explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:3076: The Roads Both Taken

2025-04-15T09:56:38Z

162.158.110.237: Can't remember the lyric that the title text is parodying

I just saw on Google's Doodle: "''...today’s Doodle shows an illustration of quantum superposition. April 14 is World Quantum Day, and this year is also the International Year of Quantum — celebrating 100 years since the discovery of quantum mechanics.''" https://blog.google/technology/research/world-quantum-day-doodle-superposition-thaumatrope/ --[[User:PRR|PRR]] ([[User talk:PRR|talk]]) 05:25, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

I think "Photon poetry" is a reference to Vogon poetry in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (notoriously the worst poetry in the universe). [[Special:Contributions/104.23.172.2|104.23.172.2]] 07:19, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Pretty sure the title text is a parody of a song lyric that I can't remember the original of. "When you something something something, that's something". Damn it, its on the tip of my tongue, but it isn't quite coalescing!

Talk:3034: Features of Adulthood

2025-01-08T21:58:52Z

162.158.110.237:

No comments yet? Probably everyone's still considering the filling in of the table. As for me, I just put a load of words in about the middle name(s), but perhaps it drifts and could be cut back a lot. However, I think we do know a lot of middle names of people, especially [[2393: Presidential Middle Names|politicians]]. Or at least use their middle initials (like with "John F[itzgerald]. Kennedy"), even if we don't use their full names (like with "Harry S. Truman"... :p ). Not that I've had much experience with middle names. Don't have one myself. Knew a couple of people at school who would admit to having them (one had "Colin", the other had "Douglas"), which weren't really names given to people our age and location, so they ''must'' have been grandparental honorifics (though I'm not sure the names were right for two generations back, either... never enquired further, but maybe they were being traditional ''middle'' names, inherited but never really used). To my knowledge, neither the "Colin" nor the "Douglas" ever went on to use those in post-school life, but at least one of them also changed from their first name as their habitual name to be known by, and likely they prefered to go for something altogether new. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.27|172.69.195.27]] 03:23, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
:In Denmark middle names are common, and Kynde is actually my middle name... Many people use their second name like their first, which can be confusing in work places where the e-mail is auto generated from full name, so no one can find Nicolai, because his first name is Christian... which he never uses. Have more than one of those here at my job. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:56, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
::In Denmark middle names are necessary. Otherwise we'd be lost in a vast sea of Jens Jensen, Hans Hansen and Niels Nielsen. Min farfar Niels Peder Nielsen, hedde altid Peder, ikke Niels. {{unsigned ip|108.162.238.139|13:58, 7 January 2025}}
::''Not'' having a middle name is unusual in the UK too, and many people (myself included) choose to go by them here as well.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.5|172.70.85.5]] 12:59, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
:::Maybe more in your part of the UK? I can't really say how many people around me have normally 'undeclared' middle-names (there are some, but the rest I wouldn't even know, by definition), but I can pretty much count the number of people I know who ever use such additional forenames (cummutively, along with the 'first first-name') on the fingers of ''no'' hands... And I'm not particularly provincial, but of course I realise that some people might have decided to adopt their middle-moniker (or their choice of one, if several are available) by the time I first met them at university (away from the family home and childhood friends who knew what their 'Sunday' name was) or in later life.
:::Though, I appreciate that various corners of the Home Counties, Welsh Valleys or Hebridean Islands (for example) might have different name-distinguishing needs to the Inner City, Suburbia, Commuter Village, etc... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.54|141.101.98.54]] 14:38, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Unexplained smells or noises: I'm trying to figure out what he means by this. I can't say that this comes up often in my adult life. Am I just deaf and {{w|Anosmia|anosmic}} (I don't think so)? Is Randall worried about gas leaks or his house creaking and falling down? What could he be referencing? [[User:Mtcv|Mtcv]] ([[User talk:Mtcv|talk]]) 09:29, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
:I often smell something that others cannot or do not. So I'm completely at par with Randall here. Just now my office has a damp smell, after new people moved their things into my office replacing earlier office mates (four in the room). I'm sure it is some of their stuff that smells, but since the hole room is permeated with the smell, it has not been possible for me to find out what could cause the smell. But have tried this many times, for instance when someone leaves a citrus fruit to rot. Some people just cannot smell the fruit whereas I'm getting an instant headache from it. Also in my office, the guy with the rotten fruit, actually destroying his backpack, could not smell it, whereas other people could smell it down the hall. But inside the office it was hard to pinpoint the source as for those that could smell it is was all over the room. I could go on... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:57, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
: I guess this is in reference to ownership of expensive things that you fear might get broken (houses, cars) as well as in reference to being wary of medical issues. "Unexplained smells or noises" could attribute to both IMHO. (BTW, if you have kids, this would be another source...)--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.110.237|162.158.110.237]] 21:58, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

''"In later life, a person may drop the use of middle names (or, conversely, adopt only them as the name they are known by) and the unwieldy complete set of names becomes less common, as they may be considered unprofessional and unnecessary."'' -- What? Who says middle names may be considered unprofessional? Never heard of this before. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.55.140|172.70.55.140]] 14:55, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
:Yeah - seemed spurious - removed it.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.5|172.70.85.5]] 12:59, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Just popping in to explain where this comic came from. It's an adaptation of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8l6mJQeclo an old John Mulaney bit] that makes the rounds every so often on social media unattributed. (Example: [https://x.com/tmorello/status/463160714337603584 Tom Morello stealing the bit] over ten years ago on what was then Twitter.) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.58.74|172.69.58.74]] 18:23, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

As someone born before 1960 who grew up when espionage shows were prevalent on television and toy spy gadgets were prevalent in toy stores, it is amusing to me the difference in what children thought about passwords then and how we use passwords now.--[[Special:Contributions/172.70.83.55|172.70.83.55]] 18:42, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, I was also born before 1960 and I can attest that flat tires were very common then, and every kid learning how to drive also practiced changing the tire. The tire could go flat when you just hit a pothole or hit the curb. I clearly expected to have to deal with flat tires frequently. However, with the advent of radial steel tires, flats are very infrequent unless you pick up a nail or something. So nowadays, flat tires are almost nonexistent. I can now go for years without a flat. In this case change in frequency was because of changed technology rather than changed perception. [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 19:45, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

As far as cutlery is concerned, in "special dos" where you might think you might be out of your depth, you generally can't go wrong with "from outside in", for whatever the current course demands. If it's soup for starters then the uppermost spoon, if something that might look like it's something like a "pâté on toast" then the outermost knife and fork. If there's a choice of courses, then the waiting staff who know your preferences will come around to add/swap as necessary (like the extra-serated steak-knife, rather than the simpler one that's sufficient for the chicken or vegetarian options). Including replacing the desert spoon, shortly before you need it, if you did accidentally eat the soup with yours.
<br/>In general, a formal meal setting (like your firm's annual Christmas Meal) is probably being attended by others that are as much ''hoi polloi'' as yourself. And if you instead seem to have been invited to an official reception in honour of the Grand Duke Of Hapsburg, Burgandy, Luxembourg And San Antonio, surrounded by people with a similar number of titles who can each count the number of unrelated individuals in attendance on one hand (i.e. six!), then you might not pass "The Test" (by using only the crab-claw crackers on the crab-claws and only the lobster-claw crackers on the lobster-claws, etc), but as long as you accidentally don't knock the ''au jus'' all over your neighbour to the right (the Crown Prince Of Upper Volta And Lower Ampa, or ''watt''ever he happens to be) and take note in which direction the ''Ne Oublie'' Tawny Port is being passed around the table then all you really have to worry about is your sparkling conversation.
<br/>But pretty much the only thing that I find that I'm perpetually confused about (and pretty much everyone else), in every such meal, is the breadplate. Especially on circular tables, but even on rectangular ones, the question is often whether each person's bread-roll is to their left (their left-neighbour's right) or their right (their right-neighbour's left). I can understand the logic of being sat by your off-hand (leaving your soupspoon hand free) ''or'' your dominant one (it's surely rude to dip ''and'' spoon, and the knife on the breadplate is for your righthhand too...). Generally, though, everyone who is similarly bothered waits until someone who seems to know (or not care) decides that ''they'' are sure which way it is, then follows suit accordingly to keep the direction entirely in synch (easier to solve than the {{w|dining philosophers problem}}!), although I'm not ''exactly'' sure that it always flips or flops out the exact same chirality at each occasion, and with just two or three such occasions a year (in my particular social schedule!), I don't get quite so much experience, or even remember to look it up in advance. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.26.42|172.71.26.42]] 14:12, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

I love the joke in the fact that so many things ended up in the area of the 1:1 diagonal that no adult would have ever expected to be there in the time when Randall was a kid. I.e., kid Randall might have thought Star Wars would be in the 70ish range, but any adult back then would have laughed it off and given it a chance of not more than 5%. Now, it is in the 50%ish range. Same thing with cool toys, video games, board games, pizza and so on.--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.110.237|162.158.110.237]] 21:58, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Talk:2831: xkcd Phone Flip

2023-09-21T08:42:06Z

162.158.110.237:

this is my first time editing, did i do well? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.134.202|172.70.134.202]] 21:39, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
:Decent enough, assuming you were the one giving the reference to the Z-series. But it'll be expanded, improved and reformatted a lot, I predict. I put in my own (intended) first-edit, but clearly there's you (and possibly A.N. Other) already adding their own thoughts. (Which I am counting on, rather than trying to write it all in one go all by myself... I'll wait for it to settle down and ''then'' see if there are various tweaks I'll want try on whatever form it becomes.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.7|172.70.90.7]] 21:50, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
:The other person was me, but I think there's someone else as well reformatting and rewriting things.--[[Special:Contributions/172.68.34.38|172.68.34.38]] 23:57, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

So, what is the meaning of "flip" here? [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 22:07, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
:It's a reference to the Samsung Galaxy line of folding smartphones, which is marketed as 'Galaxy Z Flip' phones. While there had been double-screened smartphones in the past, Samsung was able to figure out some way to have the actual screen flex and fold in the middle so that when it's closed the primary screen is protected, but when opened up the user sees a single screen without a hinge in the middle. The current model (the 'Z Flip 5') is the sixth iteration of the device since it was originally introduced in China in 2019. [[User:RAGBRAIvet|RAGBRAIvet]] ([[User talk:RAGBRAIvet|talk]]) 22:36, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

:I think it's just part of the whole marketroid feeling these are supposed to have. It's part of the name and the [alleged] "marketing" department, as is typical, came up with something extremely dumb and useless. See: [https://serverfault.com/questions/117799/which-version-of-sunos SunOS vs Solaris] [[Special:Contributions/162.158.197.132|162.158.197.132]] 22:32, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Anybody else think the main sequence battery is a fusion cell that is also the chemical flashlight and full spectrum backlight that necessitates the SPF 15 coating? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.151.83|172.71.151.83]] 22:36, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
:I'm thinking it's a reference to the Cyalume lightsticks which need to be bent, which shatters a small glass vial inside and releases a hydrogen peroxide solution into a second solution of an oxalate ester and electron-rich dye contained within the outer plastic shell. The resulting chemiluminescent reaction creates visible light. [[User:RAGBRAIvet|RAGBRAIvet]] ([[User talk:RAGBRAIvet|talk]]) 22:42, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
:I assumed main sequence refers to stellar evolution in astronomy. {{w|Main sequence}} These stars have a relatively long life, matching the description. The SPF 15 coating and full spectrum would also make sense. However I am not sure that description as a chemical flashlight would follow appropriate. The primary energy generation would be nuclear (fusion). It has been long enough since I took astronomy I don't remember all the details of how the energy is converted into light, and whether that would ultimately be considered a chemical, thermal, or nuclear process (or combination thereof). [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.152|172.69.22.152]] 00:20, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Arch support may also refer to the Linux distro [[Special:Contributions/162.158.110.237|162.158.110.237]] 08:42, 21 September 2023 (UTC)