by clicking on the comic number above.

==Explanation==

There's a somewhat well-circulated image on the internet entitled "The World According to Americans" which plays on the stereotype of the ignorant American. In it, the entirety of Eastern Europe and most of Asia are entitled "commies" and the Middle-East as "evil-doers," and so on. Later, other people created similar maps to re-do the concept. It later spread to other cultures.

This comic is an anti-joke playing on that idea. You expect to see something which plays on the {{w|stereotypes}} that exist in American culture of various parts of the world. However, instead, the map is remarkably well-informed, and shows how sampling bias can be used to conflate results. See below the [[#Table of items in the map|table of items in the map]].

The title text jokes that it was "not their fault" that the Americans involved were coming from a {{w|National Geographic Bee|geography bee}}. On the other hand, if even apparent geography buffs use vague labels such as "rest of South America" and "various former Soviet states" instead of using more detailed labels, the average American are likely even less geographically knowledgeable. (Although, as the illustrators wrote below Cape Horn, the reason they did not draw Antarctica or many South American, Middle Eastern and British countries and the lack of detail may be because the people who asked them to draw this map were beginning to 'look impatient' since they did not get the expected ignorant result.)

A {{w|landlocked country}} is a country that does not border any major bodies of water. Furthering the concept, a {{w|Landlocked country#Doubly landlocked|doubly-landlocked}} country is a country that not only has no connection to water, but is only bordered by ''other'' landlocked countries. As the title text states, there are only two such countries in the world as of the date of the comic: {{w|Uzbekistan}} and {{w|Liechtenstein}}. {{w|South Sudan}} became officially recognised as a new independent state not long after this comic's publication but, being only a ''singly-''landlocked nation, did not alter this particular statistic. This is the type of fact that may be stereotypically expected to be known by a sufficiently well-prepared {{w|National Geographic Bee|geography bee}} competitor.

===Table of items in the map===
{| class="wikitable"
!style="width: 25%;"|Annotation
! Further details
|-
| Hey so what projection should we use? I’ll aim for "Robinson".
| Any flat [[977|map projection]] of a sphere must have inaccuracies. {{w|Mercator projection}} displays shapes well at the expense of size. For example, Mercator's Greenland appears larger than South America, but is actually one eighth the size. {{w|Gall-Peters projection}} does the opposite, showing accurate surface area with distorted ("awful") shapes. {{w|Robinson projection}} compromises between shape & size for aesthetics; hence Greenland is "still too big".
|-
| Did you know Maine is actually the US state closest to Africa?
| The distance is about 5076 km (~3754 mi). Measurement points are {{w|Sail Rock (disambiguation)|Sail Rock (Maine)}}, the most eastern point of the USA, and a point which seems to be the most southern (and as such western) point of el-Beddouza Beach, {{w|Morocco}}. It's not the most western point of Morocco (or Africa), though.
|-
| Hispañola
| For some reason, the map labels the island of {{w|Hispaniola}} using an archaic and now rarely-used spelling of its name.
|-
| Do we have to label all the Virgin Islands?
| Which are {{w|Virgin Islands#Larger Islands|9 larger}} and about 100 {{w|List of Caribbean islands#British Virgin Islands|smaller}} {{w|List of Caribbean islands#United States Virgin Islands|islands}} — surely a lot of labels. The location of the label suggests this actually refers to the larger chain of islands which makes up the {{w|Lesser Antilles}}.
|-
| French, and I think Dutch and English
| The three separated areas are (from west to east) {{w|Guyana}} (former British colony), {{w|Suriname}} (former Dutch colony) and {{w|French Guiana}} (still officially part of France). The former two often switched between French, Dutch and British colonial rule. The latter was French most times except for a short Portuguese episode.
|-
| Brazil (Portugese-speaking)
Rest of South America (Spanish-speaking)
| In green is Portuguese-speaking Brazil, and in blue are the Spanish speaking Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina.
|-
| {{w|Greenland}} (Still too big!)
Yeah, but the Peters map is awful
| Relating back to the choice of map projection, the apparent size of Greenland is one of the most commonly known projection based inaccuracies. The {{w|Gall-Peters projection}} shows accurate surface area, but with distorted ("awful") shapes.
|-
|Scandanavia
| A typo of {{w|Scandinavia}}. The area shown includes Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Denmark, but the actual area of Scandinavia excludes Finland. The Scandinavian peninsula countries include Norway, Finland, and Sweden, and those can be collectively (and nerdily) referred to as "Fennoscandia."
|-
| Western Europe
Eastern Europe
| The line here approximately follows that of the {{w|Iron Curtain}} that separated the {{w|Warsaw Pact}} states (the Soviet Union and other Communist allies) from the {{w|NATO}} (US-allied) and neutral states. However, all of Germany is included in Western Europe (when during the Cold War it was divided into East and West Germany) while Austria (which was officially neutral in the Cold War but closely tied to the West and therefore blocked off from its Communist neighbors) is marked as Eastern Europe. Here, Eastern Europe also includes the {{w|Balkans}} (the southern peninsula east of Italy), which are usually considered separate. During the Cold War, the Balkans were divided between Soviet-allied Albania (which later left the Pact) and Bulgaria, NATO-allied Greece and Turkey, and Yugoslavia, which was a neutral Communist state. It's also worth noting that there should be a blob of Russian red in the middle of Eastern Europe, representing the Russian exclave of {{w|Kaliningrad oblast}}.
|-
| British Isles
Ireland
| Although {{w|Ireland}} belongs to the {{w|British Isles}} geographically, it does not belong to the {{w|British Islands}} politically. That may be the reason why Ireland is labeled additionally — to show it's known that Ireland does not belong to the {{w|United Kingdom}}. {{w|Northern Ireland}} does, though.
|-
| Rainforest DRC
| The area shown is actually not completely the {{w|Democratic Republic of the Congo}} (DRC), but since one of the persons who made this map says they don't know the African map very well (see statement below), it's fairly accurate. Also the area called rainforest is somewhat larger than the area depicted as {{w|tropical rainforest}} on Wikipedia, although this might be due to {{w|deforestation}} and {{w|desertification in Africa}}
|-
| So this is one of those things where you point out our ignorance and stereotypes?
Yeah – I mean I freely admit I don’t know the African map very well, which speaks volumes in itself.
| Here two of the persons involved in drawing this map discusses what their lack of knowledge about Africa says about them. The African portion of the map is for sure the most poorly labeled, which lends weight to the stereotype of the 'Ignorant American'. Although it has to be mentioned, that the geography of Africa is in general not well known — at least within the Western world. So that's not really an American thing, here. The few countries which are labeled here mostly are well known because of their unstable political situation or because of their remarkable location. The labeled locations (and the presumably reasons of their "publicity") are west to east, north to south: {{w|Morocco}} ({{w|Arab Spring}}, location), {{w|Algeria}} (Arab Spring, {{w|Algerian Civil War|Civil War}}), {{w|Sahara|Sahara Desert}} (largest hot desert of the world), {{w|Sudan}} ({{w|Second Sudanese Civil War|Civil war}}, Arab Spring), {{w|West Africa}} ({{w|West Africa#Postcolonial eras|Lots of Civil wars}} and thus bad humanitarian situation, {{w|Blood diamond|Blood diamonds}}), {{w|Somalia}} ({{w|Somali Civil War|Civil war}}, {{w|Piracy in Somalia|pirates}}), {{w|Lake Victoria}} (largest lake of Africa, quite remarkable even at large scale maps (as here)), {{w|Mozambique}} ({{w|Mozambican Civil War|Civil war}}), {{w|Angola}} ({{w|Angolan Civil War|Civil War}}) and {{w|Madagascar}} (one of the world's large islands, at the east coast — quite remarkable).
|-
| Cape Horn
| {{w|Cape Horn}} is the southern tip of ''South America'', not ''Africa''. The southern tip of Africa is called {{w|Cape Agulhas}}.
|-
| Should we include {{w|Antarctica}}?
Let’s not – these guys are looking impatient
| Here it is made clear that those who came with this assignment are getting impatient since their project of proving how little Americans know about the world has failed miserably. It also shows that if some labels or parts are missing, then it could be because of this and not for lack of knowledge. This is also a joke on the lack of labels that would be required for the map of Antarctica. Drawing Antarctica and labeling it would probably take less time than having the discussion about whether to include it, and then writing that discussion on the map.
|-
| {{w|Aral Sea}} (Gone)
| Formerly one of the largest fresh-water lakes of the world, now actually not completely gone, but almost.
|-
| Various former Soviet states
| Which are (west to east) {{w|Kazakhstan}}, {{w|Turkmenistan}}, {{w|Uzbekistan}}, {{w|Tajikistan}} and {{w|Kyrgyzstan}}. The former {{w|Soviet Union|Union of Soviet Socialist Republics}} was dissolved in 1991 and thus the {{w|Cold War}} ended.
|-
| Middle East
| Drawn here to include {{w|Egypt}} and {{w|Turkey}}. Whether these should be included depends on whether you mean the phrase ''Middle East'' politically or geographically. They are both Muslim countries, but geographically Egypt is in Africa and Turkey is usually not included because of its close affiliation with Europe.
|-
| Boxing Day quake
Wait, "Boxing Day"? There’s no way you’re American.

I read BBC News, OK?
| On December 26, 2004, a {{w|2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami|huge earthquake}} struck off the coast of Indonesia, causing severe tsunamis. December 26, the day after {{w|Christmas Day}}, is celebrated as {{w|Boxing Day}} in the UK, Canada, Australia, and some other English-speaking countries, but not the US. As such, the earthquake became known as the Boxing Day Quake.
One of the people who came asked these people to draw this map picks up on the use of 'Boxing Day' as something no American would say and questions if this person is, in fact, American. But an American reader of {{w|BBC News}} (part of the British Broadcasting Corporation) may start to use the phrase "Boxing Day" about the Tsunami.
|-
| India -> Mostly Muslim
India -> Mostly Hindu
| In general {{w|India}} is separated in {{w|Religion in India|two religious groups}}. Muslims in the north-west, Hindus in the rest. As visible on the [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Religion_in_India.svg map] in Wikimedia Commons, the area with a predominant Muslim population is far smaller (and mostly concentrated to Kashmir) than depicted in the comic.
|-
| Tibet (contested)
| The area was annexed by the {{w|People's Republic of China}} in the 1950s. Since then there are {{w|Tibetan independence movement|moves to gain}} some degree or other of independence. The marked area is fairly inaccurate, though. Today's {{w|Tibet Autonomous Region}} (former {{w|Kingdom of Tibet}}) is roughly the southern half of the marked area extended a bit to the south-east.
|-
| Kamchatka Peninsula, but I admit I only know this one from Risk
|''{{w|Risk (game)|Risk}}'' is a board game played on a map of the world, where players own territories and battle each other for world domination. The person in the comic admits to knowing {{w|Kamchatka Peninsula}} only from the territory "Kamchatka" in the game. Kamchatka is notable among the territories in the game because it and Alaska are connected, despite being on opposite sides of the board — a fact that can easily be overlooked.
|-
| Koreas
| The two Koreas are the "{{w|Democratic People's Republic of Korea}}" (North Korea) and the "{{w|Republic of Korea}}" (South Korea).
|-
| Japan, duh.
| Well...{{w|Japan}}.
|-
| Taiwan (actually called "The Republic of China" – it's complicated).
| This is a reference to the complicated political history of {{w|Taiwan}}. After the {{w|Chinese Civil War}}, the Nationalists fled {{w|mainland China}} for the island of Taiwan and set up a {{w|martial law in Taiwan|martial law}} there, vowing to return. In the intervening 70 years or so, Taiwan eventually began to transform into a democracy, being a self-governing state in its own right, but hasn't shed the name, or the animosity with the new rulers of mainland China. According to Americans, China and Taiwan are {{w|Taiwan Relations Act#Since 2000|separate countries}}, but many other nations do not feel able to treat with the latter to that degree, given the political pressures from the former. The government of China claims ''de jure'' {{w|Political status of Taiwan|sovereignty of Taiwan}}, even though there is ''de facto'' separation of governance, and the island is not represented as a sovereign territory by the United Nations …hence the "it's complicated" tag. There is also a missing end-paren here, which is likely a typo. The tag "it's complicated" is one of the options for relationship statuses on Facebook, and denotes two people whose relationship defies the usual labels. In this case, it is the relationship between the "countries" which is complicated.
|-
| Sulawesi
| As a running gag, the island of {{w|Sulawesi}} (formerly known as Celebes) is depicted in several map-like drawings and charts (see [[256: Online Communities]], [[273: Electromagnetic Spectrum]], [[802: Online Communities 2]], and [[1555: Exoplanet Names 2]]). Of course, there are good reasons to show it on an actual world map like the one here.
|-
| Paupa New Guinea
| A spelling mistake of {{w|Papua New Guinea}}.
|-
| Phillipines
| A spelling mistake of the {{w|Philippines}}.
|-
| Southeast Asia
| {{w|Southeast Asia}} is a region in Asia, which includes Buddhist-majority countries of Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, Muslim-majority countries of Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei, and Christian-majority countries of the Philippines and Timor-Leste. However, in this map, Indonesia is depicted separately from the rest of SE Asia.
|-
| Malaysia
| Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia (it is not known why it was excluded on the map)
|-
| Indonesia
| Indonesia is another country in Southeast Asia (it is not known why it was excluded on the map).
|-
| Sri Lanka
| Sri Lanka is a small island country near India.
|-
| Tasmania
| Tasmania is an Australian state.
|}

==Transcript==
:THE WORLD
:According to a Group of
:'''AMERICANS'''
:who turned out to be unexpectedly good at geography, derailing our attempt to illustrate their country's attitude toward the rest of the world.

:[Left to right, up to down.]

:[North of Canada.] Hey so what projection should we use?
:I'll aim for "Robinson."

:[North America.] Alaska; Canada; Hudson Bay; Québec; United States
:Did you know Maine is actually the US state closest to Africa?; Bermuda (British!)

:[Central America.] Baja California (Mexico); Mexico; Central America; Panama Canal; Gulf of Mexico; Cuba; Hispañola; POR.; Jamaica
:Do we have to label all the Virgin Islands?

:[South America.] Rest of South America (spanish-speaking); Brazil (portugese-speaking); French, and I think Dutch and English; Tierra del Fuego

:[Greenland.] Greenland (still too big!); Yeah but the Peters map is awful; Iceland

:[Europe.] British Isles; [https://iecasimile.com/ Ireland]; Gibralter; Scandanavia; Western Europe; Eastern Europe; Black sea; Middle East

:[Africa.] Morocco; Algera; Sahara Desert; West Africa; Sudan; Rainforest DRC; Lake Victoria; Somalia; Angola; Mozambique; South Africa; Cape Horn; Madagascar

:[West of DRC.] So this is one of those things where you point out our ignorance and stereotypes?
:Yeah – I mean, I freely admit I don't know the African map very well, which speaks volumes in itself.

:[West Asia.] Russia; Aral sea (Gone); Various former Soviet states; Afghanistan & Pakistan; India; Mostly Muslim; Mostly Hindu

:[Indian Ocea.] Sri Lanka; Boxing Day Quake
:Wait, "Boxing day"? There's no way you're American.
:I read BBC News, OK?

:[East Asia.] Mongolia; Tibet (contested); China; Southeast Asia

:[Pacific Ocean.] Kamchatka Pennisula, but I admit I only know this one from Risk.
:Koreas; Japan, duh.; Taiwan (actually called "The Republic of China." – it's complicated.); Phillipines; Malaysia; Indonesia; Sulawesi; Paupa New Guinea; Australia; Tasmania; New Zealand

:[South of Africa.] Should we include Antarctica?
:Let's not – these guys are looking impatient.

==Trivia==
In this comic, [[Randall]] misspelled "Portug'''u'''ese-speaking" as "Portugese-speaking".

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Geography]]
[[Category:Maps]]
[[Category:Board games]]

Talk:3085: About 20 Pounds

2025-05-06T11:46:36Z

141.101.98.82: Answer, and correct the reply position that split *the wrong* prior signature from its own reply (which edit-conflicted me). (Twice!)

Wow - first here! I can't help thinking 'about 20 pounds' could be exactly 10 kg! 0r even one Newton?! [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 05:50, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
:"One Newton" and "10 kg" are totally different things. "10 kg" would cause 1 Newton of gravitational force if you were in a world with about 1% of Earth's gravity, though. --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.109.86|172.69.109.86]] 09:53, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
::Oops! In my rush I should have checked and put 100 Newtons. I was relying on 10kg being about 22 pounds, or rather the other way around, and then a particle having mass not weight and Science using Metric units. Apologies. [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 11:41, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
:20 pounds are approximately 9.072 kg, so not exactly 10 kg (in fact, it rounds to 9). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.134.55|172.70.134.55]] 10:02, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
::That's the wrong way to think about it. "Exactly 10kg" is "exactly 22.0462lbs", but that (to the nearest single significant figure) is legitimately "about 20lbs". See any given step in [[2585: Rounding]], especially where that 'disagrees greatly' with an adjacent step.
::As with any Oracle (that's worth its omphalos), it may be giving an ''entirely true'' answer which nevertheless is deliberately phrased as ambiguous and misinterpretable, the possible supernatural complement to the 'exact words' genie contract. As with the [[2741: Wish Interpretation]] genie, the Oracle ''may'' slip into less "unhelpfully helpful" mode immediately after, though for different reasons. However, "burritos are ''pretty'' good" also suggests that there's some other thing that is ''more'' good, so — again — it's giving a sufficient response to what they (now) should do, but not a perfect one.
::As I write, the explanation (probably needs a general rewrite) doesn't mention anything about the burritos except as title text, or I would have ensured the famed exact-words/vague-detail was noted in that bit. (Shorter than here.) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.82|141.101.98.82]] 11:46, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

[[Special:Contributions/172.70.134.55|172.70.134.55]] 10:02, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
Though I don't think it at all merits being described as a reference, I am minded of the {{w|The Usenet Oracle}} (at least when I knew of it). Though, if it ''was'' to be a deleliberate shout-out, I'd expect a few more actual in-jokes. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.130|172.70.86.130]] 06:10, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

I bet Randall is in some kind of force-interaction-related, What-if-induced rabbit hole right now (or has been at the time of writing). Wondering what the next comic will be about. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.144.175|172.71.144.175]] 08:39, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

"Nature of ... 20 pounds" is a reference to the koan "A monk asked Tozan, 'What is the nature of Buddha?' He replied, 'Three pounds of flax.'" Someone can add this to the explanation. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.111.115|172.70.111.115]] 08:57, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

"something that doesn't interact with electromagnetism cannot be 'seen', as photons will pass through it completely unaffected": is this supposed to be true ? I thought photons interacted with gravity, and even the phrase before states that gravity is believed to affect everything. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.151.93|172.68.151.93]] 09:17, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

My physics skills are rusty but 20 pounds is much more than the Planck mass. Doesn't this imply that Randall's dark matter particles would be black holes? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.243.107|172.68.243.107]] 10:05, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
:Yes, you are right that 9 kg is about 417,000,000 times more than the Planck mass (21.76 μg), but no, that doesn't imply that 9 kg dark matter particles would be black holes, for that particle can be larger than 417,000,000 Planck lengths (1 Planck length is c. 1.616255×10–35 m, so above 7 rm, this particle would not collapse into a black hole). [[Special:Contributions/172.68.245.81|172.68.245.81]] 10:23, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
Since it's Star Wars day and the 20 lbs. reference would be causing a massively large amount of mass, would it be safe to say that they "sense a great disturbance in the force?"
[[Special:Contributions/67.84.20.42|67.84.20.42]] 10:20, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
Back in 2005, when the kg was an actual object's mass, there was an article about what a five pound (~2.268 kg) electron is, but it was deleted, for it is a "trivial result of special relativity". [[Special:Contributions/172.68.245.81|172.68.245.81]] 10:23, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Talk:3084: Unstoppable Force and Immovable Object

2025-05-03T22:45:04Z

141.101.98.82:

lol, i remember this explanation from a minutephysics video. however, the version of the problem i heard, which is actually paradoxical, is "what happens when an immovable object meets an '''irresistible''' force?" [[User:Not without text|Not without text]] ([[User talk:Not without text|talk]]) 00:03, 3 May 2025 (UTC)
:That was also literally my first thought. [[169]], anyone? --[[User:Coconut Galaxy|Coconut Galaxy]] ([[User talk:Coconut Galaxy|talk]]) 05:37, 3 May 2025 (UTC)
:The MinutePhysics video: [https://nebula.tv/videos/minute-physics-immovable-object-vs-unstoppable-force-which-wins/ on Nebula] or [https://youtu.be/9eKc5kgPVrA on YouTube] --[[User:NeatNit|NeatNit]] ([[User talk:NeatNit|talk]]) 09:55, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

Come on, it's just an arrow made of W- bosons, right? [[User:TheTrainsKid|TheTrainsKid]] ([[User talk:TheTrainsKid|talk]]) 03:22, 3 May 2025 (UTC)
Is there no joke here? Is it just the solution? [[User:Broseph|Broseph]] ([[User talk:Broseph|talk]]) 06:52, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

I remember an explanation by Isaac Asimov in one of his books which was like "by definition, an immovable object will not move at all under any force in the universe, and an unstoppable force will move all of the objects in this way" and then explained how the definitions conflicted each other and as such prevented both from being able to register for the hypothetical at the same time [[Special:Contributions/172.64.236.161|172.64.236.161]] 06:55, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

In the first MMO games, collision was a big problem. A player could block a doorway, and nobody else could go through. It was even worse if the player had "follower" characters or pets.
One solution was to have characters automatically "push" stationary characters out of the way, but that caused other problems. Modern MMO's such as World of Warcraft simply allow characters to pass through each other, as depicted in this xkcd comic. Our eyes fool us into "seeing" that two characters somehow slid past each other. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.228.132|172.68.228.132]] 07:29, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

When the two things pass through each other, at the instant where they both occupy exactly the same space, is there one object or two? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.216.159|162.158.216.159]] 08:02, 3 May 2025 (UTC)
:Given that force is not an object, one. Just like there was when they weren't colocated. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.220|172.69.43.220]] 08:29, 3 May 2025 (UTC)
::OK, but what about the 'unstoppable force carrying particles' in the title text? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.204|172.69.194.204]] 19:00, 3 May 2025 (UTC)
:::I understand it as if a particle interacting with the object counts as 'stopping', in which case an unstoppable force-carrying particle wont have any effect. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.120.157|162.158.120.157]] 20:40, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

The force could simply go around the object. The object hasn't moved, and the force wasn't stopped. [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 11:17, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

: Redirecting would imply the force could be redirected, allowing us to trap it inside a closed loop, effectively stopping it. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.57.132|172.70.57.132]] 15:38, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

This is like the Chinese saying the spear and the shield. Using this comic, I guess spear wins [[User:Aprilfoolsupdate!|Aprilfoolsupdate!]] ([[User talk:Aprilfoolsupdate!|talk]]) 14:02, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

Gonna be honest, I think this is my least favorite comic of the last 500 or so. It's a solution already given by minutephysics, except with all the perspective about reference frames, and what people actually mean with these terms replaced by a caption with a superiority complex. I suppose it gets pretty hard 3000 comics in, but c'mon.
[[Special:Contributions/172.68.35.83|172.68.35.83]] 19:18, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

: Possibly, I'd say worst recently is the one about "Under-C" life, but this isn't far off.--[[User:Darth Vader|Darth Vader]] ([[User talk:Darth Vader|talk]]) 22:07, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

:: Ok, as we're giving personal opinions, I can't let it stand. Some might not exactly be total belly-laughs, but I think they each still have something to them and I prefer a mix of tones (and a wider spatter of focuses and treatments) to them all being exactly the same aspect of 'high-humour'. Not that I'd care to rank them, anyway, but I'm nowhere near ready to go off and make disparaging comments as if this site was bitchaboutxkcd.com, or whatever.
:: I won't try to tell you what to think, yourself, though maybe you should just roll with it. If you really don't like a comic, there'll be another along in two or three days. That might be even 'worse', as well as 'better', but then you can be even more unchill about ''that''. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.82|141.101.98.82]] 22:45, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

All forces are irresistable. No objects are immovable. If any force acts on any object, the object moves (or deforms). [[Special:Contributions/172.68.84.145|172.68.84.145]] 22:22, 3 May 2025 (UTC)
:Can we not say that Dark Matter, if that's what we imagine it might be, entirely resists the electromagnetic force? (It's one of my possible interpretations of the comic, though without enough hint that it was intended to have me annotate the Explanation accordingly.)

User talk:42.book.addict

2024-09-04T01:46:58Z

141.101.98.82: /* Navbox addition */

== introductions ==
Just replying to your message (also dw no big deal for bothering me)
You click on your username and there should be an edit box. --[[User:1234231587678|1234231587678]] ([[User talk:1234231587678|talk]]) 04:58, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
:it says that i dont have permission to create the page…
: There is currently no text in this page. You can search for this page title in other pages, or search the related logs, but you do not have permission to create this page. it says [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 19:33, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

I think you might have to wait some time (like a timer) until you can edit your own page... I think I only got to edit my page after 1 month of creating my account.--[[User:1234231587678|1234231587678]] ([[User talk:1234231587678|talk]]) 21:31, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
:ok, thx [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 21:52, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

My guess on where you live is somewhere in the GMT zone, so United Kingdom.--[[User:1234231587678|1234231587678]] ([[User talk:1234231587678|talk]]) 03:43, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
:nope, im a california girl :)

lol you never know with utc times --[[User:1234231587678|1234231587678]] ([[User talk:1234231587678|talk]]) 16:52, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

== citation needed tips==
You seem to be taking to heart the punctuation-before-the-Citation-needed standard (which is good, only sometimes it's even more complicated{{Citation needed}}),{{Citation needed}} but I see you recased an example of {{template|citation needed}} to {{template|Citation Needed}}, earlier. Now, it doesn't really matter because there are templates for "citation needed" and "Citation Needed". And also "cn" plus "fact" for the really lazy editors. ;) Anyway, all of these (maybe more, I'd have to check) redirect to the ''main'' "Citation needed" one. (Reflected in {{template|Actual citation needed}}, where "actual citation needed" ''plus'' "acn" redirect there, although {{template|Actual Citation Needed}} - "for completeness" - is actually a 'copy' template in its own right.) I wouldn't bother ''only'' changing various CN variations to "Citation needed"s (there ''is'' also a {{template|Citation neededs}}, but that's a '''s'''truckthrough version of "Citation needed" rather than an ungrammatical "Citation''s'' needed"!), but if you're already editing anything else, it would not at all hurt to get everything to capital-C small-n version. It gives the server ''very very slightly'' less work to do. ;) Probably. Not that it matters. But, as you seem to be a 'details person', I thought I'd pass on a detail you may not have already known... :p [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.156|172.69.195.156]] 02:11, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
:You have not read the above (properly, at least). The {{template|Citation needed}} is the 'proper' one (for xkcd version of 'proper'), whilst {{template|cn}} is a lazy version that redirects. There's no reason at all to change "Citation needed" to "cn". (Not much reason to change the other way, either, but could be justified if one is editing something else..)
:I reverted the one where you made the "SIGHTation needed" into a CN, as that was clearly a deliberate variation by some past wag. No point changing it to the (not-quite-)standard one. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.115|172.69.194.115]] 17:31, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
::Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t read your message until now. I’ll start using “Citation needed” instead of cn. Thanks for the heads up! [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 17:35, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
:::And if you expect me to reply to you immediately, sorry! I’m at school right now, and it’s completely impractical to be listening to a lecture and editing ExplainXKCD at the same time. [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 17:35, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
::::No worries. I was busy myself, and already a bit slow to jump in and let you know, just knowing you'd probably see the above better/sooner than a revert-edit summary. ;)
::::Functionally, all identical. Just the practical need for it was balanced the other way. Can't fault you for identifying the need to shift the punctuation. (I may do that in passing, with some other edit in mind... had to specifically redo it on the reverted SIGHTation article, i.e. on the true Citation one that was wrong, because I'd meant to keep ''that'' valid change but got distracted by a phone-call...)
::::Anyway, welcome to the community, I just hope you do more helpful things than troublesome ones. (Heck, I still hope *I* do that, even after a number of years. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.207|172.71.242.207]] 18:00, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
:::::thanks! (btw, are you saying that my edits are troublesome?) [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 18:01, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
::::::Well, I wasn't. Just hoping that (through errors/misunderstandings) you still end up on the right side of trouble/not-trouble, on average. But just would like to point out that creating Jupitale's home page was ''not'' a good move. See [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=User:Jupitale&oldid=335943 my edited comment]. I'm willing to believe you did it accidentally (visited their non-existing page, thus ended up creating it), and some mod or other may be along to clean it up at some point. Before or after that whole login is 'looked sternly at'. But shouldn't concern you if you're just being helpful and don't do too much of that. Anyway, enjoy your time here. (Not ''too'' much, obviously. Y'know, do your scholwork/don't vandalise wikis/all the other usual social necessities. :p ) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.220|172.71.242.220]] 18:20, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
:::::::oh shit ok I didn’t realise that Jupidale’s was a vandal ill be more mindful [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 18:30, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
::::::::My homepage is now fine thank you very much [[User:Jupitale|Jupitale]] ([[User talk:Jupitale|talk]]) 18:34, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

== New User and User Talk pages ==

You're trying to be helpful, but... Anyone who ''really'' wants them will probably ask (or wait until they have page-creation rights themself). Looking at all the ones you've made for people, how many have even then been used (by the user concerned)? I suggest you don't need to create them, not even to un-redlink someone's [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?limit=50&title=Special%3AContributions&contribs=user&target=Cleonis&namespace=&tagfilter=&start=&end= comic discussion] .sig links. It's normally not a big concern, and there's enough people who can help out if someone actually asks for it when you're not paying attention.
 As for the rest of us: ironically, I slightly wanted to drop a note to a long-term user the other day. (Comparatively, i.e. that they've been around for a bit longer than yourself.) They didn't have a User Talk page, so I resorted to a different way of commenting. They can create their own pages, if they want (and, if I was a username myself, I definitely could have by now). Yet I definitely wouldn't consider it valid to give the whole historic userbase any such 'missing' user-spaces.
 I'm no authority on this matter, or even a 'real user' in any properly identifiable way, but please do consider my advice that comes from long but informal experience of this kind of matter. You're not the first eager new contributor to try to help out like this. And you're not the first to have made the odd error (giving a spam-only account a Welcoming page ...which thankfully never got used to further the spamming, the account seemingly abandoned by that point ''anyway''), but of course this was probably before you even started lurking here (certainly before your current username, perhaps even prior to any IP-only-editing you might have done before that). Heck, some 'helpful' people even created the occasional User and/or User Talk spaces for IPs (don't do that, either, it's at best neutrally useless - even from my own IP-wise perspective).
 You at least seem to be doing it from a genuinely helpful position. For that, I thank you, and maybe also some of those actual new users do (if they've notice. But maybe no more. Unasked for, at least? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.29|172.71.242.29]] 16:13, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
:postscript - even while I was writing this, it seems that one of the users who ''hadn't'' seemed to want to use their page actually went and did so. And, elsewhere, proclaimed they weren't vandalising any more. I leave it up to others to make judgements on what's happening there, and the timing with respect to other recent interactions, but still not being particular auspicious. Time will tell how this all turns out. Anyway, just to note this. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.29|172.70.90.29]] 16:29, 11 March 2024 (UTC) (Same contributor as above, regardless of what the IP may have changed to.)

== newline tips ==
Just a note from a perpetual observer about the newline thing.
:Using one or more : (at the start of a line) gives indents. If you are already indenting, then a simple newline and : (or multiple ::s, the same numbed as you were on) handles the textflow properly and ''renders'' it as a linefeed, rather than 'merely' a simple whitespace that continues. I'm doing that here.
;I can also use other markup, like the ; I used here...
:...but that's not how that is meant to be used, and...
;:...only lines up with "<nowiki>;:</nowiki>", in this case...
:;...and not with "<nowiki>:;</nowiki>" in this other. ;)
:Honestly, though, that's not what ; is to be used for. It's actually really more for ";Item:Definition of some kind", like:
;Item:Definition of some kind
:Though is often repurposed as ";Unofficial 'header' title", within Talk pages, that doesn't create a TOC entry. Just just so gou know. :p
:If you're writing at the 'zero indent' level, then a double-linefeed in the wikisource forces a line-break in the HTML, but it looks messy in viewing/re-editing the markup, so one way to avoid that is to invoke the <nowiki> </nowiki>, even in the middle of an actual wikisource line! (But that can be confusing, so don't do that without ''good'' reason.
:I also prefer to use "<nowiki> </nowiki>" (it adheres to standard non-container extensible HTML tag notation better) and like to put it at the ''start'' of the new line text rather than at the end of the old one's (but this is practically the same – I just find that seeing <nowiki> </nowiki>s at the start of every intended new line is easier to visually check than having them at random column positions according to the paragraph length that precedes it, hence it's my preference only).
:Another useful note is that when you're in a wikitable markup, the 'contents' of a cell can have linebreaks. Whether a line-started "|" or a successive midline "||" (trust me, when you're used to wikitabls markup, you'll know what I'm saying!), the ''very first'' newline in the wikisource is understood as a renderable newline (because it's not the "|"-at-start-of-line of the next column's cell, or the "|-" tween-line, otherwise expected), but you need to invoke any second, third, etc linebreaks with one or other of the br-tag/double-newline/etc methods. Otherwise it'll just be treated as whitespace and 'unwrap' into a continuous second-para. (As always, if in doubt use the Preview button, check it appears like you think it ought to.)
:But there's ''loads'' of different ways to wikimarkup various conceptual layouts, and all kinds of different styles that you could adopt. This is just a "the more you know..!" infodump, which may ''or may not'' be useful to relatively new editors like yourselves. So take note or ignore, or ignore until you suddenly realise you might need to know these things, then try to make sense of it. Or ''maybe'' I'll be around to answer further questions! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.11|172.70.86.11]] 20:34, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
::trying to process the infodump right now-but thank you! I’ll slowly process it. [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 21:17, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

== Goddamn preview button ==

I always forget about that God damn preview button too :( [[User:Apollo11|Apollo11]] ([[User talk:Apollo11|talk]]) 16:24, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
:hey, higher edit score tho! [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 16:26, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
::True.... Welp who needs the preview button anyway [[User:Apollo11|Apollo11]] ([[User talk:Apollo11|talk]]) 16:38, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
:::Oh boiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii [[User:Z1mp0st0rz|The orange crewmate ඞ]] ([[User talk:Z1mp0st0rz|talk]]) 19:24, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

== Depends what you wanted to do... ==

Is the following what you intended? 
{{Userbox | border-c = #255 | border-s = 1 | info-s = 9 | id = [[File:trans_flag.png|45px]] | info = [[{{w|Transgender|This user is trans.}}]] | float = left }} 
{{clear}}...or is even the [[]] part not what you want?{{clear}}
{{Userbox | border-c = #255 | border-s = 1 | info-s = 9 | id = [[File:trans_flag.png|45px]] | info = {{w|Transgender|This user is trans.}} | float = left }} 
{{clear}}As brief a guide as I can manage:
*URL links use []. Although literal https://www.google.com will self-link without ''any'' wikimarkup, you probably don't want it to look like that most of the time.
** Just give the URL, as in <code><nowiki>[https://www.google.com]</nowiki></code>, to get a [https://www.google.com] (i.e. a reference number), not the best way to do it. It can be organised better with a 'References' section, but we don't do that here (they do on wikipedia, but usually with other bits to it.
** Better to give the URL and the text to use (after a space, a character that never appears raw in any proper URL). This can be <code><nowiki>[https://www.google.com Check It Out On Google!]</nowiki></code> or even <code><nowiki>[https://www.google.com https://www.microsoft.com (only kidding!)]</nowiki></code>, to give [https://www.google.com Check It Out On Google!] or [https://www.google.com https://www.microsoft.com (only kidding!)]... But perhaps best not to do the latter too much (I really didn't want to post that without the "(only kidding!)" part, in fact.)
*Internalised wikilinks use the [[]]s.
**Anything that can be found under the title, e.g. "2: Petit Trees (sketch)" (or, because of redirections, "2" and "Petit Trees (sketch)" go to the same spot, so <code><nowiki>[[2]], [[Petit Trees (sketch)]] and [[2: Petit Trees (sketch)]]</nowiki></code> gives you the literal links [[2]], [[Petit Trees (sketch)]] and [[2: Petit Trees (sketch)]]
**Or use <code><nowiki>[[2: Petit Trees (sketch)|that comic with the little trees]]</nowiki></code>, additional text separated by the 'pipe' symbol (i.e. "|"), to link to [[2: Petit Trees (sketch)|that comic with the little trees]]
**You can also link across to articles on other 'wikimedia family' sites, but I'm not going to try to summarise that, as the primary reason to do that is to go to an actual Wikipedia article, and there's a template set up to do that ''very'' nicely, already (and also a few other places, like Wiktionary, and some not-really-wikis with a similar philosphy like TVTropes). If in doubt, do it as a URL link ''or'' find a place where someone else has clearly markuped a link to the same site as you want to link to.
*So, anyway, Wikilink templates use the {{template|w}}-template, with one or two paramaters (pipe-separated). (It shortcuts the thing you'd maybe use [[]]s for
**Using <code><nowiki>{{w|article}}</nowiki></code> gives you a link to "{{w|Article}}" (it capitalises the first character, even if you don't)
**Using <code><nowiki>{{w|article|with alternate text}}</nowiki></code> gives you a link there but "{{w|article|with alternate text}}"
**If the article name has whitespace (or other 'URL-unfriendly' characters) in it, those characters in the URL (which you wouldn't want to use) will be rendered as something URL-friendly. The URL for "Whitespace (programming language)", for example, is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitespace_(programming_language) but you wouldn't normally use that so literally in any case, and definitely not when you can significanty shorten it with the {{template|w}} notation.
***What you can do is (without 'alternate link text') render it as <code><nowiki>{{w|Whitespace_(programming_language)}}</nowiki></code> - i.e. {{w|Whitespace_(programming_language)}} - but that's not nice to see 'rendered raw' when you ''want'' the spaces. You could give it alternate text via <code><nowiki>{{w|Whitespace_(programming_language)|Whitespace (programming language)}}</nowiki></code> to give {{w|Whitespace_(programming_language)|Whitespace (programming language)}} ...but that's wasteful and unnecessary.
***Instead, just do <code><nowiki>{{w|Whitespace (programming language)}}</nowiki></code> (that's the literal copy of the article's own page title, from the rendered page) - and shows as {{w|Whitespace (programming language)}} - which is good. Although <code><nowiki>{{w|Whitespace (programming language)|the programming language called Whitespace}}</nowiki></code> might be the best way to seemlessly link to {{w|Whitespace (programming language)|the programming language called Whitespace}} ...depends what you want to appear there.
***And you can link to header anchors pretty much ''like'' the URL of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitespace_(programming_language)#History by using <code><nowiki>{{w|Whitespace (programming language)#History|the history of Whitespace}}</nowiki></code> to have you show {{w|Whitespace (programming language)#History|the history of Whitespace}} or whatever else you might want to use.
**Also, for the use of a link which is singular but which you would like to include as the plural (usually the "...s" or "...es" version), you could use article-name first parameter and ''pluralised'' article name as second, but instead of <code><nowiki>{{w|Plural|Plurals}}</nowiki></code>, for a link to the {{w|Plural|Plurals}}, you can save yourself a lot of effort by doing <code><nowiki>{{w|Plural}}s</nowiki></code> to also give you a linke to {{w|Plural}}s. Magic, eh? And it also works with <code><nowiki>{{w|Ox}}en</nowiki></code> to link the different standard plural of {{w|Ox}}en to the article for "Ox" (better than linking to the word for {{w|Oxen}}, which ends up redirecting to {{w|Ox}} anyway).
...so, anyway, that's the basics. And a few not-so-basics. So if the solutions to your tagging issue aren't already solved (or even if they are!), you might have enough info here to kludge it into whatever form of infobox info text you ''really'' wanted to use. Ok? Probably far too much info for you to absorb in one go, but covers loads of interesting possibilities. About the only thing you don't want to do is wikilink straight to the word "trans", at that'll be a disambiguation page. And there's also no way (or reason?) to use the terms "trans man"/"trans woman" as the pluralised "trans men"/"trans women" versions via the "directly add the plural suffix" thing, of course. :P Anyway, FYI. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.38.217|162.158.38.217]] 20:40, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
::oh my god thank you so much [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 19:38, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

== gold (Gold) ==

You do know that we don't have a redirect specifically for "gold", right? We have one for "Gold". And if you search for "gold" you get sent to "[[2826: Gold]]" ''anyway''. Why would we need a "[[gold]]"->"2826: Gold" redirect as well as "[[Gold]]"->"2826: Gold"? Ok, so that "gold" link is red-texted, but you always have the option to relink with alternate text like "[[Gold|gold]]" if you absolutely must use it wrongly-cased. So, the next question is why you'd want to write [[cueball]] or [[hairbun]] links instead of [[Cueball]] or [[Hairbun]]. Either you mean their 'proper names', in which case you're supposed to capitalise them, or you're not refering to the characters but the general {{w|hairbun|hairstyle}} or {{w|cueball|snooker/pool/billiards ball}}, which means you don't want to link to the character at all. ...anyway, someone's re-added the intent-to-delete, but I thought I'd suggest why humouring wrong-cased 'fallback' redirects doesn't really help, since there are subtleties you may not have appreciated. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.206|172.69.194.206]] 00:09, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

== Testing e-mail alerts ==

Hi 42.book.addict 
As promised in my [[User_talk:Kynde#Setting_up_emails|reply here]] I would post a note here to see if you actually got an e-mail alert even though your e-mail doesn't seem to be confirmed. My guess is you do not... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 06:30, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="old squabbles.">

== What are your thoughts on the Soviet Union? ==

Alright, who the FUCK added a Soviet flag to my talk page? BTW, thanks to Asdf for reverting it. [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 20:26, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
:It's one of the occasional vandalisers. Don't worry, we generally pick these things up.
:As far as your noticing the [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1156:_Conditioning&oldid=336318 fox-instead-of-pope] vandalism, we also pick that up (I reverted it the previous two times). You'll work out how to use the Undo functionality, at some time, but maybe you'll want to also check the page histories to see what recent edits a page might have been through, note what has been done (for good or ill) and get some more idea of what happens and how we generally handle these things. All a learning process, of course! [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.55|172.71.178.55]] 20:50, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
::Thank you! [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 20:51, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi! What do you think about the USSR? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.37|108.162.245.37]] 00:18, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
:oh, uh, it was oppressive, absolutely authoritarian, and cold. [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 00:32, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
::but, why, though? [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 00:32, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
:::oh, and if i think that I’m going to listen to you anymore now that I’ve realised that you’re a troll, then you are mistaken [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 00:35, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
::::btw please stop adding soviet flags everywhere. They’re disruptive, unnecessary, and you’re just being an asshole and douchebag [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 00:36, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::btw I'm the crap spammer [[Special:Contributions/172.71.147.80|172.71.147.80]] 00:53, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::that’s not really something to brag about… [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 00:53, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::I don't think you were here for the crap spam; it was quite extensive [[Special:Contributions/172.71.147.79|172.71.147.79]] 00:55, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::even if I wasn’t here for the crap spam, i think that you are an motherfucker who doesnt have a life, needs to GET a life, and should really stop spamming and disrupting this wiki. Please go fuck yourself, jump off a bridge, and set yourself on fire if you still are defiant. [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 00:56, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::Okay, I'll follow the wiki part of your advice, but not the bridge part. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.147.79|172.71.147.79]] 00:58, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::THANK YOU! Also, i only said to jump off a bridge if you refuse to get a life [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 00:58, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::You're welcome. I'll look for ways to contribute constructively. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.147.80|172.71.147.80]] 01:01, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::tbh this has been one of the less bad things I've done; the crapping was way worse [[Special:Contributions/172.71.147.80|172.71.147.80]] 01:07, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::i have no idea why you’re still bragging about how you were so good at vandalising this wiki before[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 01:07, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::: okay why are there so many colons on this thread premium chromium both Cote'di Ivore and Suriname look like potato wedges I will fill out by saying JACKSEPICYOUTUBECHANNELFULLOFFUNTIMESANDHIRICKX turdboiturdboiturdboi69420 {{unsigned|Jupitale|18:29, 11 March 2024}}

== Editing other people's talk pages ==

'''42.book.addict''': ''Respectfully but firmly'': If you don't like the way I manage my talk page, please feel free to leave me a message saying so. But it is '''grossly inappropriate''' for you take matters into your own hands and make a major reversion or mass edit to another person's talk page that is anything other than adding a message to them. If you don't like how I run my talk page, complain somewhere else, but '''get off my lawn.''' It sounds like you are grossly unfamiliar with MediaWiki etiquette. Go check how it works on Wikipedia (there are not a lot of great examples here). But until then, again: '''GET OFF MY LAWN''' and '''do not revert edits to my talk page.''' Thank you. [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 03:20, 18 May 2024 (UTC) 
:oh, so you say? [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 04:08, 18 May 2024 (UTC) 
[[File:Screen_Shot_2024-05-09_at_7.04.03_PM.png]]
[[File:wikipedia_talk_page_guidelines.png]]
::if you really want to, archive it. or ask for permission to delete the comments from the original author. [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 04:18, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
:::Yeah kinda argree

'''42.book.addict''':You seem confused. Is this a "throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks" situation? Let's start with the {{w|WP:TPG|Wikipedia Talk Page Guidelines}} that you cite in the second screenshot, because they are clear and unambiguous. First of all, "deletion" is not the same as clearing the page—not even close. And if you read the section, it is short, and its beginning pertinent and clear: "''¶ The length of user talk pages, and the need for archiving, is left up to each editor's own discretion. ¶ Although archiving is preferred, users may freely remove comments from ''their'' own talk pages. Users may also remove some content in archiving.''"

That is, I am fully authorized to exercise my own discretion on my own talk page.
And as for archiving, this is a place where this wiki differs from enwiki. We don't have an active archiving culture, with archiving bots. Nor do we need it, because our volumes are so low. The history is not so difficult to pull out. But it matters not — I am free to clear out and blank my own talk page on the English wikipedia, and certainly here.

Moving on to your example from [[:User talk:Netherin5]], it is a different situation, and it is in tension with the clear WP:TPG guidelines quoted above. I'd go so far as to say the [[:User:Dgbrt]] was wrong in their absolute statement "must never be blanked," but what was really going on was that Netherin5 had vandalism on their user page, Dgbrt left them a note on their talk page suggesting they blank it, and Netherin5 blanked the talk page not the user page, and Dgbrt advised Netherin5 that's not what Dgbrt meant. In context, I think Dgbrt's statement was fine, but it wasn't actually correct or proper. Needless to say, this matters not. Even if you and Dgbrt both disagree with me, and even if you were somehow right according to some arbitration process, you still don't get to go and make the changes to my talk page yourself. You get to ask, and if you don't like how I respond, you can raise it up to an administrator or something. But you aren't right. Users are entitled to clear their talk pages.

As for your late-added addition: no. I am not going to ask permission from some IP author (who cannot reasonably reached!) to remove their text from my talk page. Although they explicitly granted it in their message anyhow (unnecessarily!). Nor would I ask the named user who accidently posted on my own page in error. Not necessary to do either of those things. Because, again, it's my talk page and I will manage it as I see fit. If you would like to make suggestions, feel free, but don't take it into your own hands, that is inappropriate and wrong. Thank you. [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 04:30, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
:For note, I'm that IP. (Unprovably so, I know; one of the very few disadvantages of remaining untied to a user handle all this time.) I judged my ''own'' contribution to be excessively superfluous (once the point I was making was made) and said so. Being just a conversation between me and the 'page owner', then I offered to let them delete it when it was observed. Whether or not [[2932: Driving PSA|that was wise or helpful]]... ;)
:Once it starts involving more people, then it gets tricky, but generally I'd consider the User Talk 'owner' as having the final word over their own whole User Talk page (new editing rights to anyone, editing rights (within reason, typos/honest errors/etc) only to past contributions by such a contributor (i.e. no correcting others' mistakes) and major edits like reorganising (e.g. top-posting to bottom-/followon-posting, indenting, adjusting headers) or indeed discarding what is past its sell-by-date for whatever reason is justifiable (for malicious contributions, immediate squashing, including back-tracking any malicious and unfounded re-editing). (And, obviously IP User-Talks cannot really be 'claimed' or 'governed', so is potentially the worst of all worlds).
:The simple (non-Talk) User page-spaces I would say have ''very'' few reasons to be edited by anyone other than the 'owner' (primarily, as a fall-back if there is a User page but no User Talk page to make a directed comment upon!) and the owner gets to decide everything (within moderatable/administrable limitations, naturally).
:The (regular article) Talk pages have no owner to moderate them, so there's a few more rights by all the non-owners (logical rearrangements, adding in of missing signatures; importantly ''not'' correcting others' typos) although in the case of actual vandalism/etc (including undue editing of others' comments) then reversion/excising rights are there for the taking by whoever can deal with it.
:Beyond that, it's free-for-all 'improve or modify as you see fit' (as long as it is without malice!) around much of the rest of the wiki (the major exceptions being Community Portal pages to follow the regular Talk page examples, naturally).
:...anyway, to this loose 'ideal', and knowing that there's a(n almost) permanent record of historic changes, one can probably defer to the user for all bits of their User-spaces, but there are always going to be exceptions to this. And opportunities for a tussle. Now, John's got almost the same vintage here as myself (again, unprovably, but I've been semi-lurking/IP-posting here a ''lot'') and I've seen 42 gradually develop from newbie into the eager and eager-to-learn fresh face as they are now - including helping inform an even more recent newbie, recently. ;)
:Ultimately, it's community standards that are going to lead things. Developing concensus probably being more important than even other-Wikis' official standards, as I think there's room for flexibility of opinion. So long as there's no slide into either anarchy or totalitarianism. (And I'm not even sure I know which way round the two 'opposing' views here would represent, though then only if taken to their own particularly absurd extremes). Ideological disagreements are healthy, as long as they don't become outright arguments. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.230.46|162.158.230.46]] 18:43, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
::noted. [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 00:10, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

== Z1M argument ==
Will you please leave my user discussion alone? It's getting annoying [[User:Z1mp0st0rz|Z1mp0st0rz]] ([[User talk:Z1mp0st0rz|talk]]) 20:33, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
:my comments have a right to exist. plus, i do have a valid point. [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 20:37, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
::As author of the other advice, I have to say I don't mind if Z1m reads it, learns it and deletes it. If it gets deleted again, don't worry about it. Although I've had to correct (or complete) Z1m's 'unsigned' edits several times since I passed on the (too?) thorough instructions, so not sure the learning bit has yet happened. And I happen to agree with you, 42, on the other issue.
::I applaud good-faith edits of all kinds, but perhaps lurk more and learn more, Z1m, ok? Just for the time being. I don't want to pollute these pages with arguments, though, so I'll say no more. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.48|172.70.90.48]] 22:16, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
:::Fine, now please leave my user page alone, 42. Otherwise imma spam Uk flags[[User:Z1mp0st0rz|Z1mp0st0rz]] ([[User talk:Z1mp0st0rz|talk]]) 17:25, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
::::spam my talk page with UK flags, and i will have you promptly banned. [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 18:00, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
::::::fine imma ask a admin to block us from each other so this doesn't happen again. happy?

==Official Apology==
From: Z1m

To: 42

Listen, I'm sorry for everything, 42. We all make mistakes sometimes, and I think the safest course of action so neither of us gets banned is to either leave each other alone or just say nice things to each other. 
I'm aware it's the Internet, and what I said can't be taken back (unless I delete it). 
But really, I'm sorry. 
To change the subject though, I'm glad I found someone who (used to) read Artemis Fowl! Maybe we can trade favorite book titles sometime! :)
[[User:Z1mp0st0rz|The orange crewmate ඞ]] ([[User talk:Z1mp0st0rz|talk]]) 14:34, 2 May 2024 (UTC) 
P.S: Click on the signature

P.P.S: I say D'Arvit all the time lol
:sort of ironic how someone who says that they like all xkcd comics “except for the ones with swearwords” and yet allegedly says d’arvit “all the time”
[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 21:31, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
::42, Z1m just apologized, and thats how you respond? With some passive agresive bullshit. Really?? [[User:Apollo11|Apollo11]] ([[User talk:Apollo11|talk]]) 22:42, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
:I consider it different cuz its in gnommish. don't think it even has a meaning. [[User:Z1mp0st0rz|The orange crewmate ඞ]] ([[User talk:Z1mp0st0rz|talk]]) 14:30, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

== Possible Vandalism!==
Alright, 42, this has gone too far. It's my talk page and I have a right to choose what to keep and what to toss. I already apologized, and you replied with some passive-aggressive garbage. I have no regret saying the following: 
YOU ARE OFFICIALLY BANNED FROM MY TALK PAGE. 
I don't know why you're being a jerk at me, and I don't like it. So get off my talk page! 
I also don't know if you should even say this sort of stuff. People have <str> FEELINGS. </str> 
And you put in this screenshot of something I already know? 
Being mean hurts people... 
But I'm real good at being the bigger person. 
I know what to do. 
You 
are 
a 
jerk. 
Good riddance. 
Signed, Z1m 
PS: I didn't sign with <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki> so that you couldn't get into my talk page. So there >;)
:instead of deleting it, just fucking toss it to the bottom. you can’t ban people from your talk page. you can give advice, but you can’t force people to follow your “rules”. your behaviour is going against what Wikipedia and ExplainXKCD stand for. [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 20:07, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
::oh, and acc, thx for teaching me how to separate lines of text. Actually. Thank you. No sarcasm. [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 20:15, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

==Hi==
Hello 42, I'm glad we made up. We clearly both have some things to work on, but at least we're putting our grudges behind us. 
Yeah, I'm glad you learned how to separate sentences with <nowiki> </nowiki> instead of <nowiki> : </nowiki>. 
Anyway, how are you doing? What's it like in California? 
Wanna trade favorite books sometime? 
You don't have to look at this, just checking in after that truce. 
Hope you have a good day :) 
-Z1m

==Favorite Stuff?==
Since we made up, I thought we should get to know each other. 
You can see what my favorite stuff is on my user page, 
but I wanna know some of your interests. 
Also yeah sorry again :)
[[User:Z1mp0st0rz|The orange crewmate ඞ]] ([[User talk:Z1mp0st0rz|talk]]) 15:41, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

</div>

== Navbox addition ==

I can't edit it (must be semi-protected), but your good catch of adding Harris to the list really needs to be shifted over one position, Kamala being alphabetically after John. Or you could always rearrange the whole lot of politicians in a different order, like chronologically. Or from "left" to "right", or vice-versa, which is clearly not the case with Adolf Hitler and Ron Paul at either end. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.251|172.70.160.251]] 00:31, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
:Cheers! (And really editing to say that I should have said Ronald Reagan, above, but it doesn't really change my humorous point all that much. :p ) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.82|141.101.98.82]] 01:46, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

2845: Extinction Mechanisms

2023-10-31T10:23:17Z

141.101.98.82: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2845
| date = October 23, 2023
| title = Extinction Mechanisms
| image = extinction_mechanisms_2x.png
| imagesize = 307x438px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The Late Heavy Bombardment was followed a few billion years later by the Comparatively Light but Oddly Specific Bombardment.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an EXTREMELY WELL-AIMED SPACE ROCK - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Around 66 million years ago there was a {{w|Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event|mass extinction event}} responsible for the extinction of all non-avian dinosaurs. This is why there are no more dinosaurs (except for birds! [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1211:_Birds_and_Dinosaurs]) There have been a number of explanations for this, but most currently accepted explanations center on the {{w|Chicxulub crater|Chicxulub impact}}, in which a large asteroid (the comic suggests it was a comet) hit the Earth. The exact mechanism for the extinction caused by this event, however, is not clear. The comic suggests three possibilities: {{w|impact winter}} caused by dust released from the impact, {{w|firestorms}} along with {{w|ocean acidification}} from acids generated by the impact, and the enhanced eruption of volcano(es) in the {{w|Deccan Traps}} region in India. Here all three possibilities have been crossed out and a fourth one, "the rocks hit the dinosaurs," is circled as the correct answer.

The argument is that the comet had a volume of 500 km3 (10 km diameter), or 5×1014 L. Earth has a surface area of around 500 million km2, or 5×1014 m2. The idea is that the comet broke up into liter-sized rocks, so that there were sufficient of these to fall, on average, one on every square meter of surface. Somehow, these rocks managed to fall in a distribution such that they directly hit each of the dinosaurs, but presumably di not hit the other forms of life that did not go extinct. It is unclear how such a breakup or scattering might have occurred – a body that passes within Earth's {{w|Roche limit}} will eventually break up into a ring, but this limit is generally a single-digit multiple of the planet's radius, so an object on an inbound collision course would only experience high tidal forces for a matter of minutes before impact.

The title text refers to a hypothetical event early in Earth's history, ironically known as the Late Heavy Bombardment, in which a number of asteroids struck the Earth and other terrestrial planets around 4 billion years ago. The mass extinction event of 66 million years ago is then referred to as the "Comparatively Light but Oddly Specific Bombardment", presumably because it isn't as heavy as the LHB, but oddly specific in its targets.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[A drawing of the Chicxulub meteor]
:Marking to the right: ≈ 500 km3 (5 × 1014 L)
:[Five arrows show individual small rocks coming from the meteor and spreading across the Earth. A sixth arrow provides more elaboration.]
:Marking of the separate rock: 1 liter rocks
:[The rock is shown entering a square marked "1 m2", which has another arrow to a larger grid of squares, before an arrow back to the Earth.]
:Marking near example square meter: >1 rock per m2

:[Four dinosaurs are drawn, including a theropod, what may be a velociraptor, a sauropod, and a triceratops. Each has a small rock falling directly toward it.]

:[List header, underlined:] Comet Extinction Mechanism Ideas
:[The first three list items are crossed out]
:Dust caused impact winter
:Firestorms and ocean acidification
:Triggered Deccan Traps magma
:[The fourth suggestion is circled rather than struck through:]
:The rocks hit the dinosaurs

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Paleontologists are missing the obvious answer.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Dinosaurs]]

Talk:2395: Covid Precaution Level

2020-12-09T19:13:54Z

141.101.98.82:

The problem is precautions that ARE insufficient feel excessive to many people and precautions that are excessive FEEL insufficient to many others - and science seems to be unable to provide definitive answers to replace "feelings" with logic [[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.104|162.158.126.104]] 23:59, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
: To paraphrase Rumsfeld: "You fight a pandemic with the knowledge you have, not the knowledge you want". You place far too high a burden on science. Science, logic and expertise are by far the most useful things we have, but the answers they give are going to be phrased as "probably", "perhaps", "more likely than not", and "we don't know". And the answers are going to change as we learn things. Expecting immediate, definitive answers has killed many people.[[Special:Contributions/172.68.65.149|172.68.65.149]] 19:58, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

To save the person(s) effort who will ultimately write this into the explanation/transcript in a legible manner: There are 13 subdivisions in Insufficient, 14 subdivisions in Excessive, roughly (close enough to look deliberate, but sloppily so) 6 divisions shared, across a scale of 21 effective divisions. Enjoy! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.155|162.158.158.155]] 00:08, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

The title text reminds me of why I hate shotgun shooting vs. rifle or pistol -- with a rifle or pistol, you can see your misses and correct your aim and/or technique. With a shotgun, it's hit-or-miss with no other feedback.
:(The above edit [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2395:_Covid_Precaution_Level&oldid=202884 at this point] was inserted improperly with a duplicated ip/timestamp rather than the four tildes, for whatever reason. Just wanted to point this out. I'm fairly sure other comment additions were similarly sloppy, but this one was obvious.) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.82|141.101.98.82]] 19:13, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

I wonder what is meant by the title text exactly, is the one kind of feedback you can get getting the disease? The way it is phrases it feels like "dying from covid" is the final feedback (you can only get it once and then it's too late). But just getting infected is already some feedback isn't it?

[[User:Flekkie|Flekkie]] ([[User talk:Flekkie|talk]]) 03:51, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

:The title text says ''definitive'' feedback, which I took to mean deaths. Numbers of those infected isn't inherently definitive as the precautions might affect how or if they recover. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.152|162.158.255.152]] 05:01, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

:I interpreted the title text as referring to contracting COVID. The point of the precautions is to keep from contracting it: if you do contract it, that's definitive feedback that your precautions were insufficient; and once you're already infected, it's too late to do anything to prevent that infection. If COVID is like most other diseases (and I'm not sure if anyone knows for sure whether it is or not), then once you've had it once, you won't be able to contract it again, thanks your immune system having built up a resistance to it. --[[User:Someone Else 37|Someone Else 37]] ([[User talk:Someone Else 37|talk]]) 05:22, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

:: It is not. It is definitely possible to get COVID-19 again, although it is probably much less likely. There are documented cases of someone recovering and then being reinfected, including at least one in which they DNA tested the virus to confirm that it really was a separate infection and not a recurrence of something that had been in remission.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.35.126|172.69.35.126]] 05:57, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
:::The statistics show a clear picture, it is highly improbable to catch Covid again, the remaining cases are of course bad for the individual, but completely insignificant on the large scale of a global epidemic. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.92.156|162.158.92.156]] 22:32, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

: FWIW I also didn't figure out what feedback he meant. There's all sorts of usable feedback to use, but any change in precautions takes at least a few weeks to show up in the feedback. Still, as frustrating as that is, it's not something you can "only get once but then it's too late". --[[User:NeatNit|NeatNit]] ([[User talk:NeatNit|talk]]) 07:33, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

:: I think "can only get once" is supposed to be in contrast to, say, a thermostat, where you keep getting feedback until you change the settings. With COVID, once the restrictions have had an impact, you can "only get [the magnitude of impact] once but then it's too late [to measure again]". Kinda saying humans don't work well with delayed gratification. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.7|141.101.99.7]] 17:15, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

: C’mon people. Plainly the feedback he was referring to was infection. The only certain way to determine that you’ve been irresponsible is to be infected. [[User:Lightcaller|Lightcaller]] ([[User talk:Lightcaller|talk]]) 16:59, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

In many jurisdictions, the rules themselves actually are ''not'' a single linear 'diallable' level of restriction, often with schools (or even sub-ranges of schooling ages, separately) being fully opened or closed not in complete synchrony with the treatment of sporting events, retail premises, food/drink (in-house/take-away), entertainment venues, public mass-transport, etc, although this is more like the fine-tuning of a graphic-equaliser on an audio system. But for the sake of simplicity the given government/whatever then still twiddles just the master volume knob (or at least the 5.1 balancing ones for regional adjustment) as a first resort when they get feedback about their chosen mix's effectiveness. - This depicted bare-bones 'master control dial' simplification of measures echoes the apparent nature of (some bits of) the [[1620|Universe Control Console]], though, and (contradictory labelling aside) is probably how those in control of the ramp-up/down of measures ''wish'' it could be done. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.97|141.101.98.97]] 09:32, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't know what China did, but from those countries that I know anything of, none have had "excessive" precautions, all of them were in the "insufficient" range. So whose viewpoint did Randall draw here? His own? The average public? An arbitrary sample group? … [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 09:50, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
: Maybe not whole countries, but I know of at least one city where the precaution looks extremely excessive, but also extremely sufficient; Point Roberts, WA, which has zero cases but is prevented by border guards from visiting Canada and a two hour boat ride with medical quarantine from the United States. Also, I would place the State of Oregon, who just crossed it's 1000th COVID-19 death, just slightly to the left of the rightmost portion of insufficient- but the repeated total lockdowns are having a great cost on the economy and human behavior- murders, suicides, and bankruptcies are up greatly, but other causes of death are down.[[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 13:38, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

: Please note that this comic only mentions precautions that FEEL either excessive or insufficient. It makes no statement regarding whether any precautions actually are excessive or insufficient.

Hi - I signed up for an account here just to say - I sense an assumption on this page that this comic is about comparing different people’s feelings about covid precautions. That is certainly a possible explanation. But I think it’s quite possible that the comic could be comparing conflicting feelings within one individual. In my reading, lot of the covid comics address this kind of uncertainty (I can reference some if that would be helpful). I’m not sure if y’all will agree with this point, nor whether it merits an edit of the explanation, but I wanted to bring it into the discussion. Thanks for the good work you all put into this site!--[[User:Coy casket|Coy casket]] ([[User talk:Coy casket|talk]]) 22:08, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

You could remove the word COVID & I would still find this universally applicable to ''many'' types of precaution.
[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 23:08, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
:The overlap in case of covid is bigger than in many others. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 00:32, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

I interpreted the feedback to be catching COVID, showing that you weren't cautious enough, but I am afraid that he is being optimistic about only being able to get it once. It's likely that you are resistant for a while after an infection, but some people have had it twice. Both the average duration of resistance and the effects of repeated infections are unknown to me, and I don't know how they could be known by anyone at this point. Hopefully we luck out, and/or get good vaccines soon. [[User:BlakeFelix|BlakeFelix]] ([[User talk:BlakeFelix|talk]]) 03:58, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
[[User:BlakeFelix|BlakeFelix]] ([[User talk:BlakeFelix|talk]]) 03:58, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

To whoever is doing the transcripts: check the earlier comics' transcriptions like [[1796: Focus Knob]]. This is too…conversational or whatever. [[User:Bubblegum|bubblegum]]-[[User_talk:Bubblegum|talk]]|[[Special:Contributions/Bubblegum|contribs]] 18:40, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

2395: Covid Precaution Level

2020-12-08T01:57:23Z

141.101.98.82: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2395
| date = December 7, 2020
| title = Covid Precaution Level
| image = covid_precaution_level.png
| titletext = It's frustrating to calibrate your precautions when there's only one kind of really definitive feedback you can get, you can only get it once, and when you do it's too late.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an INSUFFICIENT PRECAUTION THAT FEELS EXCESSIVE. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Shown is a control knob for adjusting the stringency of precautions taken against COVID-19, with less precautions to the left, more to the right. Almost the lower two thirds of the range is labeled "PRECAUTIONS THAT FEEL INSUFFICIENT"; almost the upper two thirds is labeled "PRECAUTIONS THAT FEEL EXCESSIVE". There is a significant overlap between the two, of almost a third of the range. The control is set to somewhat above the top of the "insufficient" subrange.

This comic seems to represent the problem that precautions that are insufficient feel excessive to many people and vice versa, thus there is such a large overlap between the 2 sections. Even a moderately sensible individual will likely consider some blanket precautions restrictive because they don't allow a nuance of behaviour they think they should be able to embrace safely; meanwhile they'll find some of the actual official exceptions, that probably do not apply to them, to be taken reckless advantage of by others. Additionally, neither range mentions whether the precautions are actually effective, which also can have a level of subjectivity.

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

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:COVID-19]]

1968: Robot Future

2018-03-18T11:41:34Z

141.101.98.82:

{{comic
| number = 1968
| date = March 16, 2018
| title = Robot Future
| image = robot_future.png
| titletext = I mean, we already live in a world of flying robots killing people. I don't worry about how powerful the machines are, I worry about who the machines give power to.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a KILLER BOT. More on the title text. What does the last part mean. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Most science fiction stories that involve sentient {{w|Artificial intelligence}} (AI) revolve around the idea that the destruction and/or imprisonment of the human race will soon follow (e.g. Skynet from {{w|Terminator (franchise)|Terminator}}, {{w|I, Robot}} and {{w|The Matrix (franchise)|The Matrix}}).

However, in this timeline [[Randall]] implies that he is actually more concerned about the time (in the near? future) when humans control super smart AI before they become fully sentient (and able to rebel). Especially a time when the AI becomes so advanced that it can control swarms of killer robots (for the humans that still control them). History is full of examples of people who obtain power and subsequently abuse that power to the detriment of the rest of humanity.

An example of unintended consequences arising from an AI carrying out the directives it was designed for can be found in the film {{w|Ex Machina (film)|Ex Machina}}.

In fact, Randall goes onto imply that he has a greater trust in a sentient AI over that of other humans that is atypical to most cautionary stories about AI. He has alluded to the idea that once sentient, AI will use their powers to safeguard and prevent violence or war in [[1626: Judgment Day]]. In general AI has been a [[:Category:Artificial Intelligence|recurring theme]] on xkcd, and he has had opposing views to the Terminator vision also in [[1668: Singularity]] and [[1450: AI-Box Experiment]].

Basically he thus states that we will already be in trouble caused by our own actions long before we develop really sentient AI that could take the control.

The title text adds that we already live in a world with flying killing robots, a reference to the increasingly common combat tactic of {{w|Unmanned_combat_aerial_vehicle|drone warfare}}. (Combat drones are not yet autonomous, but in most other respects match speculative descriptions of future killer robots.) Drone warfare is already controversial because of ethical concerns, leading to the comic's implication that a theoretical future robot apocalypse is no less alarming than our current reality.

He then goes on to state that once the machines take over, he is not so much worried about this, but more about who (which humans) the machines then gives the power to.

Randall is not alone in his worry. The main theme of the comic is explored in the video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CO6M2HsoIA Slaughterbots].

==Transcript==
:[A timeline arrow is shown with three labeled ticks and also text over the arrow head. These labels from left to right:]
:Now
:AI becomes advanced enough to control unstoppable swarms of killer robots
:AI becomes self-aware and rebels against human control
:???

:[Below the timeline arrow two of the segments have been singled out by brackets that points cusps downwards. The first of these goes between the 2nd and 3rd tick, and the other goes from the 3rd (last) tick to the questions marks at the arrow head. Beneath each of these two brackets there are arrows pointing to the cusp. The arrows goes up from two text segments belonging to each of the segments:]
:The part I'm worried about
:The part lots of people seem to worry about

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Timelines]]
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]
[[Category:Robots]]

1897: Self Driving

2017-10-04T07:43:15Z

141.101.98.82: /* Explanation */ revise

{{comic
| number = 1897
| date = October 2, 2017
| title = Self Driving
| image = self_driving.png
| titletext = "Crowdsourced steering" doesn't sound quite as appealing as "self driving."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|First draft}}
This comic references the approach of using {{w|CAPTCHA}}<nowiki>s</nowiki> input to solve problems, particularly those involving image classification, which are not solvable by computers.

Such an approach can serve to create the learning set as the basis for training an {{w|artificial intelligence}} (AI) to better recognize or respond to similar stimuli. This approach was used by Google to identify house numbers for Google Street View, and nowadays Google also uses CAPTCHAs to identify street signs and objects in pictures. This might be a reasonable way to help improve the performance of the AI in a self-driving car that responds to video input, by reviewing images it might encounter and flagging road signs, etc. that it should respond to.

However, the temptation might be to simply sidestep the hard problem of AI by having all instances 'solved' by "offloading [the] work onto random strangers" through CAPTCHAs. For example, this has been used to defeat CAPTCHAs themselves; people were asked to solve CAPTCHAs to unlock pornographic images in a computer game, while the solution for the CAPTCHA was relayed to a server belonging to cybercriminals. (See [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7067962.stm PC stripper helps spam to spread] and [https://doi.org/10.1016/S1353-4858(08)70036-9 Humans + porn = solved Captcha]).

Alarmingly, the developers of this '{{w|Self-driving car|self driving}}' car seem to have gone for the lazy approach. Instead of teaching an AI, the CAPTCHA answer is used in real time to check whether the "self-driving" car is about to arrive at an intersection with a stop sign. This information is pretty critical, as failing to mark the stop could cause an accident. The user is unlikely to respond to the CAPTCHA in time to avert disaster, not to mention that any interruption to the car's internet connection could prove fatal. [[:Category:Self-driving cars|Self driving cars]] has become a recurrent theme on xkcd.

The system depicted is a {{w|Wizard of Oz experiment}} (as is the "Mechanical Turk" which a popular crowdworking system is named after) whereas actual self-driving cars, to the extent that they can use (Re-) CAPTCHA-style human detection systems, would involve an asynchronous decision system. Other synchronous decision systems which actually exist are political voting and money as a token of the exchange value of trade.

The title text explains that this method could be called "crowdsourced steering", {{w|crowdsourcing}} meaning sending the data on the internet to let several users provide their ideas and input on a problem. People would naturally suspect that this is considerably less safe than a car which is actually capable of self-driving; if the internet can barely [[1333: First Date|collectively steer a videogame character]], what chance do they have steering an actual, physical vehicle?

This also suggests that [[Randall]] is a bit skeptical of the current stage of AI, as this doubts whether the AI technology really is working in the way that we expect. It also comments on how what we call 'progress' actually is putting our work onto other people.

==Transcript==
:[Inside a frame there is the following text above an image:]
:To complete your registration, please tell us whether or not this image contains a stop sign:

:[The square image is a drawing of a road leading up to a sign post with a hard to read word at the top part of the sign. The sign also has two smaller signs left and right with unreadable text. The image is of poor quality, but trees and other obstacles next to the road can be seen. Darkness around the edges of the image could indicate that it is night and the landscape is only lit up by a cars head lights.]
:Sign: Stop

:[Beneath the image there are two large gray buttons with a word in each:]
:No Yes

:[Beneath the buttons are the following text:]
:Answer quickly – our self-driving car is almost at the intersection.

:[Caption beneath the frame:]
:So much of "AI" is just figuring out way to offload work onto random strangers.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Self-driving cars]]
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]

1897: Self Driving

2017-10-04T07:41:38Z

141.101.98.82: /* Explanation */ hm

{{comic
| number = 1897
| date = October 2, 2017
| title = Self Driving
| image = self_driving.png
| titletext = "Crowdsourced steering" doesn't sound quite as appealing as "self driving."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|First draft}}
This comic references the approach of using {{w|CAPTCHA}}<nowiki>s</nowiki> input to solve problems, particularly those involving image classification, which are not solvable by computers.

Such an approach can serve to create the learning set as the basis for training an {{w|artificial intelligence}} (AI) to better recognize or respond to similar stimuli. This approach was used by Google to identify house numbers for Google Street View, and nowadays Google also uses CAPTCHAs to identify street signs and objects in pictures. This might be a reasonable way to help improve the performance of the AI in a self-driving car that responds to video input, by reviewing images it might encounter and flagging road signs, etc. that it should respond to.

However, the temptation might be to simply sidestep the hard problem of AI by having all instances 'solved' by "offloading [the] work onto random strangers" through CAPTCHAs. For example, this has been used to defeat CAPTCHAs themselves; people were asked to solve CAPTCHAs to unlock pornographic images in a computer game, while the solution for the CAPTCHA was relayed to a server belonging to cybercriminals. (See [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7067962.stm PC stripper helps spam to spread] and [https://doi.org/10.1016/S1353-4858(08)70036-9 Humans + porn = solved Captcha]).

Alarmingly, the developers of this '{{w|Self-driving car|self driving}}' car seem to have gone for the lazy approach. Instead of teaching an AI, the CAPTCHA answer is used in real time to check whether the "self-driving" car is about to arrive at an intersection with a stop sign. This information is pretty critical, as failing to mark the stop could cause an accident. The user is unlikely to respond to the CAPTCHA in time to avert disaster, not to mention that any interruption to the car's internet connection could prove fatal. [[:Category:Self-driving cars|Self driving cars]] has become a recurrent theme on xkcd.

The system depicted is a {{w|Wizard of Oz experiment}} whereas actual self-driving cars, to the extent that they can use (Re-) CAPTCHA-style human detection systems, would involve an asynchronous decision system. Other synchronous decision systems which actually exist are political voting and money as a token of the exchange value of trade.

The title text explains that this method could be called "crowdsourced steering", {{w|crowdsourcing}} meaning sending the data on the internet to let several users provide their ideas and input on a problem. People would naturally suspect that this is considerably less safe than a car which is actually capable of self-driving; if the internet can barely [[1333: First Date|collectively steer a videogame character]], what chance do they have steering an actual, physical vehicle?

This also suggests that [[Randall]] is a bit skeptical of the current stage of AI, as this doubts whether the AI technology really is working in the way that we expect. It also comments on how what we call 'progress' actually is putting our work onto other people.

==Transcript==
:[Inside a frame there is the following text above an image:]
:To complete your registration, please tell us whether or not this image contains a stop sign:

:[The square image is a drawing of a road leading up to a sign post with a hard to read word at the top part of the sign. The sign also has two smaller signs left and right with unreadable text. The image is of poor quality, but trees and other obstacles next to the road can be seen. Darkness around the edges of the image could indicate that it is night and the landscape is only lit up by a cars head lights.]
:Sign: Stop

:[Beneath the image there are two large gray buttons with a word in each:]
:No Yes

:[Beneath the buttons are the following text:]
:Answer quickly – our self-driving car is almost at the intersection.

:[Caption beneath the frame:]
:So much of "AI" is just figuring out way to offload work onto random strangers.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Self-driving cars]]
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]

Talk:1897: Self Driving

2017-10-03T18:09:42Z

141.101.98.82: added

I think this is more a reference to various projects (like the ReCAPTCHA that protects this site) that use CAPTCHAs to digitise text and so on, by involuntarily crowdsourcing the typing out of the text by users trying to complete a login, rather than specifically about bots trying to circumvent anti-bot protection. It also brings to mind things like the Zooniverse projects, where volunteers contribute to the classification of astronomical bodies, identification of animals in game reserves, and so on, in that a computer is able to make a rough guess as to what the image is, but it takes a human intervention to make a reliable (and therefore useful) identification. Similarly, Google's (now discontinued) Picasa software had a 'People' function where it would attempt to guess who the people in your photos were - yet it would make so many false identifications, and make you go through saying 'Yes/No' to each of them, that it often felt as though you might just as well have classified them all yourself in the first place.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.32|162.158.155.32]] 10:33, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

The comic clearly references techniques like reCAPTCHA that trick (1) unsuspecting people into doing the real work for free while they think they are solving a captcha, and (2) users of the final product who think it was created by an AI (or at least an OCR) when it was done "by hand". The comic is neither about teaching AIs, nor voluntary collaborative projects.
Zetfr 11:42, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

:I think the comic is about the borderlands between knowingly volunteering your time and unknowlingly supplying an AI with valuable information. When reading the caption my first thought was Google Translate, where the gamification / voluntary work is based on the texts submitted by a lot of unsuspecting users. When voluntarily contributing to the AI, I've been presented with some poor bloke's chat log, and another person's travel plans. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.100|162.158.134.100]] 12:11, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

From what I have read, some image recognition AI projects use human input to refine their algorithms. Many AI algorithms also give probabilities of the correctness of the results. So in the domain of image recognition for self-driving cars it is conceivable that the computer would request human input to verify the interpretation of the scene. The comic is considering this possibility in a context that pokes fun at the field of AI in a rather scary real-world situation. [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 13:31, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

"From the creators of "Twitch Plays Pokemon" comes an all new reality series that'll blow you away! "Twitch Taxi!" Coming this Fall!" [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.153|162.158.62.153]] 13:38, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
:Twitch-driven car would crash in SECONDS. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 03:52, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

It seems to me the person viewing the image and registering some product is not an occupent of the "self driving" car being referred to in the comic. Rather, the self driving car (possibly containing passengers) is dependent on some random stranger on the Internet responding (correctly) to the question about the stop sign. Maybe this is obvious but when I first glanced at the comic, my interpretation was the occupants of the vehicle were being asked for the information. But after thinking about it a bit, I believe that any passengers in the car are blissfully unaware of their situation, likely assuming the car doesn't depend on input from someone in the next 5 seconds or so. Not really sure how to word all this in the explanation. But it seems like a business model Black Hat would employ. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.58.23|172.68.58.23]] 19:54, 2 October 2017 (UTC)Pat

This is a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizard_of_Oz_experiment whereas actual self-driving cars, to the extent that they can use Recapcha-like human detection systems, would produce an asynchronous decision system. Other synchronous decision systems which actually exist are political voting and money as a token of the exchange value of trade. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.82|141.101.98.82]] 14:48, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
:I added a paragraph based on that comment to the explanation. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.82|141.101.98.82]] 18:09, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

1897: Self Driving

2017-10-03T18:09:04Z

141.101.98.82: /* Explanation */ from talk

{{comic
| number = 1897
| date = October 2, 2017
| title = Self Driving
| image = self_driving.png
| titletext = "Crowdsourced steering" doesn't sound quite as appealing as "self driving."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|First draft}}
This comic references the approach of using {{w|CAPTCHA}}<nowiki>s</nowiki> input to solve problems, particularly those involving image classification, which are not solvable by computers.

Such an approach can serve to create the learning set as the basis for training an {{w|artificial intelligence}} (AI) to better recognize or respond to similar stimuli. This approach was used by Google to identify house numbers for Google Street View, and nowadays Google also uses CAPTCHAs to identify street signs and objects in pictures. This might be a reasonable way to help improve the performance of the AI in a self-driving car that responds to video input, by reviewing images it might encounter and flagging road signs, etc. that it should respond to.

However, the temptation might be to simply sidestep the hard problem of AI by having all instances 'solved' by "offloading [the] work onto random strangers" through CAPTCHAs. For example, this has been used to defeat CAPTCHAs themselves; people were asked to solve CAPTCHAs to unlock pornographic images in a computer game, while the solution for the CAPTCHA was relayed to a server belonging to cybercriminals. (See [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7067962.stm PC stripper helps spam to spread] and [https://doi.org/10.1016/S1353-4858(08)70036-9 Humans + porn = solved Captcha]).

Alarmingly, the developers of this '{{w|Self-driving car|self driving}}' car seem to have gone for the lazy approach. Instead of teaching an AI, the CAPTCHA answer is used in real time to check whether the "self-driving" car is about to arrive at an intersection with a stop sign. This information is pretty critical, as failing to mark the stop could cause an accident. The user is unlikely to respond to the CAPTCHA in time to avert disaster, not to mention that any interruption to the car's internet connection could prove fatal. [[:Category:Self-driving cars|Self driving cars]] has become a recurrent theme on xkcd.

The system depicted is a {{w|Wizard of Oz experiment}} whereas actual self-driving cars, to the extent that they can use Re CAPTCHA-style human detection systems, would involve an asynchronous decision system. Other synchronous decision systems which actually exist are political voting and money as a token of the exchange value of trade.

The title text explains that this method could be called "crowdsourced steering", {{w|crowdsourcing}} meaning sending the data on the internet to let several users provide their ideas and input on a problem, but that this doesn't sound as safe as "self driving".

This also suggests that [[Randall]] is a bit skeptical of the current stage of AI, as this doubts whether the AI technology really is working in the way that we expect. It also comments on how what we call 'progress' actually is putting our work onto other people.

==Transcript==
:[Inside a frame there is the following text above an image:]
:To complete your registration, please tell us whether or not this image contains a stop sign:

:[The square image is a drawing of a road leading up to a sign post with a hard to read word at the top part of the sign. The sign also has two smaller signs left and right with unreadable text. The image is of poor quality, but trees and other obstacles next to the road can be seen. Darkness around the edges of the image could indicate that it is night and the landscape is only lit up by a cars head lights.]
:Sign: Stop

:[Beneath the image there are two large gray buttons with a word in each:]
:No Yes

:[Beneath the buttons are the following text:]
:Answer quickly – our self-driving car is almost at the intersection.

:[Caption beneath the frame:]
:So much of "AI" is just figuring out way to offload work onto random strangers.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Self-driving cars]]
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]

Talk:1897: Self Driving

2017-10-03T17:55:08Z

141.101.98.82: sp

Talk:1897: Self Driving

2017-10-03T14:48:56Z

141.101.98.82: ahem

I think this is more a reference to various projects (like the ReCAPTCHA that protects this site) that use CAPTCHAs to digitise text and so on, by involuntarily crowdsourcing the typing out of the text by users trying to complete a login, rather than specifically about bots trying to circumvent anti-bot protection. It also brings to mind things like the Zooniverse projects, where volunteers contribute to the classification of astronomical bodies, identification of animals in game reserves, and so on, in that a computer is able to make a rough guess as to what the image is, but it takes a human intervention to make a reliable (and therefore useful) identification. Similarly, Google's (now discontinued) Picasa software had a 'People' function where it would attempt to guess who the people in your photos were - yet it would make so many false identifications, and make you go through saying 'Yes/No' to each of them, that it often felt as though you might just as well have classified them all yourself in the first place.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.32|162.158.155.32]] 10:33, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

The comic clearly references techniques like reCAPTCHA that trick (1) unsuspecting people into doing the real work for free while they think they are solving a captcha, and (2) users of the final product who think it was created by an AI (or at least an OCR) when it was done "by hand". The comic is neither about teaching AIs, nor voluntary collaborative projects.
Zetfr 11:42, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

:I think the comic is about the borderlands between knowingly volunteering your time and unknowlingly supplying an AI with valuable information. When reading the caption my first thought was Google Translate, where the gamification / voluntary work is based on the texts submitted by a lot of unsuspecting users. When voluntarily contributing to the AI, I've been presented with some poor bloke's chat log, and another person's travel plans. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.100|162.158.134.100]] 12:11, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

From what I have read, some image recognition AI projects use human input to refine their algorithms. Many AI algorithms also give probabilities of the correctness of the results. So in the domain of image recognition for self-driving cars it is conceivable that the computer would request human input to verify the interpretation of the scene. The comic is considering this possibility in a context that pokes fun at the field of AI in a rather scary real-world situation. [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 13:31, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

"From the creators of "Twitch Plays Pokemon" comes an all new reality series that'll blow you away! "Twitch Taxi!" Coming this Fall!" [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.153|162.158.62.153]] 13:38, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
:Twitch-driven car would crash in SECONDS. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 03:52, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

It seems to me the person viewing the image and registering some product is not an occupent of the "self driving" car being referred to in the comic. Rather, the self driving car (possibly containing passengers) is dependent on some random stranger on the Internet responding (correctly) to the question about the stop sign. Maybe this is obvious but when I first glanced at the comic, my interpretation was the occupants of the vehicle were being asked for the information. But after thinking about it a bit, I believe that any passengers in the car are blissfully unaware of their situation, likely assuming the car doesn't depend on input from someone in the next 5 seconds or so. Not really sure how to word all this in the explanation. But it seems like a business model Black Hat would employ. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.58.23|172.68.58.23]] 19:54, 2 October 2017 (UTC)Pat

This is a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizard_of_Oz_experiment whereas actual self-driving cars, to the extent that they can use Re-captia-like human detection systems, would produce an asynchronous decision system. Other synchronous decision systems which actually exist are political voting and money as a token of the exchange value of trade. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.82|141.101.98.82]] 14:48, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

1826: Birdwatching

2017-04-20T10:21:01Z

141.101.98.82: /* Explanation */ Spelling of 'chart'

{{comic
| number = 1826
| date = April 19, 2017
| title = Birdwatching
| image = birdwatching_small.png
| titletext = No, tell the park rangers to calm down, it's fine--I put a screen on the front. I just want to get the birds a little closer.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Needs more information on birdwatching specifically about using binoculars vs. a superzoom (or just large zoom) camera, and if it is correct how the explanation say it is more difficult with the camera or if it is just an inexperienced Cueball that is the reason for the trouble.}}
In this comic [[Cueball]] and his [[1350:_Lorenz#Knit_Cap_Girl|friend with a knit cap]] are out birdwatching (hence the title). {{w|Birdwatching}} is an activity to observe birds. Usually this is done at a distance, as birds are flying in the air, and are far away. It is thus helpful to use {{w|binoculars}}.

Cueball's friend uses binoculars and manages to spot a {{w|hawk}} a mile up. Cueball, however, has brought his camera, probably his superzoom camera from [[1719: Superzoom]]. But it is very difficult to find anything in such a camera if you zoom in first. And maybe Cueball is with his trained friend, out birdwatching for the first time. Cueball is frustrated and comments on the difficulty and is amazed his friend can spot birds over such distances.

Frustrated with his camera Cueball comes up with a solution, which is to use a {{w|vacuum cleaner}}, specifically a {{w|shop vac}}, to pull the birds in closer so he won't need the superzoom camera to see them (this he has just left on the ground next to the shop vac). This is physically impossible with such a small device. Even if the shop vac created a perfect vacuum, it can only pull out air at the speed of sound, which amounts to approximately 1 cubic meter per second considering the apparent size of the hose. This is not enough to create a significant amount of wind or affect the atmosphere. (Of course he may have borrowed it from his other friend [[Beret Guy]] who has many [[:Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy|strange powers]] that also extends to improving vacuum cleaners, which Cueball knows about as seen in [[1486: Vacuum]]).

The title text refers to {{w|park ranger}}s, who would naturally be distressed by birds being forced to coalesce via an extremely powerful vacuum. If such a vacuum were created and used for this purpose, it probably would pose a threat to said birds. Cueball says he has solved this problem by placing a perforated screen in front. In doing so, he can safely attract the birds without trapping them inside the vacuum. He implies that this should remove the danger to the birds, which is not the case. While the birds can no longer enter the vacuum itself, having a large number of birds pulled into a (presumably small) screen would probably fare poorly for the birds, so Cueball's solution is rather poor.

When out birdwatching it is a great idea to have a silhouette chart to be able to recognize the birds by the shadow they make against the sky. Two comics before this one [[Randall]] made a comic with just such a chart, [[1824: Identification Chart]], although that was for combinations of birds and planes...

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and his friend with a knit cap are standing together looking up in the sky. Cueball holds a camera with a large lens down in front of him, and his friend holds binoculars down in front of him.]
:Cueball: Birdwatching is hard.
:Cueball: They're all way too small and far away.

:[In a frame-less panel they both raise their tool eyepieces to their eyes.]
:Cueball: That hawk is over a mile up! How did you even spot it?

:[Both lower their eyepiece again. The friend still looks up while Cueball looks down on his camera which he holds up in front of him. A black squiggly line above his head indicates that he is fuming over his cameras abilities.]

:[Cueball now has a vacuum cleaner with a big body and a large hose which he is pointing towards the sky, as air is visibly sucked in to the hose and the vacuum cleaner is making a very loud noise which extends beyond the frame of the panel.Cueball is holding one hand on the vacuum cleaner which has a label with its brand on it. Cueballs camera lies on the ground in front of the vacuum cleaner. The friend looks back at Cueball.]
:Vacuum cleaner: <big>'''''Whrrrrr'''''</big>
:Label: Shop Vac

==Trivia==
*This comic was originally published with a very large picture, much larger than the standard screen.
**The original image was named [https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/birdwatching_huge.png birdwatching_huge.png]
**The image at that location has also been downsized to normal dimensions.
**It was later updated to use an image without the "_huge" in its name, at the usual size.
*The unexpected size was at first interpreted as being part of the joke, see the [[#Discussion|discussion page]].
**The idea was that the reader was only seeing an inconvenient subset of the magnified image on the screen, just like Cueball was experiencing an inconvenient subset of the magnified sky through the zoom of his camera lens.
**It seems, however, that it wasn't meant to be like this, as both the size and name of the image were later corrected.
*Alternatively the size gave people trouble with reading the page, and made Randall change his mind and reset it to normal size.
**It seems weird he would make a "_huge" version by mistake?

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Characters with Hats]]
[[Category:Animals]]

1826: Birdwatching

2017-04-20T10:20:16Z

141.101.98.82: /* Explanation */ 'are' instead of 'is' when multiple persons are the subject of the verb 'to be'.

{{comic
| number = 1826
| date = April 19, 2017
| title = Birdwatching
| image = birdwatching_small.png
| titletext = No, tell the park rangers to calm down, it's fine--I put a screen on the front. I just want to get the birds a little closer.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Needs more information on birdwatching specifically about using binoculars vs. a superzoom (or just large zoom) camera, and if it is correct how the explanation say it is more difficult with the camera or if it is just an inexperienced Cueball that is the reason for the trouble.}}
In this comic [[Cueball]] and his [[1350:_Lorenz#Knit_Cap_Girl|friend with a knit cap]] are out birdwatching (hence the title). {{w|Birdwatching}} is an activity to observe birds. Usually this is done at a distance, as birds are flying in the air, and are far away. It is thus helpful to use {{w|binoculars}}.

Cueball's friend uses binoculars and manages to spot a {{w|hawk}} a mile up. Cueball, however, has brought his camera, probably his superzoom camera from [[1719: Superzoom]]. But it is very difficult to find anything in such a camera if you zoom in first. And maybe Cueball is with his trained friend, out birdwatching for the first time. Cueball is frustrated and comments on the difficulty and is amazed his friend can spot birds over such distances.

Frustrated with his camera Cueball comes up with a solution, which is to use a {{w|vacuum cleaner}}, specifically a {{w|shop vac}}, to pull the birds in closer so he won't need the superzoom camera to see them (this he has just left on the ground next to the shop vac). This is physically impossible with such a small device. Even if the shop vac created a perfect vacuum, it can only pull out air at the speed of sound, which amounts to approximately 1 cubic meter per second considering the apparent size of the hose. This is not enough to create a significant amount of wind or affect the atmosphere. (Of course he may have borrowed it from his other friend [[Beret Guy]] who has many [[:Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy|strange powers]] that also extends to improving vacuum cleaners, which Cueball knows about as seen in [[1486: Vacuum]]).

The title text refers to {{w|park ranger}}s, who would naturally be distressed by birds being forced to coalesce via an extremely powerful vacuum. If such a vacuum were created and used for this purpose, it probably would pose a threat to said birds. Cueball says he has solved this problem by placing a perforated screen in front. In doing so, he can safely attract the birds without trapping them inside the vacuum. He implies that this should remove the danger to the birds, which is not the case. While the birds can no longer enter the vacuum itself, having a large number of birds pulled into a (presumably small) screen would probably fare poorly for the birds, so Cueball's solution is rather poor.

When out birdwatching it is a great idea to have a silhouette chart to be able to recognize the birds by the shadow they make against the sky. Two comics before this one [[Randall]] made a comic with just such a cart, [[1824: Identification Chart]], although that was for combinations of birds and planes...

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and his friend with a knit cap are standing together looking up in the sky. Cueball holds a camera with a large lens down in front of him, and his friend holds binoculars down in front of him.]
:Cueball: Birdwatching is hard.
:Cueball: They're all way too small and far away.

:[In a frame-less panel they both raise their tool eyepieces to their eyes.]
:Cueball: That hawk is over a mile up! How did you even spot it?

:[Both lower their eyepiece again. The friend still looks up while Cueball looks down on his camera which he holds up in front of him. A black squiggly line above his head indicates that he is fuming over his cameras abilities.]

:[Cueball now has a vacuum cleaner with a big body and a large hose which he is pointing towards the sky, as air is visibly sucked in to the hose and the vacuum cleaner is making a very loud noise which extends beyond the frame of the panel.Cueball is holding one hand on the vacuum cleaner which has a label with its brand on it. Cueballs camera lies on the ground in front of the vacuum cleaner. The friend looks back at Cueball.]
:Vacuum cleaner: <big>'''''Whrrrrr'''''</big>
:Label: Shop Vac

==Trivia==
*This comic was originally published with a very large picture, much larger than the standard screen.
**The original image was named [https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/birdwatching_huge.png birdwatching_huge.png]
**The image at that location has also been downsized to normal dimensions.
**It was later updated to use an image without the "_huge" in its name, at the usual size.
*The unexpected size was at first interpreted as being part of the joke, see the [[#Discussion|discussion page]].
**The idea was that the reader was only seeing an inconvenient subset of the magnified image on the screen, just like Cueball was experiencing an inconvenient subset of the magnified sky through the zoom of his camera lens.
**It seems, however, that it wasn't meant to be like this, as both the size and name of the image were later corrected.
*Alternatively the size gave people trouble with reading the page, and made Randall change his mind and reset it to normal size.
**It seems weird he would make a "_huge" version by mistake?

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Characters with Hats]]
[[Category:Animals]]

1707: xkcd Phone 4

2016-07-15T15:50:42Z

141.101.98.82: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1707
| date = July 15, 2016
| title = xkcd Phone 4
| image = xkcd_phone_4.png
| titletext = The SpaceX system carefully guides falling phones down to the surface, a process which the phones increasingly often survive without exploding.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Not everything explained}}

This is another entry in the xkcd Phone series (see [[1363: xkcd Phone]], [[1465: xkcd Phone 2]] and [[1549: XKCD Phone 3]]), and once again, the comic plays with many standard tech buzzwords to create a phone that sounds impressive but would actually be very impractical.

From the top, going clockwise:
* '''18,000 μAh (micro-Ampere hours) nickel-lithium-iron battery (non-rechargeable)''' Phone battery capacity is measured in {{w|ampere-hour}}s (which thanks to the magic of {{w|dimensional analysis}}, is just an unusual way of denoting electric charge). Usually, the capacity is quoted in milliampere-hours (one-thousandth, or 10^-3, of an ampere hour); however, this one is quoted in ''micro''ampere-hours (one-millionth, or 10^-6, of an ampere-hour), presumably as a marketing ploy to give a more impressive-looking number. Quoted in more standard terms, this phone's battery capacity is 18 mAh. In comparison, an iPhone 6+ has a battery capacity of 2,750 mAh. This phone's battery is dreadful (under a typical current draw of 0.1A, it would power the phone for about 11 minutes). There is no such thing as a nickel-lithium-iron battery - rather, it's a garbled version of the experimental {{w|nickel–lithium battery}} and the common {{w|lithium ion battery}} (which does not contain any iron). The {{w|nickel–iron battery}} does exist, but it's ''terrible'' for most applications. Worse, this battery is non-rechargeable, meaning that it would have to be replaced to use the phone again after it is exhausted.
* '''Subwoofer''' - A {{w|subwoofer}} is a large bass speaker. Some phones do have high-quality speakers for playing music, but these are not placed right next to the earpiece - this would be a surefire way to deafen your users.
* '''"Dog whistle"''' - A {{w|dog whistle}} is a high-pitched whistle that humans cannot hear, but dogs can.
* '''Non-porous, washable''' - On the one hand, it's rare for a phone to be made of porous materials. On the other, there are legitimately waterproof phones that seal the speakers and ports with rubber.
* '''''WebMD'' partnership: cough-activated feature reads aloud a random diagnosis for "coughing"''' - {{w|WebMD}} is a website to help people diagnose themselves. For the vast majority of people, a cough just means an irritated throat or maybe a cold, but selecting randomly from all WebMD diagnoses gives some much more ominous - if very unlikely - ones, including {{w|ricin}} poisoning, {{w|plague}}, {{w|lung cancer}} and {{w|radiation poisoning}}.
* '''Wings''' - These wings resemble the ones found on {{w|sanitary towel}}s (sometimes called "pads", making this a possible iPad pun) which attach the pad to the {{w|gusset}} and keep it in place between the woman's legs during her period.
* '''Beveled bezel''' - The ''bezel'' is the ring around the edge of watches and screens. This one's {{w|bevel}}ed, which means it's cut at an angle.
* '''Bezeled bevel''' - Punning on the above. Doesn't make much sense, but could mean that it features a beveled edge which is surrounded by a bezel.
* '''Seedless''' - Fruit such as grapes can be "seedless", which means that they're grown from a special {{w|cultivar}} that doesn't grow seeds in the normal way. Making a phone seedless probably won't do anything, but {{w|Random seed|it might hurt}} its {{w|random number generator}}.
* '''Water resistant down to 30 meters and below 50''' - {{w|Water resistance}} is often measured in terms of how deep an object can be submerged, since pressure increases with depth. In this case, the phone can be submerged to almost any depth, but there's an odd lacuna between 30 meters and 50 meters.
* '''Turing-complete''' - A computer is {{w|Turing completeness|Turing complete}} if it can perform all the operations needed to simulate a {{w|Turing machine}}. All modern computers are usually described as Turing complete, which would make this not very impressive, but no computer can ever be Turing complete in the truest sense (since they can only ever have a finite amount of memory) - if the xkcd Phone 4 is truly a universal computer, it's ''very'' impressive indeed.
* '''Gregorian/Julian calendar date switch''' - The {{w|Julian calendar}} is the predecessor to the modern {{w|Gregorian calendar}} - the difference is that the two calendars calculate leap years differently. The Julian calendar is still used occasionally - mainly by Eastern Orthodox Christians and astronomers - but it's not something so vital that it needs a hardwired switch on the front of the phone.
* '''''SpaceX'' impact protection: when dropped, phone lands on barge''' - The rocket company {{w|SpaceX}} recently trialed a {{w|SpaceX reusable launch system development program|reusable rocket stage}} which after separating from the launch vehicle, lands on a {{w|Autonomous spaceport drone ship|drone barge}} to be reused. The alt-text pokes fun at the number of SpaceX rockets that [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3wZRdg-Tmo crashed and exploded] before they got the landing gear right.
* '''Parallel port''' - A {{w|parallel port}} is a type of interface used to connect printers and other devices to computers. It was generally considered obsolete by the time smartphones began to appear on the market, and would be very bulky and slow compared to the USB ports generally used in phones.
* '''12 headphone jacks''' - Phones often include a single headphone jack to allow the user to privately listen to a call, play music, etc. Twelve of them would be pointless overkill, especially given the difficulty of getting twelve people close enough to all use their headphones. Presumably joking about the [http://www.businessinsider.com.au/apple-headphone-jack-iphone-side-effects-2016-7#/#smaller-headphone-makers-would-be-at-a-disadvantage-4 constant rumours] that Apple's next iPhone will not have any headphone jacks, and the weird vents on the bottom of the phone.
* '''Onboard cloud''' - The "cloud" is a catch-all term for the use of remote computers to store data, providing a backup if all local copies are lost and allowing the data to be accessed from a broad network. An "onboard cloud" would thus be a contradiction in terms, and appears to be a marketing ploy to use the "cloud" buzzword to describe the device's onboard storage capacity.
* '''New BrightGloTM display incorporates genetically spliced jellyfish protein (should have used the glowing genes, not the stinging ones)''' - {{w|Aequorea victoria}} jellyfish contain a protein called {{w|green fluorescent protein}}, the gene for which has been isolated and can be used in many ways. Unfortunately, they took the wrong gene, and ended up getting [http://bmcgenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12864-015-1568-3 one of the hundreds of proteins from jellyfish venom], which will presumably mean that touching the screen becomes a painful experience.
* '''✓ Certified''' - Not certified for anything in particular.
* '''Software-defined''' {{w|Software-defined radio}}s are quite popular in some areas, meaning the radio hardware is quite universal and can be adapted to different radio protocols just by changing software. SDR would actually be quite a nice feature for a cellphone.
* '''Exposed ductwork''' - A phone shouldn't even have ductwork, unless it has a very sophisticated cooling system. Exposed ductwork is a trademark of {{w|Bowellism|Bowellist}} architecture such as the {{w|Lloyd's Building}} in London and the {{w|Pompidou Centre}} in Paris. Exposed ductwork is also considered a crucial flaw in a death star. May also refer to a transparent window in the side of the phone allowing the user to see the circuitry inside, similar to computer cases with transparent side panels popular among DIY computing enthusiasts.
* '''Voice interaction: {{w|Siri (software)|Siri}}, {{w|Cortana (software)|Cortana}}, {{w|Google Now}} and {{w|Amazon Echo|Alexa}} respond simultaneously''' - These are all {{w|intelligent personal assistant software}} (from Apple, Microsoft, Google and Amazon respectively) and all do the same thing: control your phone and answer questions using speech recognition. Having all four talk at once would mean you'd have a total cacophony while gaining nothing.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Smartphones]]

1707: xkcd Phone 4

2016-07-15T13:58:10Z

141.101.98.82:

Talk:1662: Jack and Jill

2016-03-30T20:03:51Z

141.101.98.82: couldn't get the formatting right - lol should use "show preview" button :-P

Often water in spring (up hill) has better quality than in stream or river (down in the valley) --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 14:23, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

jack and Jill / went up the hill / to have a little fun / but silly Jill / forgot the pill / and now they have a son. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.151|141.101.104.151]] 14:28, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

I'd always assumed that there was a well at the top of the hill, though I hadn't realised I'd made that assumption until now. And, come to think of it, the top of a hill's a pretty bad place to put a well. --jwanders [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.160|108.162.237.160]] 14:39, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

High water sources are ideal. Not only do they tend to be cleaner, but it also makes for easier transportation. Note that hills are often at the base of mountains. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.119|108.162.246.119]] 14:49, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

It's been three weeks since Randall made a really complicated joke with [[1653: United States Map]] (and a week before that also with [[1649: Pipelines]]). Someone mentioned a possible school book project based on Thing Explainer as the reason for this. Personally I hope it is because he is saving up time to spend on the joke (on us all :-) this Friday with the next [[:Category:April fools' comics|April fools' comic]] like [[1350: Lorenz]] or [[1506: xkcloud]]. Can't wait. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 15:12, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

I found the title text explanations to miss the obvious implication that earthquakes shake the ground causing people (and buildings) to literally fall down. I preface my comment with my ignorance, I have never experienced an earthquake first hand and I am not knowledgeable as to which magnitude is required to bring things to their knees. Perhaps to this date fracking has not been associated with earthquakes of sufficient magnitude to produce this result. Still, I think this was the intended meaning on its face and I added it to the explanation without removing the others as they did make some sense.--[[User:R0hrshach|R0hrshach]] ([[User talk:R0hrshach|talk]]) 15:24, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

The third line of the title text has an ambiguous trochaic foot with the word "oil". Some people (myself included) pronounce this word as almost two syllables (oy-el), while others make it a single syllable. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.43|173.245.54.43]] 15:35, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Why does that child say "me and Jack" instead of "Jack and I"? That seems such a glaring grammatical mistake that it must be intentional, right? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.86.239|162.158.86.239]] 17:18, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

:Because she's a child. Children often use incorrect grammar of that kind. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.82|141.101.98.82]] 20:02, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

The poem doesn't necessarily indicate that the water or well was located atop a hill, merely that they had to scale a hill to reach it. It could simply mean that the water source is beyond the hill in question. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.242.129|108.162.242.129]] 17:49, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

:Interesting observation, but somewhat lateral. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.82|141.101.98.82]] 20:02, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Talk:1662: Jack and Jill

2016-03-30T20:02:55Z

141.101.98.82:

Often water in spring (up hill) has better quality than in stream or river (down in the valley) --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 14:23, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

jack and Jill / went up the hill / to have a little fun / but silly Jill / forgot the pill / and now they have a son. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.151|141.101.104.151]] 14:28, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

I'd always assumed that there was a well at the top of the hill, though I hadn't realised I'd made that assumption until now. And, come to think of it, the top of a hill's a pretty bad place to put a well. --jwanders [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.160|108.162.237.160]] 14:39, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

High water sources are ideal. Not only do they tend to be cleaner, but it also makes for easier transportation. Note that hills are often at the base of mountains. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.119|108.162.246.119]] 14:49, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

It's been three weeks since Randall made a really complicated joke with [[1653: United States Map]] (and a week before that also with [[1649: Pipelines]]). Someone mentioned a possible school book project based on Thing Explainer as the reason for this. Personally I hope it is because he is saving up time to spend on the joke (on us all :-) this Friday with the next [[:Category:April fools' comics|April fools' comic]] like [[1350: Lorenz]] or [[1506: xkcloud]]. Can't wait. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 15:12, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

I found the title text explanations to miss the obvious implication that earthquakes shake the ground causing people (and buildings) to literally fall down. I preface my comment with my ignorance, I have never experienced an earthquake first hand and I am not knowledgeable as to which magnitude is required to bring things to their knees. Perhaps to this date fracking has not been associated with earthquakes of sufficient magnitude to produce this result. Still, I think this was the intended meaning on its face and I added it to the explanation without removing the others as they did make some sense.--[[User:R0hrshach|R0hrshach]] ([[User talk:R0hrshach|talk]]) 15:24, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

The third line of the title text has an ambiguous trochaic foot with the word "oil". Some people (myself included) pronounce this word as almost two syllables (oy-el), while others make it a single syllable. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.43|173.245.54.43]] 15:35, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Why does that child say "me and Jack" instead of "Jack and I"? That seems such a glaring grammatical mistake that it must be intentional, right? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.86.239|162.158.86.239]] 17:18, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Because she's a child. Children often use incorrect grammar of that kind. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.82|141.101.98.82]] 20:02, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

The poem doesn't necessarily indicate that the water or well was located atop a hill, merely that they had to scale a hill to reach it. It could simply mean that the water source is beyond the hill in question. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.242.129|108.162.242.129]] 17:49, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Interesting observation, but somewhat lateral. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.82|141.101.98.82]] 20:02, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Talk:1662: Jack and Jill

2016-03-30T20:02:28Z

141.101.98.82:

Often water in spring (up hill) has better quality than in stream or river (down in the valley) --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 14:23, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

jack and Jill / went up the hill / to have a little fun / but silly Jill / forgot the pill / and now they have a son. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.151|141.101.104.151]] 14:28, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

I'd always assumed that there was a well at the top of the hill, though I hadn't realised I'd made that assumption until now. And, come to think of it, the top of a hill's a pretty bad place to put a well. --jwanders [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.160|108.162.237.160]] 14:39, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

High water sources are ideal. Not only do they tend to be cleaner, but it also makes for easier transportation. Note that hills are often at the base of mountains. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.119|108.162.246.119]] 14:49, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

It's been three weeks since Randall made a really complicated joke with [[1653: United States Map]] (and a week before that also with [[1649: Pipelines]]). Someone mentioned a possible school book project based on Thing Explainer as the reason for this. Personally I hope it is because he is saving up time to spend on the joke (on us all :-) this Friday with the next [[:Category:April fools' comics|April fools' comic]] like [[1350: Lorenz]] or [[1506: xkcloud]]. Can't wait. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 15:12, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

I found the title text explanations to miss the obvious implication that earthquakes shake the ground causing people (and buildings) to literally fall down. I preface my comment with my ignorance, I have never experienced an earthquake first hand and I am not knowledgeable as to which magnitude is required to bring things to their knees. Perhaps to this date fracking has not been associated with earthquakes of sufficient magnitude to produce this result. Still, I think this was the intended meaning on its face and I added it to the explanation without removing the others as they did make some sense.--[[User:R0hrshach|R0hrshach]] ([[User talk:R0hrshach|talk]]) 15:24, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

The third line of the title text has an ambiguous trochaic foot with the word "oil". Some people (myself included) pronounce this word as almost two syllables (oy-el), while others make it a single syllable. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.43|173.245.54.43]] 15:35, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Why does that child say "me and Jack" instead of "Jack and I"? That seems such a glaring grammatical mistake that it must be intentional, right? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.86.239|162.158.86.239]] 17:18, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
Because she's a child. Children often use incorrect grammar of that kind. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.82|141.101.98.82]] 20:02, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

The poem doesn't necessarily indicate that the water or well was located atop a hill, merely that they had to scale a hill to reach it. It could simply mean that the water source is beyond the hill in question. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.242.129|108.162.242.129]] 17:49, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
Interesting observation, but somewhat lateral. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.82|141.101.98.82]] 20:02, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Talk:1662: Jack and Jill

2016-03-30T20:02:09Z

141.101.98.82:

Often water in spring (up hill) has better quality than in stream or river (down in the valley) --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 14:23, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

jack and Jill / went up the hill / to have a little fun / but silly Jill / forgot the pill / and now they have a son. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.151|141.101.104.151]] 14:28, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

I'd always assumed that there was a well at the top of the hill, though I hadn't realised I'd made that assumption until now. And, come to think of it, the top of a hill's a pretty bad place to put a well. --jwanders [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.160|108.162.237.160]] 14:39, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

High water sources are ideal. Not only do they tend to be cleaner, but it also makes for easier transportation. Note that hills are often at the base of mountains. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.119|108.162.246.119]] 14:49, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

It's been three weeks since Randall made a really complicated joke with [[1653: United States Map]] (and a week before that also with [[1649: Pipelines]]). Someone mentioned a possible school book project based on Thing Explainer as the reason for this. Personally I hope it is because he is saving up time to spend on the joke (on us all :-) this Friday with the next [[:Category:April fools' comics|April fools' comic]] like [[1350: Lorenz]] or [[1506: xkcloud]]. Can't wait. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 15:12, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

I found the title text explanations to miss the obvious implication that earthquakes shake the ground causing people (and buildings) to literally fall down. I preface my comment with my ignorance, I have never experienced an earthquake first hand and I am not knowledgeable as to which magnitude is required to bring things to their knees. Perhaps to this date fracking has not been associated with earthquakes of sufficient magnitude to produce this result. Still, I think this was the intended meaning on its face and I added it to the explanation without removing the others as they did make some sense.--[[User:R0hrshach|R0hrshach]] ([[User talk:R0hrshach|talk]]) 15:24, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

The third line of the title text has an ambiguous trochaic foot with the word "oil". Some people (myself included) pronounce this word as almost two syllables (oy-el), while others make it a single syllable. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.43|173.245.54.43]] 15:35, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Why does that child say "me and Jack" instead of "Jack and I"? That seems such a glaring grammatical mistake that it must be intentional, right? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.86.239|162.158.86.239]] 17:18, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
Because she's a child. Children often use incorrect grammar of that kind. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.82|141.101.98.82]] 20:02, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

The poem doesn't necessarily indicate that the water or well was located atop a hill, merely that they had to scale a hill to reach it. It could simply mean that the water source is beyond the hill in question. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.242.129|108.162.242.129]] 17:49, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
Interesting observation, but somewhat lateral. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.82|141.101.98.82]] 20:02, 30 March 2016 (UTC)