explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2493: Dual USB-C

2021-07-24T02:09:39Z

162.158.126.52:

{{comic
| number = 2493
| date = July 24, 2021
| title = Dual USB-C
| image = dual_usb_c.png
| titletext = Small devices use two-prong USB-AC, but there's also a three-prong version with a USB-B plug as the ground.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a USB-DC PLUG. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

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

[A picture of a plug with two prongs is shown. Each prong is a USB-C connector.]

Title: Cursed Connectors #187

Subtitle: Dual USB-C

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:1567: Kitchen Tips

2021-07-16T16:00:15Z

162.158.126.52:

Does the title text refer to Cueball never ripping a sheet of toilet paper off, just putting the end of the roll in the toilet and flushing, making it unroll? [[User:Thomasa88|Thomasa88]] ([[User talk:Thomasa88|talk]]) 05:16, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

:-Not quite, I think. I got the impression that cueball wiped with the ''whole roll,'' then simply shoved the entire thing down the toilet. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.72|199.27.128.72]] 05:49, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
That is really wasteful![[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.52|162.158.126.52]] 16:00, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
:: That option didn't even occur to me. In my defence, it just wasn't where the comic panels seemed to be heading. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.155|108.162.249.155]] 23:25, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Is Cueball really hosting a show here? I would think of this comic as a series of commercials or a vlog series rather than a TV show. Just my opinion. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.133.156|199.27.133.156]] 05:37, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:Maybe it's also meant to mock the so-called kitchen-hacks articles. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.225.56|108.162.225.56]] 07:01, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:I'm pretty sure it's aimed at [such-and-such]-hack listicles, articles, and videos. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.96|173.245.54.96]] 12:40, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

The implication is that the the first tip: "If you want to know the temperature of something, use a thermometer designed to measure its temperature", is as obvious as the other four ridiculous 'tips'.[[User:Zeimusu|Zeimusu]] ([[User talk:Zeimusu|talk]]) 07:42, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

:Zeimusu's comment goes to what i think is the real point of this comic. I came here since i wanted to know '''''why'''''. It is a commentary on the stupidity of not using the obvious and sane methods of household activities. There are a lot of really ''odd'' tips for households, including "unspooling two ply toilet paper to have each roll last twice as long" of which the "whole roll" usage is a parody. [[User:Harodotus|Harodotus]] ([[User talk:Harodotus|talk]]) 10:45, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::I 2nd Zeimusu's comment. I think Randall is saying that meat thermometers should be used more often. I don't see how you could say each panel builds up from practical to impractical. Throwing away dishes is probably less practical that cooking directly on a stove. So it goes: Obvious tip (thermometer), Obvious tip (dishes), Obvious tip (stove), Really crazy obvious tip (hose in freezer, punchline), Further grossout title text (TP waste). I don't agree with Randall's cooking advice myself (I think a meat thermometer is bothersome, and cooking to a certain number for safety is not always the point of cooking) but if you follow his "scientific" perspective then it should be "obvious" you use a thermometer to measure internal meat temperature instead of the typical (scientifically unreliable) methods of basing it on timing or other folk wisdom indicators of meat being done.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.164|108.162.216.164]] 07:41, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
:::Actually throwing away dishes is not less practical than cooking on a stove if you consider that paper/plastic plates, plastic cups and plastic utensils can also be purchased and thrown away after every meal. Thus, the panel can be saying not to throw away ''glassware'' or to stop buying and throwing away ''plasticware'' and instead invest in dishes that can be cleaned and reused. In a way, this panel is the bridge between the realistic and the absurd since it can be taken either way IMHO. --[[User:R0hrshach|R0hrshach]] ([[User talk:R0hrshach|talk]]) 16:07, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
:::: A lack of meat thermometers isn't 'stupid' and you're only 'guessing' if meat is done if you are a child or an alien with no cultural context. Recipes will say 'Until the juices run clear' or 'until pink in the middle' for a reason. Because that means it's cooked. And the result is that thermometers are just superfluous for most home cooking. They get used in commercial kitchens because in most countries you are required by law to heat meat to a set temperature before you can serve it. You don't just heat it until the temperature reaches a set point and call it cooked, you cook until it's right for the recipe, then double check it with a thermometer to comply with health regulations. When equipment is mandated by law then it shows up a lot, but I worked in kitchens for years and I never met a chef who used one at home. Why? Because knowing the temperature isn't that helpful for a lot of things. When you are cooking a big turkey or barbecuing chicken from raw then they can potentially be useful but using them correctly (which involves totally disinfecting the probe after every time you use it, and for meat with bones or different thicknesses you need to test a couple of times on each piece) is extremely time consuming. If you ever fail to properly wash the probe then you'll contaminate your cooked meat with uncooked bacteria. Also, if you only wait for the temperature to reach the legal limit and take it off you might kill the bacteria but you won't necessarily properly cook the meat. If you are cooking steak at home you really don't want to use a meat thermometer unless you want to cook it well done. Steaks are supposed to be unevenly cooked to make them tender and juicy and depending on thickness you can either ruin a steak waiting for the temperature in the middle, or serve it very rare. That's why commercial chefs cook for colour or texture then probe once before it hits the plate. Almost every other kind of meat you are going to cook until it's evenly cooked through and you don't need a thermometer to see if that's happened. Thermometers just aren't helping most of these processes. They are taking up time to tell you something you already know; they are a way to standardize something for the commercial industry that you'd never do at home, just like I'm sure you don't put out a wet floor sign when you mop at home. In theory a thermometer can make your cooking safer but our whole lives are about acceptable levels of risk. It's safer to never step out of your house, to never see the sun light or inhale unfiltered air. But just like with meat, the risks there are very small and having a happy, convenient life has to trump some abstract idea of safety at some point. You can make that call for yourself where the line is for you but don't call other people stupid for just cooking a damn steak how they like it. [[User:LostAlone|LostAlone]] ([[User talk:LostAlone|talk]]) 16:56, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

The last tip would result in the freezer door being very hard to open as it becomes jammed with ice. Try it! [[Special:Contributions/188.114.102.11|188.114.102.11]] 08:20, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
: That's not the tip. The tip is that there's a better way. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.155|108.162.249.155]] 23:19, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

i don't find it surprising that randall doesn't read viz. http://viz.co.uk/category/top-tips/ --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.34|141.101.98.34]] 11:38, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

But what is his better of way of making ice? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.85.241|141.101.85.241]] 14:13, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:Presumably installing a faucet ''inside'' the freezer. {{unsigned ip|141.101.88.224}}

Can we be sure that the title text is also from Cueball? [[User:Jkrstrt|Jkrstrt]] ([[User talk:Jkrstrt|talk]]) 14:19, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

My first inclination was that this was a meta joke on Randall's [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Category:My_Hobby My Hobby] series. The more I looked at it the more I think it is a progression from Practical to Impractical (Y-axis) and Plausible to Implausible (X-axis). It is both practical and plausible to check meat without a meat thermometer making the comment a true tip. However, assuming the title text is the implied ''last panel'', it is both impractical and implausible to stuff a whole roll of toilet paper down a toilet drain making the comment an imperative. --[[User:R0hrshach|R0hrshach]] ([[User talk:R0hrshach|talk]]) 15:43, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

I felt this was maybe a take on the whole "life-hacks" thing, most lifehacks are simple, and one would think, obvious. Some are a little less so, and some are just ridiculous.
We've become a society which has lost it's ability to solve things by thinking, and presumably the ability to pass on basic knowledge that has been known for years, instead we need to google, luckily there are people out there who will tell us what we need to know. [[User:6328915234|6328915234]] ([[User talk:6328915234|talk]]) 15:31, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
:You could have left it at the first paragraph, but no, you had to throw in a "Modern society is dumb, bluh bluh bleh" complaint. Neglecting the fact that it was the previous itineration of society that dropped the ball on passing down basic knowledge if anyone did, and apparently acting like checking Google is somehow inferior to older ways of finding out things. Go and Google how to get down off your high horse. -Pennpenn [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.162|108.162.250.162]] 03:11, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

This XKCD seems very similar to this recent episode of "The New Screensavers" in which Patrick Norton has a quick tip session about using a meat thermometer: https://youtu.be/AvN-9pOsnP8?t=1h9m47s Perhaps Randall watches the show? --[[User:Bkuhns|Bkuhns]] ([[User talk:Bkuhns|talk]]) 16:17, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Could 'easier on your plumbing' be interpreted as meaning that it's physically easier to wipe with sheets than a whole roll of paper? Just saying . . . {{unsigned ip|108.162.216.49}}
:Nope. Plumbing in this case probably refers to the regular usage of the word. I don't think Randall would try to imply an alternative meaning to the word so subtly where the normal meaning of the word fits so naturally. "It's much easier to use single sheets on your butt than it is to use a whole roll" vs "it's much easier for your toilet to handle single sheets than it is for it to handle a whole roll" [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.34|108.162.241.34]] 16:22, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

I really don't think the last bit in the explanation about Greece is really necessary as it doesn't really add anything to the explanation. Does anyone second? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.170|108.162.216.170]] 14:33, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
:Agreed. I can't really be sure why somebody thought it was important to include. I mean, I can somewhat see why it's relevant, but the way it was introduced is very jarring. You might say "This is economically impractical, and is prone to clogging the toilet and the plumbing, especially in Greece, where narrow-bore outflows from the toilet are used, and the user is required to dump the used toilet paper in a trashcan adjacent to the toilet instead of flushing it." [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.34|108.162.241.34]] 16:22, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
So I think these are also a commentary on the loss of once universal skills. Like how most people can't change a tire, drive a manual or do basic auto maintenance, let alone ride a horse, and many people can't prepare food w/out a microwave,
etc. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.141.58|172.68.141.58]] 15:10, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

2470: Next Slide Please

2021-05-31T23:55:59Z

162.158.126.52: /* Explanation */ Since some of these are letters or books, changing to attribution

{{comic
| number = 2470
| date = June 1, 2021
| title = Next Slide Please
| image = next_slide_please.png
| titletext = "I have nothing to offer but blood--next slide, please--toil--next slide, please--tears, and--next slide, please--sweat."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SLIDESHOW WITH -- NEXT SLIDE, PLEASE -- FAMOUS QUOTES ON IT. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic presumes that many famous quotes are actually excerpts from slideshow presentations, and the text they were reading was split across multiple slides. The person making the speech wasn't operating the slide projector, so they had to ask the operator to go to the next slide. The common way to ask this is to say "next slide, please", but these have been edited out of the historical transcripts. The comic imagines the places where the slide breaks might have been, and inserts that request.

{| class="wikitable"
!Quote
!Attribution
!Context
|-
| "Give me liberty or give me -- Next slide, please -- Death!"
| Patrick Henry, at the Second Virginia convention on march 23, 1775, as part of the revolutionary war against Great Britain.
|
|-
| "Mr. Gorbachev, Tear down -- Next slide, please -- this wall."
| Ronald Reagan, Berlin wall Speech.
|
|-
| "It was the best of times -- Next slide, please -- It was the worst of times
| A Tale of Two Cities.
|
|-
| "We have nothing to fear but -- Next slide, please -- fear itself."
| Inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, in 1933.
|
|-
| "To be or -- Next slide, please -- not to be, that is the question"
| Hamlet, a Shakespeare play.
|
|-
| "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art -- Next slide, please -- More lovely and -- Next slide, please -- more temperate."
| William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18.
| A sonnet is a type of love poem, and it requires rhyming and pacing. The inclusion of "Next Slide, please" would break said poetic flow.
|-
| "We shall fight -- Next slide, please -- on the beaches, we shall fight on -- Next slide, please -- the landing grounds..."
| Winston Churchill, World War II speech.
|
|-
| "Read my lips -- Next slide, please -- no new taxes."
| George H. W. Bush, spoken at 1988 Republican National Convention
|
|-
| "That's one small step for man -- Next slide, please -- one giant leap for mankind."
| Neil Armstrong, when he stepped off the Apollo 11 landing craft and onto the surface of the moon.
|
|-
| "Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears! Next slide, please. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him."
| Shakespeare's plays, a taking place after Julius Caesar suffered a few stab wounds.
|
|-
| " It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of -- Next slide, please -- a good fortune, must be in want of -- Next slide, please -- a wife."
| Intro to Pride and Prejudice, written by Jane Austin
|
|-
| "Veni, Vidi -- Velim, Pictura Proxima -- Vici."
| Caesar, in a letter after defeating Pharnaces II (47 BC)
|
|-
| "I have nothing to offer but blood--next slide, please--toil--next slide, please--tears, and--next slide, please--sweat."
| Winston Churchill
|
|}

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

{{comic discussion}}

2470: Next Slide Please

2021-05-31T23:55:29Z

162.158.126.52:

{{comic
| number = 2470
| date = June 1, 2021
| title = Next Slide Please
| image = next_slide_please.png
| titletext = "I have nothing to offer but blood--next slide, please--toil--next slide, please--tears, and--next slide, please--sweat."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SLIDESHOW WITH -- NEXT SLIDE, PLEASE -- FAMOUS QUOTES ON IT. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic presumes that many famous quotes are actually excerpts from slideshow presentations, and the text they were reading was split across multiple slides. The person making the speech wasn't operating the slide projector, so they had to ask the operator to go to the next slide. The common way to ask this is to say "next slide, please", but these have been edited out of the historical transcripts. The comic imagines the places where the slide breaks might have been, and inserts that request.

{| class="wikitable"
!Quote
!Speaker
!Context
|-
| "Give me liberty or give me -- Next slide, please -- Death!"
| Patrick Henry, at the Second Virginia convention on march 23, 1775, as part of the revolutionary war against Great Britain.
|
|-
| "Mr. Gorbachev, Tear down -- Next slide, please -- this wall."
| Ronald Reagan, Berlin wall Speech.
|
|-
| "It was the best of times -- Next slide, please -- It was the worst of times
| A Tale of Two Cities.
|
|-
| "We have nothing to fear but -- Next slide, please -- fear itself."
| Inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, in 1933.
|
|-
| "To be or -- Next slide, please -- not to be, that is the question"
| Hamlet, a Shakespeare play.
|
|-
| "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art -- Next slide, please -- More lovely and -- Next slide, please -- more temperate."
| William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18.
| A sonnet is a type of love poem, and it requires rhyming and pacing. The inclusion of "Next Slide, please" would break said poetic flow.
|-
| "We shall fight -- Next slide, please -- on the beaches, we shall fight on -- Next slide, please -- the landing grounds..."
| Winston Churchill, World War II speech.
|
|-
| "Read my lips -- Next slide, please -- no new taxes."
| George H. W. Bush, spoken at 1988 Republican National Convention
|
|-
| "That's one small step for man -- Next slide, please -- one giant leap for mankind."
| Neil Armstrong, when he stepped off the Apollo 11 landing craft and onto the surface of the moon.
|
|-
| "Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears! Next slide, please. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him."
| Shakespeare's plays, a taking place after Julius Caesar suffered a few stab wounds.
|
|-
| " It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of -- Next slide, please -- a good fortune, must be in want of -- Next slide, please -- a wife."
| Intro to Pride and Prejudice, written by Jane Austin
|
|-
| "Veni, Vidi -- Velim, Pictura Proxima -- Vici."
| Caesar, in a letter after defeating Pharnaces II (47 BC)
|
|-
| "I have nothing to offer but blood--next slide, please--toil--next slide, please--tears, and--next slide, please--sweat."
| Winston Churchill
|
|}

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

{{comic discussion}}

2470: Next Slide Please

2021-05-31T23:00:48Z

162.158.126.52:

2464: Muller's Ratchet

2021-05-18T00:47:27Z

162.158.126.52: Added Wikipedia link for Muller's Ratchet.

{{comic
| number = 2464
| date = May 17, 2021
| title = Muller's Ratchet
| image = mullers_ratchet.png
| titletext = Who knew you could learn so much about sexual reproduction from looking at pictures on the internet!
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Made with SWORDAPP. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
In this comic, Randall reviews a passage explaining the internet with terms associated with evolution.

In this comic, the constant resharing and changing of popular photos is used to explain evolutionary processes, namely [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muller%27s_ratchet Muller's Ratchet] and recombination.

Recombination is the combination of genetic material from chromosomes, shuffling genes during meiosis. In this case, it is being compared to shuffling and recombining aspects of an edited digital image.

Sometimes, genetic mutation can create better genes - like the sword being given to the squirrel in the image. Other changes remove or degrade from the genetic history, without apparent detriment, just because the circumstances do not currently confer any significant advantage to it. If the 'lost' ability is perhaps useful in dealing with an infrequent environmental stress then the loss of its utility might be felt a generation or two later.

With recombination, useful novel changes can be shuffled into the population without necessarily bringing in a less useful mutation, creating descendents with both the obvious advantages (a sword) and the previously more established resilience (the fuller frame).

The degradation of digital images has previously been explored in [[1683: Digital Data]].

The title text has a double meaning, referring both to the ways these particular images on the Internet illustrate these evolutionary processes (which are driven by the mechanisms of biological reproduction, including sexual reproduction) and to the amount of erotic imagery illustrating the mechanics of sexual activity one might find on the Internet.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[A caption sits above a slightly greyed-out photo of Hairbun holding out a squirrel to Cueball, who has his hand over his face and is leaning away. Below are arrows leading to much smaller variations of the photo, all altered in some way.]
:[From left to right: Image with the sides cropped and black text bordered by white in the bottom center; image with black text in white box with black border above squirrel, on Hairbun, and on Cueball; image identical to the original but with softer edges; image cropped around all sides to exclude all negative space around frame, with white text bordered by black near the top and bottom center; image cropped to cut out half of Hairbun and Cueball's legs and featuring the squirrel holding a sword out at Cueball; image same as the original except with black text bordered by white on top of the squirrel, Hairbun, and Cueball; and image blurred out and at low resolution with black text in white oval on top of Hairbun and Cueball.]
:Caption: When a photo goes around on social media, people create lots of new versions of it.

:[A larger depiction of an image altered to cut out some of Hairbun and Cueball's legs and the squirrel holding a sword to the left of a caption, with a faint, shadowed wordmark saying "Made with ''SwordApp'']
:Caption: Sometimes, one of the edited versions becomes more popular and supplants the original. But often, the new version isn't made from the best copy of the image. It may be pixelated, cropped, or watermarked.
:[The same image appears with a grey box around it showing the cropped-out areas and an arrow pointing into it saying "lost". To the left is a caption.]
:Caption: As long as those flaws are minor enough that they don't cancel out the big change, the new version can still win out. Each good change brings with it random background damage. The degradation only goes one way. Once an image is cropped, its descendents will be, too. This steady loss of information is called '''''Muller's Ratchet'''''.
:[The original photo and the edited replacement are side-by-side, with the original on the right and the replacement on the left. The area above the squirrel where the sword is shown in the replacement is circled with a dotted line in both images. In the original, the area inside is greyed out, and in the replacement, the entire image is greyed out except for that area.]
:[Arrows point from the emphasized parts of both images to a new photo below that combines the original image with the sword from the replacement. A caption sits to the left.]
:Caption: But there's a solution. The old versions are still around, so if you have an image editor that lets you splice together parts of two images, you can make a new version with the best parts of both. This process is called '''''recombination...''''']
:[All previous panels are grouped in one big box, with a caption below the entire frame]
:Caption: People use evolutionary metaphors to explain the spread of internet content, but at this point we have so much more experience with the internet that I feel like it often makes more sense the other way around.

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:466: Moving

2021-04-03T19:05:14Z

162.158.126.52:

A problem greatly lessened since this comic by the proliferation of phones which also act as hotspots. {{unsigned ip|108.162.221.64}}

You know, [[Megan]] never ''says'' that the neighbors don't have {{w|internet}}. Just saying. [[User:SilverMagpie|SilverMagpie]] ([[User talk:SilverMagpie|talk]]) 23:37, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
:...What was I ''SAYING''??? (SilverMagpie here; login seems to be broken) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.126|162.158.106.126]] 02:43, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
:...I think what you were getting at, SilverMagpie, was an error in the page back in 2017. Look at the history and you'll see the page was written so that Megan said the neighbors didn't have internet, but she never did say that, and you're pointing out the error. Someone else came along and fixed it later.

Talk:1815: Flag

2017-03-27T10:16:46Z

162.158.126.52:

Makes me wonder why he was doing this at 5:48 pm.
--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.190|108.162.249.190]] 20:56, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

A vote for me is a vote for bread on every table and a [https://smile.amazon.com/Off-Be-Wizard-Magic-2-0/dp/1612184715/ 73% battery level] until the end of time! [[User:Jameslucas|jameslucas]] ([[User talk:Jameslucas|" "]] / [[Special:Contributions/Jameslucas|+]]) 14:02, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Given that the design is a screenshot, the flag could be part of an existing logo, e.g. of a U.S. sport association.--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.150.82|162.158.150.82]] 14:15, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

The comic states "our NEW country" so I removed the theory it could be a new US flag.
The most recent sovereign state, according to Wikipedia, is South Sudan created in 2011 so we could assume Randall never intended to talk about a real-life country [[Special:Contributions/162.158.234.28|162.158.234.28]] 14:25, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

:It could be referring to new country proposals by techno-libertarians and the like? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading] -[[User:Jules.LT|Jules.LT]] ([[User talk:Jules.LT|talk]]) 14:32, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
:: for instance https://www.cnet.com/news/asgardia-will-be-a-new-nation-in-space-and-you-can-be-a-citizen/ [[User:WhiteDragon|WhiteDragon]] ([[User talk:WhiteDragon|talk]]) 14:44, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Note that official flags have an aspect ratio of 3:2 (with a few exceptions, like Switzerland and Nepal). The proposed flag including the notification bar measures 474 x 316 pixels (3*158 x 2*158 pixels), following the standard. If one removes the notification bar the resulting flag is somewhat wider than the standard. [[Special:Contributions/188.114.110.250|188.114.110.250]] 15:06, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
:Those "few" exceptions include 106 of the 189 or so sovereign states. Even that overstates the popularity of 3:2 since some nations have multiple different official flag specifications for different uses or users. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.21|162.158.62.21]] 15:29, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

According to [https://developer.apple.com/ios/human-interface-guidelines/ui-bars/status-bars/ Apple's own documentation], this kind of bar is referred to as a "status bar", and not a "notification bar". --[[User:Jonhaugen|Jonhaugen]] ([[User talk:Jonhaugen|talk]]) 15:28, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

:Key word: Apple. Notification bar is a term used more commonly in Android, largely from the time Android had a pull down notification tray and iOS didn't. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.28|162.158.34.28]] 02:02, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Since the screenshot is part of the editing process, I don't think this can be interpreted as a mistake. It probably is entirely deliberate. The joke relies on the fact that most of the times when this bar appears, it is a side effect of the way the relevant data (the rest of the image) has been obtained, rather than part of the information itself. Actually, not only can the bar be ignored most of the time, but this is so often true that some people may not pay any attention to it at all. The committee's mistake might not have been that they failed to understand that Randall actually meant for the bar to be there, they might have not noticed it at all (even more likely if they looked at the image in full screen on a similar device). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.88.184|141.101.88.184]] 16:08, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

The real reason for firing him would most probably be that he made the committee and any decision making bodies up the chain look unprofessional. He may have missed it or intentionally trolled them, but it seems the status bar made it through the committee and all the way to becoming official without getting noticed. That sort of publicity will result in heads rolling, starting with the easiest target, the designer (depending on the state maybe literally, but if he was just fired it's probably not that type of system).--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.102.76|162.158.102.76]] 18:07, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

What kind of barbaric country still relies on 3G? It's like we're going back to the stone age!

I think this new flag represents a part of USA (3 states) that has either split with the rest due to the current president or are the three states that was left after the other 47 left. This makes sense with Randall's views of Trump and the colour stars and stripes is so clearly a reference to the Stars and Stripes also given Randall is from the states and as he was asked to make the flag. Maybe it is Massechusets, Conneticut and New York that had formed an independent country? ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:30, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

:The United States of Macutny had better be prepared for a long war with the remaining USA over access to Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. - [[User:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For]] ([[User talk:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|talk]]) 20:28, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Is the notification bar a standard one for some OS or common system, or has Randall invented it? Probably not an interesting comment, but I'm curious if that layout actually exists. Would seem an awful waste of screen real-estate devoting a third of the bar to an almost meaningless "signal strength" metric -- [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.109|162.158.154.109]] 20:29, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

:The bar is the one redesigned in iOS 7. The off-white coloration, layout, and even the specific icons beside the battery display are taken from that interface. The issue with the wasted space of the cellular strength meter is even worse on an actual device, where the name of your service provider (or the word "iPad" on, well, an iPad) is also displayed at all times. [[User talk:AgentMuffin|~AgentMuffin]]

[https://o.lgm.cl/xkcd1815/ A construction sheet for the XKCD 1815 flag] (excluding notification bar)[[User:Locoluis|Locoluis]] ([[User talk:Locoluis|talk]]) 22:32, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Has anybody noticed that the flag perfectly represents the overall politican division of the current US with the blue states on the coast, and the red states in the middle? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.38|162.158.155.38]] 08:59, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Is it just me but the 39% could be a take on the current approval rating of the US president and the 3G to the 3 branches of government?[[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.52|162.158.126.52]] 10:16, 27 March 2017 (UTC)