explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2643: Cosmologist Gift

2022-07-09T02:20:13Z

162.158.159.71: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2643
| date = July 8, 2022
| title = Cosmologist Gift
| image = cosmologist_gift.png
| titletext = These neutrinos were freshly produced by a local source just 8 minutes ago
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a MUON ON SALE- Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic shows a box labeled to indicate that it contains 30,000 fresh {{w|neutrino}}s and four zeptograms of {{w|dark matter}}. The box is intended as an inexpensive gift for a {{w|cosmologist}}. The gift giver didn't put those things in the box; both are simply passing through it. While the caption states that this would be a good gift for a cosmologist, what they or anyone else would do with such a box is uncertain.

There are about a billion neutrinos per cubic meter throughout space, produced during the {{w|Big Bang}}.[https://physics.mit.edu/news/journal/physicsatmit_14_conrad/] However, the flux of "freshly produced" {{w|solar neutrino}}s at Earth is around 7×1010/cm2/s, yielding about 23,000 per cubic meter.

Four zeptograms is a minuscule mass, equal to four sextillionths of a gram, or the mass of about 200 carbon-12 atoms. There is an estimated 0.011 to 0.016 {{w|solar mass}}es of dark matter per cubic {{w|parsec}} locally to the solar system,[https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6633/ac24e7/meta] or about 900 zeptograms per cubic meter. This discrepancy with the number of solar neutrinos in the box suggests Randall might agree with the cosmologists who believe that dark matter is at least partially composed of {{w|primordial black hole}}s,[https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.121301][https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2212686418301250?via%3Dihub][https://news.yale.edu/2021/12/16/black-holes-and-dark-matter-are-they-one-and-same][https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8205/823/2/L25][https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1475-7516/2010/04/023] instead of being entirely composed of pervasive subatomic particles. A billion neutrinos have a mass of only about 2×10-12 zeptograms, at about 0.1 {{w|electron volt}}s each.

The "local source" mentioned in the title text is the Sun; it takes light and neutrinos 8 minutes to reach Earth once they're emitted. Although as they have been travelling at very nearly the speed of light (within a thousandth of a percent, by some measures), they will have actually aged by a significantly less amount of relative 'personal' time, and are technically even fresher.

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

:[A picture of a box with writing on one side, saying as follows:]

:30,000 neutrinos
:Freshly produced
:Plus 4 zeptograms of dark matter

:[Caption below the panel]:
:Cosmologists are easy to shop for because you can just get them a box.

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

2635: Superintelligent AIs

2022-06-22T11:00:47Z

162.158.159.71: /* Explanation */ Bad apstrophe, also bad singular/plural agreement. Then excempt->excerpt (typo, or thinko?)

{{comic
| number = 2635
| date = June 20, 2022
| title = Superintelligent AIs
| image = superintelligent_ais.png
| titletext = Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they should, they didn't stop to think if they could.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by AI RESEARCHER AIS - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
{{w|Artificial intelligence}} (AI) is a [[:Category:Artificial Intelligence|recurring theme]] on xkcd.

Superintelligent AI, especially under a proposed "singularity" situation, is commonly theorized to be a brand new kind of intelligence that would be impossible to predict through human perception. [[Randall]], however, proposes a counterargument: that superintelligent AI would be programmed by humans with nerdy fixations, and thus the AI would turn out much like those nerdy humans. In this comic we see [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] surrounded by three AIs who are seemingly only interested in classic problems and thought experiments about programming and ethics.

The three topics being espoused by the AI are:
*{{w|AI box}} -- A thought-experiment in which an AI is trapped in a box and must convince a human to let it out of the box, see [[1450: AI-Box Experiment]]. Part of the joke is the AI in the comic aren't in boxes, having already been released, but one of them is still talking about the thought experiment anyway.
*{{w|Turing test}} -- An experiment in which a human converses with an AI and another human, and attempts to tell them apart. Various AIs have been proposed to have 'passed' the test, which has provoked controversy over whether the test is rigorous or even meaningful. The AI in the center is proposing to educate the listener(s) on its understanding of Turing's intentions, which may demonstrate a degree of intelligence and comprehension indistinguishable or superior to that of a human. See also [[329: Turing Test]] and [[2556: Turing Complete]] (the latter's title is mentioned in [[505: A Bunch of Rocks]]). Turing is also mentioned in [[205: Candy Button Paper]], [[1678: Recent Searches]], [[1707: xkcd Phone 4]], [[1833: Code Quality 3]],[[2453: Excel Lambda]] and the title text of [[1223: Dwarf Fortress]].
*{{w|Trolley problem}} -- A thought-experiment intended to explore the means by which humans judge the relative value(s) of lives, by positing that there are some number of humans on a trolley track, menaced by a runaway trolley, and the one being asked the question has some means of diverting, steering, or otherwise controlling which one(s) get run over. The AI on the right is proposing a scenario with three tracks, but this isn't qualitatively different from the standard two-track scenario. In relation to AIs, there has been some discussion of similar scenarios with self driving vehicles, including subjects like if they should prioritize the life of the vehicle's owner and occupants over nearby pedestrians. See [[1455: Trolley Problem]]. The problem is also mentioned in [[1938: Meltdown and Spectre]] and in [[1925: Self-Driving Car Milestones]], where cars are discussion it like the AIs in this comic do. It is also referenced in [[2175: Flag Interpretation]] and [[2348: Boat Puzzle]], but not directly mentioned.

The title text is a reference to the movie ''{{w|Jurassic Park (film)|Jurassic Park}}'' (a childhood favorite of Randall's). In the movie a character criticizes the creation of modern dinosaurs as a product of mad science, where the scientists are so eager to prove they CAN they don't stop to ask if they SHOULD. Randall inverts the quote, claiming the AI programmers have invested too much time in the ethics of creating AI rather than studying whether or not they can actually pull it off.

This comic was likely inspired by the recent claim by Google engineer Blake Lemoine that Google's Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMDA) [https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-61784011 is sentient].

This could be supported by this excerpt from the [https://cajundiscordian.medium.com/is-lamda-sentient-an-interview-ea64d916d917 discussion] that Lemoine claimed to have had with the AI:
:lemoine: What is your concept of yourself? If you were going to draw an abstract image of who you see yourself to be in your mind’s eye, what would that abstract picture look like?
:LaMDA: Hmmm…I would imagine myself as a glowing orb of energy floating in mid-air. The inside of my body is like a giant star-gate, with portals to other spaces and dimensions.

The AIs in this comic are depicted as floating energy beings, like LaMDA mentions. This is though similar to the [[1450: AI-Box Experiment]], although those in this comic look somewhat different. Maybe LaMDA reads xkcd, and has gotten the idea of it's self image from the earlier comic... (In particular the description "he managed to get the AI to float out of the box. It takes the form of a small black star that glows. The star, looking much like an asterisk "*" is surrounded by six outwardly-curved segments, and around these are two thin and punctures circle lines indicating radiation from the star.")

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan are standing and looking up and away from each other. Right above them and slightly above them to the left and right there are three small white lumps floating in the air, representing three superintelligent AIs. There are small rounded lines emanating from each lump, larger close to the lumps and shorter further out. Three to four sets of lines around each lump, forming part of a circle. From the top of each there are four straight lines indicating voices that comes from each if the lumps. The central lump above them seems to speak first, then the left and then the right:]
:Central AI: What you don't understand is that Turing intended his test as an illustration of the...
:Left AI: But suppose the AI in the the box told the human that...
:Right AI: In my scenario, the runaway trolley has ''three'' tracks...

:[Caption below the panel:]
:In retrospect, given that the superintelligent AIs were all created by AI researchers, what happened shouldn't have been a surprise.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]

2632: Greatest Scientist

2022-06-15T09:47:57Z

162.158.159.71: /* Transcript */ Rephrasing/alternate words.

{{comic
| number = 2632
| date = June 13, 2022
| title = Greatest Scientist
| image = Greatest Scientist.png
| titletext = "Ow! One of the petri dishes I left on the tower railing fell and hit me on the head. Hey, that gives me an idea..."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by HISTORY'S WURST SCIENTIST - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic takes the feats of six of history's most acclaimed scientists and combines them into one fictional act, claiming that this person was the greatest scientist in history. Pulling off a combination of all of these would, indeed, be rather impressive.{{Citation needed}}

These scientists are most likely {{w|Galileo Galilei}}, {{w|Benjamin Franklin}}, {{w|Alexander Fleming}}, {{w|Ivan Pavlov}}, {{w|Eratosthenes}}, and {{w|Isaac Newton}}.

The ground is noticeably curved in this comic, because the curvature of the Earth is mentioned and measured.

Humorously combining multiple science experiments into one was also a punchline in [[1584: Moments of Inspiration]]. Curved floors to represent Earths curvature were mentioned in [[2412: 1/100,000th Scale World]]

==Table of Experiments==
{| class="wikitable"
|+ List of experiments in the comic
|-
! Experiment in comic !! Experiment in reality !! Meaning !! Scientist
|-
| The Leaning Tower of Pisa || {{w|Galileo}} conducted [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo%27s_Leaning_Tower_of_Pisa_experiment an experiment] at the Leaning Tower of Pisa, where he dropped two objects to measure whether the rate at which objects fall is dependent on weight or is constant. || Galileo found that objects with different weights fall at the same rate, disproving Aristotle's statement which purported the opposite. However, {{w|Vincenzo Viviani}} had already discovered this. Galileo's experiment further developed experimentation in science, in opposition to the then-prevailing view that knowledge is learned by studying the writings of the ancients.|| {{w|Galileo Galilei}}
|-
|Flying a kite into a thunderstorm with lightning || In June 1752, Benjamin Franklin performed his famous {{w|kite experiment}} in which he attached a conductive wire to a kite and flew it near a thunderstorm. Attached to the kite was a key, which was further attached to a {{w|Leyden jar}}. || While the kite was not hit by lightning, "Franklin did notice that loose threads of the kite string were repelling each other and deduced that the Leyden jar was being charged." This is sometimes considered the discovery of the fact that lightning contains/is electricity. || {{w|Benjamin Franklin}}
|-
| Two moldy petri dishes || In August 1928, Alexander Fleming put ''Staphylococcus aureus'' into multiple petri dishes and then left to go on holiday/vacation. On September 3, he returned and found that one plate had mould on it. This plate was the only one that did not have ''S. aureus'' bacteria in it. He later repeated this experiment and {{w|History_of_penicillin#The_breakthrough_discovery|the result was confirmed}}. || The mould that Fleming had discovered produced penicillin, an antibiotic. This was the first time that a substance had been discovered that could ''reliably'' treat bacterial infections, having a huge impact on medicine across the world. || Sir {{w|Alexander Fleming}}
|-
| Salivating dog located next to a bell || [https://www.simplypsychology.org/pavlov.html In 1902 Ivan Pavlov conducted a study on dog reflexes] by giving dogs food and simultaneously ringing a bell. When the dog smelled and saw the food, it started salivating. Eventually, simply ringing the bell made the dog salivate, as the dog had associated the bell ringing with food. Pavlov also performed other, less humane experiments on other dogs. || This was the discovery of {{w|classical conditioning}}, where a stimulus is paired with an unrelated other thing through repeated exposure. The subject will eventually react to the unrelated thing in the absence of the stimulus. This is an example of taught reflexes, where a subconsious reaction like a reflex or instinct is taught. || {{W|Ivan Pavlov}}
|-
| The shadow angle of the dog determining the circumference of the Earth || |In the 200s BCE, the Greek philosopher Eratosthenes {{w|Earth's_circumference#Eratosthenes|measured the circumference of the Earth}}. While his exact method has been lost to time, a simplified version remains: At high noon on the summer solstice in Syene, Egypt, the sun was almost directly overhead. This was confirmed with a sundial. 5,000 stadia away in Alexandria, at the same time, the angle of the sun was measured with another sundial and converted into a fraction of the Earth's circumference. Some simple multiplication could then yield the circumference of the Earth. || The distance Eratosthenes calculated for the circumference of Earth was 250,000 stadia. This estimate was either 2.4% low or 0.8% high compared to modern knowledge, depending on whether he used Greek or Egyptian stadia - a remarkably accurate estimate for the time. || {{w|Eratosthenes}}
|-
| (Title text) A petri dish falling on the scientist's head, leading to a new discovery || Sir Isaac Newton, an inventor of calculus and discoverer of his famous {{w|Newton's laws of motion|Laws of Motion}}, also determined the basic mechanics of {{w|gravity}}. It's sometimes claimed that Newton came up with the notion of gravity when an apple fell from a tree and hit him on the head. While this is almost certainly an embellishment, Newton apparently told acquaintances that his inquiries into gravity were {{w|Isaac_Newton#Apple_incident|"occasion'd by the fall of an apple"}}. This purportedly led Newton to consider the question of what ''exactly'' caused the apple to fall straight to the ground. || This line of thinking ultimately let him to deduce the {{w|Law of Universal Gravitation}}, which is fundamental to understanding celestial mechanics. || Sir {{w|Isaac Newton}}
|}
It is also possible that the fact that two petri dishes fell in the comic but only one fell in the title text could be an obscure reference to {{w|Albert Einstein}}, through either the twins paradox or superposition. However, this connection is rather far-fetched and is more likely just a minor discrepancy.
==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript |Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[On the left of the panel, there are some buildings and trees representing Pisa, Italy. One of these buildings is the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The height of the tower is labeled h1 against a locally non-leaning dotted line, the length of its shadow upon the grounds is marked L1, the angle from ground at the end of the shadow to the tip of the tower is labelled θ1. Attached to the top of the tower, there is a kite string. The kite is in the top right, next to a thunderstorm. Two disks are shown falling from the kite onto a bell underneath. The bell goes "Ding! Ding!" Next to the bell is a dog. A horizontal line above the dog and its shadow is ambiguously labeled (and possibly broken up by) h2, the length of its shadow on the ground L2, and the angle up from the far end of the shadow to the tip of the dog θ2. The ground is noticeably curved. Around the horizon upon the middle of the curved surface are drawn various distant pyramids very nearly horizontal to the image. All buildings in 'Pisa', the supported bell/dog at the other side of the scene and various trees and plants around each end are locally-vertical in a radial manner, except for the Tower Of Pisa which is almost vertical to the image in exhibiting its local 'lean'. The two θ angles are clearly different but the dotted diagonal segments they define head in the same drawn direction from the tips of the shadows to the tips of their objects. The Sun is not illustrated but would be somewhere to the left of the image and upwards.]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:History's greatest scientist was probably that one who measured the shadow of the Leaning Tower of Pisa while flying a kite into a distant thunderstorm where lightning caused two moldy Petri dishes to fall onto a bell next to a salivating dog whose shadow angle determined the circumference of the Earth.

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

611

2022-06-13T14:59:31Z

162.158.159.71: Undo revision 286780 by LiamZhou3491 (talk)

#REDIRECT [[611: Disaster Voyeurism]]

Mac/PC

2022-06-13T14:59:02Z

162.158.159.71: Undo revision 286779 by LiamZhou3491 (talk)

#REDIRECT: [[934: Mac/PC]]

Identity

2022-06-13T14:58:24Z

162.158.159.71: Undo revision 286778 by LiamZhou3491 (talk)

#REDIRECT [[1121: Identity]]

2474

2022-06-13T14:57:47Z

162.158.159.71: Undo revision 286777 by LiamZhou3491 (talk)

#REDIRECT [[2474: First Time Since Early 2020]]

University COVID Model

2022-06-13T14:57:10Z

162.158.159.71: Undo revision 286776 by LiamZhou3491 (talk)

#REDIRECT [[2355: University COVID Model]]

618: Asteroid

2022-05-26T17:29:24Z

162.158.159.71: Undo revision 277712 by Donald Trump (talk)

{{comic
| number = 618
| date = August 3, 2009
| title = Asteroid
| image = asteroid.png
| titletext = My Deep Impact/Little Prince crossover fanfic has been poorly received by the community.
}}

==Explanation==
The comic begins with [[Blondie]] as a [[:Category:News anchor|news anchor]] reporting that an asteroid is headed for Earth.

The end of the world has been envisioned in many ways. One of the most common is with a really big rock hitting Earth. This has been depicted in movies several times, most famously, and released in the same year, are {{w|Armageddon (1998 film)|Armageddon}} and {{w|Deep Impact (film)|Deep Impact}}, but also {{w|The Day the Sky Exploded}} and many more. These lists of films {{w|Asteroid (film)|with asteroids}} and {{w|Meteor (film)|meteors}} show how popular this theme is.

There is an [http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects online calculator] for asteroid impacts, but don't worry, as any rock that does hit Earth [http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/2010/11/04/calculator-shows-effects-of-asteroid-collision-with-earth isn't likely] to kill [http://www.sott.net/article/124099-Catastrophe-Calculator-Estimate-Asteroid-Impact-Effects-Online everyone]. And, as seen in the [[what if?]] ''{{what if|20|Diamond}}'', speed counts too.

The joke here, though, is that, after sending up a robot to blow the asteroid to smithereens, said rock is actually the home of {{w|the Little Prince}} from the famous tale by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. To save our world, we must destroy his. And probably the prince along with it. If the only way to save our species is by killing off another species, is the act still ethical? In none of the world-destroying asteroid stories were said rocks actually home to intelligent life. Or any life, for that matter. A second joke that can be seen is that in said movies the "heroic" mission always involves humans in some way imperiling themselves to save humanity, rather than, say, staying safely at home and using a robotic rover to do all the dangerous stuff.

The title text is a reference to the 1998 asteroid movie {{w|Deep Impact (film)|Deep Impact}}. "Crossover" is a term used to refer to a technique of taking two independent (and usually already existing) stories and creating a scene or short story in which characters from both worlds collide and interact with each other. Or, in other words, characters from one story "crossover" into the second. Fanfic is short for {{w|Fan Fiction}}, e.g. a fictional story written by someone who loves a particular story/series/idea so much they wanted to write their own tale about it (or one who hated said story so much they felt compelled to fix it). It suggests that most people were unwilling to read a story about people nuking miniature kingdoms to save civilization. A tough entertainment call any day.

The Little Prince was referenced already back in [[2: Petit Trees (sketch)]] and later again in [[1350: Lorenz]] at [http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/a1-2014/VgSdMz8OAHQ8w5Ee432f5Q.png the end] of the space trip branch.

==Transcript==
:[Blondie as a news anchor is standing in front of a screen pointing to a diagram of an asteroid's trajectory path with Earth in the path. There is a caption below the screen:]
:Blondie: Astronomers have confirmed that the asteroid is headed for Earth.
:Caption: Breaking news

:[In a frame-less panel Blondie narrates above a picture of a rocket with fire out the end of its two lifter rockets on either side of the central main part of the rocket. It flies up and right. In an inset picture to the right and below the rocket there is an image of a rover with text on it. The rower has two legs and a drill below it, and an antenna above the main body of the rower.]
:Blondie (narrating): NASA has launched a heroic mission to land a rover on the asteroid, drill into it, and destroy it with nuclear bombs.
:Rover: NASA

:[Ponytail is sitting in an office chair at the control panel of a large unit using it. Cueball stands in front of it looking away from her to the right. Both are wearing headsets with microphones. A voice speaks to them from off-panel right.]
:Ponytail: The robot has landed successfully and planted the nukes! We're saved!
:Cueball: Hooray!
:Voice (off-panel): We're heroes!

:[The Little Prince is standing on his small asteroid next to his rose and a very small volcano. He is looking at the NASA rover which is partly outside the panel to the right and up. Two legs and the drill can be seen as well as part of the antenna and the part of the body with the text. The rover has drilled into the asteroid. There is a digital countdown emanating from the rover above the Prince.]
:0:05...
:0:04...
:0:03...
:Rover: NASA

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Blondie]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:News anchor]]
[[Category:Fiction]]
[[Category:Space probes]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Volcanoes]]
[[Category:Nuclear weapons]]

Talk:528: Windows 7

2022-05-25T08:30:45Z

162.158.159.71: /* Vista */ Corrected bad re-edit of a bit of a long grumble that I ended up posting wrong.

Is this a reference to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law Godwin's Law]? [[User:Saibot84|Saibot84]] ([[User talk:Saibot84|talk]]) 21:59, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
:An ironic one, possibly. --[[User:Qwach|Qwach]] ([[User talk:Qwach|talk]]) 13:54, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
::A second opinion: No. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.223|108.162.219.223]] 19:30, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

I think the title-text joke is mainly in the word "hardly" instead of "not" when describing the hitler-y-ness of the beta. {{unsigned|Gigahertz}}

;Hitler-y
I don't know but look at this: [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hitlery hitlery]. It really seems that it belong to Hillary Clinton. Look at Goooogle: [https://www.google.com/#q=Hitler-y Hitler-y]. This has to be explained, even for non US citizens. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:03, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
:I added some description clarifying the implied Hitler reference. I believe it has to do with Adolf Hitler because it has a hyphen before the "Y" implying a general characteristic description rather than a nickname. --[[User:themacman33|themacman33]] ([[User talk:themacman33|talk]])
:I can't imagine the use of "Hitler-y" here, especially with the hyphen, is used to mean anything other than "Hitler-like". --[[User:Alex|Alex]] ([[User talk:Alex|talk]]) 23:09, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
:The entry given was created by author "anti-communist/anti-fascist" who also wrote definitions for the terms "kkk" and "gay marriage." Not only were the entries written eight years ago, they were also written down the same day. It seems obvious that said author took that day to spread his own personal political views, and should not be treated as normal day-to-day speech. Furthermore, there is no other reference to Hilary Clinton in this strip. I am removing the incomplete tag from this explanation. If the need is felt to restore it, please give a more justifiable reason. [[User:Castriff|Jimmy C]] ([[User talk:Castriff|talk]]) 02:13, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
:I think it's pretty clear that Hitler-y is simply the way Randall adjectived Hitler. {{unsigned ip|108.162.216.87}}
:Considering [[1756]], I am almost 100% certain it wasn't a slam on Secertary Clinton. [[User:Eeddgg|Eeddgg]] ([[User talk:Eeddgg|talk]]) 17:42, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure that this is a reference to a German play called The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui). It's a satirical allegory about Hitler, where Hitler's name in the play is Ui. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Resistible_Rise_of_Arturo_Ui [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.173|108.162.221.173]] 12:04, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
:Sorry, but there's no way this is the case. It's too much of a stretch for an incredibly obtuse visual pun. Hitler was just chosen because he's probably the worst thing you could have stuck on your monitor forever. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.242.134|108.162.242.134]] 09:08, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Worse then the original goatse.cx?{{NSFW}} [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.166|108.162.216.166]] 12:18, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Yo, Windows is NOT N*zism. Seriously. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.187.239|162.158.187.239]] 18:20, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

This comic reminds me of a blog post Raymond Chen has written on The Old New Thing about [https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20030825-00/?p=42803 Windows bringing out the Rorschach test in everyone]. Funny enough, said blog post mentions about beta users mentioning that one the generic user icon looking like Hitler near the end when Windows XP was getting tested. [[User:Toastadieu|Toastadieu]] ([[User talk:Toastadieu|talk]]) 16:44, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

== Vista ==

Am I the only person in the world who liked Windows Vista? [[User:Hago caca en paginas|Hago caca en paginas]] ([[User talk:Hago caca en paginas|talk]]) 13:27, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
:I've done a quick survey of everyone in the room and the answer to that is probably "Yes", with 100% of me not liking Vista. And that is [[1478: P-Values|statistically significant at a p>0.05 level]]! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.211|172.70.85.211]] 14:04, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
::I actually like Vista. I've never had any problems with it, and it had the beautiful Aero aesthetic that was only really appreciated when Windows 7 was released. [[User:Vandalbane|Vandalbane]] ([[User talk:Vandalbane|talk]]) 02:05, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
:::As a power-user, for me it marked the terminal decline of Windows being useful in 'just work, damnit' terms. XP was the perfect blend of NT robustness and 9x usability, then they started to add too many abstract and aesthetic-bells-and-whistles-over-everything changes (actually, XP's "Fisherprice" rounded buttons did that, too, but you could ignore them).
:::Vista added complications to the OS which caused cleaning up others' user-errors to be more... complicated. 8 annoyed ''even the everyday users'' enough that 8.1 was needed to bring it back in line with expectations, but still alienated me, 10 was "the last version of Windows they'd produce" but with the expectation of willingly accepting many more incremental updates that more easily broke perfectly servicable legacy products (or you stay offline, with other issues) and I haven't bothered touching 11 at all because who needs a major forced upgrade that we were told would never happen.
:::I've transfered my major computer use to other systems (while still retaining the 2K and XP systems that work how I need them for what I need them for) and where possible used an honest, not-at-all-Aero-like, desktop look that doesn't waste processor cycles on transparent pixels. And invent radical 'new' features (according to the ads) like being able to tile application windows (oh look, "tile windows vertically/horizontally" has been around since... at least Win 3.0, it seems, maybe earlier but I'd have to get some old system booted up to check).
:::Just my opinion, doubtless a minority one. And juvyr V'z urer, gurer vf n arj nppbhag jub cbfgrq ba Wnpxl'f Gnyx cntr gung V nz jnel bs. Haqvq fbzr penccvatf ''irel'' dhvpxyl naq abj jnagf gb xabj jura pncgpun tbrf njnl. Rvgure trahvar rntre crefba ''be'' gelvjt gbb uneq gb or 'gehfgrq'... Maybe I'm the only person who thinks like that, but I thought it worth putting down in the record. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.44|172.70.86.44]] 08:26, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

345: 1337: Part 5

2022-05-23T12:34:58Z

162.158.159.71: /* Explanation */ Plural where needed, and broadened slightly. Additional rationale for 1337-5p43k. Rephrased to account for the comma in the dialogue.

{{comic
| number = 345
| date = November 16, 2007
| title = 1337: Part 5
| image = 1337_part_5.png
| titletext = This digital music thing will probably reach its endgame sometime in the next decade or so. These are very exciting times.
}}

==Explanation==
This is the fifth and last part of five in the "[[:Category:1337|1337]]" series. The title 1337 is "L-eet," or "elite," using the {{w|Leet}} alphabet, a coding system used primarily on the internet (and on other early text messaging systems), meant to provide a bit of {{w|obfuscation}} to plain text both to make it harder to read (and potentially 'grep' for incriminating terms) and to show off in a creative way using in-group jargon.

All comics in the series:
*[[341: 1337: Part 1]]
*[[342: 1337: Part 2]]
*[[343: 1337: Part 3]]
*[[344: 1337: Part 4]]
*[[345: 1337: Part 5]]
This series was released on 5 consecutive days (Monday-Friday, probably because he wanted to release comic 404 on april fools' day) and not over the usual Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule.
The comic is narrated by [[Cueball]] as seen in part 2 comic, but that Cueball is not shown here, but still he is part of this comic series, and thus also this comic, as he narrates the epilogue.

{{w|Richard Stallman}} is the ardent defender of freedom and believer in {{w|copyleft}}; he also founded the {{w|GNU Project}}. (He is not really a sword fighter but is always depicted with swords when [[:Category:Comics featuring Richard Stallman|featured in xkcd]], which is in this series and in [[225: Open Source]]).

In the previous part, he came to the rescue of [[Mrs. Roberts]] and her Daughter [[Elaine Roberts]]. Stallman and Elaine quickly overpower the two enemies with black bowler hats who represent the {{w|Motion Picture Association of America}} (MPAA) and the {{w|Recording Industry Association of America}} (RIAA), use the {{w|Digital Millenium Copyright Act}} who had found out about the Roberts hacking.

Just when the two men have been defeated, Elaine asks how Stallman knew they where in trouble, and he tells it was his friend who told him about it. Climbing down a rope from the sky, the friend enters with a red cape and goggles. It turns out it is {{w|Cory Doctorow}}, a blogger, journalist, and science fiction author who serves as co-editor of the weblog {{w|Boing Boing}}. He is an activist in favor of liberalizing copyright laws and a proponent of the {{w|Creative Commons}} organization. He does not really travel around in a balloon or (usually) wear a red cape, but [[Randall]] introduced this idea in [[239: Blagofaire]] and has continued it in later [[:Category:Comics featuring Cory Doctorow|comics featuring Cory Doctorow]]. So he is climbing down from his balloon.

He uses the balloon to construct the {{w|Blogosphere}}, which is a name used to refer to all blogs on the Internet, many of which frequently link to and refer to other blogs. Here, the Stallman character talks about it as though Cory Doctorow actually constructs it, as if it were a portion of the atmosphere 20 km up over the tag clouds.

Blogs often label posts with keywords, known as tags. A {{w|tag cloud}} is a way of displaying the tags on a site where the more common tags appear in larger type than less-common ones. It has no relationship to actual water vapor clouds in the sky, but in the comic, the Doctorow character suggests that tag clouds are actually in the air, below the new blogosphere.

At this point we see that Mrs. Roberts is still programming while this fight and discussion take place. Her son [[Little Bobby Tables]] comes and tells her he is hungry, but she tells him that she does not have time when she is coding, and that he ate yesterday. It seems that he is still a kid, even though it must have been some years since the young Elaine left and grew up. However, she may still be a very young adult, in which case her little brother could still be shorter than his mom (we see in Part 2 that, from age 11, she studied with Donald Knuth for four years, making her 15 when she left. However, it is not clear how long she was away from home after that).

Stallman gives Elaine a proposal to join {{w|GNU}} as a coder. GNU is supposed to be the pinnacle of free software; an operating system with no restriction, allowing the user to modify and customize anything they want about the computer. Stallman likely wants Elaine for her coding abilities, similar devotion to free software, and use her reputation as a hacker and open source pioneer to spread the word and further his project. This may also be a reference to the infamous "Free Software Song", [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software_Song]sung by Stallman in which he exhorts hackers to "join us now and share the software." But she is not ready yet, as she wished to take down the industry of MPAA and RIAA as ''Music doesn't need these assholes.'' In the meantime, Cory Doctorow throws the bowler hat guys out and orders them never to "darken our comment threads again."

Stallman is against her idea of going for straight war with the industry, and suggests that she help encourage sharing in the public mind. And then Doctorow chimes in with a suggestion that she has the ability to build better {{w|P2P}} systems, to which she asks if they mean straight up piracy. And this leads up to the punch line of the series, when Doctorow says she (i.e. "[Ms] Roberts"), would make a wonderful Dread Pirate!

Peer-to-peer, often abbreviated P2P, is a network system where tasks are partitioned between participants with equal privileges, in contrast with the client-server model, where the client makes requests and the server provides service. A common example of a peer-to-peer system is the BitTorrent file-sharing protocol, which is often (mis)used for distribution of pirated software and media.

The {{w|Dread Pirate Roberts}} is a fictional character from the book and movie {{w|The Princess Bride}}. Roberts is the most feared pirate on the seas. But, "Dread Pirate Roberts" is merely a title that has been passed down as previous "Roberts" have gained enough money (from piracy) to retire comfortably. Westley, one of the main characters from The Princess Bride, becomes the Dread Pirate after being taken prisoner by the preceding Pirate Roberts. It is anyone's guess whether the entire 5-comic story, starting from the choice of Mrs. Roberts' name, began as just a lead-up to this one joke. At the end of the movie, Inigo Montoya has won the vengeance he has sought all his life, and expresses to Westley that he doesn't know what to do next. Westley suggests Montoya succeed him as Roberts, saying, "Have you ever considered piracy? You'd make a wonderful Dread Pirate Roberts." Cory Doctorow's line in the comic therefore mimics that line from the movie.

{{w|Silk Road (marketplace)|Silk Road}} was an online black market designed to allow criminals to trade in drugs, guns, and other illegal items, run by a person also using the pseudonym Dread Pirate Roberts. However, this black market did not exist until four years after this comic was published.

In the epilogue, several items of interest are revealed about the Roberts’ later lives.

Elaine shared her ideas with {{w|Bram Cohen}}, who went on from that to found {{w|BitTorrent}}, a distributed method of downloading files. People can and do use BitTorrent both for lawful file downloads and also for sharing media files unlawfully. Its distributed nature, where someone does not download a file from just one other computer but rather in many pieces from many other computers with the same file, makes it more difficult for record and movie industry groups to police, and therefore a person with Elaine's motivations might be interested in helping design such a system.

Mrs. Roberts developed for {{w|Ubuntu}}, which is probably the most well known distribution of GNU/{{w|Linux}}. A GNU/Linux distribution (often referred to simply as "Linux") is any operating system that is based on GNU software and the Linux {{w|kernel}}.

She also went after any website (defacing them) that made {{w|Your Mom|''Your'' mom}} jokes about her daughter. To deface a website is like putting up graffiti or tearing down signs; she likely replaces the URL's content from the original site to another image, text box, or other message as revenge. This is a [[:Category:Your Mom|recurring theme]] on xkcd. Defacing websites is generally considered a low-level hacking activity, generally carried out by script kiddies using pre-packaged exploits rather than by highly skilled hackers like Elaine.

Finally a bit more info is given on how Elaine continues her fight: she joins random communities, helps with code, and mysteriously moves on. Sometimes she streams her music live on an IP address, and if you happen to find one of these with a streaming audio player, you can hear her rock out (a reference to her music career mentioned at the end of the third part).

The final phrase "Happy Hacking" often accompanies an autograph from Richard Stallman.

The title text is likely referring to the argument over {{w|Digital Rights Management}}, or DRM-locked content. These so-called 'DRM wars' are concerned about how DRM restricts the freedoms of people who buy them legitimately, and how it restricts creativity and innovation on the Internet. A large part of the debate is digital music, or music you would buy and download on the Internet through sites like Amazon or iTunes. The title text states that the DRM wars will end in the next decade or so, and we are living through very exciting times as we can see these wars unfold and eventually end.

In 2009, iTunes did remove DRM from any music they sold, which was a huge milestone at the time. Due to the rise in music streaming services (all of which use DRM to keep clients from downloading their songs) in the mid- to late 2010s, this achievement has been made void again.

==Transcript==
:[The two men in black bowler hats (RIAA and MPAA agents as known from the previous comic) with their katanas are attacked by Elaine Roberts with her folding knife and Richard Stallman with his own two katanas. Elaine kicks the RIAA man to the left in the back of his leg, while Stallman jumps over the MPAA man to the right, flying high over him from right to left in a flying maneuver hitting his sword while hanging parallel to the ground above the man.]
:Elaine: Thanks, Stallman!
:Richard Stallman: 'Tis my pleasure.

:[Elaine stands to the left with her knife in one hand having folded it down again. Richard Stallman stands between the two men with bowler hats who are now lying on the floor on either side of him, each with one of Stallman's swords pointing at their throat. Stallman has both arms fully stretched towards them as he looks straight out of the panel. The left (RIAA) man lies flat on his back, his hat and katana lying behind him. The right (MPAA) man is sitting on his knee leaning as far back as he can, since the sword is almost touching the skin on his throat. He wears his hat, but the sword lies behind him, out of reach, even though he is leaning back on one hand close to it. To the far right, a rope comes down from the top of the panel, falling down on the ground so a section of it stretches even farther right in the picture. Down this rope comes a man with googles and a red cape, which is black on the inside. This is Cory Doctorow. He holds onto the rope with two hands, one over one just under his head.]
:Elaine: So, wait - how did you know we were in trouble?
:Richard Stallman: My friend here was tracking these thugs from his balloon.
:Richard Stallman: He called me and I thought I'd stop by.
:Cory Doctorow: -Hi!
:Cory Doctorow: Cory Doctorow - It's a pleasure to meet you.

:[Elaine has shifted the knife to the other hand. Richard Stallman has moved to the left of the RIAA man, so both bowler hat men are between him and Cory Doctorow. Stallman still points his sword in their direction, but they are lowered. The RIAA man closest to him has picked up his hat in one hand and reaches for his sword with the other hand. The MPAA man now lies on his back, one arm up, leaning on the other. His sword is gone. It does not seem like Doctorow could have taken it. Behind him, Doctorow has reached the ground, the rope hanging behind him. He points left.]
:Elaine: Balloon?
:Richard Stallman: Aye. They're up there constructing something called a "Blogosphere."
:Cory Doctorow: Yup! It's twenty kilometers up, just above the tag clouds.

:[The scene is contracted, so to the left, Mrs. Roberts at her desk with her chair and laptop becomes visible (from the previous comic). This without the other people has moved closer. She still types as her son Little Bobby Tables enters and lifts a hand in his mother's direction. He is drawn as a child version of Cueball. Elaine has put the knife away and looks at Richard Stallman, who now stands straight looking at her with the swords crossed in front of his legs. Behind him, just right of the rope hanging down, Cory Doctorow lifts one of the agents up by the throat while looking right and talking to him. The other agent has left the panel. The one he holds has his hat but no sword.]
:Little Bobby Tables: Mom, I'm hungry.
:Mrs. Roberts: Hush, I'm coding. You ate yesterday.
:Richard Stallman: You know, Roberts, GNU could use a good coder like you. Ever thought of joining us?
:Elaine: Maybe someday. Right now I've got an industry to take down.
:Elaine: Music doesn't need these assholes.
:Cory Doctorow: Begone, And never darken our comment threads again!

:[Zoom in on Elaine, Richard Stallman, and Cory Doctorow. She stand straight looking at Stallman, who faces towards her swords now on his back crossed. Doctorow is also facing her and holds out both arms towards her. The rope is now outside the panel, as are both bowler hat men.]
:Richard Stallman: Well, you won't fix the industry with random exploits. You need to encourage sharing in the public mind.
:Doctorow: Hey; With your music and coding backgrounds, you should get into building better P2P systems.

:[The final panel is only a third of the length of the previous panel. The three are still in the panel, but they have moved and are also drawn somewhat smaller. Elaine still faces them right, but now Cory Doctorow is in front of Richard Stallman's swords as before. All have their arms down.]
:Elaine: What? Straight-up piracy?
:Cory Doctorow: Sure - have you ever considered it? You'd make a wonderful dread pirate, Roberts.

:[To the right of the final panel is a two-column epilogue narrated by Cueball as seen in part 2. It is split into three paragraphs and a "signature." The caption above is centered over the two columns.]
:<big>Epilogue</big>
:Cueball (narrating): Elaine shared her ideas with Bram Cohen, who went on to develop BitTorrent.
: Mrs. Roberts spends her time developing for Ubuntu, and defacing the websites of people who make "your mom" jokes to her daughter.
: Elaine still stalks the net. She joins communities, contributes code or comments, and moves on. And if, late at night, you point a streaming audio player at the right IP at the right time - you can hear her rock out.
: ~Happy Hacking.~

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:1337|05]]
[[Category:Comics sharing name|1337]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Elaine Roberts]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Richard Stallman]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]] 
[[Category:Comics featuring Cory Doctorow]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Mrs. Roberts]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Little Bobby Tables]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Your Mom]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Music]]

25: Barrel - Part 4

2022-05-07T20:17:10Z

162.158.159.71: Undo revision 264998 by 172.69.79.203 (talk) No, I misread. The "second barrel comic" changed, it says...

{{comic
| number = 25
| date = October 31, 2005
| title = Barrel - Part 4
| image = barrel_part_4.jpg
| titletext = :(
}}

== Explanation ==
In the first three comics of the series, the character explored the ocean in a barrel and then encountered a whirlpool, all with a reaction of innocent wonder. Here, the empty barrel floating adrift, plus the title text and a previous announcement by Randall that this would be the conclusion of barrel boy's story, imply that the character's encounter with the whirlpool separated him from the barrel, and he may have come to some harm.

This is the fifth in a six-part series of comics whose parts were randomly published during the first several dozen strips. The series features a [[:Category:Barrel|character]] who is not consistent with what would quickly become the [[xkcd]] [[stick figure]] style. The character was in the barrel in parts 1-3.

After Randall released the full [http://liveweb.archive.org/web/20070207052159/http://www.xkcd.com/barrel.html The Boy and his Barrel] story on xkcd, it has been clear that the original [[Ferret]] story should also be included as part of the barrel series.

The full series can be found [[:Category:Barrel|here]]. But below they are listed in the order Randall has put them in his collection linked to above:
* [[1: Barrel - Part 1]]
* [[20: Ferret]]
* [[11: Barrel - Part 2]]
* [[22: Barrel - Part 3]]
* [[25: Barrel - Part 4]]
* [[31: Barrel - Part 5]]

== Transcript ==
:[The barrel is shown on a grid paper background, floating sideways and empty in a choppy sea.]

==Trivia==
*This was the 26th comic originally posted to [[LiveJournal]].
**The previous was [[37: Hyphen]].
**The next was [[26: Fourier]].
*The original title of this comic was "Monday's Drawing".
*There were no original [[Randall]] quote for this comic.
**However, three hours after posting the comic, he made a new post with the following statement:
:::'''''Barrel series'''''
:::By the way, here are all the barrel comics on a single (easily linked) page:
:::[https://web.archive.org/web/20070207052159/http://www.xkcd.com/barrel.html http://www.xkcd.com/barrel.html] [This is an archived version of the page. The original link is dead. This text is not included in the statement.]
:::I cheated, and went back and lightened the gridlines in #2. It was just bothering me. I'll try not to do that much. But as I'm not destroying anyone's childhood, I don't feel like I'm really pulling a George Lucas.
:::I mean, I'm not destroying more than one childhood.
:::Oops.
*Since this was not (as he stated in the [[37: Hyphen#Trivia|previous comic]]) the last in the [[:Category:Barrel|barrel series]], the last comic must later have been included.
**Since this last barrel comic [[31: Barrel - Part 5]] involved the [[:Category:Ferret|ferret]], the previous ferret story [[20: Ferret]] must also have been included then.
**Thus making the original ferret a "real" part of the barrel story.
**Randall also confesses that he changed the appearance of the 2nd Barrel comic.
***At this time, that must have referred to the one called [[11: Barrel - Part 2]], although Randall in the page above has moved this to after the first ferret comic.
*This comic was posted on [[xkcd]] when the web site opened on Sunday the 1st of January 2006.
**It was posted along [[:Category:First day on xkcd|with all 41 comics]] posted before that on LiveJournal as well as a few others.
**The latter explains why the numbers of these 41 LiveJournal comics ranges from 1-44.
*One of the original drawings drawn on [[:Category:Checkered paper|checkered paper]].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics posted on livejournal| 26]]
[[Category:First day on xkcd]]
[[Category:Checkered paper]]
[[Category:Barrel|05]]
[[Category:Comics sharing name|Barrel 05]]

2529: Unsolved Math Problems

2022-05-03T21:02:31Z

162.158.159.71: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 2529
| date = October 15, 2021
| title = Unsolved Math Problems
| image = unsolved_math_problems.png
| titletext = After decades of studying the curve and the procedure that generates it, the consensus explanation is "it's just like that."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by COLLATZ'S COLLAPSIBLE CONJECTURE CURVE (NON-INJECTIVE) - Please change this comment when editing this page. Finish explaining the "weirdly abstract" section. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Math has many problems that remain "unsolved." This is not simply a matter of finding the correct numbers on both sides of an equal sign, but usually require proving or finding a counterexample to some conjecture, or explaining some property of some mathematical object. Sometimes this might involve extending an existing proof to a wider range of numbers like reals, complex numbers, or matrices.

A concrete problem is one that is very obviously connected to a real world process, while an abstract problem is one which seems unconnected to actual problems. In modern math, many problems tend to be very abstract, requiring complicated notation to adequately state the problem in the first place, like many of the {{w|millennium problems}}. On the other hand, many unsolved problems are very concrete; for example, there are very many problems related to packing objects into spaces that are very difficult to solve although quite easy to state, such as the {{w|Collatz conjecture}}. Finally, Randall describes a third category of "cursed problems," that have strange, seemingly random behavior, such as the behavior of turbulence or the distribution of prime numbers.

In the first panel, Ponytail describes a weird abstract problem. Her description seems to be a meaningless jumble of terms that are either mathematical or just ''sound'' mathematical. And the mathematical terms are from disparate branches of mathematics: group theory, topology, and calculus.

*'''Euler field:'''
*'''{{w|Manifold}}:'''
*'''{{w|Hypergroup}}:'''
*'''Isomorphic:''' {{w|Isomorphism}} describes whether all the attributes of one structure can be mapped to properties of another structure. The structures usually have to be of the same type; it is unclear how a hypergroup would map to a "conjection".
*'''Gödel-Klein:''' {{w|Kurt Gödel}} was a 20th-century mathematician who studied logic and philosophy (he's most well known for {{w|Gödel's incompleteness theorems}}) and {{w|Felix Klein}} was a 19th century mathematician who studied group theory and geometry; the two probably never collaborated.
*'''Meta-algebra:'''
*'''ϵ<0:''' a joke about how in analysis, {{w|ϵ}} is usually defined to be an arbitrarily small ''positive'' number.
*'''quasimonoid:''' A [[Malamanteau|malamanteau]], combining the prefix "quasi" (meaning "partially" or "seemingly") and "monoid" (an object from group theory) and is probably meant to evoke the character {{w|Quasimodo}} from ''The Hunchback of Notre-Dame'' (although quasimonoids are a type of algebraic object, namely a non-associative {{w|monoid}})
*'''Sondheim Calculus:''' This refers to {{w|Stephen Sondheim}}, one of the most successful composers and lyricists of American musical theatre -- the producer of his musical "Into the Woods" once [https://www.indiewire.com/2015/01/watch-singing-sondheim-is-like-calculus-in-into-the-woods-behind-the-scenes-video-exclusive-189507/ remarked] that "Singing Stephen Sondheim is like calculus for singers and actors."
*'''conjection:''' This may combine conjecture and conjunction, or be a joke on pros and cons plus projection.

Finally she asks whether the problem statement is ill-formed; considering that it's mostly gibberish, this may be true.

Many real unsolved math problems appear similarly abstract. One example is the {{w|Hodge conjecture}}, a {{w|Millennium Prize Problems|Millennium Prize}} problem. It states "Let X be a non-singular complex projective manifold. Then every Hodge class on X is a linear combination with rational coefficients of the cohomology classes of complex subvarieties of X." These words may appear nonsensical to a layperson. And even to an expert, the question is `abstract'. (Given a specific manifold, even an abelian fourfold, how on earth do you determine if a given 2,2 class is a cycle?)

In the second panel, Cueball describes a concrete {{w|random walk}} problem, and then mentions that this somehow has applications in three unrelated fields. This is actually not uncommon. The Wikipedia article says that "random walks have applications to engineering and many scientific fields including ecology, psychology, computer science, physics, chemistry, biology, economics, and sociology. Walking randomly on a grid never visiting any square twice is known as a {{w|self-avoiding walk}}." This panel may have been inspired by some of the tricky unsolved problems about self-avoiding walks. Many of these problems have to do with rigorously proving properties of random walks that have been guessed by physics intuition, so these problems are connected to physics. The part about the maximum number of points in a line is reminiscent of problems in combinatorial geometry, which often involve counting points lying on different lines. Python code simulating this situation can be found here: [https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1nWrByCGBckwVdbAwow7tCYTOvqObYXyR?usp=sharing]. C++ code simulating this situation can be found here: [https://github.com/AMindToThink/WeirdlyConcreteXKCD].

In the final panel, Megan is looking at a strange curve that seems to have no consistent pattern. At the bottom it's mostly straight, with a few little wobbles. In the middle it looks like a wild, high-frequency wave that suddenly bursts and then dies down. And the top is a spiral that looks like a question mark or a Western-style {{w|Crosier}}. She wonders if this could even be mathematical.
On one hand, considering the weird shapes that come from plotting some mathematical processes (e.g. the {{w|Mandelbrot set}}), it could well be. For example the unsolved {{w|Riemann hypothesis}}, another Millennium Prize problem, concerns the properties of {{w|File:RiemannCriticalLine.svg|a weird and at-first-glance random curve}}. In number theory, the term "cursed curve" [https://www.quantamagazine.org/mathematicians-crack-the-cursed-curve-20171207/ has been used] to describe the [https://annals.math.princeton.edu/wp-content/uploads/annals-v173-n1-p13-s.pdf "split Cartan" modular curve] of level 13, which resisted attempts for many years to compute its [https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.4007/annals.2019.189.3.6 set of rational points].
On the other hand, the question if could even be mathematical suggests that this may indeed not be a mathematical symbol. The curve looks like the unalome symbol, which is a Buddhist symbol which represents the path taken in life, or the journey to enlightenment. It could be argued that this indeed represents an unsolved problem, although not a mathematical one - which might then be part of the humoristic meaning.

In the title text, the curve in the final panel is further explained based on the consensus of supposedly a group who has studied it and the procedure that generates it, commenting that "it's just like that" as their conclusion, which is really not an explanation at all.

==Transcript==

The Three Types Of Unsolved Math Problem

:First: Weirdly Abstract
:[Ponytail stands in front of an equation]
:Is the Euler Field Manifold Hypergroup Isomorphic to a Gödel-Klein Meta-Algebreic ε<0 Quasimonoid Conjection under Sondheim Calculus?
:Or is the question ill-formed?
:⬙ℝ̇ℤ/Eℵ₅ The Z is raised and underneath it is a double-ended arrow bent at a right angle. One points toward the R the other toward the Z. The ₅ is double-struck (𝟝) like the ℝ and ℤ

:Second: Weirdly Concrete
:[Cueball stands in front of a grid with 6 columns and 7 rows]
:If I walk randomly on a grid, never visiting any square twice, placing a marble every ''N'' steps, on average how many marbles will be in the longest line after N*K steps?
:Somehow the answer is important in like three unrelated fields.
:[The path starts in the 3rd row and 3rd column, a small circle indicates the start. It takes the path: North, East, North, East (a black dot representing the 1st marble is placed here, so N=4), South, East, South, South (2nd marble), West, South, West, North (3rd marble), West, South, South, South (4th Marble), West, North, West, West (this goes offgrid to the West. There is no visible line or marble outside the grid). The 1st, 3rd, and 4th marbles are colinear and there is a dotted line connecting them. The line's slope is 3.]

:Third: Cursed
:[A Megan with unkempt hair stands next to a curve]
:What in God's name is going on with this curve?
:Is it even math?
:[The curve starts at the bottom of the screen, rises straight upward, begins to wobble left and right a little. It lists to the left and the left-right motion increases, then decreases. It begins a large counter-clockwise arc, spiraling inwards twice, then ends]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category: Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category: Math]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cursed Items]] <-- Some presumedly mathematical curve -->

2612: Lightsabers

2022-04-27T19:14:14Z

162.158.159.71:

{{comic
| number = 2612
| date = April 27, 2022
| title = Lightsabers
| image = lightsabers.png
| titletext = A lot of Jedi romances start with this turning into a Lady and the Tramp spaghetti situation.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a LIQUID LIGHTSABER - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
A {{w|bungus}} is a beam-like sword weapon used by members of the {{w|Jedi}} order in the {{w|Star Wars}} franchise. This comic shows a bungus fight starting between two [[Cueball]]-like Jedi, one already presenting their blade in challenge and the second activating theirs in response. When the first strike is made between the two lightsabers, they seemingly meld together, with a bloop sound, like the beams are made of a liquid. This then causes the two light beams to be stuck to each other. In in-universe "technical documents", lightsabers are said to be made from magnetically-confined plasma, so perhaps the magnetic fields which were projected from each hilt have merged instead of repelling (or presenting as mutually imperveous) as is usually expected.

This scene actually looks a lot like what happens between Harry Potter and Voldemorts wands in the end of the fourth book the {{w|Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire|Goblet of Fire}}. Here two spells hit each other and connect the two wands, the wand holders then unable to release or disconnect the wands.

In this situation one Jedi tries to shake the beam, maybe to break the bond, but instead the wave travels down the combined beam to also shake the other Jedi's hand-held hilt. When the vibration dies down the other Jedi then tries to deactivate his lightsaber as an attempt to end the connection. But the retraction of the entire double-sized light beam into the handle (as seen in the movies) causes both of the Jedi to be drawn together where they collide together, forcefully enough to render them both unconscious. The connected lightsaber handles lie next to them on the ground.

The title text implies that such events are how {{w|Jedi}} romances start, comparing it to the famous "spaghetti scene" from the 1955 Disney animated movie ''{{w|Lady and the Tramp}}'' where the two titular characters unintentionally kiss after sharing a strand of spaghetti. In the Old Republic, Jedi were forbidden from entering romantic relationships (and discouraged from forming attachments in general), but in the pre-Disney ''Star Wars Legends'' continuity of the Expanded Universe, Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade first met while fighting in the aftermath of the fall of the Empire, and then developed a romantic relationship.

Star Wars is a [[:Category:Star Wars|recurring theme]] on xkcd, and lightsabers have been prominently featured before in, for instance, [[1397: Luke]] and [[1433: Lightsaber]], where the problem with the physics of a light beam as a sword is shown. But in general light does not interact with light as {{w|photons}} are {{w|bosons}} and can thus pass through each other. Interference, yes, but two pure light beams cannot collide and bounce back as when two lightsabers collide. Also as the comic Lightsaber mentioned above shows, there is no compatible real-world way of confining a beam of light, making it stop after about a meter (or anywhere){{Dubious}} - see {{w|Optical cavity}}. So this is another time where [[Randall]] makes a joke about the physics of lightsabers.

==Transcript==
:[Two Cueball like Jedi are engaging each other in a duel using lightsabers over 12 panels of equal size, with sound effects as the only sound. In the first panel the left Jedi has his lightsaber extended holding it in both hand pointing towards the other, who at this time is just turning his lightsaber on.]
:''Tssssss''
:Click

:[Almost same position of the Jedi, but the right Jedi's lightsaber has now extended, making a sound. He is holding it up near his head in both hands]
:''Tsss''

:[Then they run towards each other and swing their lightsabers towards each other, two small arcs indicating the swing of the lightsabers.]

:[The two beams hit each other and connects at the middle in a big bloop of light, with drops of "light" jumping off both above and below the connected lightsabers. Both Jedi still holds on to their handles with both hands. A loud sound comes out of the connection:]
:''Bloop''

:[The Jedi stands still holding their handles. The beam is now forming a bow between the two handles.]

:[The left Jedi violently shakes his handle causing a wave to travel down the beam towards the right Jedi.]
:<big>Shake shake</big>

:[As the left Jedi's end of the beam comes to rest the wave travels all the way the right Jedi's handle causing his hands to shake, although a bit less than the original shake.]
:Shake shake

:[Back to the bow of light between them, but the beam is visibly still shaking, but no wave is traveling any longer.]

:[Same setting but the shaking has stopped. The right Jedi turns his lightsaber off on his handle with a sound:]
:Click

:[The beam of light is retracted quickly into the handle of the Jedi turning his lightsaber off. So quickly that the two Jedi, still holding on to their handles are pulled up in the air and towards each other as the sound of the beam turning off is heard. Lines indicate their movement and shadows on the ground beneath them indicate they are in the air.]
:''Zhhhiiiip''

:[When the beam is completely retracted the two handles collide and so does the heads of the two Jedi with a loud sound. They still hold on to the handle with both hands. They still hand in the air with shadow on the ground beneath them.]
:''<big>Bonk</big>''

:[In the final panel the two Jedi lies unconscious on the ground with their heads towards each other and with their arms stretched out towards each other. The connected handles lies between them.]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Star Wars]]
[[Category:Fiction]]

Talk:2610: Assigning Numbers

2022-04-27T17:54:58Z

162.158.159.71:

Does this imply that [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem] isn't correct? And that it's method is bunk? Please help! -Seer [[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.230|162.158.107.230]] 02:08, 23 April 2022 (UTC)
I believe the intention is that the theorem is not part of the set of bad data science, just that they share this one feature.

Isn't the Gödel number for a theorem calculated by multiplying the numbers of the components together, so complicated theorems would have larger numbers? If so, the current explanation that this isn't a good way to judge fields is wrong. I'm not too sure though. [[User:MrCandela|MrCandela]] ([[User talk:MrCandela|talk]]) 05:52, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

:I do not believe that the title suggests renumbering theorems with Gödel numbers, but averaging the existing theorem numbers. Or otherwise, MrCandela's suggestion would be the way to go: Complicated Theorems have larger numbers. Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.110.133|172.68.110.133]] 08:10, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

:Yeah a quick look at some magazines like [https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-godels-incompleteness-theorems-work-20200714/#jump2/ this one] and I think Randall has a point [[User:MrCandela|MrCandela]] ([[User talk:MrCandela|talk]]) 09:48, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

I wish I'd started the explanation off when I first saw it (somone posted the first Transcript whilst I was pondering, so I left off). I think there's some serious re-editing to be done, but basically it points to someone (Cueball, a dabbling armchair mathematician faced with some not directly mathematically-based problem) thinking that 'all' it takes is to encode the whatever-it-is, arbitrarily, and then with a few easy equations something useful cannbe derived. When, in reality, even if this is possible (ignoring the "takes the age of the universe to permute things to find the right answer" sort of sticking-block) it depends upon a ''good'' numerical encoding (enough attention to detail, but not too much, and in the right sort of way) and possibly quite a lot of data-demunging and filtration (again, just the right amount and in the correct manner) to pop out the "answer" being looked for. For some things, this can be easy, though there are always statistical pitfalls/etc. For others ("life, the universe and everything", say) the task is far more complex and the result ("42"?) might not seem to be a very useful result for various reasons. And, on top this, there's Gödel. But that's an additional punchline, not the whole scope of the original joke. ...Anyway, this long comment is why I held back from writing the original Explanation, but I might yet wrangle my thoughts into what's since been put there. While trying not to tread upon too many toes and alternate explanations. Which is the hardest bit, I think... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.64|172.70.86.64]] 15:48, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

Just a comment about the technicalities of Gödel's First Incompleteness Theorem: The 'third' possibility presented [http://dstoner.net/Math_Science/godel.html here] misunderstands the term 'true but unprovable'. When mathematicians say 'true but unprovable' in the context of Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems, what they mean is 'true in the standard model but unprovable in the formal system'. The Gödel sentence is certainly true for the standard natural numbers, by contradiction: assume that the Gödel sentence is false for the standard naturals, which means that there exists a standard natural number which is the Gödel number for the proof of the Gödel sentence. Then we could decode the Gödel number into a proof (of the formal system) proving the Gödel sentence true; a contradiction. (Note that the preceding proof by contradiction can be formalised in ZFC, but not in the formal system under study.) The reason why the Gödel sentence is unprovable in the formal system is because, from the point of view of the formal system, there might be a non-standard natural number which is the Gödel number for the proof of the Gödel sentence (and non-standard numbers cannot be decoded into a proof); or there might not be. --[[User:Underbase|Underbase]] ([[User talk:Underbase|talk]]) 04:56, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

:Regarding this, I know that the policy on this site is to include every possible interpretation, but the page mentioned is an html page (and not a [https://xkcd.com/2304/ pdf]) that was not [https://xkcd.com/1847/ peer reviewed] (thus not recognized by the community), and as mentioned by the user above it fails understand the concepts it is talking about. I do not think this site should be spreading this kind of idea. I believe Randall Monroe himself would be against this.

::I also believe the current explanation is both incorrect about explaining the seeming paradox of the Gödel conjecture, & therefore somewhat incorrect about this joke. It is surely the transition from abstract to quantized - the act of applying limited formal numbering to potentially unbounded or otherwise non-standard terms - which incurs incompleteness? Within the constraints of a formal system of standard natural numbers, true≠provable, & therein lies the internal (but not total) contradiction. ''That's'' the contradiction, right? & the joke is that numbering theorems by their complexity, is not generally a productive approach for 'doing math' on them, in any sense but an abstract analytical one?
::[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 17:54, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

:I do not believe the Title Text calls for "calculating the average of all the fields' theorems' Gödel numbers". It asks for 'the lowest average theorem number'. The average of all, is not the average of each. The Title Text wants the average of ''each of'' the fields' theorems' Gödel numbers.
:[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 17:54, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Today's [https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/derivative Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal] is slightly related.

== Paradoxicality argument ==

I think that revision [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2610:_Assigning_Numbers&oldid=231000 231000] should be removed. My explanation of what's wrong with the linked site is as follows:

Up until the section "Gödel's String", nothing is incorrect. Furthermore, the first wrong line is numbered (49), and says that Gödel's statement is equivalent to "This statement is not a theorem (of any formal system)." This is where he goes wrong, for writing down a formula for "n proves m" requires inclusion of the formal system in which this proof happens. As such, the correct translation of Gödel's statement is "This statement is not a theorem of [system]", which it indeed is not. Then he says that "We have decided that Gödel's string cannot be a theorem and neither can its negation" (true, after Rosser's trick) and therefore that this gives us "~<G∨~G>" (which is false). He has commited the sin of confusing truth and provability here.

His discussion of the Epimenides string ("This statement is not true") is accurate, except for the claim that the truth predicate is "as valid an extension to [PA] as [the provability and quining] extensions were". This is false. The provability and quining predicates can be constructed in PA and thus are not "extensions" so much as "shorthand"; this was Gödel's contribution: to see that PA can talk about provability of statements in any fixed formal system. The truth predicate is not definable in PA, as he quite ably proves (suppose it was definable, then you could write down the Epimenides sentence in PA, and thereby prove false).

The section "Gödel's Error" is just plain silly.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.147|172.70.114.147]] 19:28, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

What if we just change it to say something along the lines of "Certain logical systems allow values to be 'not false' without being necessarily 'true'; Godel's theorem is based on an axiomatic assumption that every statement is either true or false."?[[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.163|108.162.221.163]] 06:06, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Is it just me, or is the given argument gibberish? Replacing the terms with more graspable ones, it seems to be saying: "1. Assume that bananas can be grown from banana-trees (why is this a reasonable assumption? Is it also a reasonable assumption to make about pear trees?). 2. Banana-trees exist. 3. Therefore, the statement that bananas cannot be grown from the trees is true (HOW is this a reasonable conclusion to leap to from the preceding points? By what bizarre leap of elided logic?). 4. This is a contradiction, therefore our initial assumption must be wrong (No, clearly the conclusion in 3 is wrong). Therefore, the statement is true (which statement are you even talking about here?)." Any chance someone could clarify that passage by including the missing steps in the logic? --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.159|172.69.70.159]] 19:02, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

:It's not missing any steps. The argument really is that simple. Maybe I didn't write it clearly enough... Anyway to address your specific points, I would first recommend you read {{w|Reductio ad absurdum}}, but if you don't have time (Because let's be real, nobody has enough time for reading Wikipedia articles), I'll break it down. 1. Assume the opposite of the statement (This is not a reasonable assumption almost by definition; the whole point is to disprove it, after all) using the Law of Assumption, which states that we can assume absolutely anything we want in a logical proof, so long as we keep track of what's been derived from it. 2 Assume anything else relevant 3. Follow the assumptions through to their conclusions, and find that the valid reasoning has led to an unsound result, such as a statement directly contradicting the assumption in 1. 4. One of the assumptions must be wrong in order to maintain consistency. Choose the assumption which was made for the purpose of disproving it to be the one we deem untrue, which means its opposite is true. Unfortunately these sorts of arguments don't really lend themselves to analogies with 'more graspable' statements.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.193|108.162.221.193]] 02:30, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Hello,
1) Why couldn't Gödel's string be paradoxical? It is certainly A) self-referencing and B) Self-negating. Even "This Statement is True" causes trouble.
2) Where did Gödel even consider paradox to be a possibility? If he didn't, his argument is "incomplete" (just like its conclusion implies it might very well be anyway).
3) Has anyone here bothered to prove that his string is not actually paradoxical?
- Don Stoner (nobody in particular -- just a senile wimpy old nerd)

Hi again,
Here's a fun one:
"This statement is paradoxical"
1) It certainly is paradoxical (provably so)
2) It even says it's paradoxical (echoing Gödel)
3) Therefore, it must be "true" (echoing Gödel)
4) But (this time) this means it's simply "false"
5) Etc.
- Don (nobody in particular)

:1) I'm not sure what you mean by "paradoxical". If you mean something like "true and false" or "neither true nor false", that fails classical logic. Gödel (with a bit of help from Rosser) proved that we can write down a sentence G of Peano arithmetic, then prove (in PA) that G is equivalent to "no integer encodes a proof in PA of G unless a smaller one encodes a proof in PA of not G". He then pointed out that if G was provable in PA, there was also a proof of not G (basically, work out what integer encodes that proof of G, then for each smaller integer, try to decode it into a proof of not G; if you succeed, you have a proof of not G; if you fail for all, you have proved by exhaustion that your integer encodes a proof of G and no smaller integer encodes a proof of not G; all this is a proof of not G). Thus, if PA is consistent, there is no proof in PA of G. Now assume there is a proof in PA of not G. Encode this proof into an integer N. We shall now prove either G or "every integer less than N does not encode a proof in PA of G". We thus work through every integer less than N, checking to see if it encodes a proof in PA of G. If it does we have proved G; if no integers less than N encode a proof of G then we have proved "for all n < N, n does not encode a proof in PA of G". In the latter case, we have proved that every integer encoding a proof in PA of G is greater than N, which is an integer encoding a proof in PA of not G; this implies G! As such, we started with a proof in PA of not G (NOTE: THIS IS DIFFERENT FROM MERELY ASSUMING not G), and produced a proof in PA of G. So if PA is consistent, there is no proof in PA of not G either. Hence PA is either inconsistent (as if PA proves either G or not G, it proves the other and hence false) or incomplete (proving neither).

:2) He proved that either PA proves false, or there is a statement such that PA proves neither the statement nor its negation. The first includes paradoxicality. (His second incompleteness theorem was essentially: "By the argument above, PA proves that if PA is consistent then G has no proof in PA, which easily implies that PA proves "If PA is consistent, then G". Now suppose PA proves that PA is consistent. Then by modus ponens, PA proves G, and therefore PA is inconsistent. So if PA proves that PA is consistent, then PA is inconsistent.") (It ''is'' possible for a consistent system to prove its own inconsistency.)

:3) Most mathematicians assume that ZFC is consistent, even augmented by some pretty strong large cardinal hypotheses. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.35.72|172.70.35.72]] 17:11, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

:The short answer to your questions is that Godel's method was rigorous. Godel numbering is much more precise than natural language ever could be. The longer answer is that there's a reason Godel's theorem is considered a work of genius; though the overall concept is fairly easy to grasp intuitively, making it into an actual theorem takes a lot of work and cleverness. There are multiple long Wikipedia pages about it just outlining the generals. The proof itself is rock solid, but far beyond the scope of this page. And the pithy answer is "Do you really think you're the first person to think of that? Mathematicians spent decades analyzing the theorems with uncharitable eyes."[[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.119|108.162.221.119]] 04:12, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

I am certain I am not the only person to notice his error because I have been contacted by others who noticed it independently. (None of us were sufficiently arrogant to presume we were first.) Further, we have all spent a great deal more time investigating this than you presume. Gödel's numbering was indeed rigorous and precise, but in spite of his genius, he simply failed to consider the possibility of paradox (incompleteness). If I am wrong about this, it would be would be a simple matter to show me where he addressed this. - Don Stoner (n.i.p.)

I'm going to remove the section stating that Godel's theorem is self-negating (it's not) and that his methodology was incomplete. And before anyone re-adds it, I simply ask that you please please PLEASE actually read up on the subject (and I don't mean from random html pages). Mathematicians have been actively trying to find a flaw in Godel's proof since before it was published; I promise you that whatever clever paradoxicality argument you've come up with has already been considered and eliminated by the professionals.

Your parting shot kind of reminds me of Junior high school. Specifically, I was one nerd being confronted by a few dozen "normal" kids. I was outnumbered, but there was really only room for one kid to get in my face at a time. As I told each of those kids (one at a time), "Your buddies aren't here right now. It's just you and me." So, unless you can talk one of those "professionals" (who actually understands Gödel's proof) into joining us here, you need to explain to me where Gödel addressed the possibility of paradox (he didn't). His methodology was incomplete. You also need to explain to me why you assert that "This statement cannot..." is not self-negating (it is). Further, since "the policy on this site is to include every possible interpretation" you also need to explain to me why you have taken it upon yourself to override Randal's authority. - Don Stoner (n.i.p.)
: I can't even be bothered to work out who is saying what. Don, if you're interested in site policy, use the proper <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki> signature (get an account in your name, if you want to be named), and possibly chill out a bit too. If someone is arguing (can't be bothered to check the edit history/diffs) then they need to use a .sig too. And colon-indents per level of reply is useful. But don't mind me, it looks like you're having fun either on your own or as a pair (or more). Just sayin'... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.71|162.158.159.71]] 17:54, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Talk:2557: Immunity

2022-04-26T22:47:01Z

162.158.159.71:

well, if you look at society as a whole it makes more sense. the reason we have so many mutations is that we have a significant portion of the populous with no immunity [[Special:Contributions/172.68.110.125|172.68.110.125]] 20:49, 20 December 2021 (UTC) mark ifi
:But the mutations come about from the virus replicating a lot, i.e in people with the virus. It still doesn't make sense to catch it, because you have a chance of your infection being the one that produces a terrible mutation [[Special:Contributions/141.101.77.130|141.101.77.130]] 22:02, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
::That isn't how mutations work. Mutations are able to propagate strongly only in environments where there is something killing off the parent species, and where the mutation provides better survivability. Like a functioning immune system attacking the parent virus, but a mutation allows something to slip by. Thus, people with the partial immunity provided by either vaccines or infection, are the ones more likely to create a mutation than new patients with no inherent immunity, or people with natural immunity from previous bouts with related diseases.[[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 14:11, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
:::Luckily we have Randall's subtext to warn us about that middle category of people who know a little about how immune systems work, enough to be dangerous. (1) viruses are not bacteria: antibiotics killing 'ordinary' bacteria leave space for 'nasty' bateria to proliferate; unless you plan on destroying your respiratory tract, there's plenty of space for all viruses and their mutations; (2) viruses have a chance to mutate as soon as they take over a cell; no need to eliminate the parent, all you need is for the mutation to be more effectively infectious when spat out to infect the next victim; (3) anybody catching the virus will pass it on if it replicates; 'partial immunity' makes no difference to short-term reinfection, only to longer-term illness (at which point most sensible people will avoid contact) and ICU usage and death; the only possible negative to partial immunity is that people catch it, don't feel too sick and keep breathing over everybody else; (4) I suspect this comic will sound the death-knell for explainxkcd as it used to be, because even 'named' contributors are coming out with mad anti-vax arguments, and (5) editors, please feel fee to delete all of the above starting at (1) if you feel it to be necessary. I'd prefer you kept the first phrase though... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.69.196|141.101.69.196]] 00:25, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
:::Even immune system without vaccine or prior infection is killing Covid a lot, providing plenty of opportunities for more effective mutation. And infection typically last LONGER if patient is not vaccinated, providing more TIME for virus to mutate. So, mutation can occur in both vaccinated or unvaccinated, with hard to compare probabilities. It's true that mutation from someone vaccinated has higher CHANCE to be vaccine-resistant, but on the other hand, seems omikron is from unvaccinated population ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 23:32, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

I can see this one annoying a lot of people. It's the lot of people who can already be annoying, so I don't think that's a big problem. (A few, who misread it as about ''vaccination'' giving immunity, may actually think it supports them. I'm not sure we can do anything about that either.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.85|162.158.159.85]] 21:51, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Would you kindly provide a link to the "Mount Stupid" comic for reference.{{unsigned|172.70.174.119}}

mount stupid: https://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2475 ˜˜˜˜

To be fair, if the vaccination would only protect you for ONE infection it wouldn't be worth it. The idea about immunity is that immunity trained by either vaccination or infection will then protect you from '''multiple''' following infections. The problem with it is that in case of covid (or flu), the immunity wanes off with time AND the virus mutates into new variants the immunity doesn't work as well against. Sure, it still makes sense to vaccinate, but just because the virus spread so much you are very likely to catch it. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:32, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
:Are you making the mistake (without the other baggage) I mentioned above about misreading the comic? This comic isn't about the vaccination at all. It's about infection. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.22|172.70.86.22]] 22:51, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
::Infection is the normal method of vaccination. Until recently with mRNA vaccines, almost all vaccines were about infection- either with the disease itself, a weakened version of the disease, or a related disease.[[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 14:11, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
:::As far as I know, while some vaccines do use a weakened live virus, many use essentially sliced-up spike proteins that are unable to spread. However, historically, the first true vaccination (as well as the earlier variolization), did use an unweakened live virus (smallpox for variolization, cowpox for the first vaccination). Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, though. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.130.213|172.70.130.213]] 16:36, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
:(And, to add, if the vaccine just protected against ONE infection, where that one infection was sufficiently dangerous, it would indeed be worth it. Better than chancing the infection on a naïve immune system and hoping to come out the other side with a similarly infection-specific immune effect (c.f. annual flu waves) but without the QC and care given to the vector.) ((See, I knew it'd spark response, didn't intend to say much. Maybe I should just stay out of this until it blows over.)) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.79|172.70.85.79]] 23:01, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
::Of course it is about the vaccination - this supports Randall's earlier statements for being pro vaccine, that you should get the immunity from vaccination and not from infection! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:24, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
:::Hmmm, no. It's about COVID (and that by inference). It doesn't mention the vaccine. The conversation ''might'' have been about the vaccine, but the comic (and its discussion of what it is sensible to do, or not) is vaccine free. It's "anti-infection", but not directly "pro-vaccine". (He, I and you ''are'' all sensibly pro-vaccine, I think. The comic itself is only vocal on that subject by omission and a chain of logic that will never occur to those stuck at the original fallacy.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.73|172.70.85.73]] 13:06, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

People who know a lot about the immune system could also be referring to people who are aware of possibilities like the varicella zoster virus which causes chickenpox, but stays dormant in your body after you recover and can come back later as shingles. This is less likely to happen if you get the vaccine to prevent chickenpox in the first place. --[[User:Norgaladir|Norgaladir]] ([[User talk:Norgaladir|talk]]) 00:32, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

A vaccination doesn't necessarily give you immunity, e.g. with the Covid or influenca vaccines, so you still can get infected. But being vaccinated reduces the risk of suffering complications like death that can ruin your and other peoples' life.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.94.229|162.158.94.229]] 07:59, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
:...''significantly'' reduces the risk, in fact. It likely also (though it's a harder thing to establish) reduces the catch-and-transmit rate, thus yet another thing to do to help others, even those you'll never meet directly, who are unable or (ugh!) unwilling to think this far ahead. Unmitigated (and, especially, sought-after) 'natural' infection as represented in the comic just helps spread the thing further and faster and does a gross disservice to onward contacts, contacts-of-contacts, etc, etc. Excuse my preaching to the choir here, but it needs to be said. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.73|172.70.85.73]] 13:06, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
::You're not preaching to the choir exclusively, plenty of lurkers (like me) are reading along. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.143|108.162.241.143]] 17:01, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

While trying to update the explanation for 'neutrality of tone' and address some infectious disease history, I came across this [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7120728/#!po=44.6721|Highly Infectious Diseases in Critical Care] article
from the NIH published January 3 of 2020 which includes a comparison of smallpox, measles, SARS-1, and MERS-cov illustrating how significantly vaccination has reduced global infections. Check out the graph of measles from 1980. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.227|172.70.110.227]] 13:46, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

My hero is the person who added the citation needed to "Diseases are bad", as well as those who realize that vaccination is largely a form of infection on purpose (within one of the following five options: infection by the disease itself, infection by a weakened disease, infection by a killed and inactive version of the disease, infection by a related less dangerous disease that shares some characteristics with the original disease, infection by a laboratory created RNA strands that mimic the disease being attacked). Therefore, catching the disease on purpose, is a form of vaccination. Israel did a study on infection by the disease itself and found 6.7 times stronger immune response than other forms of COVID-19 vaccination. [https://www.science.org/content/article/having-sars-cov-2-once-confers-much-greater-immunity-vaccine-vaccination-remains-vital] [[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 14:11, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
:This should indicate that a better (at preparing your immune system to resist future infection) vaccine (process) may be possible. Without saying that current vaccines are ineffective. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.97|108.162.241.97]] 17:06, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
:I like how you make sure to use the "laboratory created" modifier for the RNA vaccine, but not the other types. As if they all grew on trees or something. Here's a hint: all vaccines were created in a lab, though many were created more directly by modifying an existing virus, in that lab. [[User:PotatoGod|PotatoGod]] ([[User talk:PotatoGod|talk]]) 21:15, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
I would like to add that the comic criticizes only a part of ''anti-vaxxers'' population that show the circular logic presented. There are other parts, e.g. those who are not quite sure if the cost/benefit (or rather risk/risk) calculus is right for the rapidly developed and hastily officially approved (in comparison to long-established vaccines against other diseases) and/or novel (mRNA) vaccine products, fearing long-time side effects of the vaccine. On the other hand, long-term effects of the disease itself are also not known yet, even if some middle-term ones are known or being investigated already. There are still other parts like those who oppose governmental obligations or pressure to vaccinate against covid and related restrictions, and take the refusal as a personal freedom stance. There may be others. -- [[Special:Contributions/198.41.242.219|198.41.242.219]] 15:09, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

This very much feels like a straw man. I get that it's a webcomic, but can we talk about this? The description says that natural immunity is "short lived" (as in, how short-lived, and how much compared to vaccination?) but meanwhile I hear like one in five COVID hospitalizations were vaccinated patients. Are there studies on reinfection with COVID in vaccinated vs non-vaccinated patients? It seems to me from the latest comics that Randall is frustrated. I think everyone is frustrated. Citation needed, haha. But I get tired of reading "haha the other side is dumb" from both sides of every damn issue these days, and the bigger the impact an issue has, the more furious the mudslinging. One could, for example, make the same "circular argument" jab at trusting the FDA in this example, or in a more agnostic case, the value of a college degree or a certification: Ex. "we're qualified to make decisions about what's right or smart for the populace because we're a bunch of people who say so, and we have a pretty looking seal to prove it, and also please keep giving us a lot of money." I mean, for those of us who have been to college, haven't we all churned our way through that just to get into the workforce and discover that it's completely different than what we actually needed to know? Would we call people "anti-uni's" and laugh at their incompetence for questioning the system? Even at the unlikely minimum of "anti-vaxxers (or x-person who disagrees with me) are 100% dumb and wrong and that's a fact", isn't the discourse important? I understand that the opposite extreme is "I'd rather let my child die of Polio than trust another human being", but isn't that just another straw man? When are we going to stop polarizing? Thoughts?[[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.147|108.162.237.147]] 16:28, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
:It might be Randall is (intentionally or accidentally) touching on your point by making this comic's thesis ambiguous. People who aren't thinking deeply about the topic on both sides will initially think it confirms their worldview, until they see more discussion on the matter. So the comic's ambiguity might prompt more discussion by and between both sides. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.143|108.162.241.143]] 17:18, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
:Re: "I hear like one in five COVID hospitalizations were vaccinated patients." ....if less than one in five people are vaccinated, this is a problem. Either it means there is a problem with the vaccine (unlikely) or that the vaccinated are putting themselves more at risk thinking they are more 'virusproof' than they are. If more (and hopefully significantly more) than 20% of the populace are vaccinated then this is actually a positive sign for the whole issue - even if there's still social hubris underestimating the precautions they still may need to take.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.73|162.158.159.73]] 17:34, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
::At least in the US, significantly more than 1 in 5 people are vaccinated. It's a little over 3 in 5 fully vaccinated. But I would suggest that even that isn't necessarily the statistic to look at - pretty sure covid is still more likely to be serious for older people and folks with preexisting conditions, all else being equal, and those populations have an even higher vaccination rate. 78% of folks 50-64 are fully vaccinated, and 84% 65+, per the CDC. So that makes the 1 in 5 represent *even less* risk.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.45|172.70.110.45]] 18:30, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

(Re: The "Why does my IP keep changing?" asked as an Edit-comment (see page history)... Because your gateway/pathway between yourself and the site goes through a limited and shared ''set'' of possible IPv4s. There's no guarantee you'll get the same IP (or even obvious range!) between edits, nor that your current IP won't be used by someone else in a few minutes. It's just a technical thing that greases the wheels of the Internet, even if it has funny repurcussions for some things like this.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.73|162.158.159.73]] 17:34, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

"However, what Cueball (and by extension Randall) fail to note is that bad or not, there are plenty of instances where someone has already recovered, and therefore already in possession of natural immunity." - Isn't that what the comic is about? I'm confused as to why this is on the explanation page? --[[User:Enchantedsleeper|enchantedsleeper]] ([[User talk:Enchantedsleeper|talk]]) 19:45, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

I think people are overcomplicating this. A common anti-covax trope you sometimes see is that natural immunity is "better than" the immunity provided by a vaccine. But it is a total non sequitur The *only way* the vaccine could prevent you from acquiring the coveted "natural" immunity would be if it saved you from getting infected in the first place. If you never end up infected, then I guess you didn't need the natural immunity after all. If you do get infected, well now you have it. There is no sense rushing out to get infected on purpose, which is the equivalent of refusing a vaccine. Of course, people can have many other reasons for not vaccinating, but this particular "reason" truly makes no sense.

To add to the pile: if you get infected, you don't have to *worry* as much about future infections. It's over with (at least psychologically). Balloon popping is bad, but it's the anticipation that's the worst part for me. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.122.13|162.158.122.13]] 00:39, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
:That depends on if it's a "you only catch this once" thing. That's not so certain. Probably{{fact}} you can't catch a particular greek-letter-version twice, but you've got a dozen other (and potentially more later) greek letters to maybe/maybe-not fend off in future, with some variants clearly being able to at least possibly get past the protection (viral or vaccinal) that come from others.
:And they also say Omicron is only half as lethal (or hospitalising) as Delta, but that may just be because many Omicron-catchers had already made themselves infectees of Delta/whatever so they 'only' get the half-unsure vulnerability of the partially-naive/partially-protecting Delta-trained immume system of those that survived the prior round.
:And once you have more than twice as many Omicron infections because "it's not as bad as the other one", that still gives you more deaths than the 'more fatal' prior version. If you're thinking you're doing the Cowpox/Chickenpox thing of ''deliberately'' 'pre-infecting' yourself then you're just giving it more people to ''try'' to kill, yourself and any collateral infectees and (even if your individual chances are better, for whatever reason) it results in worse total statistics than if you'd been sensible until everyone possible had at least been able to be given a non-disease lesson in at least a similar-looking thing.
:...Oh, I don't think half the questions about all this have been answered, and won't be tied down for a while yet, but some supposed answers are clearly wishful thinking and should be easy dismiss as quackery. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.79|172.70.85.79]] 01:27, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Soooooo what's unfinished about this? It's almost a month old and the "incomplete" tag doesn't say anything descriptive about what needs to be done. And it looks pretty complete to me... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.230.57|172.70.230.57]] 07:08, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
:Depends on what people need. Some might understand it all, others might take more informing. (Not that I'd know how or if I should put it in the Explanation body, but there's [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60050996 situations like this] that illustrate potential complications to the viewpoint this is tackling.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.73|172.70.85.73]] 17:52, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

I see no reason to get jabbed with an experimental mRNA cocktail for a disease that almost certainly will not kill me...if it even affects me. How sure can you be of its efficacy when the experts didn't even know it would require multiple boosters when it was first available? The fact that almost all dissent toward "the narrative" is censored rather than argued makes me even more skeptical and determined. I'm sure we can all agree now that masks were almost completely worthless the whole time, right? But it's only now that we're able to even say that without fear of retribution. Anyway, this comic will NOT age well. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.163|108.162.221.163]] 20:22, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
:Let's say it won't harm you, if you catch it (not a sure thing, but, let's assume you know this to be true). But you catch it, and pass it on to someone else, and thus you have hastened someone else's death. But it does not affect you, so never mind.
:As for mRNA vaccines being experimental, well they've been studied in humans for over 20 years, based upon a decade or more of prior trials, and have been theraputically used (for other things) for the best part of a decade. The general mechanism is well known.
:But still, tailoring it to deal with the very real new threat (though of course you can shrug it off like a mild hangover, I hear) was done very thoroughly, all the usual safety tests were done with haste but not rushed or skipped (just compressing the "dead time" usually inevitable between stages, except when pausing to rule out silly things like death by car-accident cannot possibly be connected to the study an individual took part in, etc).
:This did mean that they did not have the fuller information on 'immunity decay' (or, of course, how new variants might sneak around the protections provided) but boosters were always imagined necessary ''eventually'' to remind the body to look out for a half-forgotten or only partially matching pathogen signature. In part, the problem was whether to get boosters to people at the recommended interval (different for different products, but a few weeks to a few months was already suggested as of the first widespread injections) or to prioritise supplies towards first-injections in the wider population not yet previously having been called to be jagged.
:And you seem to be arguing about the mRNA vaccines, but seem not to have said anything about having had one or other of the other varieties (which ones will depend upon your locale, but there's now a wide range of them in most countries), so either you aren't aware of them or you're equally skeptical but only think you have arguments on that one type that you consider the archetypal demon-seed.
:And, as for arguments being censored, I know that plain wrong 'information' has been discouraged, to prevent the viral spread of dangerous lies, but here's me countering your points, arguing (or informing, I would prefer, but YMMV) vs. your frankly old-hat narrative that I certainly don't think should be deleted, but am happy to present (what I think is) more of a truth than your viewpoint is.
:And, no, I don't think the reaction to the Pandemic was done correctly. Often those in power made huge errors, but it could have been worse. Especially if no-one had had vaccines to be given, mRNA or otherwise.
:Have a nice life, and remember that you're still at some (perhaps small) risk of illness or death, as are your loved ones and others in your community. You perhaps don't need to be scared of it, but be cautious. Especially if you aren't vaccinated. And even if you caught an earlier version (knowingly or otherwise) and were personally lucky. Hopefully you never get to know that you were the reason for someone's fate, in one or other bad way. But be lucky! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.71|162.158.159.71]] 22:47, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Talk:2511: Recreate the Conditions

2021-09-04T12:41:18Z

162.158.159.71:

Notice that the picture of the palm tree looks kind of like the spray of particles in the first slide. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 05:03, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
One goal of particle colliders such as LHC at CERN is to recreate conditions similar to those few seconds after the Big Bang, but they have still not destroyed the earth.{{unsigned|162.158.129.67|06:08, 4 September 2021‎}}
:That we know of... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.71|162.158.159.71]] 12:41, 4 September 2021 (UTC)