explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2273: Truck Proximity

2020-02-26T20:40:07Z

162.158.214.148: Very basic summary

{{comic
| number = 2273
| date = February 26, 2020
| title = Truck Proximity
| image = truck_proximity.png
| titletext = See also: Farm animals and dinosaurs. I am so confident that there exists children's media that involves dinosaurs driving trucks on a farm that I'm writing this without even Googling to check.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a DINOSAUR DRIVING A TRUCK. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic is a graph. People with jobs involving trucks spend a lot of time with them and must know how they work. Small children think trucks are cool and learn a lot about them. They then share this knowledge with their parents. The parents keep children away from trucks.

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

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:2262: Parker Solar Probe

2020-01-31T23:17:29Z

162.158.214.148:

I thought "down" meant towards the center of the Earth. Apparently I was wrong. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.148|162.158.214.148]] 23:17, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Talk:2261: Worst Thing That Could Happen

2020-01-31T05:36:01Z

162.158.214.148: noone isn't a word

What? No one mentioned Earth being hit by asteroid or one of close stars going supernova? -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 19:43, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
:No, this is just dealing with the worst scenarios. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 21:05, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birds_(film) , isn't it? Wouldn't it be more destructive than just ramming and pecking? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.216|141.101.105.216]] 21:56, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

I very recently saw a meme I had to think of (and want to share the funny part), where a badass-person was described. The last point was "the morals of a seagull." --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:10, 30 January 2020 (UTC) Edit: Just googled it. It was a reddit post about seals, and the conclusion was, they are like "if a cat weighed 300 kilos and had the intelligence of a toddler & the morals of a seagull". --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:25, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

“Much of the computer networking technology used today has its roots in research into hardening nuclear command and control systems against an incoming first strike...”. This is false, at least as far as the early internet goes. https://www.internetsociety.org/internet/history-internet/brief-history-internet/#f5 — “5 It was from the RAND study that the false rumor started claiming that the ARPANET was somehow related to building a network resistant to nuclear war. This was never true of the ARPANET, only the unrelated RAND study on secure voice considered nuclear war. However, the later work on Internetting did emphasize robustness and survivability, including the capability to withstand losses of large portions of the underlying networks.” Since the authors include Vint Cerf, I’m inclined to give it a lot of credibility. {{unsigned ip|162.158.2.214}}

How does ''Ninja Warrior'' subject contestants to pain/humiliation on failure? The only humiliation factor is from failing in the first place, and the water is there to ''minimize'' pain (well, to minimize ''injuries'' anyway). There are plenty of ''much'' better examples of game shows that "punish" failure. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.70.34|172.68.70.34]] 16:12, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
: Ninja Warrior is the 'painful' contest that I happen to have seen most recently, but on reflection I suppose MXC/Takeshi's Castle is a little more straightforward on the "humiliation" factor. --[[User:NotaBene|NotaBene]] ([[User talk:NotaBene|talk]]) 02:34, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

CTRL-f for searching... I always imagined Randal as an Emacs user (Emacs standard binding for incremental search is ctrl-s) but I guess no one is perfect. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.70.70|172.68.70.70]] 05:14, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Talk:2257: Unsubscribe Message

2020-01-20T15:44:38Z

162.158.214.148:

>>>YOU HAVE BEEN UNSUBSCRIBED<<<[[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.148|162.158.214.148]] 12:57, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

If I ever make an unsubscribe message, it'll just be this comic. [[User:Blacksilver|Blacksilver]] ([[User talk:Blacksilver|talk]]) 13:28, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

You have been SO unsubscribed that it isn't even funny! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.148|162.158.214.148]] 15:44, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Talk:2257: Unsubscribe Message

2020-01-20T12:57:53Z

162.158.214.148:

YOU HAVE BEEN UNSUBCRIBED!!!![[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.148|162.158.214.148]] 12:57, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Talk:2248: New Year's Eve

2020-01-01T13:15:09Z

162.158.214.148:

What about people born on New Year's [[User:HelloWorld|HelloWorld]] ([[User talk:HelloWorld|talk]]) 16:28, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

:This method works for them too. For instance, someone born 1/1/2000 will still be 19 on 12/31/2019 (2019 - 2000 = 19) but turn 20 the following day. Why do you think there's a problem for them? [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 16:47, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

::For people born late at night on New Year's Eve it could still present an issue ''theoretically'', but it would at least be the day of their birthday so you're not getting their age wrong so much as observing their birthday!
::[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 18:31, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
:::I believe what you're suggesting is that someone is not one year older until the exact time of their birth on the date of their birth. I don't think anyone gets that pedantic about their age unless they're really vain! ;-) [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 18:45, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Think we should mention Randall's past "terrible party themes"? The not-that-fun malaria party and the one to celebrate arsenic-based life spring to mind.
[[User:Enfield|Enfield]] ([[User talk:Enfield|talk]]) 21:13, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Since some readers will not know what "off by one errors" are, that should probably be explained. [[User:MAP|MAP]] ([[User talk:MAP|talk]]) 14:19, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

To all you xkcd fans: HAPPY NEAR YOU!![[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.148|162.158.214.148]] 13:15, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

== Off-by-One Party Theme ==
Anyone have any good tips for an "Off-By-One" party? My birthday is this January & I'm thinking that's as good a theme as any. Of course the invites will feature a "2 guests ±1" RSVP option, but I haven't thought much beyond that yet. Ideas?
[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 18:31, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
:This partly depends on whether it's up to the host or the guests to honor the theme of the party. You've given an example for guests. As the host, you could hold the party the day before or after your birthday, all food could be purchased as baker's dozens (13 items instead of 12), the age on the cake could be off by one, or you could hold the party at your neighbor's house with their agreement (address of house off by one?). [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 18:55, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
: Time: You could leave the start/end time flexible (+/- 1) . Or give the incorrect start time. Maybe go with the pun "everyone must be off (leave the party) by one" (am/pm) depending on the party. [[User:Iggynelix|Iggynelix]] ([[User talk:Iggynelix|talk]]) 19:42, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
: Decor: you could remove a light bulb from each fixture/room. Be short by one for glasses, plates, chairs, etc. Maybe each time a guests as for "a slice/serving/whatever" they get none or 2. (Roll for it? And encourage sharing?) An extra cake with a different number of candles. [[User:Iggynelix|Iggynelix]] ([[User talk:Iggynelix|talk]]) 19:42, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

:possible "off-by-1" themed decorations for a party of programmers:
:* Write a message that reads: “The last one of the 4 boxes is obviously box 4.” Below the message, draw four boxes, and write 0-indexed numbers on them as 0, 1, 2, 3.
:*Get 6 party balloons or similar colorful items, write P, A, R, T, Y cheerfully on the first 5 of them, one letter on each. On the last one, write with smaller letters, darkly: “Not null-terminated (not allocated)” If desired add a cartoon character *p++ running left-to-right happily in the cheerful section, not knowing what is going to happen. [[User:Yosei|Yosei]] ([[User talk:Yosei|talk]]) 03:42, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

:Games or activities:
:* Musical chairs (given there is always one fewer chair than people) [[User:Bermudadad|Bermudadad]] ([[User talk:Bermudadad|talk]]) 17:11, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

:Off-by-one parties tend to suffer from buffet overflows. (It also strikes me that invitations for ''1 guest ±1'' are actually the standard, even if not phrased that way.) [https://iamkate.com/ Kate Rose Morley] 19:35, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

== Specific calculations ==

So, how old's Jesus? Two-thousand and nineteen? Two-thousand and eighteen? Two-thousand and twenty-(three...seven)? Well into this decade, some churches round here ''still'' had the ubiquitous cross-denominational "It is Christ's 2000th birthday!" plaques up from the false-millenium (I might have a look now to see if any still do!) but of all the things they get wrong I don't think that's particularly the biggest thing, so... ;) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.91|162.158.154.91]] 18:49, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm going to remove the second paragraph about it not working for New Year's Day, as Cueball explicitly states that New Year's Eve is the ONE day of the year when it works. The extra paragraph is just confusing at a minimum. [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 19:37, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Talk:2160: Ken Burns Theory

2019-12-20T20:48:19Z

162.158.214.148:

Is the joke in this comic that Ken Burns made documentary films about real events, meaning all of his mini-series truly were a part of a common universe - our own universe? [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 15:12, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Could someone put in a summary of the Pixar theory from the Mental Floss article? It's the kind of thing that Randall is trying to reference. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.215|108.162.246.215]] 17:25, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
:Ehh, The Pixar theory is a famous example, but there are a lot more, like the snow globe theory, I don't think a single one needs to be summarized here to get the point [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.69|162.158.74.69]] 01:16, 8 June 2019 (UTC) sam

Is it weird that I found this funnier before I understood that Ken Burns was a documentary filmmaker? For some reason I thought that Burns was an actor and that cueball was trying to explain how his character could be the same person in some weird pseudohistorical fictional universe.
:OMG same here! I thought Ken Burns was an actor I wasn't terribly familiar with (outside of having heard his name), and these were fictional movies based on elements of real life that he's acted in... Somehow it's less funny that Burns is a documentary maker and Cueball is just trying to create a fictional link that's actually really already there, LOL! [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:01, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
:Uh, yes. You're both weird! ;-) [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 04:38, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
:: Or neither of us particularly care for documentaries and prefer our fiction to be fictional. :) LOL! [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 03:33, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

All the movies by M. Night Shyamalan ''are'' in the same universe though, right?
[[Special:Contributions/172.68.211.244|172.68.211.244]] 16:41, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
:[https://news.avclub.com/theory-split-takes-place-in-the-same-universe-as-the-s-1827628970 Maybe?] [[Special:Contributions/172.68.132.149|172.68.132.149]] 01:52, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

And I thought the joke was related to the liberties that Ken Burns takes with his "Histories" so that it isn't clear whether his versions of events could exist in the same universe.

What's up with the link to the "Star Wars Extended Universe Wiki"? Wouldn't Wookieepedia be a better link?[[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.148|162.158.214.148]] 20:48, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Talk:2236: Is it Christmas?

2019-12-04T20:43:29Z

162.158.214.148:

according Wayback Machine, the site [https://web.archive.org/web/20181225014549/https://isitchristmas.com/ still] [https://web.archive.org/web/20171225032723/https://isitchristmas.com/ says] [https://web.archive.org/web/20161209052757/https://isitchristmas.com/ NO] [https://web.archive.org/web/20151225060146/https://isitchristmas.com/ even] on Christmas. --[[User:Valepert|valepert]] ([[User talk:Valepert|talk]]) 21:56, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

:Hmmm, maybe it will be fixed this year. I imagine everybody spammed the guy on twitter when it didnt work last year. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.132.155|172.68.132.155]] 22:06, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

:; It checks your system time
:It uses the <code>new Date()</code> constructor to check whether it is Christmas, which uses your system time. Thus, the Wayback won't get anything, but changing your system time will. Kay? [[User:Jacky720|That's right, Jacky720 just signed this]] ([[User talk:Jacky720|talk]] | [[Special:Contributions/Jacky720|contribs]]) 22:14, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Okay so looking at isitchristmas.com, there's a comment at the top of the page saying to look at the console, but I don't see anything in there, anyone know what that might be about? Also at the bottom of the html file, the bottommost <script> tag looks like it might contain code for a chat client? I don't know JS so I'm unsure, but I tried changing all the related "false" values to "true" that looked relevant and nothing happened, so idk. Maybe someone else can figure it out. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.132.155|172.68.132.155]] 22:03, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
:(I'm the dev.) Check back again closer to Christmas, on 12/23 or 12/24. [[User:Konklone|Konklone]] ([[User talk:Konklone|talk]]) 00:55, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
::I mean, I kind of find that suspect. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.47.234|172.68.47.234]] 01:39, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
:::seconded. that's a suspicious lot of javascript just to display yes or no, even with globalisation. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.107.144|141.101.107.144]] 10:07, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
::::There are some other features besides globalization, but they only take effect closer to Christmas. [[User:Konklone|Konklone]] ([[User talk:Konklone|talk]]) 17:24, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
:::::Aha! I found some more info from your blog: https://konklone.com/post/isitchristmas-dot-com-2013-more-and-better [[Special:Contributions/172.68.142.59|172.68.142.59]] 21:55, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Well, one way to put it is that the overall probability of a false negative is 0.27%, which doesn't seem too bad, but the conditional probability of a false negative given that it's Christmas is 100%, which is horrid. --[[User:IByte|IByte]] ([[User talk:IByte|talk]]) 22:37, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Of course it depends on your definition of "It's Christmas". The figure is right if you just mean Christmas Day and ignore the Julian vs Gregorian issue, but not you subscribe to "the 12 days of Christmas" = Christmas ... Just saying ;-) [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 23:53, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
:Every year, people ask me about including multiple definitions of Christmas, but I think for my own sanity it's going to keep looking just at 12/25. ;) [[User:Konklone|Konklone]] ([[User talk:Konklone|talk]]) 00:57, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
::There's an assumption here that people will only want to celebrate Christmas once a year. Might be different for someone living in a community with multiple religions who likes the holiday, or wants an excuse to take an additional day off work! --[[User:Marcus Rowland|Marcus Rowland]] ([[User talk:Marcus Rowland|talk]]) 11:08, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
:::But that would not be Christmas. Christmas is the day the Bible states Jesus was born (or at least if it is in the bible at all, the day Christians choose to claim Jesus was born). Thus only one day can be Christmas and no matter how you choose to celebrate and when or how many days, still only the 25th of December will be Christmas! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:41, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
::::Not only Bible doesn't say anything about when was Jesus born, the first Christmas celebration happened in year 336 and the date was likely chosen to match Roman Festival of Saturnalia. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 23:49, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
::::I'm Catholic, Christmas day is one day a year, but Christmas (the liturgical season) ends on The Baptism of the Lord, which varies but can be as late as January 13th. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.63.91|172.69.63.91]] 15:19, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
::::There are at least two Christmas days, as noted previously - the Western one on 25th December, and the Eastern Orthodox version which is based on an older calendar and is now in January according to the Western calendar, because their calendar has slipped compared to ours. But if someone wants to celebrate both there is really no reason why not - they don't have to be followers of the religion to want to take a holiday. Or if you want another reason, in communities with followers of both versions of Christianity, there will be days when the followers of one or another version are celebrating Christmas and businesses etc. are closed, which will affect everyone regardless of which religion they follow, if any. --[[User:Marcus Rowland|Marcus Rowland]] ([[User talk:Marcus Rowland|talk]]) 15:33, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
How do we know Randall's version is wrong on Christmas? Has anyone set their system clock to Dec 25 and checked it? [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 02:14, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
:Have tested; Randall's displayed "no" as per main image. isitchritmas displayed "yes" as per explanation. [[User:RedHillian|RedHillian]] ([[User talk:RedHillian|talk]]) 02:44, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
::It may be Randall uses Server-Time, and not client-time like isitchristmas.com - Also, in the official Calendars, there are two Christmas days, first and second day of Christmas. I think Randall went only for the gifting day, which is different in many countries anyway. My kids get there presents on Christmas eve (24 December), their friends mostly on 6 December (Sint Nicolas) (or the evening before). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.77.62|141.101.77.62]] 07:45, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
:: Based on his 99.73% accuracy comment, I assume the comic is a static image, and will always show "NO", even on Christmas day. I think that is the whole joke, that his comic is correct 364 (+ leap days) of the year, when it is not Christmas. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.158|172.69.34.158]] 08:23, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
:::Of course this is a static image, that is the whole point. ;-) In Demark we also have the [https://erdetfredag.dk/ is it Friday] which at least is easier to check if it works, as it changes from No (Nej) to Yes (Ja) once a week. As mentioned above in Denmark the isitchristmas answers in Danish with a Nej. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:34, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
:::Yes, that is clearly what the comic implies - that it is static and will be wrong on Christmas. But to be fair, it would very much be Randall's style to instead change this comic to say "YES" on christmas, and then ALSO to change it again so that it is wrong on some ''other'' unexpected day... :) [[User:Praxiq|Praxiq]] ([[User talk:Praxiq|talk]]) 05:23, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

About "when is christmas". Christmas consists of two days, which makes the calculation of predicted correctness too optimistic. (99,45% for 363/365 and for 364/366; 99,38% for 363/365.25)[[Special:Contributions/141.101.77.62|141.101.77.62]] 07:45, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
:No only the 25th of December is called Christmas Day. All other days are thus not Christmas, but just days you choose to celebrate that the 25th is Christmas! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:41, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
:: Ah, learned something today. In Germany and several neighbouring countries Christmas has two days, a first and a second Christmas day (25th and 26th of December). As Christ was born in the night, both days around that night get celebrated. Stupidly I assumed this would be the case in English speaking countries too. So, the UK and a few former colonies have only one day of Christmas, and a "Boxing Day". Thanks for making me spill my time on wikipedia and other sources. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.54.39|172.69.54.39]] 08:10, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

"In the western world celebrated on 25th" is not correct. For UK,US and Canada and probably a lot others it might be true, german and I think spanish speaking countries not.
:No no. Even when you celebrate Christmas Eve on December 24th (as also in Denmark) we call the 25th Christmas Day. Even if you also celebrate the 2nd Christmas day, there is only one day a year that it is Christmas, and that is the 25th of December. That is when Christians claim Jesus was born. Of course I celebrate the Winter solstice (and accept that I do this a few days off, since that is when I can have the day off.) In Denmark we count the days up till the 24th and celebrate in the evening, (as the Vikings always did, because the new day began the sun set.) We do not look at the 12 days after. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:34, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
::The word "celebrated" or "to celebrate", means (according to [https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/celebrate Lexico/Oxford]): "Acknowledge (a significant or happy day or event) with a social gathering or enjoyable activity." This activity is not set as a single day for the western world. E.g. in Germany it is acknowledget with social gatherings and enjoyable activities for at least 3 days: Christmas eve (24th), First Christmas day (25th) and second christmas day (26th December). Additionally not all the western world (is that even properly defined?) does acknowledge the birth of christ (significant/happy event) by social gatherings or enjoyable activities (e.g. you, as you stated yourself.)--[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 09:59, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
:::The word celebrate is not present in the comic. That is about the question if today is Christmas. When you choose to celebrate Christmas has nothing to do with what day is Christmas, and also other religious holidays has nothing to do with Christmas at all. Do not mix up different issues here. This comic is only wrong on 25th of December which is Christmas day. All other days you choose to celebrate Christmas is not Christmas Day! And thus it is not Christmas! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:41, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
::::So you also agree, that the statement in the explanation is wrong? I will change it.--[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 12:47, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
:The XKCD page has the additional advantage of being equally accurate whether you follow [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar Western] or [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Orthodox_liturgical_calendar Eastern Orthodox] calendars, or whatever calendar you choose! --[[User:Quantum7|Quantum7]] ([[User talk:Quantum7|talk]]) 08:39, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
:::::I didn't mean to stir up such a hornet's nest, but there is a possible distinction between the Season of Christmas (from Christmas Day to Twelfth Night) and just Christmas Day and I was referring to that. Nobody talks of Advent Day or Lent Day and Easter is clearly Good Friday, Easter Day and Easter Monday, even if the Eggs are meant for just Easter Day. Just saying ;-) [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 19:04, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
::It's true that only the 25th is called Christmas Day in the U.S. (for example), but it's also true that the 24th is called Christmas Eve. I see no reason to assume that only the former can lay exclusive claim to a 24-hour "Christmas". If you want only a 24-hour period, I'd argue for a period cutting across both dates. (As a Minnesotan I may be culturally influenced by an apparent Scandinavian tradition.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.148|162.158.214.148]] 20:43, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Reminds me of [[937: TornadoGuard]] in subject matter.--[[User:Henke37|Henke37]] ([[User talk:Henke37|talk]]) 09:47, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
:I was mostly reminded of [[1132: Frequentists vs. Bayesians]]. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 10:06, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Is the comic closely enough related to be put into [[:Category:Statistics]]?--[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 13:21, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
:No. There is nothing statistic here. It is just 1/365 giving the error percentage. That the explanation goes into statistics to tell how bad this version of is it x-mas is, does not make the comics topic statistics --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:01, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Some other sites with the same idea: http://ismycomputeron.com https://shouldiblamecaching.com http://iscaliforniaonfire.com http://www.ismycomputeronfire.com/ [[User:Ahiijny|Ahiijny]] ([[User talk:Ahiijny|talk]]) 14:47, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
: [https://shouldipanic.info Should I panic] yet? [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 19:58, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Also this flowchart: [[1723: Meteorite Identification]] - I am currently to absent-minded to get a proper wording for the relation right. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 14:57, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
:Not seeing the similarity. The flowchart he mocks there is actually a real flowchart, which helps you realize that the stone you find is not a meteorite. Because it never is... until it is. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:01, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
::Both ask a question where the answer is known to usually be "no" and then go ahead, to proclaim "no" without further checks. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 08:37, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Maybe it's just me, but I took this comic to be a mockery of a vastly over-complicated solution to a simple problem. I mean, have you looked at the source code for isitchristmas.com? Crazy! [[Special:Contributions/172.69.63.195|172.69.63.195]] 20:47, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
:I think he just mocks pages in general that tells you something you know. I do though enjoy to sometimes look at the, [https://erdetfredag.dk/ is it Friday page], but only when I know it is Friday, as it is always nice to think about the weekend is near, early Friday morning. ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:01, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

The average number of days in a year in the Gregorian calendar is exactly 365.2425, not 365.25. Leap years are skipped in years divisible by 100 except in years divisible by 400. [[User:Programmerjake|Programmerjake]] ([[User talk:Programmerjake|talk]]) 18:12, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

== More Ads ==

Am I the only one who again got adds in between paragraphs on this wiki? --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 08:37, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
: Nope, but I only get them occasionally. [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 08:53, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
:: Right now I'm seeing a lot of them in the discussion section that's transcluded on the main comic page, but not if I go directly to the Discussion Talk: page. See also [[Talk:2220: Imagine Going Back in Time/Ads]] (the previous discussion about this). [[User:Ahiijny|Ahiijny]] ([[User talk:Ahiijny|talk]]) 14:50, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

== The Asterisk ==

One thing nobody has mentioned yet: the asterisk after "NO" is very distinctly drawn with 4 lines, for 8 points. The vertical points are longest; the horizontal points second-longest; and the diagonal points are shortest. This is a very popular way to represent the star of bethlehem, especially as a christmas tree topper - see https://imgur.com/a/B9det9a for lots of ornaments that look an awful lot like that asterisk! I'm sure it's deliberate, given the Christmas theme of the comic. (I intended to update the explanation to point this out, but as a new user I can't upload the image here, and I'm not sure if linking to external images is good etiquette. So instead I'm posting here, in case someone else wants to update the explanation. The linked imgur is a collage of my own creation, but it's made up of 6 copyrighted photos. They're marketing photos from Amazon, Wayfair, and other sites, of products for sale - I believe using them educationally as a representative sample of ornaments depicting the star of bethlehem should constitute fair use, but IANAL.)

[[User:Praxiq|Praxiq]] ([[User talk:Praxiq|talk]]) 05:18, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Talk:2232: Hotel Room Party

2019-11-23T11:16:00Z

162.158.214.148:

Is the "aa" in the hovertext intentional? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.132.233|172.68.132.233]] 17:12, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

::I don't think so [[User:Duraludon|Duraludon]] ([[User talk:Duraludon|talk]]) 17:34, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
:::Ii agree it's probably aa typo. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 18:03, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Talk:2232: Hotel Room Party

2019-11-23T11:15:22Z

162.158.214.148:

Talk:2232: Hotel Room Party

2019-11-23T11:14:38Z

162.158.214.148:

887: Future Timeline

2019-11-08T19:43:26Z

162.158.214.148: Updated statistics on troops in Afghanistan

{{comic
| number = 887
| date = April 18, 2011
| title = Future Timeline
| before = [[#Explanation|↓ Skip to explanation ↓]]
| image = future timeline.png
| titletext = Not shown: the approximately 30,000 identical, vaguely hysterical articles titled "WHITE PEOPLE IN [THE US/BRITAIN] TO BECOME MINORITY BY [YEAR]!", which came up for basically any year I put in.
}}

==Explanation==

This comic uses the same strategy as comic [[715: Numbers]], in which [[Randall]] uses Google to search for phrases and then charts the results. This one is charted as a timeline, whereas 715 was charted as line graphs.
It is a list of things predicted or announced by anyone at any time (the ones you see on Google search using "by the year..." or similar statements).

"2101 - War Was Beginning" is a reference to the opening narration of video game ''Zero Wing''; the same narration is famous for the internet meme "{{w|All your base are belong to us}}". As there are not any other out and out references in the comic, and the rest are actually results that you can find using Randall's methods, "War Was Beginning" was probably the only thing he got when he googled 2101 as well.

Certain events in this comic, e.g. "Social Security stops running surplus", are repeated multiple times. Also, certain bizarre events, like "Apocalypse occurs", or "Flying cars reach market", happen before rather plausible things, like "HTML 5 Finished". Certain events, like "Japan is a robot-only country" or "Gillette introduces 14-blade razor" may be related to the recurring theme [[605: Extrapolating]].

The title text is a reference to a reoccurring scaremonger theory that Caucasian people will become a minority or extinct as other ethnicities outbreed them. For maximum scaremongering they will claim this could happen in the near future, complete with extrapolated graphs. In the years since this comic was published these conspiracy theories have come to be known as "the great replacement" or "white genocide". Scaremongers are banking on the idea their target audience will rarely bother to fact check,<ref>https://www.cjr.org/special_report/media-literacy-trump-fake-news.php</ref> as analysis of their extrapolations usually reveals incorrect methodology if not outright lies<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUbxVfSqtt8</ref>.

This comic has similar features to [[1413: Suddenly Popular]], [[1093: Forget]], and [[891: Movie Ages]].

===Accuracy===
====2012-2014====
The only predictions for this period that came true are that the world population has surpassed 7 billion. Canada formally withdrew from the Kyoto protocol in December 2011, and its emissions in 2012 were 18% ''above'' 1990 levels (though its population had grown 26% and its GDP had grown 67% in that period). Sadly, homelessness is still a problem in Massachusetts. The prediction about GNU/Linux operating systems remains false; although Android (which is built on the Linux kernel) is currently the most dominant OS, it is not completely GNU/Linux, which remains an extreme minority on consumer devices. And so far as we're aware, the apocalypse has yet to occur.

====2015-2016====
{{w|New Horizons}} made its closest approach to Pluto in July 2015. It was never intended to ''land'' on Pluto, though the comic does not necessarily imply this.

The other 2015 predictions did not come true, though some might claim gender equality was reached.

{{w|Android OS}}' market share was already 84.4% as of the third quarter of 2014, showing that both estimates were overly conservative.<ref>http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-share.jsp</ref> {{w|Windows Phone}} continued to have less than 30% of {{w|iOS}}' market share and has since been discontinued.

====2017-2019====
None of the predictions for this period have come true.

==The predictions==
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Year
! Prediction
! Further Details
! Outcome
|-
| rowspan="4"| 2012
| World population
| Ever since the advent of modern medicine and the more efficient agricultural processes developed since the Industrial Revolution, the human population had been growing at an unprecedented rate. This has caused some people to worry about overpopulation, which would cause a scarcity of resources and overcrowding, and propose various solutions, most of which involve some form of eugenics. 7 billion is a landmark number because it is a multiple of 1 billion.
| Close: Earth reached 7 billion in late 2011.
|-
| Flying cars
| For decades, flying cars have been a staple of futuristic sci-fi and technological predictions. So far very few of these predictions, which to tend to hover around 5–10 years from whatever the current date is, have come true.
| False; still 5-10 years away. You could argue that helicopters count as flying cars.
|-
| Canada cuts greenhouse emissions
| Currently, the Earth is experiencing an unprecedented period of warming we call global warming, caused in part by greenhouse emissions, which are gases that help trap heat in the atmosphere. Countries have repeatedly gotten together and promised to stop emitting greenhouse gases, but so far they have failed to meet their targets.
| False. Canada withdrew from Kyoto treaty in late 2011.
|-
| Apocalypse occurs
| The end of a cycle of the Mayan calendar on December 22, 2012 has been used in popular culture as a basis for predicting the end of the world. Amongst other things, this included the film '2012'. Some people took this rather more seriously, and actually believed that the world would end on this date.
| False.{{Citation needed}}
|-
| rowspan="4"| 2013
| National debt paid off
| For years, the subject of national debt has been a political point of contention, with the Republicans typically favoring paying it all off, and the Democrats more willing to spend to pull the country out of recessions in the economy. Clinton, a Democrat, at one point proposed [http://money.cnn.com/1999/06/28/economy/clinton/ paying off the debt by 2015].
| False.
|-
| Microchipping Americans
| Microchips are small computer chips, typically embedded in pets in case they get lost, that contain information about the pet. Some, more paranoid, people worry about the government microchipping everyone in an effort to monitor their activities.
| False, although [https://www.google.com/search?q=rfid+implants RFID implants] do exist.
|-
| Homelessness ended in MA
| In 2008, the Commission To End Homelessness in Massachusetts, under Governor Deval Patrick, proposed a plan to all but eliminate homelessness over the next five years (hence the 2013 end-date on the comic).
| False.
|-
| Health care reform law repealed
| A health care reform law, popularly known as Obamacare, was signed into law in 2010. Ever since, many Republicans have tried (in vain) to repeal it, disliking the idea that government should provide and require healthcare.
| Too early; almost repealed in 2017.
|-
| rowspan="2"| 2014
| US leaves Afghanistan
| After the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York City on September 11, 2001, the United States invaded Afghanistan, which at the time allegedly hosted the headquarters of al-Qaeda, the terrorist organization behind the attacks. The war has gone on since then, with the public growing increasingly tired of it. Public support now favors a withdrawal, but for military and logistical reasons, the government cannot simply move all the troops currently in Afghanistan home right now. For one, that would cause immediate chaos in the country. Therefore, the government instead promises to eventually withdraw all troops, planning on doing so by the end of 2014.
| False. As of October 2019, 13,000 US troops remain in Afghanistan.
|-
| GNU/Linux dominant OS
| An operating system, or OS, is the software that forms the structure in which applications on you computer function. Some typical OSs include Mac OS X, Windows 10, and Linux. The first two of those three are commercial products, sold as a copy by a company. The last is an open-source OS, one that anyone can download and modify free. Typically, open-source software is used by a small number of socially conscious people.
| False, although Linux-based Android dominated phones since 2011.
|-
| rowspan="3"| 2015
| New Horizon reaches Pluto
| The New Horizon spacecraft is a U.S. space mission designed to go to Pluto and take photographs, collect samples, etc.
| True. [http://pluto.jhuapl.edu It reached Pluto on July 14, 2015].
|-
| Healthcare law causes hyperinflation
| The National Inflation Association warns that the [http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/healthcare-bill-to-cause-us-hyperinflation-by-2015-88711032.html Healthcare Bill to Cause U.S. Hyperinflation By 2015]
| False.
|-
| Millennium development goals achieved
| {{w|Millennium Development Goals}}
| False.
|-
| rowspan="3"| 2016
| Baby boomers begin turning 65
| {{w|Baby boomers}} are individuals conceived in the years following World War Two, roughly defined as those born from 1946-1959. This isn't so much a prediction as basic math; if you were born in 1946, you turned 65 in 2011.
| True.
|-
| Android takes 38%/45% of market share
| {{w|Android (operating system)|Android}} is a popular operating system for smartphones and tablets, created by Google. Market share is the percentage of all devices that use the product, in this case the Android operating system. These entries together are humorous because they cannot both happen at the same time.
| Too late; passed these marks in 2010.
|-
| Windows phone overtakes iOS
| {{w|iOS}} is the operating system used by Apple iPhones. At the time of the comic, Apple's mobile OS is much more popular than Microsoft's. The article Randall found predicts that the tables will turn.
| False.
|-
| rowspan="5"| 2017
| China completes lunar mission
| The {{w|Chinese space program}} has plans for extraterrestrial exploration, including a manned mission to the moon.
| False.
|-
| Social Security stops running surplus
| The first of many predictions about the United States {{w|Social Security (United States)|Social Security}} trust fund program, all predicting its decline due to a variety of factors.
| False
|-
| US budget balanced
| The {{w|United States federal budget}} outlines how much the US government spends on what in a given fiscal year. The budget is not required to be balanced, and so often more money is spent than is earned in revenue, causing the national debt to rise.
| False. Still far negative.
|-
| Newspapers become obsolete and die out
| The increasing popularity of internet media and mobile devices has caused a steady decline in the popularity of print media.
| False. Though newspapers are in decline, they are certainly not obsolete as of 2017.
|-
| Cosmetic surgery doubles
| {{w|Cosmetic Surgery}}
| False. According to the ASPS (American Society of Plastic Surgeons), 1.6 million cosmetic surgeries were performed in 2011, while 1.8 million were performed in 2017, an increase of only 0.2 million.
|-
| rowspan="2"| 2018
| Social Security stops running surplus
| {{w|Social Security (United States)|Social Security}} again.
| Still false.
|-
| Jesus returns to Earth
| A number of Christians have attempted to predict the return of Christ (a.k.a. the second coming, the rapture) using clues from The Bible, even though the Bible itself says that "no man can know the date". Several predicted dates have come and gone.
| False
|-
| rowspan="2"| 2019
| Social Security stops running surplus
| {{w|Social Security (United States)|Social Security}} again.
| Still false.
|-
| Every baby has genes mapped at birth
| {{w|Gene Mapping}}
| False.
|-
| rowspan="3"| 2020
| Solar power becomes cheaper than fossil fuels
| Scientists estimate that more than half of the {{w|fossil fuels}} in existence have already been found and that fossil fuel production will begin to decline due to the scarcity, causing prices to increase. At the same time, improvements in {{w|Solar Power|solar technology}} are causing the prices for solar energy to steadily decrease.
|
|-
| Keyboards and mice become obsolete
| {{w|Computer input device}} are beginning to adopt other methods of input, such as voice commands, touch screens, and eye tracking. While the use of touch screens in particular is gaining widespread use, as of 2014 none has come close to making keyboards and mice obsolete. None of them allows text input as fast as a keyboard, and none is suitable for writing program code.
|
|-
| New Tappan Zee bridge constructed
| A {{w|Tappan_Zee_Bridge#Replacement_bridge|replacement bridge}} was announced in 2008.
| Too late; completed in 2017.
|-
| rowspan="4"| 2021
| US debt reaches 97% of GDP
| {{w|US Debt}}
| Too late; reached in 2011.
|-
| US unemployment falls to 2.8%
| {{w|Unemployment in the United States}}
|
|-
| Restored caliphate unifies Middle East
| A {{w|caliphate}} is a form of {{w|Islam|Islamic}} political-religious leadership, centred around a Caliph, or successor to the prophet {{w|Muhammad}}. This may be foreshadowing of the Islamic State of Iraq and greater Syria, which has as its goal the creation of a restored caliphate.
|
|-
| Lake Mead evaporates
| Formed by the {{w|Hoover Dam}} on the {{w|Colorado River}}, {{w|Lake Mead}} is the largest reservoir in the United States (measured by maximum capacity). It hasn't reached its capacity since 1983, due to drought and increased demand for water. This could be linked to {{w|global warming}}.
|
|-
| rowspan="3"| 2022
| Kilimanjaro snow-free
| At 5,895 metres, {{w|Kilimanjaro}} is the highest mountain in {{w|Africa}}, and the highest free-standing mountain in the world. Around 85% of its ice cover disappeared between 1912 and 2011, and it continues to recede.
|
|-
| HTML 5 finished
| The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) began work on {{w|HTML 5}} in 2004.
| Too late; 5.0 specification released in 2014, but incremental updates continue.
|-
| Newspapers become obsolete and die out
| This is the second time this prediction has appeared.
|
|-
| rowspan="3"| 2023
| Jesus returns to Earth (again)
| A number of Christians have attempted to predict the return of Christ (a.k.a. the second coming, the rapture) using clues from The Bible, even though the Bible itself says that "no man can know the date". Several predicted dates have come and gone.
|
|-
| US debt passes 100% of GDP
| This references the common fear that {{w|US Debt}} will exceed GDP, possibly causing [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_bubble economic turmoil].
| Too late; reached in 2012.
|-
| All unprotected ancient forests gone from Pacific Northwest
| Likely due to a combination of wildfire and {{w|deforestation}}
|
|-
| rowspan="5"| 2024
| Atlantis begins to reappear
| {{w|Atlantis}} is the name of a fictional island, which is supposed to have been lost beneath the sea.
|
|-
| Orangutans extinct in wild
| {{w|Orangutan|Orangutans}} are a species of great ape, currently classed as an {{w|endangered species}}, and found only in the {{w|Rainforest|rainforests}} of {{w|Borneo}} and {{w|Sumatra}}.
|
|-
| China lands men and women on the moon
| The {{w|Chinese space program}} has plans for extraterrestrial exploration, including a manned mission to the moon.
|
|-
| NASA sets up permanent moon base
| There has been a lot of hype recently about finally returning to the moon, vis-a-vis Orion.
|
|-
| Female professionals pass males in pay
| There are two possible explanations for this entry: Either it's fear-mongering from misogynists or, more probably, an erroneous extrapolation from the current rate at which female incomes are catching up to male incomes.
|
|-
| rowspan="4"| 2025
| World population reaches 8 billion
| Given current rates, it seems unlikely it will take this long to hit 8 billion, but advances in birth control options and especially their availability in developing nations may slow the current rate considerably.
|
|-
| Two billion people face water shortages
| http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/28-01-2008/103693-water_crisis-0/
|
|-
| 62 MPG cars introduced
| 62 miles per gallon, ~3.8 L/100km. 62 MPG is a very good mileage rate at today's standard, even though [http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=5231050&page=1 some cars can be driven carefully so as to attain over 100 MPG].
|
|-
| US power fades
| http://www.cbsnews.com/news/report-us-power-will-fade-by-2025/
| Hard to know what the precise metric for this would be.
|-
| rowspan="5"| 2026
| Atlantis emerges completely
| {{w|Atlantis}} is the name of a fictional island, which is supposed to have been lost beneath the sea. It seems that it has taken 2 years for it to emerge completely.
|
|-
| Rock Bands die out
| https://bestbands.wordpress.com/2009/01/25/rock-bands-to-die-out-by-2026/
|
|-
| US debt paid off
| {{w|US Debt}}
|
|-
| Car accidents cease
| Presumably, cars will be fully automated and able to pilot themselves at this point and will have fail-safes that prevent collisions currently attributed to user error. Car accidents will always be possible, however, due to mechanical and electrical failures.
|
|-
| West coast falls into ocean
| Most likely due to {{w|San_Andreas_Fault#The_next_.22Big_One.22|a significant seismic event}}
|
|-
| rowspan="3"| 2027
| Japan introduces new fastest Maglev train
| Japan's railway systems are famous for their "bullet trains", or {{w|Shinkansen}}.
|
|-
| Lyndon Larouche-planned Mars colony is established
| http://totse.mattfast1.com/en/technology/space_astronomy_nasa/moonmars.html
|
|-
| Social Security stops running surplus
| {{w|Social Security (United States)|Social Security}} again.
|
|-
| rowspan="4"| 2028
| Tobacco outlawed
| Tobacco products (cigarettes and chewing tobacco) have become more and more taboo in modern culture, with most public places and private businesses forbidding their use indoors and near places children congregate.
|
|-
| 40% of coral reefs gone
| Many factors have been attributed to the decline of {{w|Coral_reef#Threats|coral reefs}}, including mining, over fishing, and rising ocean tempteratures.
|
|-
| US debt paid off
| {{w|US Debt}} [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/business/27view.html It’s 2026, and the Debt Is Due].
|
|-
| Social Security stops running surplus
| {{w|Social Security (United States)|Social Security}} again
|
|-
| rowspan="4"| 2029
| Social Security trust fund exhausted
| {{w|Social Security (United States)|Social Security}}
|
|-
| Computers pass the Turing test
| It is no coincidence that 2029 is the timeline for Terminator Movies.
| Some computers already clear the Turing Test about 30% of the time.
|-
| Aging reversed
| Manhattan Beach Project to reverse aging by 2029
|
|-
| Wikipedia reaches 30 Million articles
|
| As of 00:00, 5 January 2015 (UTC), Wikipedia has over 34 million total articles, if all languages are included. The source being cited may have meant the English language Wikipedia, which has only 5.94 million articles, as of 01st October 2019.
|-
| rowspan="3"| 2030
| Half of Amazon rain forest lost to logging
| WWF press release - [http://www.worldwildlife.org/press-releases/climate-change-speeds-up-amazon-s-destruction-says-wwf Climate Change Speeds Up Amazon’s Destruction] referring to a report on the [http://assets.panda.org/downloads/amazonas_eng_04_12b_web.pdf Amazon's vicious cycles] (PDF)
|
|-
| Cancer deaths double from 2008 levels
| From the [http://www.cancer.org/myacs/newengland/global-cancer-burden-to-double-by-2030 Global Cancer Burden to Nearly Double by 2030] article about the article from page 37 of [http://www.cancer.org/research/cancerfactsfigures/globalcancerfactsfigures/global-facts-figures-2nd-ed Global Cancer Facts & Figures 2nd edition].
|
|-
| Arctic ice-free in summer
| http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/10/091015-arctic-ice-free-gone-video-ap.html
|
|-
| rowspan="3"| 2031
| Computers controlled by thought
| http://www.gizmag.com/future-mobile-technology/17554/
| As of 2017, this is {{w|Brain–computer interface|already possible}}
|-
| Realtors replaced by technology
| http://agbeat.com/editorials/will-realtors-be-replaced-by-technology-by-the-year-2031/
|
|-
| Social Security trust fund exhausted
| http://crfb.org/blogs/cbo-95-percent-confident-social-security-trust-fund-runs-out-25-years
|
|-
| rowspan="3"| 2032
| "Big One" hits San Francisco
| http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Quake-scientists-predict-Big-One-likely-by-2032-2653745.php {{w|San Franscisco}} is located on the {{w|San Andreas Fault}}, which is predicted to produce a magnitude 7+ earthquake in the 'near future'. This event is referred to as {{w|San_Andreas_Fault#The_next_.22Big_One.22|"The Big One"}}.
|
|-
| US elects first married lesbian President
| http://4chandata.org/g/In-what-major-ways-do-you-think-the-world-of-2032-will-be-different-from-that-of-today-a20155
|
|-
| Entire world converted to Christianity
| http://www.goddiscussion.com/38920/christian-domininionsts-to-take-over-the-world-by-2032/
|
|-
| rowspan="3"| 2033
| Kilimanjaro ice disappears
| http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/11/02/idUSL2210825
|
|-
| India becomes superpower
| https://www.facebook.com/pages/India-A-SuperPower-by-2033/151177191568098 ?
|
|-
| Europe reaches Mars
| [http://www.spacedaily.com/news/esa-general-03zb.html Specifically, a manned European mission]. ESA's {{w|Mars Express}} probe landed in 2003.
|
|-
| rowspan="2"| 2034
| US diabetes cases double, treatment costs triple
| [http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/11/27/us-diabetes-usa-costs-idUSTRE5AQ0C220091127 U.S. diabetes cases to double, costs triple by 2034]
|
|-
| US builds autonomous robot army
| The concept of robots built for military service is another common element of science fiction stories. [http://www.aos-inc.com/index.php/medialias/press-releases?id=112 Unmanned Systems] article, about the [http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA522247 2009-2034 Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap] publication ([http://www.amazon.com/2009-Unmanned-Integrated-Aircraft-Technologies-ebook/dp/B0047743A0 details at Amazon])
|
|-
| rowspan="3"| 2035
| 80% of America's energy comes from renewable sources
| From fact sheet on Obama's [http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/01/25/fact-sheet-state-union-president-obamas-plan-win-future State of the Union]
|
|-
| Himalayan glaciers down 80% in size
| From an IPCC report on [https://web.archive.org/web/20100116132657/http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch10s10-6-2.html The Himalayan glaciers] that has been analysed in quite some depth. See for example detailed article on an [http://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2010/02/anatomy-of-ipccs-himalayan-glacier-year-2035-mess/ anatomy of IPCC’s mistake].
|
|-
| Arctic sea lane opens
| [http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/730ef8fe-27e1-11e0-8abc-00144feab49a.html#axzz3OBgEHYNY Arctic sea lane could open by 2035]
|
|-
| rowspan="2"| 2036
| 80% of US has access to high-speed rail
| [http://www.wnyc.org/story/284946-obama-80-percent-of-americans-should-have-access-to-high-speed-rail-by-2036/ Obama: 80 Percent of Americans Should Have Access to High Speed Rail By 2036]
|
|-
| Asteroid Apophis misses/hits Earth
| http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/apophis/ http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/apophis/ 99942 Apophis is a near-Earth asteroid that caused a brief period of concern in December 2004 because initial observations indicated a probability of up to 2.7% that it would hit Earth on April 13, 2029.
|
|-
| rowspan="2"| 2037
| Arctic ice-free in September
| {{w|Arctic sea ice decline}}
|
|-
| Social Security trust fund exhausted
| {{w|Social Security (United States)|Social Security}}
|
|-
| rowspan="2"| 2038
| 32-bit timestamps roll over, causing Y2K-level chaos
| 03:14:07 UTC on 19 January 2038, the value of time_t rolls over, that is it will return to zero. time_t is a computing standard measurement of time; it is a count of the number of seconds since 00:00:00 UTC on 1 January 1970. time_t is used by most computer systems to store date and time information. It is recommended that new software should convert to a 64 bit time_t; indeed, most operating systems designed to run on 64-bit hardware already use signed 64-bit time_t integers. This would give an epoch of 15:30:08 UTC on 4 December 292,277,026,596 (292 billion years away). Of course, legacy systems may not be upgradable so action taken now should prevent this becoming a problem closer to 2038...
|
|-
| "Big One" hits California
| [http://www.presstelegram.com/technology/20080414/the-big-one-likely-to-hit-by-2038 `The big one' likely to hit by 2038]
|
|-
| rowspan="3"| 2039
| US population hits 400 Million
| [http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2008/us400million.aspx U.S. Population Projected to Hit 400 Million in 2039]
|
|-
| Severe heat waves become commonplace
| [http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/july/extreme-heat-study-070810.html Heat waves and extremely high temperatures could be commonplace in the U.S. by 2039, Stanford study finds]
|
|-
| Scientology becomes majority religion in US
| [http://home.snafu.de/tilman/2039.html Essay: Scientology in the year 2039]
|
|-
| rowspan="2"| 2040
| Arctic summers ice-free
| [http://www.livescience.com/9419-arctic-summer-ice-free-2040.html Arctic Summer Could be Ice-Free by 2040]
|
|-
| Nanotechnology makes humans immortal
| [http://www.computerworld.com/article/2528330/app-development/nanotech-could-make-humans-immortal-by-2040--futurist-says.html Nanotech could make humans immortal by 2040, futurist says]
|
|-
| 2041
| Social Security trust fund exhausted
| {{w|Social Security (United States)|Social Security}}
|
|-
| 2043
| World population passes 9 Billion
| {{w|Population growth}}
|
|-
| rowspan="2"| 2044
| Mankind genetically engineered to be happy
| Premise of the movie [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1363468/ Zenith] - further details are in the [http://www.filmjournal.com/filmjournal/content_display/esearch/e3i25130cd57f1590bda4527c098ac85b01 film review for Zenith]
|
|-
| Childhood obesity reaches 100%
| [http://www.ivanhoe.com/channels/p_channelstory.cfm?storyid=11414 100-Percent Childhood Obesity Predicted by 2044]
|
|-
| 2045
| Humans and machines merge
| Ray Kurzweil predicts of 'singularity' which will lead to race of super intelligent beings
|
|-
| 2046
| World's natural resources depleted
| [http://raphaelvanlaer.wordpress.com/2012/02/22/peak-uncertainty-when-will-we-run-out-of-fossil-fuels/ Peak uncertainty, when will we run out of fossil fuels?]
|
|-
| rowspan="3"| 2047
| World ruled by banks and corporations
| [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Future-Schlock-2047-RM-Krakoff-ebook/dp/B0039IT37Q Future Schlock] - the story of a world turned upside down in 2047
|
|-
| Tobacco industry fails
| [http://www.news.wisc.edu/16857 Experts: Big Tobacco dead by 2047, possibly sooner]
|
|-
| US begins using autonomous attack drones
| [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/aug/22/us-air-force-drones-pilots-afghanistan US Air Force prepares drones to end era of fighter pilots]
|
|-
| rowspan="3"| 2048
| Salt-water fish extinct from overfishing
| WWF report on [http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/blue_planet/problems/problems_fishing/ Unsustainable fishing]
|
|-
| Unisex bathing suits cover body from shoulder to ankle
| [http://future.wikia.com/wiki/RyansWorld:_Bathing_Suits_of_the_Future RyansWorld: Bathing Suits of the Future]
|
|-
| Entire US population overweight
| Article archive - [https://web.archive.org/web/20090321075605/http://thestatsblog.wordpress.com/2008/07/29/scientists-say-thin-people-face-extinction-in-united-states-everyone-will-be-overweight-by-2048-%E2%80%93-and-less-smart Scientists Say Thin People Face Extinction in United States: Everyone Will Be Overweight by 2048 – And Less Smart]
|
|-
| rowspan="3"| 2049
| $1.000 computer exceeds computational ability of humanity
| [http://www.americanbar.org/content/newsletter/publications/technology_e_report_home/2007_may_technotes.html TechNotes: Trends in Technology]
|
|-
| Singularity occurs
| [http://www.prismdecision.com/the-singularity-is-near The Singularity Is Near]
|
|-
| Fishing industry collapses
| This tends to happen when your food-stock is extinct - see WWF report on [http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/blue_planet/problems/problems_fishing/ Unsustainable fishing]
|
|-
| rowspan="5"| 2050
| 80% of Earth's population lives in urban centers
| [http://infochangeindia.org/population/books-a-reports/80-of-world-population-will-soon-be-in-urban-areas.html 80% of world population will soon be in urban areas]
|
|-
| China controls space
| [https://books.google.com/books?id=op851Uf99LQC&dq=China+controls+space+2050&source=gbs_navlinks_s Space Science & Technology in China: A Roadmap to 2050]
|
|-
| Sex with robots possible
| [http://www.livescience.com/1951-forecast-sex-marriage-robots-2050.html Forecast: Sex and Marriage with Robots by 2050]
|
|-
| Cars banned from European cities
| [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/8411336/EU-to-ban-cars-from-cities-by-2050.html EU to ban cars from cities by 2050]
|
|-
| One million species extinct from climate change
| [http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/01/0107_040107_extinction.html By 2050 Warming to Doom Million Species, Study Says]
|
|-
| 2051
| Atmosphere escapes into space
| [http://www.thehulltruth.com/boating-outdoor-photos/255705-have-you-ever-seen-fallstreak-hole.html Conspiracy theory] relating to {{w|Fallstreak hole}} or hole punch clouds.
|
|-
| 2052
| Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security spending exceed total US revenue
| {{w|Social Security (United States)|Social Security}}
|
|-
| rowspan="3"| 2053
| US budget balanced
| [http://crfb.org/blogs/omb-releases-long-term-projections-fy2015-budget-proposal OMB releases long-term projections for the FY2015 budget proposal]
|
|-
| Majority of Americans in prison
| [http://articles.philly.com/1992-06-14/news/26032105_1_prison-officials-prison-time-prison-commissioners 'Beyond Bricks And Bars' As Jails Overflow, The Lock-'em-up Credo Is Drawing Unlikely Criticism - From Prison Officials Themselves]
|
|-
| Cars driven by dogs
|
| This has [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWAK0J8Uhzk already occurred] in 2012!
|-
| 2054
| Hunger becomes unimaginable global problem
| [http://www.albionmonitor.com/0403a/earth2054.html Hunger Could Be 'Unimaginable' Global Problem By 2054]
|
|-
| rowspan="3"| 2055
| Atmospheric CO2 doubled
| [http://cmi.princeton.edu/wedges/flash_intro.php Carbon Mitigation Initiative: Stabilization Wedges]
|
|-
| Oil runs out
| [http://raphaelvanlaer.wordpress.com/2012/02/22/peak-uncertainty-when-will-we-run-out-of-fossil-fuels/ Peak uncertainty, when will we run out of fossil fuels?]
|
|-
| Copper, tin, lead, gold, and nickel all exhausted
| [http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/environment/5-valuable-metals-that-could-vanish-by-2055 5 Valuable Metals That Could Vanish by 2055]
|
|-
| rowspan="2"| 2056
| RFID-tagged driverless cars
| [http://www.zdnet.com/article/rfid-tagged-driverless-cars-on-roads-by-2056/ RFID-tagged driverless cars on roads by 2056]
|
|-
| Robots given same rights as humans
| [http://www.cc.gatech.edu/news/robots-given-same-rights-humans-2056 Robots Given Same Rights As Humans By 2056]
|
|-
| rowspan="2"| 2057
| 150 Japanese settlers on Mars
| [http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/9011051292/will-japan-colonize-mars Will Japan colonize Mars?]
|
|-
| Colorado River runs dry
| [http://news.agu.org/press-release/colorado-river-reservoirs-could-bottom-out-from-warming-business-as-usual/ Colorado River Reservoirs Could Bottom Out From Warming]
|
|-
| 2058
| Smoking ends in New Zealand
| [http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10698966 Smoking to die out in NZ by 2058]
|
|-
| 2059
| Humans have domesticated robots
| [http://diehardempiricist.blogspot.co.nz/2012/05/6-may-2011-virtual-necking-demography.html Virtual necking, demography, and robots]
|
|-
| rowspan="4"| 2060
| Human race lives in peace
| [http://www.arasfoundation.org/vision.html ARAS vision/mission]
|
|-
| Extreme droughts across much of Earth
| [http://wdas.cosmosmagazine.com/news/extreme-drought-across-most-earth-30-years/ Extreme drought across most of Earth by 2060]
|
|-
| Global temperature rise reaches 4 °C
| {{w|Avoiding dangerous climate change}}
|
|-
| Oil runs out again
| [http://business.financialpost.com/2011/04/01/oil-may-run-out-by-2060-hsbc/?__lsa=98a7-5c61 Oil may run out by 2060: HSBC]
|
|-
| 2061
| Halley's comet returns
| Halley's comet returns to the inner solar system (the vicinity of earth and the sun) every 75.3 years. The last time it was near earth was in 1985-1986. When it next returns, its closest approach to the sun will occur on 28 July 2061.<ref name=horizons>[http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi Donald K. Yeomans. "Horizon Online Ephemeris System". California Institute of Technology, Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Retrieved 8 September 2006.]</ref>
|
|-
| rowspan="2"| 2062
| Uganda hosts World Cup
| [http://shillingscents.blogspot.co.nz/2010/07/uganda-to-host-world-cup-in-2062.html Uganda to host world cup in 2062]
|
|-
| The Jetsons
| {{w|The Jetsons}} was an animated science fiction sitcom that first aired in 1962. The show was set in the year 2062.
|
|-
| rowspan="4"| 2063
| First human clones reach adulthood
| [http://au.ign.com/articles/2004/04/28/the-fall-last-days-of-gaia-diary-2 The Fall - Last Days of Gaia Diary #2]
|
|-
| Population of Moon reaches 100,000
| Reading Eagle newspaper article from July 17, 1963 - [http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1955&dat=19630717&id=PhgrAAAAIBAJ&sjid=B50FAAAAIBAJ&pg=4055,6599008 Moon Population of 100,000 Is Predicted for 2063] and [http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/2008/3/14/air-force-predictions-for-2063-1963.html Air Force Predictions for 2063 (1963)]
|
|-
| Population of Mars reaches 10,000
| [http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/2008/3/14/air-force-predictions-for-2063-1963.html Air Force Predictions for 2063 (1963)]
|
|-
| Spacecraft exceed speed of light
| Physics as currently understood states that it is impossible to exceed the speed of light. A monumental shift in our physics would have had to have occurred for this to come true. This is a reference to the 8th Star Trek feature Film: "Star Trek: First Contact" where Zefram Cochrane performs the first human Warp Flight on April 5, 2063.
|
|-
| 2064
| Clean Air Act finishes reducing haze in national parks to natural levels
| [http://www.cleanhouston.org/air/features/hazyfuture.htm State plan guarantees a hazy future for Texas’ wilderness areas]
|
|-
| rowspan="2"| 2065
| Last coral reefs die out
| From an [http://www.edgeofexistence.org/coral_reef_conservation/coral_reef_video.php article about a video called Reefs on the Edge] set in 2065 where a 15-year-old girl tells her grandfather's stories of coral reefs, and their demise.
|
|-
| Chernobyl cleanup complete
| [http://rt.com/politics/chernobyl-clean-in-55-years-time/ Chernobyl clean in 55 years time?]
|
|-
| 2066
| Cyprus achieves its goal
| This is from some [http://www.cyprus-forum.com/cyprus33608-110.html#p665612 forum posts on the decendants of Cypriots] that lends support to the autonomy of Cyprus from Greek or Turkey.
|
|-
| rowspan="2"| 2067
| Americans live in domed cities and watch 3D TV
| The article at [http://blogs.lib.unc.edu/ncm/index.php/2013/11/15/artifact-of-the-month-slide-rule-1916/ Artifact of the Month: Slide rule, 1916] includes information from the International Slide Rule Museum that "in 1967, Keuffel & Esser Co. commissioned a study of the future, predicting that Americans in 2067 would live in domed cities and watch 3D television."
|
|-
| Redheads go extinct
| [http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/genetic/redhead-extinction.htm Are redheads going extinct?]
|
|-
| rowspan="3"| 2068
| Ozone hole over Antarctic finishes recovering
| [http://www.theozonehole.com/recovery.htm NASA Study Finds Clock Ticking Slower On Ozone Hole Recovery]
|
|-
| Lord Jesus rules the Earth from Throne in Jerusalem.
| [http://myth-one.com/chapter_8.htm The Resurrections -- What Really Happens]
|
|-
| Entire world population gay due to chemicals in the water
| [http://thedailybanter.com/2013/01/alex-jones-the-government-is-trying-to-make-more-gay-people/ Alex Jones talks about chemicals that make people gay]
|
|-
| 2069
| Public masturbation legalized
| [http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/UnNews:It's_still_not_okay_to_Pull_Your_Penis_out_in_Public It's still not okay to Pull Your Penis out in Public]
|
|-
| rowspan="3"| 2070
| World population peaks
| [http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1108-global-population-to-peak-in-2070.html Global population to peak in 2070]
|
|-
| City-scale flooding disasters
| [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/earthnews/3317033/City-scale-flooding-disasters-predicted-by-2070.html City-scale flooding disasters predicted by 2070]
|
|-
| 60% of world's energy comes from renewable sources
| [http://www.ssisolarenergy.com/solar-alternative-energy/ What Is Alternative Energy All About?]
|
|-
| rowspan="2"| 2071
| Europe's temperatures rise by 3 °C
| [http://www.umweltbundesamt.de/en/topics/climate-energy/climate-change-adaptation/adaptation-tools/project-catalog/peseta-projection-of-economic-impacts-of-climate Projection of Economic impacts of climate change in Sectors of the European Union based on bottom-up Analysis]
|
|-
| World summer temperatures rise by 5 °C
| [http://www.climateadaptation.eu/denmark/climate-change/ See "Air temperature changes in the 21st century"]
|
|-
| 2072
| US retirement age is set to 75
| [http://money.usnews.com/money/retirement/articles/2012/06/11/how-high-will-the-retirement-age-go Up to 70-80 years]
|
|-
| 2073
| Oceans do not rise one foot
| [http://www.skepticalscience.com/sea-level-rise-predictions.htm More like 2 feet]
|
|-
| rowspan="2"| 2074
| Number of 100-year-olds reaches one million
| [http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8848188.html UK to have 1 million centenarians by 2074]
|
|-
| Supertyphoons hit Japan
| [http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2009/09/08/national/super-typhoons-in-store-as-seas-warm/ Super typhoons in store as seas warm]
|
|-
| 2075
| US retirement age set to 69
| [http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Latest-News-Wires/2010/1112/Retirement-age-at-69-Deficit-plan-hits-Social-Security Retirement age at 69? Deficit plan hits Social Security]
|
|-
| rowspan="2"| 2076
| Average scientific paper has more than 24 authors
| [https://doclib.uhasselt.be/dspace/bitstream/1942/871/1/yitzhaki373.PDF Multiple Authorship in Biochemistry and Other Fields] (PDF)
|
|-
| Social Security trust fund exhausted
| {{w|Social Security (United States)|Social Security}}
|
|-
| 2078
| Newspapers become obsolete and die out
| The same prediction was made for 2017 and 2022. Even when most prognosticators agree that something will happen, there can still be much disagreement about ''when'' it will happen.
|
|-
| rowspan="4"| 2079
| US debt reaches 716% of GDP
| {{w|US Debt}}
|
|-
| Lodgepole pines disappear from Northwest
| [http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2011/feb/climate-change-causing-demise-lodgepole-pine-western-north-america Climate change causing demise of lodgepole pine in western North America]
|
|-
| Floods commonplace
| [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090108101627.htm Floods To Become Commonplace By 2080]
|
|-
| Religion marginalized
| http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-11347073
|
|-
| rowspan="2"| 2080
| Federal spending reaches 70% of GDP
| [http://crfb.org/sites/default/files/our_debt_problems_are_far_from_solved_updated_2.pdf Our debt problems are far from solved] (PDF)
|
|-
| UK population doubles
| [http://forums.canadiancontent.net/international-politics/69603-britains-population-hit-110-million.html Britain's population to hit 110 million]
|
|-
| 2082
| World population declines to one billion
| [http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Population.html Population: The Elephant in the Room]
|
|-
| 2084
| Robot policemen introduced
| [http://www.thetechherald.com/articles/Robotic-cops-set-to-stamp-out-crime-by-2084 Robotic cops set to stamp out crime by 2084]
|
|-
| 2085
| US deficit reaches 62% of GDP
| [http://moneybob.com/2010/06/28/paul-krugman-throws-in-towel-says-were-headed-for-another-depression/ Paul Krugman Throws In Towel, Says We’re Headed For Another Depression]
|
|-
| 2088
| Japan becomes all-robot country
| [http://www.theretributioners.tv/erics-blog/2009/11/25/-japan-to-become-all-robot-country-by-2088.html Japan To Become All Robot Country By 2088]
|
|-
| 2089
| World halts fossil fuel use
| {{w|Fossil Fuels}}
|
|-
| rowspan="2"| 2090
| Global warming hits 7 °C
| [http://www.reportingclimatescience.com/news-stories/article/models-warn-of-7c-dangerous-climate-change-by-2090.html Models warn of 7C dangerous climate change by 2090]. Climate change, especially global warming, is a [[:Category:Climate change|recurring theme]] in xkcd.
|
|-
| Global warming hits 4 °C
| Summarized [http://www.global-warming-forecasts.com/2090-climate-change-global-warming-2090.php here]. In reference to Andy Bowers, “Analysis: Scientists say global warming could affect California's drinking water supply,” NPR All Things Considered, June 22, 2001
|
|-
| rowspan="11"| 2100
| Global warming around 5-7 °C
| [http://grist.org/article/bau-fd/ Hadley Center study warns of ‘catastrophic’ 5-7°C warming by 2100 on current emissions path]
|
|-
| Sea levels have risen by a meter or more
| {{w|Future sea level}}
|
|-
| Joshua trees nearly extinct
| [http://news.discovery.com/earth/joshua-trees-climate-change-110325.htm Joshua Trees Nearly Wiped Out by 2100?]
|
|-
| Earth's climate resembles that of the Cretaceous
| [http://www.pnas.org/content/107/2/576 Atmospheric CO2 concentrations during ancient greenhouse climates were similar to those predicted for A.D. 2100]
|
|-
| Germany tropical
| [http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/climate-change-predictions-a-tropical-germany-by-2100-a-463378.html Climate Change Predictions: A Tropical Germany by 2100?]
|
|-
| Emperor penguins extinct
| [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7851276.stm Emperor penguins face extinction]
|
|-
| Arctic permafrost thaws
| [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/surface-permafrost-could/ Surface Permafrost Could Disappear by 2100]
|
|-
| Rising seas flood coastal cities
| [http://uanews.org/story/rising-seas-will-affect-major-us-coastal-cities-2100 Rising Seas Will Affect Major U.S. Coastal Cities by 2100]
|
|-
| Rain forests mostly gone due to climatic shifts
| [http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/08/06/890970/-Massive-Loss-of-Rainforest-Species-by-2100-eKos-Earthship-Friday Massive Loss of Rainforest Species by 2100]
|
|-
| All coral reefs gone
| [http://planetsave.com/2010/10/15/coral-reefs-gone-by-2100/ Coral Reefs Gone by 2100?]
|
|-
| Gillette introduces 14-bladed razor
| Each iteration of the Gillette line of safety razors has one more blade than the previous one. MadTV has also [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FAP8o5ZEo0 parodied] this. Over five years before MadTV did so, the Australian comedy group the D-Generation parodied the first two-bladed razor as the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YleuLyCUx28 Gillette 3000] with 16 blades.
|
|-
| 2101
| WAR WAS BEGINNING
| References {{w|Zero Wing}}, a 1989 Japanese computer game set in 2101, famous for poorly translated English and the source for "{{w|All your base are belong to us}}".
|
|}
<references/>

==Transcript==

:<big>'''THE FUTURE'''</big>
:'''According to Google search results'''
:Events for each year determined by the first page of Google search results for the phrases:
:"By <year>" "In year"
:"By the year <year>" "In the year <year>"
:"Will * by the year <year>" "Will * in the year <year>"
:"In <year>, * will" "By <year>, * will"
:
:;2012
::World population reaches 7 billion
::Flying cars reach market
::Canada cuts greenhouse emissions to 6% below 1990 levels as per Kyoto
::Apocalypse occurs
:;2013
::National debt paid off through President Clinton's plans
::Microchipping of all Americans begins
::Homelessness ended in Massachusetts
::Health care reform law repealed
:;2014
::US leaves Afghanistan
::GNU/Linux becomes dominant OS
:;2015
::New Horizons reaches Pluto
::Health care law causes hyperinflation
::192 UN member nations achieve millennium development goals:
::*Extreme poverty and hunger eradicated
::*Universal primary education implemented
::*Women empowered, gender equality reached
::*Environmental stability ensured
:;2016
::Baby boomers begin turning 65
::Android takes 38% of the smartphone market
::Android takes 45% of the smartphone market
::Windows Phone overtakes iOS in smartphones
:;2017
::China completes unmanned Lunar sample-return mission
::Social Security stops running surplus
::US budget balanced
::Newspapers become obsolete and die out
::Cosmetic surgery doubles
:;2018
::Social Security stops running surplus
::Jesus returns to Earth
:;2019
::Social Security stops running surplus
::Every baby has genes mapped at birth
:;2020
::Solar power becomes cheaper than fossil fuels
::Keyboards and mice become obsolete
::New Tappan Zee bridge constructed
:;2021
::US debt reaches 97% of GDP
::US unemployment falls to 2.8%
::Restored caliphate unifies Middle East
::Lake Mead evaporates
:;2022
::Kilimanjaro snow-free
::HTML 5 finished
::Newspapers become obsolete and die out
:;2023
::Jesus returns to Earth (again)
::US debt passes 100% of GDP
::All unprotected ancient forests gone from Pacific Northwest
:;2024
::Atlantis begins to reappear
::Orangutans extinct in wild
::China lands men and women on the moon
::NASA sets up permanent moon base
::Female professionals pass males in pay
:;2025
::World population reaches 8 billion
::Two billion people face water shortages
::62 MPG cars introduced
::US power fades
:;2026
::Atlantis emerges completely
::Rock Bands die out
::US debt paid off
::Car accidents cease
::West coast falls into ocean
:;2027
::Japan introduces new fastest maglev train
::Lyndon Larouche-planned Mars colony established
::Social Security stops running surplus
:;2028
::Tobacco outlawed
::40% of coral reefs gone
::US debt paid off
::Social Security stops running surplus
:;2029
::Social Security trust fund exhausted
::Computers pass the Turing Test
::Aging reversed
::Wikipedia reaches 30 million articles
:;2030
::Half of Amazon rain forest lost to logging
::Cancer deaths double from 2008 levels
::Arctic ice-free in summer
:;2031
::Computers controlled by thought
::Realtors replaced by technology
::Social Security trust fund exhausted
:;2032
::"Big One" hits San Francisco
::US elects first married lesbian president
::Entire world converted to Christianity
:;2033
::Kilimanjaro ice disappears
::India becomes superpower
::Europe reaches Mars
:;2034
::US diabetes cases double, treatment costs triple
::US builds autonomous robot army
:;2035
::80% of America's energy comes from renewable sources
::Himalayan glaciers down 80% in size
::Arctic sea lane opens
:;2036
::80% of US has access to high-speed rail
::Asteroid Apophis hits/misses Earth
:;2037
::Arctic ice-free in September
::Social Security trust fund exhausted
:;2038
::32-bit timestamps role over, causing Y2K-level chaos
::"Big One" hits California
:;2039
::US population hits 400 million
::Severe heat waves become commonplace
::Scientology becomes majority religion in US
:;2040
::Arctic summers ice-free
::Nanotechnology makes humans immortal
:;2041
::Social Security trust fund exhausted
:;2042
:;2043
::World population passes 9 billion
:;2044
::Mankind genetically engineered to be happy
::Childhood obesity reaches 100%
:;2045
::Humans and machines merge
:;2046
::World's natural resources depleted
:;2047
::World ruled by banks and corporations
::Tobacco industry fails
::US begins using autonomous attack drones
:;2048
::Salt-water fish extinct from overfishing
::Unisex bathing suits cover body from shoulder to ankle
::Entire US population overweight
:;2049
::$1.000 computer exceeds computational ability of humanity
::Singularity occurs
::Fishing industry collapses
:;2050
::80% of Earth's population lives in urban centers
::China controls space
::Sex with robots possible
::Cars banned from European cities
::One million species extinct from climate change
:;2051
::Atmosphere escapes into space
:;2052
::Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security spending exceed total US revenue
:;2053
::US budget balanced
::Majority of Americans in prison
::Cars driven by dogs
:;2054
::Hunger becomes unimaginable global problem
:;2055
::Atmospheric CO2 doubled
::Oil runs out
::Copper, tin, lead, gold, and nickel all exhausted
:;2056
::RFID-tagged driverless cars
::Robots given same rights as humans
:;2057
::150 Japanese settlers on Mars
::Colorado River runs dry
:;2058
::Smoking ends in New Zealand
:;2059
::Humans have domesticated robots
:;2060
::Human race lives in peace
::Extreme droughts across much of Earth
::Global temperature rise reaches 4°C
::Oil runs out again
:;2061
::Halley's comet returns
:;2062
::Uganda hosts World Cup
::The Jetsons
:;2063
::First human clones reach adulthood
::Population of Moon reaches 100,000
::Population of Mars reaches 10,000
::Spacecraft exceed speed of light
:;2064
::Clean Air Act finishes reducing haze in national parks to natural levels
:;2065
::Last coral reefs die out
::Chernobyl cleanup complete
:;2066
::Cyprus achieves its goal
:;2067
::Americans live in domed cities and watch 3D TV
::Redheads go extinct
:;2068
::Ozone hole over Antarctic finishes recovering
::Lord Jesus rules the Earth from Throne in Jerusalem.
::Entire world population gay due to chemicals in the water
:;2069
::Public masturbation legalized
:;2070
::World population peaks
::City-scale flooding disasters
::60% of world's energy comes from renewable sources
:;2071
::Europe's temperatures rise by 3°C
::World summer temperatures rise by 5°C
:;2072
::US retirement age is set to 75
:;2073
::Oceans do not rise one foot
:;2074
::Number of 100-year-olds reaches one million
::Supertyphoons hit Japan
:;2075
::US retirement age set to 69
:;2076
::Average scientific paper has more than 24 authors
::Social Security trust fund exhausted
:;2077
:;2078
::Newspapers become obsolete and die out
:;2079
::US debt reaches 716% of GDP
::Lodgepole pines disappear from Northwest
::Floods commonplace
::Religion marginalized
:;2080
::Federal spending reaches 70% of GDP
::UK population doubles
:;2081
:;2082
::World population declines to one billion
:;2083
:;2084
::Robot policemen introduced
:;2085
::US deficit reaches 62% of GDP
:;2086
:;2087
:;2088
::Japan becomes all-robot country
:;2089
::World halts fossil fuel use
:;2090
::Global warming hits 7°C
::Global warming hits 4°C
:;2091
:;2092
:;2093
:;2094
:;2095
:;2096
:;2097
:;2098
:;2099
:;2100
::Global warming around 5-7°C
::Sea levels have risen by a meter or more
::Joshua trees nearly extinct
::Earth's climate resembles that of the Cretaceous
::Germany tropical
::Emperor penguins extinct
::Arctic permafrost thaws
::Rising seas flood coastal cities
::Rain forests mostly gone due to climatic shifts
::All coral reefs gone
::Gillette introduces 14-bladed razor
:;2101
::WAR WAS BEGINNING

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Large drawings]]
[[Category:Timelines]]
[[Category:Google Search]]
[[Category:Climate change]]
[[Category:Singularity]]

Talk:2224: Software Updates

2019-11-05T17:28:33Z

162.158.214.148:

Not related to this comic in particular, but the advertisements on this site have become a little (well, actually well past that) too obtrusive for use on a computer that won't let you install an ad blocker (like, uh, a managed Chromebook). Oh, imagine trying to use a computer that won't let you install something as necessary in 2019 as an ad blocker in 2019. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.59.42|172.68.59.42]] 01:11, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
:Yup. I've added the ongoing discussion to the bottom of this talk page. --[[User:NeatNit|NeatNit]] ([[User talk:NeatNit|talk]]) 12:03, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Really? For me it's only a tiny rectangular ad in the bottom left when I disable my blocker. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.20|172.69.34.20]] 01:53, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

I bet that this is in reference to the removal of close other tabs from Chrome. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.37|173.245.54.37]] 03:23, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

: I doubt it. The feature is easily duplicated by simply tearing out the tab you want to keep and then closing the other window. I doubt that would be a dealbreaker. Plus, well, Chrome doesn't play nice with trying to stay on the older version. [[User:Trlkly|Trlkly]] ([[User talk:Trlkly|talk]]) 03:29, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
:: Yeah, there are far too many other examples of unwelcome changes to far too many pieces of software to think this is referring to this in particular.--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.166|162.158.75.166]] 10:35, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

It's not so clear to me that SaaS requires the software to run in the Cloud. Adobe's Creative Cloud is argued to be Software as a Service, but the programs actually run on the local system. [[User:Trlkly|Trlkly]] ([[User talk:Trlkly|talk]]) 03:29, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

The definition in the Wikipedia article on SaaS includes that requirement. I would describe Adobe Creative Cloud more like the way its Wikipedia article does, as providing a combination of software applications delivered on a subscription model, mobile apps, and cloud services, with only the latter being the SaaS part. [[User:Bugstomper|Bugstomper]] ([[User talk:Bugstomper|talk]]) 03:51, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
:Yes, Photoshop is installed on my machine, and I can run it when I'm not connected to the Internet. Definitely not SaaS. SaaS doesn't have to be from the cloud, but it must be something served when you use it. — [[User:Kazvorpal|Kazvorpal]] ([[User talk:Kazvorpal|talk]]) 06:20, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

I think the explanation is probably misinterpreting the intent of the title text. Given the point of the main comic, rather than saying some have very fast ping times, I think it's saying they may have very slow ping time, on the order of months or years, between times when they decide to download an updated version. The explanation written here definitely feels off, as lots of software running doesn't involve even a local office server, but runs entirely on the computer in front of the user, and again it doesn't relate to the main comic.--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.46|108.162.216.46]] 06:58, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
:I was going to say the same. Cloud software will include some frontend code to display data to the user; often some javascript in a webpage. I think the title text is treating 'regular' software as if the developers and their computers creating updates are the part which runs "in the cloud". In some cases, this might mean actually sending off for disks for an update (a 'ping time' in weeks), and the timeout before disconnection causes an error could be years or longer. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.77.50|141.101.77.50]] 09:22, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
:: The part about a "server in the same office" should just be removed. Software ''on your own computer'' is also running in the cloud - there's no fundamental difference between software running locally or remotely except for the connectivity issues (latency and packet loss etc.) in transferring the data. Your own computer is a "cloud server" with extremely fast (a few milliseconds) ping, whereas accessing a server on another continent may cause latency of a few hundred milliseconds (or more, if packet loss is bad enough) and this is what the "ping times vary a lot" line is referring to. I don't think it's referring to software updates. -- [[User:Pureawes0me|Pureawes0me]] ([[User talk:Pureawes0me|talk]]) 09:45, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
::: Again, that interpretation would be a lot more credible if the primary topic of the main comic wasn't about updating software with very long intervals in between. Making the point you are saying doesn't match at all, and isn't nearly as clever or entertaining of an observation. The very absurdity of claiming waiting weeks or months for a software update is a "ping time" (which is normally something measured in milliseconds) seems to match the typical kind of humor of this comic. Reminds me of that comic a bit ago with the fruit vending machine that required you to wait for a tree to grow.--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.166|162.158.75.166]] 10:35, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
::::It could refer to both. Therefore they vary a lot.

Oh, hey, that looks like my Android version (because Google apparently thinks no one would want to record their own calls). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.142.118|162.158.142.118]] 09:50, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Would just like to mention that the definition of 'software as a service' is actually that you pay for a subscription, that is a regular recurring fee. That's not usually the case. 17:28, 5 November 2019 (UTC)


{{Talk:2220: Imagine Going Back in Time/Ads}}

Talk:2223: Screen Time

2019-11-01T20:37:30Z

162.158.214.148:

Hello? Oh, sorry, I was busy not looking at this screen. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 15:35, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm at work, but I just realized I need to lower my Show Time score. My socks are demanding it. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 19:31, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

I think my use tracking apps (yes, I have more than one) can be set to track how much time I spend using use tracking apps. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.148|162.158.214.148]] 20:37, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

{{Talk:2220: Imagine Going Back in Time/Ads}}

Talk:2202: Earth-Like Exoplanet

2019-09-14T05:41:23Z

162.158.214.148:

I'm assuming this is in reference to exoplanet K2-18b? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.52|108.162.241.52]] 18:30, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
: I was thinking the same thing. [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 18:41, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
: Note that K2-18b was actually "discovered" way back in 2015 by the Kepler Space Observatory. The recent news was the detection of water vapor in the atmosphere of the planet. [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 04:36, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

I'm seeing the actual comic alt-text as "Fire is actually a potential biosignature, since it means something is filling the atmosphere with an unstable gas like oxygen. If we find a planet covered in flames, it might be an indicator that it supports lifeâ€”or used to, anyway, before the fire." Note the tab before "actually" and the odd characters after "life". But that's not what it has on this site. Is that difference intentional?[[Special:Contributions/172.68.70.70|172.68.70.70]] 19:07, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
: I've noticed a similar difference on other pages. For me, there are glitches in the title text on many XKCD pages, but here they appear as I assume they should. [[User:DanTheTransManWithoutAPlan|DanTheTransManWithoutAPlan]] ([[User talk:DanTheTransManWithoutAPlan|talk]]) 19:23, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
::AFAIS the XKCD-webserver claims incorrectly that the charset of the page is ''windows-1252''. --[[User:DaB.|DaB.]] ([[User talk:DaB.|talk]]) 19:49, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
::: Yes. If you change your browser's encoding to Unicode, it shows up properly -- though the tab before "actually" is still there. --[[User:Aaron of Mpls|Aaron of Mpls]] ([[User talk:Aaron of Mpls|talk]]) 00:24, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

A non-tidally-locked planet (like ours) needs to be firmly in a habitable zone (like ours) to allow the daily and seasonal cycles (like ours) to not send every square foot of the planet well outside any 'reasonable' range of conditions so that there's no possible adaptation possible by life (like ours).

OTOH, a tidally-locked planet probably sustains a belt of habitability upon it somewhere between the most sun-scorched face-centre and the most astronomy(-if-not-''astronomer'')-friendly area of the farside, and it may even let the lifeforms survive more extreme stellar 'seasons' than a swirling planet could, so long as that belt doesn't move so far as to 'lift off' either face, if there exist effective migration paths available for the mobile life and hibernation/aestivation states and hidey-holes for those that are forced/choose to be immobile.

There's the argument about a constant hurricane-force surface wind passing between hot and cold hemispheres, but that assumes a reverse upper flow in atmospheric cells (or a phase-cycle of liquid?) which would promote and reinforce elements of turbulance that might interact with 'surface' features (perhaps subsurface, in waterworld environment) to create areas that are lucuna in the chaos, 'islands' of calm.

Though with many theories of abiogenesis and evolution requiring some form of cycling conditions to filter out the unadaptable and promote the adaptable, so the actual 'interesting' zones are probably in habitable-edges surrounding the habital spots of constancy within the habitable belt upon the habitable-zone planet.

It's a bit moot how all this would work, though, given our knowledge based upon post-facto knowledge of a sample of one life-bearing planet. Hard to know how little or much Earth is typical compared with everyone else. At least until my people come back to rescue me, when I'll have to remember to catch up on the basic classes I've obviously missed. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.210|162.158.34.210]] 22:01, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

I thought "between the swinging blades" was just a metaphor - [[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.148|162.158.214.148]] 05:41, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

2199: Cryptic Wifi Networks

2019-09-09T10:54:30Z

162.158.214.148:

{{comic
| number = 2199
| date = September 6, 2019
| title = Cryptic Wifi Networks
| image = cryptic_wifi_networks.png
| titletext = They actually showed up on the first scan by the first WiFi-capable device.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a Toshiba-U2187-OfficeLink-Net46UHZ. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

In the comic, a character with a [[1350:_Lorenz#Knit_Cap_Girl|knit cap]] is on top of a high mountain in a remote location (second comic in a row with knit cap). Knit Cap sees a WiFi network name listed on a handheld device, perhaps a cellular telephone. This is something you would expect in a city, but certainly not on a mountain top, hence the joke, that what produce these WiFi networks are unknown, but seems to be distributed randomly over the face of the Earth, disregarding any nearness to any kind of technology.

Cryptic {{w|Wi-Fi}} (or WiFi) network names, called {{w|Service set (802.11 network)|Service Set Identifiers}} (SSIDs) are part of the joke about not knowing where the corresponding {{w|wireless router}} is located, suggesting they are unexplained phenomena instead of wireless radio devices. Some of the earliest WiFi devices like printers and {{w|internet}} routers advertised cryptic SSIDs, as do many of them today. In 1998, {{w|Lucent}} introduced the [https://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/Wavelan-IEEE.html WaveLAN IEEE], the first {{w|integrated circuit}} chip set supporting the IEEE 802.11 wireless {{w|LAN}} protocol, spinning off {{w|Agere Systems}} to produce them in 2000. WiFi followed mid-1990s short-range wireless networks like {{w|Bluetooth}} and radio internet protocols like the 1980s {{w|KA9Q}}, with roots going back to the earliest {{w|ticker tape}} digital telegraphy systems from the mid-1850s. [https://techtalk.gfi.com/the-31-funniest-ssids-ive-ever-seen/ Humorous SSID names] are not uncommon.

The SSID displayed is '''Toshiba-U2187-OfficeLink-Net46UHZ''' which is 33 characters long, unfortunately one character more than are allowed. {{w|Toshiba}} is a multinational electronics conglomerate manufacturing many products including untold multitudes of different kinds of printers over the years. Such devices often have embedded {{w|wireless access point|wireless access points}} including the manufacturer name in the SSID. Many network names contain words like Net, Office or Link. The code might indicate a model U2178 device from Toshiba named (or having an interface program named) OfficeLink, which has a sub-model number or operates on a wireless network designated 46UHZ. That "Hz" is an abbreviation for {{w|Hertz}} suggests that designation may or may not have something to do with the frequency on which the transmitting device operates. Or U2178 could be a serial number for a user or a utility pole. We don't know whether the SSID is connected to a network of more than one or is just one device. The padlock icon indicates that a password is required to communicate. The "join other network" option allows for manually typing SSIDs to attempt to connect with networks which are not configured to display their SSIDs.

While the most likely explanation in an office environment might be a printer plugged in somewhere nearby, other possibilities include a television, cryptocurrency mining rig, speaker, pacemaker, alarm system, fashion accessory, autonomous antimissile defense system node, hobby project, surveillance device, {{w|Loon LLC|balloon}}, distributed denial of service attack platform malware-infested coffee pot, {{w|Starlink (satellite constellation)|satellite}}, vending machine, telecommunication facilities, {{w|Facebook Aquila|solar-powered drone}}, distributed exoskeleton, visiting interstellar civilization, power-to-gas pipeline valve, [http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/2340.html ransomware worm nest,] or anything else in the Wifi {{w|Internet of Things}}. Sometimes, the {{w|ionosphere}} reflects radio waves, vastly increasing the distance that they can travel to and from remote locations.

Network names can be used to track the geographic locations of mobile devices, for example in the {{w|Wi-Fi positioning system}}. Google {{w|street view}} equipment records locations of networks to assist with {{w|geolocation}}. Location information can be searched in tools like [https://wigle.net/ Wigle] or [https://openwifimap.net/ OpenWifiMap]. The {{w|Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers}} (IEEE) committee number for WiFi is {{w|IEEE 802.11|802.11}} which is composed of sub-committees like {{w|IEEE 802.11ad|802.11ad}}, designing the 60 GHz Multiple Gigabit Wireless System (MGWS) and {{w|IEEE 802.11ay|802.11ay}} working on {{w|MIMO|multiple input, multiple output}} (MIMO) bandwidth enhancements. [https://www.toshibatec.com/cnt/products_overseas/printer2/mobile_printer/b-fp3d/ This Toshiba WiFi printer] supports the "802.11 a/b/g/n" WiFi protocols. The {{w|List of router firmware projects|software which produces SSID listings}} is administered by {{w|List of wireless community networks by region|network communities}} and depends on {{w|Wireless mesh network|mesh configurations}}. Alternatives include [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20861948 bluetooth mesh networks] and other {{w|wireless ad hoc network|''ad hoc'' networks}} to provide internet connectivity services.

The title text indicates that the first WiFi networking client interface displayed unexpected SSIDs. If true, this could potentially rule out all of the alternative explanations other than an alien visitation, a software bug, rogue industrial espionage, time travel, trans-multiverse or trans-dimensional communication, hardware misconfiguration, the {{w|simulation hypothesis}}, or the supernatural. (It is worth noting that cryptic-sounding WiFi networks actually being generated by a time-traveling alien entity as a trap was used as a plot device in the 2013 ''{{w|Doctor Who}}'' episode "{{w|The Bells of Saint John}}".)

==Transcript==
:[A person with a knit cap and a backpack is checking a phone at the highest mountain in a mountainous landscape, with 5 snow covered mountain peaks behind, and a smaller peak connected to and just below that one. There seems to be no snow on those two peaks. Above is a view of the phone's screen as indicated with a zigzag line from the phone's screen to the frame with text. There is also a wifi icon at the top left and a padlock icon at the end of the second line of text. The bottom line is a gray font.]
:Phone: Available WiFi Networks
:Phone: Toshiba-U2187-OfficeLink-Net46UHZ
:Phone: Join other network 

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Tech Trivia: No one actually knows what devices produce those cryptic WiFi networks. They just appear at random across the Earth's surface.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Computers]]

2198: Throw

2019-09-06T18:26:21Z

162.158.214.148: /* Trivia */

{{comic
| number = 2198
| date = September 3, 2019
| title = Throw
| image = throw.png
| titletext = The keys to successfully throwing a party are location, planning, and one of those aircraft carrier steam catapults.
}}
<div class="toclimit-3">{{TOC}}</div>
*To experience the interactivity of this game, visit the {{xkcd|2198|original comic}}.
==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by THOR, GOD OF THUNDER. Add the equation for throwing, done... Now explain them (what is the unit of the dragC and how does it work)? Could we add the animation of the throwers? Transcript of the possible sentences in a table on an extra page/possible pictures also. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This is an interactive comic made to celebrate the release of [[Randall|Randall's]] new book, ''[[How To]]''. The comic is based on a chapter in the book.

As the comic celebrates the book, which was released on Tuesday, September 3rd, 2019, the comic was thus also released on a [[:Category:Tuesday comics|Tuesday]] to coincide with the release day, replacing that week's normal Wednesday release. This was the same timing used for another of Randall's book releases, when [[1608: Hoverboard]] came out on the Tuesday when [[Thing Explainer]] came out. Although the Hoverboard comic is much more complex than this one, they are both [[:Category:Dynamic comics|dynamic]] and [[:Category:Interactive comics|interactive]], with [[:Category:Comics with animation|animations]] a part of them. Also the [[xkcd Header text]] changed to [[xkcd_Header_text#2019-09-04_-_Happy_Release_Day_-_bookstore|promote the release]] creating a large [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/0/08/2198_Throw_-_Front_page_promotion.PNG combined promotion] of the book during the three full days the comic was on the front page (see more [[2198:_Throw/Screen-shots#Entire_xkcd_page_with_promotion|here]]).

In this comic the viewer can select a thrower and an object to be thrown, see this [[#Throwers and throw items|table]], and get an animation of how the selected throw would work out, along with an estimated distance of the throw (both in the SI unit meter (m) and in other very arbitrary units; see this [[#Table of distance units|table]] below) if the throw was possible. Impossible throws include those where the thrower is not strong enough to thrown object, or when the thrower tries to throw themselves, which is possible as four "objects" are also listed as throwers. Most prominent {{w|George Wasington}}. As the comic picture above cannot show all the possible selections in the two windows, pictures of all can be found [[2198:_Throw/Screen-shots#Throwers_and_Objects|here]]

The formula/guideline is apparently based on chapter 10 from the new ''How to'' book, see more under [[#Formulas|Formulas]].

It seemed though, that there was a special case to the calculations with {{w|Thor|Thor's}} hammer ({{w|Mjolnir}}). Because this comic obviously refers to the {{w|Thor (Marvel Comics)|Thor}} from the {{w|Marvel universe}}, played by another possible thrower, {{w|Chris Hemsworth}} in the {{w|Marvel_Cinematic_Universe}}, and {{w|Mjolnir (comics)|his hammer}}, which is enchanted such that only those deemed "worthy" are able to lift it. As such, despite its mass in principle being liftable by many of the characters, only Thor, God of Thunder (who is canonically worthy), is able to throw it. Also Thor is the only one who uses {{w|furlongs}} to measure his distances among the standard throwers. However, it is not a canonical part of this comic that only he can throw it, and its mass is not realistic, see more below.

[https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/f/f3/2198_Throw_-_Original_without_you.PNG Originally], when the comic was just released, there where only 7 throwers and 15 things to throw, giving a total of 105 different combinations; see the [[#Table of throw distances|table]] below. But only Thor can throw all 15, with three of the objects (George Washington, Thor's hammer, and the car) unthrowable by any of the other throwers. The smaller critters can throw only a few things, so the total number of throws is much less than 105. Still, there is an animation for all 105 combinations, but with no throw distance for many of these.

But already on day one the comic was out, a new thrower was added with the standard name "You", and this person, with black hair and a [[1350:_Lorenz#Knit_Cap_Girl|knit cap]], was also added to the objects that can be thrown increasing the number of throwers to 8 and objects to be thrown to 16. However, it would not be true to say that the number of options now would be 8 x 16 = 128, since the "You" can be customized when selecting it in the throwers menu (nuy not when selecting You in the object menu). When doing so a new window called [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/thumb/4/48/2198_Throw_-_Custom_thrower.PNG/835px-2198_Throw_-_Custom_thrower.PNG Costume thrower] will open up over the comic. The "You" option can then be customized by changing the name (from the default "You"), and defining the height (default 5.8 ft = 1.77 m) and weight (default 160 lb = 72.57 kg), where ft (feet) can be changed to m (meter) and lb (pound) can be changed to kg (kilograms). But when doing so the window will not correct the number from feet to meter etc. but stay the same.

Below the above options there is line with four persons above it, defining a scale of ''athleticism'', the default second option being the drawing of "you" which represents ''Decent'' form (i.e. a normal person). The first on the scale is [[Black Hat]], who thinks moving things is for suckers, thus representing minimal athleticism. "You" in second position is in decent shape and pretty good form, representing decent athleticism. George Washington in third position represents extremely high athleticism, and as he states he threw so well they made him President. Finally the fourth position, representing a champion athlete, shows a person with a helmet with chin strap and googles who states that he trains 36 hours a day by using a time machine. It is thus indicated that such athletes can only be so good by training more than is possible; for instance, if he travels 24 hours back every day, he could use 12 more of these to practice, making it 36 hours on that "normal day" and he would then still have 12 hours to eat and sleep/restitution before his next 36 hours training pass.

Changing away from the decent "You" to one of the other three characters on the athleticism scale does, however, not change the character used for the animation, which stays the same. But still this gives a very large number of different "yous" that can both throw and be thrown.

A self-created character, unrealistically tall and heavy well over the human records for height ({{w|List of tallest people|272 cm}}) and/or weight ({{w|List of heaviest people|635 kg}}), can actually be able to [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/e/e3/2198_Throw_-_You_throw_hammer_settings.PNG throw Thor's hammer] (For instance 4m and 1000 kg, see more [[2198:_Throw/Screen-shots#Hammer_throw|here]]. So it is not because it is magically inclined to only be thrown by Thor, it is just that the weight is set to 2000 kg, and only Thor of the standard characters have the strength (1000 times normal human strength) to throw such a heavy object. But if the "You" is big enough the lover athleticy difference to Thor will be compensated by shear wight and height. See this table of [[2198:_Throw#Data_from_xkcd_code|data from the comic]] for the above mentioned numbers.

Interestingly, Thor can throw a squirrel 257 meters. If a Custom Thrower is created, and they are 200 meters tall and 150 KG, they can throw the squirrel 256 meters (1 meter less than Thor). Thor can throw an acorn 136 meters, and the Custom Thrower will throw it 133 meters. Now, Thor can throw Thor's Hammer 19 meters. The Custom Thrower can throw it 44 meters! Apparently there is more to the enchantment of Thor's Hammer than meets the eye, as it would have been expected that if Thor can throw a squirrel and an acorn farther than an extraordinary human, then certainly he could throw his own enchanted Hammer a longer distance. This is of course because the you thrower now throws from a much higher height than Thor, and thus these two can no longer be compared. [And maybe this section should be deleted?]

The title text refers to throwing a party (a colloquial synonym of hosting a party) and first makes the assumption of actually giving hints for giving a party, and then switching to suggest a mechanism to literally throw a huge object, such as a house with a party going on inside. An {{w|Aircraft_catapult#Steam_catapult|aircraft steam catapult}} is a mechanism to launch aircraft from ships, typically used on aircraft carriers.

==Safety Considerations==
Many of the items, even if technically possible to throw, may not be able to be thrown safely.

For example:
* Depending on how the microwave oven is damaged when it hits the ground, it may still be able to appear to function, but no longer seal properly, and therefore leak dangerously high amounts of microwave radiation.
* Blenders have blades and glass. Even if no one is struck by the flying blender, the broken pieces would be hazardous later if they are not properly disposed of.
* Cars have gasoline and battery acid which may spill if one is thrown.
* A squirrel might bite the person attempting to throw it, which is dangerous as some squirrels have rabies.
* Pikachu could shock (possibly fatally) someone trying to throw it.
* If a person is thrown, that person may be badly injured.

==Throwers and throw items==
*Here is a table with first the throwers and then the objects to be thrown.
**George Washington, Pikachu, and the squirrel are both throwers and throwable objects, as are the costumed option "You".
**For these four this is noted in the explanation. The "You" is also the first object, Washington and Pikachu is no. 11-12 and the Squirrel is also the last object (no. 16) in the object list.

{| class="wikitable" |
! Image
! Name
! Explanation
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - you.png]]
|'''{{w|human|You}}'''
|'''Can also be thrown'''. The viewer may also choose to create a custom thrower, for instance, themself, inputting a name, height, weight, and general level of athleticism, as measured on a scale from "[[Black Hat]]" to "championship athlete" (a swimmer is pictured). The custom thrower is also selectable as a throwing item, presumably to provide more variety compared to the fixed values of George Washington.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - george.png]]
|'''{{w|George Washington}}'''
|'''Can also be thrown'''. He was the first president of the United States of America. There is a myth that a young George Washington threw a silver dollar across the Potomac River, which is more than a mile wide for much of its length; or alternatively that he would throw rocks across the Rappahannock River, which was about 300 feet wide near George's boyhood home. http://kenmore.org/education/kidstuff/legends.html. He is also used as a throwing item to represent the likelihood of a thrower distance with an average human as the projectile. George Washington is shown as a very powerful thrower; the comic makes fun of the flagrant embellishment of Washington's life.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - quarterback.png]]
|'''An NFL {{w|quarterback}}'''
|A quarterback in the National Football League is a highly athletic individual. Gridiron football is a full-contact sport that requires durability, speed, and precision. One of the primary skills required of quarterbacks is to be able to throw the football far with precision accuracy.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - pikachu.png]]
|'''{{w|Pikachu}}'''
|'''Can also be thrown'''. Pikachu is a species of Pokémon and the mascot of the Pokémon franchise as a whole. Although Pikachu are not normally shown to throw things, the ''Super Smash Bros'' series shows they are perfectly capable of picking things up that do not significantly out-size them. That said, Pikachu is capable of throwing a wide variety of objects through the move Fling, which allows the user to deal damage by throwing its held item (and, incidentally, a Fling TM). Its presence as a throwing item appears to reference the most recently released Pokémon games as of the comic's release, ''Pokémon Let's Go Pikachu'' and ''Pokémon Let's Go Eevee'', where the partner Pokémon of the respective title is not kept in a Poké Ball but thrown into battle when deployed. According to Pokédex entries throughout the series, the average Pikachu is 1'04" (0.4m) tall and weighs 13.2 lbs (6kg). Randall appears to have done his research, as a custom thrower with these stats and default athleticism will have near-identical results to Pikachu for both thrower and thrown item.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - carly.png]]
|'''{{w|Carly Rae Jepsen}}'''
|A Canadian music artist with [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgwAywJlo1M marginal throwing ability.]
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - thor.png]]
|'''{{w|Thor}}'''
|Thor is the god of thunder in Norse mythology, wielding a hammer that returns to its wielder when thrown. He is also {{w|Thor (Marvel Comics)|featured in Marvel comics}} and is portrayed by Chris Hemsworth (listed below) in the Marvel Cinematic Universe series of films. Thor was previously referenced in [[2097: Thor Tools]].
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - chris hemsworth.png]]
|'''{{w|Chris Hemsworth}}'''
|He is an Australian film actor, best known for his role as Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - squirrel.png]]
|'''A {{w|squirrel}}'''
|'''Can also be thrown'''. It is a small mammal of the family ''Sciuradae'', known for hoarding acorns. Squirrels have been a [[:Category:Squirrels|recurring topic]] on xkcd and have been used in ''What if?'' in lieu of a subject that Randall really doesn't want to draw. Due to their small size, a squirrel is also selectable as a throwing item.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - microwave.png]]
|'''A {{w|microwave oven}}'''
|A common household appliance in most American homes, used to heat or reheat food for consumption.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - basketball.png]]
|'''A {{w|basketball (ball)|basketball}}'''
|An inflated sphere used as a projectile in the sport of the same name.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - blender.png]]
|'''A {{w|blender}}'''
|It is a common household appliance in most American homes, used to shred food or ingredients into slush for consumption or baking.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - gold_bar.png]]
|'''A {{w|gold bar}}'''
|It is the form in which gold is cast for storage.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - cake.png]]
|'''A {{w|wedding cake}}'''
|It is traditionally a layer cake used for wedding receptions with copious amounts of frosting and figurines of the bride and groom standing upon the top layer. The figurines appear to have been removed before the cake is thrown, as they are before the cake is cut and served.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - pingpong.png]]
|'''A {{w|ping pong ball}}'''
|A small plastic sphere designed to bounce, used as a projectile in the sport of table tennis or "ping pong". Notably the ball is much more difficult to throw than the acorn, as its larger size yet much lighter weight causes it to lose more momentum due to air resistance.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - acorn.png]]
|'''An {{w|acorn}}'''
|A small nut which serves as a squirrel's primary form of nourishment.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - hammer.png]]
|'''{{w|Mjolnir (comics)|Thor's hammer}}'''
|This hammer refers to Mjolnir, an enchanted hammer in the {{w|Marvel universe}} which belongs to {{w|Thor (Marvel Comics)|Thor from Marvels comics}} and can only be lifted by those deemed worthy. It is based on {{w|Mjölnir}} the hammer of Norse God {{w|Thor}}, God of Thunder. In this comic, though, it appears that Mjolnir is just incredibly heavy, and Thor is able to throw it because he is very strong. The custom thrower is also able to throw it if their size and strength are set high enough. Setting aside this customization, Thor is the only standard thrower to be able to throw Thor's hammer. In the movies based on the Marvel universe, Thor is played by Chris Hemsworth, who is also one of the throwers, but in real life, he would of course not be able to throw such a weighty hammer.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - javelin.png]]
|'''A {{w|javelin}}'''
|An aerodynamic polearm thrown in Olympic sport.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - silver_spin.png]]
|'''A {{w|Dollar coin (United States)|silver dollar}} spinning'''
|A silver coin representing one (1) US dollar in value, as would have been common when George Washington was president. The coin is given two trajectories to choose from when thrown; Here '''spinning''', as one would properly throw a discus.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - silver_tumble.png]]
|'''A {{w|Dollar coin (United States)|silver dollar}} tumbling'''
|The coin's other possible trajectory, '''tumbling''', as might result from flipping a coin to make a decision. The spinning coin always goes farther than the tumbling one, since facing the air edge-on leads to a smaller area facing the wind and therefore less air resistance.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - car.png]]
|'''A {{w|car}}'''
|It is the most common form of long-distance transport in several well-developed countries.
|}

===Table of throw distances===
{| class="wikitable"
!Item / Thrower
!NFL Quarterback
!George Washington
!Pikachu
!Carly Rae Jepsen
!Thor
!Chris Hemsworth
!Squirrel
|-
|rowspan="2"|'''Microwave oven'''
|10.32 m
|7.76 m
|N/A
|3.67 m
|181.57 m
|6.15 m
|N/A
|-
|33.85 feet
|25.46 feet
|N/A
|82.65 rack units
|1.99 football fields
|138.40 rack units
|N/A
|-
|rowspan="2"|'''Basketball'''
|40.18 m
|33.22 m
|2.34 m
|19.11 m
|113.67 m
|27.99 m
|N/A
|-
|16.74 horses
|19.54 smoots
|75.90 attoparsecs
|11.24 smoots
|1.42 Manhattan blocks
|16.46 smoots
|N/A
|-
|rowspan="2"|'''Blender'''
|16.58 m
|12.45 m
|N/A
|5.89 m
|333.25 m
|9.86 m
|N/A
|-
|9.75 smoots
|40.85 feet
|N/A
|132.51 rack units
|1.66 furlongs
|32.34 feet
|N/A
|-
|rowspan="2"|'''Gold bar'''
|9.73 m
|7.23 m
|N/A
|3.36 m
|549.28 m
|5.69 m
|N/A
|-
|31.93 feet
|23.73 feet
|N/A
|75.65 rack units
|2.73 furlongs
|128.11 rack units
|N/A
|-
|rowspan="2"|'''Wedding cake'''
|8.96 m
|6.75 m
|N/A
|3.2 m
|146.25 m
|5.35 m
|N/A
|-
|29.40 feet
|22.14 feet
|N/A
|72.00 rack units
|1.60 football fields
|120.45 rack units
|N/A
|-
|rowspan="2"|'''Ping-pong ball'''
|11.8 m
|11.63 m
|9.28 m
|11.25 m
|12.53 m
|11.41 m
|4.95 m
|-
|38.72 feet
|38.17 feet
|30.46 feet
|36.92 feet
|41.10 feet
|37.44 feet
|111.37 rack units
|-
|rowspan="2"|'''Acorn'''
|83.00 m
|75.84 m
|28.16 m
|62.85 m
|135.98 m
|67.91 m
|6.53 m
|-
|1.04 Manhattan blocks
|0.95 Manhattan blocks
|16.57 smoots
|26.19 horses
|1.49 football fields
|28.30 horses
|146.85 rack units
|-
|rowspan="2"|'''Thor's Hammer'''
|N/A
|N/A
|N/A
|N/A
|19.32 m
|N/A
|N/A
|-
|N/A
|N/A
|N/A
|N/A
|11.36 smoots
|N/A
|N/A
|-
|rowspan="2"|'''Javelin'''
|56.10 m
|42.04 m
|N/A
|20.12 m
|3028.75 m
|33.09 m
|N/A
|-
|23.37 horses
|17.51 horses
|N/A
|11.84 smoots
|15.06 furlongs
|19.46 smoots
|N/A
|-
|rowspan="2"|'''George Washington'''
|N/A
|N/A
|N/A
|N/A
|136.65 m
|N/A
|N/A
|-
|N/A
|N/A
|N/A
|N/A
|1.49 football fields
|N/A
|N/A
|-
|rowspan="2"|'''Pikachu'''
|15.22 m
|11.41
|N/A
|5.39 m
|332.52 m
|9.03 m
|N/A
|-
|49.94 feet
|37.45 feet
|N/A
|121.18 rack units
|1.65 furlongs
|29.63 feet
|N/A
|-
|rowspan="2"|'''Car'''
|N/A
|N/A
|N/A
|N/A
|27.22 m
|N/A
|N/A
|-
|N/A
|N/A
|N/A
|N/A
|16.01 smoots
|N/A
|N/A
|-
|rowspan="2"|'''Spinning dollar'''
|177.09 m
|143.96 m
|16.91
|92.63 m
|1331.21 m
|115.89 m
|2.20 m
|-
|1.94 football fields
|1.57 football fields
|9.95 smoots
|1.16 Manhattan blocks
|6.53 furlongs
|1.45 Manhattan blocks
|71.41 attoparsecs
|-
|rowspan="2"|'''Tumbling dollar'''
|58.17 m
|53.77 m
|13.92 m
|44.08 m
|84.82 m
|49.03 m
|2.14 m
|-
|24.24 horses
|22.41 horses
|45.67 feet
|18.37 horses
|1.06 Manhattan blocks
|20.43 horses
|69.42 attoparsecs
|-
|rowspan="2"|'''Squirrel'''
|58.64 m
|46.92 m
|2.92 m
|25.44 m
|256.54 m
|38.50 m
|N/A
|-
|24.43 horses
|19.55 horses
|65.71 rack units
|14.97 smoots
|1.28 furlongs
|16.04 horses
|N/A
|}

===Table of distance units===
*This is a table of the alternative distance units shown and their lengths in meters.
**Three of the units shown here are listed in the Wikipedia articles {{w|List of humorous units of measurement}}
**Five the units shown here are listed in the Wikipedia article {{w|List of unusual units of measurement}}.
***Only furlong and foot/feet are not in any of the lists (although a different type of feet is in the last list).
**There are ten alternative units in the source code for the comic. However, the wiffle unit cannot be used, and the light-nanosecond unit is inaccessible except by customization.
**Two of the units are off by an order of magnitude.
{| class="wikitable"
!Unit name
!Length in comic in meters
!Explanation
|-
|{{w|List_of_humorous_units_of_measurement#Wiffle|Wiffles}}
|0.0089
|A Wiffle, also referred to as a WAM for Wiffle (ball) Assisted Measurement, is equal to a sphere 0.089 m (3.5 inches) in diameter – the size of a {{w|Wiffle ball}}, a perforated, light-weight plastic ball frequently used by marine biologists as a size reference in photos to measure corals and other objects. Randall is thus a factor 10 off. While wiffles should be the next unit after rack-units and before feet, the unit conversion typo seems to prevent it from being accessible by any thrower-object combination, as it is now even smaller than the wrong measure for light-nanoseconds. Wiffles have thus only been discovered in the data of the comic, as it seems to be impossible to get it displayed in the comic itself.
|-
|{{w|List of unusual units of measurement#Light-nanosecond|Light-nanoseconds}}
|0.0299
|The light-nanosecond was popularized by Grace Hopper, referring to the length light could travel in a nanosecond. The actual length of a light-nanosecond is 0.299 m, about a foot long, but it seems that [[Randall]] was off by an order of magnitude. This measurement is used for lengths from 1 to 1.06 m, but none of the standard throwers or objects can be thrown for this short a distance, so it is not included in the table above. But with the custom user it is [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/a/a5/2198_Throw_-_Light_nanoseconds_1m.PNG possible to get down to 1 m] where it will then be used, but of course, since it says 33 light-nanoseconds instead of 3 it is wrong. See some examples [[2198:_Throw/Screen-shots#Light_nanoseconds_error|here]].
|-
|{{w|List_of_humorous_units_of_measurement#Attoparsec|Attoparsecs}}
|0.03086
|The parsec is a unit of length used to measure large distances to astronomical objects outside the Solar System. A parsec is defined as the distance at which one {{w|astronomical unit}} subtends an angle of one {{w|arcsecond}}. One parsec is equal to about 3.26 light-years or 31 trillion kilometers (31×1012 km) or 19 trillion miles (19×1012 mi). Atto- is a unit prefix in the metric system denoting a factor of 10−18 or 0.000000000000000001. Together the two-unit exponents will almost cancel out, as 31 trillion kilometers can be written as 3.1×1018cm, meaning that an attoparsec is 3.1 cm. The unit is only used three times in non-customized settings: once for Pikachu and twice for the squirrel. This measurement is used for lengths from 1.06 to 2.69 meters. See [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/7/79/2198_Throw_-_Attoparsecs_107cm_setings.PNG example here].
|-
|{{w|List_of_unusual_units_of_measurement#Rack_unit|Rack units}}
|0.0445
|A {{w|Rack unit}} (abbreviated U or RU) is a unit of measure defined as 1 3⁄4 inches (44.45 mm). Mainly used to measure the overall height of the likes of {{w|19-inch rack}} frames or the equipment put in there. It is used for lengths from 2.69 to 6.67 meters.
|-
|{{w|Foot (unit)|Feet}}
|0.3048
|One foot is defined as 0.3048 meters. In customary and imperial units, the foot comprises 12 inches and three feet compose a yard. This measurement is used for lengths from 6.67 to 16 meters.
|-
|{{w|List_of_humorous_units_of_measurement#Smoot|Smoots}}
|1.7000
|The {{w|Smoot}} is a nonstandard, humorous unit of length created as part of an MIT fraternity prank. One smoot is equal to {{w|Oliver Smoot}}'s height at the time of the prank, 5 feet 7 inches (1.70 m). Mr. Smoot was used to measure the length of the Harvard Bridge (connecting Boston and Cambridge) by being repeatedly laid down along the length of the bridge; the markings indicating distances in smoots along the bridge have been maintained by the fraternity. This measurement is used for lengths from 16 to 36 meters. While the smoot is a nonstandard unit of length, Oliver Smoot has been chairman of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and President of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). ANSI and ISO are among the world's main standardizing bodies, so Randall may indirectly be making the pun that while Smoot's body isn't a standard measure, Smoot has been in charge of bodies that standardize measurements.
|-
|{{w|List_of_unusual_units_of_measurement#Horse|Horses}}
|2.4
|The length of a {{w|horse}} varies a lot with the horse type, breed, age, and genes. In the Wikipedia article on horses, the length of a horse is not even mentioned, only the height and weight. But Randall has used horses for measurements before. A {{w|horse length}} is approximately 8 feet (2.4 m). This measurement is used for lengths from 36 to 75 meters.
|-
|{{w|List_of_unusual_units_of_measurement#Block|Manhattan blocks}}
|80.0
|The numbered streets in {{w|Manhattan}} run east-west and are generally 60 feet (18 m) wide, with about 200 feet (61 m) between each pair of streets. With each combined street and {{w|City block|block}} adding up to about 260 feet (79 m), there are almost exactly 20 blocks per mile. The typical block in Manhattan is 250 by 600 feet (76 by 183 m). When driving in a grid-like city, the {{w|Manhattan distance}} between two points is a concept, although it is also called {{w|Taxicab geometry}}. It seems like it is indeed the combined street and block distance. This measurement is used for lengths from 75 to 131 meters.
|-
|{{w|List_of_unusual_units_of_measurement#Football_field_(length)|Football fields}}
|91.44/109.728
|A football field in the comic is 100 yards or 91.44 m long. An {{w|American football field}} is 100 yards between the end zone although by including those it is actually 120 yards or 109.728 m. Although it is an American comic, it doesn't state that it is an American Football field. A {{w|Football pitch}} in {{w|Association football}} (Soccer) is also often used, and although the length of those varies the usual size for champions league matches is 105 m. This measurement is used for lengths from 131 to 201 meters.
|-
|{{w|Furlongs}}
|201.168
|A furlong is a measure of distance in imperial units and U.S. customary units equal to one-eighth of a mile. It is part of the {{w|List_of_humorous_units_of_measurement#FFF_units|FFF_units}} of the {{w|FFF system}} for furlong/firkin/fortnight, length, mass and time. One furlong should therefore be 201.168 meters, though the United States does not uniformly use this conversion ratio. Older ratios are in use for surveying purposes in some states. Only Thor's distances are given in furlongs. This measurement is used for lengths of 201 meters (1 furlong) and up. For the standard throwers and items only Thor can throw over 200 m, thus only he uses Furlongs to measure his throws. Given that this is an old unit, and Thor is based on ancient Nordic Mythology, this may seem appropriate.
|}

===Data from xkcd code===
*A user got this data from the code (and added it to the comments).
**But it makes sense to include here:
*From this it can be seen that:
**Thor's Hammer is not special, just very heavy, 2000 kg despite being rather small.
**Thor has the same stats as Chris, except he has 1000 times more Throw power (10,000 vs 10).
*The custumizeable You can have Throw power of 5, 10, 15 and 20, and wight and height can be set along with the name.
**The diameter is calculated from the formula given, so in the standard setting it is about 0.5 m.

{| class="wikitable"
! id
! name
! canThrow
! canBeThrown
! length (m)
! diameter (m)
! mass (kg)
! dragC
! throwPower
|-
| microwave
| A microwave oven
| false
| true
| 0.406
| 0.406
| 10.591
| 0.8
|
|-
| basketball
| a basketball
| false
| true
| 0.243
| 0.243
| 0.624
| 0.3
|
|-
| blender
| a blender
| false
| true
| 0.203
| 0.203
| 5.216
| 0.8
|
|-
| gold_bar
| a gold bar
| false
| true
| 0.0535
| 0.0535
| 12.4
| 0.8
|
|-
| cake
| a wedding cake
| false
| true
| 0.51
| 0.51
| 13
| 0.8
|
|-
| pingpong
| a ping pong ball
| false
| true
| 0.04
| 0.04
| 0.003
| 0.5
|
|-
| quarterback
| an NFL quarterback
| true
| false
| 1.905
| 0.584
| 102.058
| 0.6
| 20
|-
| acorn
| an acorn
| false
| true
| 0.0191
| 0.0191
| 0.0045
| 0.3
|
|-
| hammer
| thor's hammer
| false
| true
| 0.5
| 0.15
| 2000
| 0.4
|
|-
| javelin
| a javelin
| false
| true
| 1.8
| 0.0254
| 0.8
| 0.1
|
|-
| george
| George Washington
| true
| true
| 1.829
| 0.562
| 90.718
| 0.6
| 15
|-
| pikachu
| Pikachu
| true
| true
| 0.4
| 0.3
| 5.9874
| 0.4
| 10
|-
| car
| A car
| false
| true
| 4.5
| 2.134
| 1179.34
| 0.25
|
|-
| silver_spin
| a silver dollar (spinning)
| false
| true
| 0.04
| 0.011
| 0.027
| 0.5
|
|-
| silver_tumble
| a silver dollar (tumbling)
| false
| true
| 0.04
| 0.04
| 0.027
| 0.66
|
|-
| carly
| Carly Rae Jepsen
| true
| false
| 1.575
| 0.46
| 49.895
| 0.6
| 10
|-
| thor
| thor, god of thunder
| true
| false
| 1.91
| 0.59
| 91
| 0.6
| 10000
|-
| chris hemsworth
| chris hemsworth
| true
| false
| 1.91
| 0.59
| 91
| 0.6
| 10
|-
| squirrel
| A squirrel
| true
| true
| 0.203
| 0.096
| 0.454
| 0.6
| 10
|-
| you (can change)
| You
| true
| true
| 1.77
| (mass^(1/3))/8
| 72.5
| 0.6
| 10
|}

===Formulas===
*Used Formulas:
**g = 9.805;
**A = (3 * thrower_length * thrower_throwPower * thrower_mass / (object_mass + thrower_mass / 1000))^(1 / 3);
**B = sqrt(2 * object_mass * g / (PI * (object_diameter / 2)^2 * 1.2041 * object_dragC));
***Result = A^2 * sqrt(2) / (g * sqrt(A^4 / B^4 * 0.8 + A^2 / B^2 * 3 + 2));
**1,2041 is in units of kg/m³ and is the density of air at sea level
**Both A and B are in units of speed m/s; throwPower is in m²/s³, or equivalently in m/s * N/kg, Or equivalently W/kg

==Extra pages==
As this comic is very complicated several screen shots and tables are needed for the full explanation. In order to keep this main page easy to use, these pictures and possibly some of the tables will be placed on some extra pages, as has also been done with [[:Category:Comic subpages|other complex comics]] in the past:
*[[2198: Throw/Screen-shots]]

==Transcript==
:[As this is an interactive comic, not all possible text should be given in this transcript. Also, it is not possible to see all the different throwers or objects in one image. This transcript here includes the text that can be found when loading the page, without changing the thrower or object (the default), but also includes the text that can be found by scrolling in the two select "windows" as that would be similar to a long comic where you need to scroll as well as customization options. For further differences that occur by changing the objects refer to a table of all combinations.]

:[A heading with a subheading is above a line, beneath which are a sentence, that is generated by the selections in the two windows beneath this sentence:]
:<big>'''Throw Calculator'''</big>
:This calculator implements the approximate throwing distance estimation model from ''How To'' Chapter 10: ''How to throw things''.

:How far could George Washington throw a Microwave oven?

:[Beneath this sentence are two "windows" with a frame around them, one to the left and one to the right, each with a heading breaking the top frame. Each also has a scroll bar to the right, which allows one to scroll down through 8 different possible selections in the left window and 16 in the right window. There are, depending on the browser zoom level, one or two selections on each line. Each window's content is given here under their respective headings. Each possible selection is a drawing with a caption beneath it.]
:Select a thrower

:*You
:*An NFL Quarterback
:*George Washington
:*Pikachu
:*Carly Rae Jepsen
:*Thor, God of Thunder
:*Chris Hemsworth
:*A squirrel

:Select an object to be thrown
:*You
:*A microwave oven
:*A basketball
:*A blender
:*A gold bar
:*A wedding cake
:*A ping-pong ball
:*An acorn
:*Thor's Hammer
:*A javelin
:*George Washington
:*Pikachu
:*A car
:*A silver dollar (spinning)
:*A silver dollar (tumbling)
:*A squirrel

:[Below the two windows is the result of the animation that will happen when a selection has been made. An animation of the selected thrower throwing (or failing to throw) the selected object is shown, and the object's traveling distance is measured out both in meters (SI units) and in some other unit in brackets below. If the distance is not too long compared to the size of the object and thrower, then both can be seen, and in case the object is soft it may break from the throw.]

:[In the pre-selected version, George Washington throws a microwave oven, which ends up several meters from him lying on a corner broken with its wire lying beneath it. The distance is given under the ruler along which the throw has occurred, with markings for approximately every meter. In this case, there are seven steps even though the distance is above 7 meters:]
:7.76 meters
:(25.46 feet)

:[Clicking on "You" in the thrower box opens a new window over the above described comic parts. some of the comic can still be seen including the thrower and his item, and a new throw occurs every time something is changed in this new window. It is a customization box with several options shown below.]

:Your Name
:____You_____ [can be changed]

:Height
:5.8 ft [number can be changed; ft can be changed to m]

:Mass
:160 lb [number can be changed; lb can be changed to kg]

:Athleticism
:[Below is a scale showing Black Hat, the character depicting You with a knit cap, George Washington, and a person with goggles and a helmet. A marker is set at You, but can be changed. Below the characters are descriptions.]
:Black Hat: Moving objects around is for suckers.
:Minimal
:You: I'm in decent shape and have pretty good form.
:Decent
:George Washington: I'm so good at throwing they made me president.
:Extremely High
:Goggles: I use a time machine to train for 36 hours a day.
:Champion Athlete

:[Once done the box can be clicking on a cross at the top right or just clicking outside the window on the comic behind it. Now the thrower you (and the object you) will have the weight, length and strength chosen and will be able to throw (or be thrown) with these stats. ]

==Trivia==
*The comic refers to Thor as the character from the Marvel comics and movies (and other media), who is himself a reference to the ancient Norse god. In Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, Thor is played by Chris Hemsworth.
*Thor's hammer, Mjölnir, bears an enchantment that prevents any living being from lifting it unless they are "worthy." This is reflected in the simulation by giving Mjölnir a mass of 2,000 kg.
**In-universe, Thor's hammer weighs [https://urbandud.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/detail-128-thors-hammer.jpg?w=550 42.3 pounds].
*The option to customize your own character was added to the comic later.
*Due to a bug, the calculations for the customized person ('you') are incorrect when the mass is specified in pounds
*When the comic came out there was a mistake so the item to be thrown was named the same as the thrower, except for the coins and for when Pikachu and George Washington tried to throw themselves in which case it for instance said:
**[https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/9/93/2198_Throw_-_Original_error_George_Himself.PNG How far could George Washington throw himself?]
**But if he picked another object it would write:
***[https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/c/c9/2198_Throw_-_Original_error_George_George.PNG How far could George Washington throw George Washington?]
**See more examples [[2198:_Throw/Screen-shots#Errors|here]]
*A one foot tall You with a mass of over 524,644.3 pounds can throw the car 44 feet. In fact, the mass can be defined to 40 or more decimal places, with each incremental change allowing You to throw the car 44 feet, as long the addition is sufficient
**Tester used trial and error and became bored after 40 decimal places

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with animation]] 
[[Category:Dynamic comics]]
[[Category:Interactive comics]]
[[Category:Physics]] 
[[Category:American football]] 
[[Category:Comics featuring politicians]] 
[[Category:Pokémon]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]] 
[[Category:Religion]] 
[[Category:Squirrels]]
[[Category:Food]] 
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[[Category:How To]]

Talk:2185: Cumulonimbus

2019-08-06T11:27:25Z

162.158.214.148:

Hey, the back arrow here doesn't go back to yesterday's "Disappearing Sunday Update" [[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.28|162.158.75.28]] 18:17, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
That's why it was disappearing. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.226.46|172.68.226.46]] 18:42, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

I think this could be improved by expanding out the translations from latin for the various parts of each cloud's name. I.e., cumulus is just "heaped"; cumulo-nimbus would be "heaped raincloud"; cumulo-nimbulo-nimbus would be "heaped rainy raincloud"; cumulo-nimbulo-nimbulo-cumulo-nimbus would be "heaped, rainy, rainy, heaped raincloud", and alto-cumu-lenticulo-strato-nimbulo-cirrus-lenticulo-mamma-noctilucent would be "mid-altitude, heaped, standing, rainy, wispy, standing, highly turbulent, and lit at night." (Some of these descriptors are contradictory; cirrus clouds can not also be mammatus clouds.) (And yes, "mammatus" clouds mean what you think they mean.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.142.82|162.158.142.82]] 19:08, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

It says "soaker" in the description of the fourth cloud. Do we mean "super soaker"? It does look like a super soaker. I didn't dare change the description in case I am missing something.
[[User:Cow|Cow]] ([[User talk:Cow|talk]]) 20:15, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Could we modify the navigation system to go to the disappearing one? [[User:Jacky720|That's right, Jacky720 just signed this]] ([[User talk:Jacky720|talk]] | [[Special:Contributions/Jacky720|contribs]]) 20:21, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

The explanation for the fifth cloud splits noctilucent into noctus and lucent and saying they have nothing to do with clouds when its actually referring to a type of very high altitude cloud seen rarely around twilight/dusk. They form from ice crystals and are illuminated by the sun below the horizon. --[[User:Kirkerbot|Kirkerbot]] ([[User talk:Kirkerbot|talk]]) 23:31, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

The listed lapse rate for the troposphere seems high - the dry adiabatic lapse rate is around 9.8 °C/km, and Wikipedia indicates the average lapse rate is around 6.5 °C/km. [[User:Tovodeverett|Tovodeverett]] ([[User talk:Tovodeverett|talk]]) 05:02, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

We should add some more info on the cloud types that "Altocumulenticulostratonimbulocirruslenticulomammanoctilucent" seems to reference (altocumulus, stratus, cirrus etc.) [[User:Arcorann|Arcorann]] ([[User talk:Arcorann|talk]]) 11:01, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

It says "soaker" in the description of the fourth cloud. It should say "Super Soaker"! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.148|162.158.214.148]] 11:27, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

2168: Reading in the Original

2019-07-30T20:19:25Z

162.158.214.148: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2168
| date = June 26, 2019
| title = Reading in the Original
| image = reading_in_the_original.png
| titletext = The articles are much shorter, but I assume that's because this version predates the merger with the Hawaiian text that created the modern Hawaiian-Greek hybrid wiki-pedia.
}}

==Explanation==
Many academics and aficionados argue that studying texts in the original language is more valuable than reading translations. The argument is that translations are rarely able to fully capture all of the nuances, linguistic subtleties and intent of the original author, and may even alter the meaning in some way due to the translator's interpretation and word choices. The drawback to this is that it requires the reader to be sufficiently fluent in whatever language the text is written. Critically, a reader of the original source also needs to understand the cultural and historical context of the original work, something a professional translator might deal with much better. This can even happen when working with archaic texts in the same language, as certain references and phrases may have had a significance which was lost over time.

Cueball's commenting that he read works "in the original Greek" implies a high-level of literary scholarship, as this phrase is associated with scholars studying ancient Greek texts, which form a significant part of the foundational works of Western literature.

A similar thing happens with dubbed movies or TV series/anime, with many people remarking that they instead prefer to watch the original version (sometimes with subtitles), instead of the dubbed version.

The joke in this comic is that Cueball has apparently taken the time to learn Greek in order to read the [https://el.wikipedia.org Greek-language Wikipedia] in that language, believing it to be the "original" one. {{w|Wikipedia}} was originally launched as a single English-language edition encyclopedia, but Cueball apparently treats it as though it was originally written in Greek. (An [https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/grc Ancient Greek Wikipedia test project] also exists, but is not nearly as large as the modern Greek one and isn't available through the languages box.) Wikipedia has editions in about 300 languages; the 'languages' box that Cueball mentions does link to the corresponding page in other languages when they are available, but such pages are not usually translations of each other, having been written separately. Cueball's dedication to appearing to be a committed scholar is therefore contrasted with the ignorance of not understanding that Greek is not the original language of every text. Megan, recognizing that Wikipedia articles were not originally in Greek, exclaims that "That's not how that works!"

The movie ''Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country'' has a joke concerning someone speaking of a foreign "original" language of something that actually was originally written in English: Chancellor Gorkon says, "You have not experienced Shakespeare until you've read it in the [https://klingon.fandom.com/wiki/Shakespeare original Klingon]." (In reality, Shakespeare lived in England, and wrote in English, not Klingon.){{Citation needed}}

The title text combines two jokes. First, the reference to pages being "much shorter" is because the English language Wikipedia has the most editors and is the most developed; outside of areas of intense interest to Greeks, most pages would be more complete on the English Wikipedia, which would normally be a sign to Cueball that his interpretation that Greek was the original text is incorrect. Second, the way he explains away this contradiction is an etymology joke, since "Wikipedia" was coined from two parts, "[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wiki#English wiki]", from Hawaiian, and "[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-pedia pedia]", from Greek. However, words having roots in different languages is common and does not signify any link between the separate languages; for example, while the word "Wikipedia" does have etymological roots in Hawaiian and Greek, it is not true that the site was originally composed of texts written in Hawaiian and Greek. In Hawaiian, [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wiki#Hawaiian wiki] means quick. In Greek, the suffix [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-pedia pedia] is related to learning, which makes Wikipedia mean "quick learning" when combining these two languages.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is addressing Megan. He is holding a hand with a thumb up out toward her. Megan is spreading her arms out as she replies.]
:Cueball: It's in the "Languages" box in the lower left. It took a while to learn, but I find I get so much more out of it by reading it as it was '''''intended'''''.
:Megan: That's not how that works!

:[Caption below the panel:]
:People get mad when I tell them I only read Wikipedia in the original Greek.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Wikipedia]]

Talk:2170: Coordinate Precision

2019-07-28T14:21:34Z

162.158.214.148: Google knows when you're sleeping It knows when you're awake It knows if you've been bad or good So be good for goodness sake

The coordinates seem to show a NASA building, so in the end you're still soing something space related. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.55.196|172.69.55.196]] 19:47, 1 July 2019 (UTC)Some random European.
:The more precise coordinates are actually in the middle of the Rocket Garden at the Visitor's Center of the Kennedy Space Center complex. [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 19:58, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

The atom-level coordinates are obtained by appending digits of e and pi to the Rocket Garden coordinates. [[User:Ichoran|Ichoran]] ([[User talk:Ichoran|talk]]) 20:21, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

I always find it very funny to see all those decimals. Regular GPS devices have an uncertainty of 3 meters if there is no interference from trees, buildings or whatever. That puts you at about 4 to 5 decimals I guess. [[User:Palmpje|Palmpje]] ([[User talk:Palmpje|talk]]) 20:26, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
:A Google Maps webpage URL includes coordinates to seven decimal places. [[User:EmuSam|EmuSam]] ([[User talk:EmuSam|talk]]) 20:48, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
::Sure but out there with your handheld GPS or normal consumer device that includes a GPS receiver you won't get more precision than about 3 meters. And when your at the higher latitudes you're probably not getting that. [[User:Palmpje|Palmpje]] ([[User talk:Palmpje|talk]]) 20:52, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

So combining this comic with #2169, is Randal suggesting he'll be at the Rocket Garden on July 28th (much as he did in #240)? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.208|108.162.216.208]] 20:47, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
:It says ''June'' 28th. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.22|162.158.126.22]] 20:52, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
::No, the date of that comic is June 28, but the title text says: [AT THE JULY 28TH MEETING] --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:51, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
:::Ah, that makes sense. For some reason my app only showed the first part of the tirle text --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.94|162.158.126.94]] 23:04, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
::::The COMIC says "June 28th." The TITLE TEXT says "July 28th." Apparently the government computer predictive text was trained from different input. [[User:Mwburden|mwburden]] ([[User talk:Mwburden|talk]]) 15:26, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Regrettably, there are two dimensions missing, Z and T. Without Z (elevation)+/- you could be in space or in a neutrino detector. T is only relevant for dynamic objects, but there again, the Americas are going West at a measurable rate! [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 21:30, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

The seventh row is likely a reference to comic number 1358 where two stick figures try to find waldo via satellite. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.226.125|172.69.226.125]] 21:44, 1 July 2019 (UTC) kisara, 21:42, 1 July 2019 (utc)

10^-40 degrees on the surface of the earth translates to about 0.7 planck lengths. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.234|162.158.106.234]] 21:50, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Do the coordinates 28.5234°N, 80.6830°W really correspond to the tip of the Delta rocket? I checked and it was pointing to a small patch of ground next to the rocket, not the tip of the rocket itself. [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 00:20, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
:No, you need to go to five decimal places to get the rocket. In that respect, I think he might be off by one digit of precision in his descriptions. [[User:Jeremyp|Jeremyp]] ([[User talk:Jeremyp|talk]]) 12:04, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
::Someone corrected it in the explanation, the coordinates 28.52345°N, 80.68309°W do correspond to the Delta rocket. [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 12:46, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

I would like to mention that neither number seems to fit into a standard double float value. I made a fiddle showing this. [https://dotnetfiddle.net/k7yK0Y#] [[User:Ansarya|Ansarya]] ([[User talk:Ansarya|talk]]) 01:48, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
:Floats are stored base 2, so representing them exactly as decimal often requires many more digits than is actually necessary (for complicated number theory reasons, a float can always be represented exactly as decimal, which would not be true if floats were stored in base 3). For this reason, programming languages that can format floats round them, usually to a number of digits where it will be possible to reconstruct the original float (though C# apparently takes off a couple extra digits, since those digits are almost never significant). To illustrate this, I used Rust to print many more digits of a float than would be shown normally [https://play.rust-lang.org/?version=stable&mode=debug&edition=2018&gist=6796c2459ceabea1a03d7113b676dd8f]. The latitude coordinate in the comic could be the result of printing a double precision float, but the longitude coordinate could not be. Also note that it takes almost 50 digits to reach an exact base 10 representation, even though only 14 or 15 of those digits are actually needed to reconstruct the original float. [[User:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|Probably not Douglas Hofstadter]] ([[User talk:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|talk]]) 18:01, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

May be my pet peeve... ...but adding an additional error to every piece of input data [and maybe every intermediate result] in order to show that either the precision the original measurement ends here or that all further digits of the measurement read "0" often introduces an error that can add up surprisingly quickly => I personally prefer raw floats that indicate there probably was no error analysis to rounded data and won't get tired on telling people to explicitely state what precision they can expect.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.114.70|162.158.114.70]]

If the smallest subnormal 32 bit float is a Planck length, then the largest 32 bit float is 10 sextillion times the diameter of the observable universe. If the value 1.0 of a 64 bit float is a cubic Planck length, then the largest float is 100 sextillion ''googol'' times the volume of the observable universe. [[User:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|Probably not Douglas Hofstadter]] ([[User talk:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|talk]]) 17:21, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

It'd be neat to have a map that shows the precision of given coordinates; like how Google Maps shows transparent blue circle with a wider radius if it's location detection isn't very precise. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.170.76|172.69.170.76]] 19:10, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Something about the formatting of the table seems to be messing up the main page. Not sure what it is, but it happens just after the '110 km (70 mi)' so might be related to the span. Not a major problem as it's fine on the comic page and the main page will change tomorrow anyway. [[User:A(l)Chemist|AlChemist]] ([[User talk:A(l)Chemist|talk]]) 19:43, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

/\
/ \
/____\
information is people
[[Special:Contributions/172.68.34.172|172.68.34.172]] 01:27, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

"more than a quintillion times smaller" that's short scale quintillion, right?
[[User:Kventin|Kventin]] ([[User talk:Kventin|talk]]) 08:04, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
:...and it's ambiguous otherwise. Depends entirely upon what one understands as "one time smaller" (or even if you can have a meaningful "zero times smaller", if you prefer) before you start to further multiply the smallerness by incrementing the factorisation. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.76|141.101.98.76]] 00:57, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

<q>This is probably a reference to the fact that persons are animate, and different persons can occupy the same position at different times.</q>
No it is not. The comic itself explicitly states that it's a reference to the geodetic datum when it says, <q>but since you didn't include datum information, we can't tell who</q>.

<q>As the comic notes, different persons can occupy the same position at different times</q>. Where does it note that? Am I looking at a different comic? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.38.166|162.158.38.166]] 09:57, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Is there supposed to be a comma after the dash in the description on 15 decimal places? I thought the "beginning - interjection - end of sentence" structure doesn't require a comma since the interjected section is basically a comma in itself. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.44.146|172.69.44.146]] 16:51, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
:As I learned it, a sentence with an interjection should be structured and punctuated as if the interjection were not there, be it enclosed in parentheses or dashes. See “Let's hunt – and then eat –, Grandma!”. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.226.106|172.68.226.106]] 22:40, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

For whatever reason, the plural of “geodetic datum” is “geodetic datums”. If you say “geodetic data”, then that sounds like you’re talking about a list of coordinates or something. It’s not regular, but it’s standard usage in the geodetic field. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.160.150|172.69.160.150]] 13:47, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

"The coordinates at 28.52345°N, 80.68309°W (in decimal degrees form; in geographic coordinate system form using degrees, minutes, and seconds, 28° 31′ 24.24.4″N, 80° 40′ 59.1″W)". The reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_coordinate_system does not support the view that degrees-minutes-seconds are any more of a geographic coordinate system than are decimal degrees (or meters, radians, etc. for that matter). This reads like somebody is grinding an axe.[[Special:Contributions/172.68.58.149|172.68.58.149]] 23:53, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Also the table at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_degrees is similar to the comic, and predates it by at least a year. Not sure how or if that should be included in the explanation.[[Special:Contributions/172.68.58.149|172.68.58.149]] 23:53, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Then of course there's N 47° 38.938 W 122° 20.887 - You're probably a [[wikipedia:Geocaching|geocacher]] (Which always uses the GPS standard WGS84 datum, by the way, so that's that problem solved). --[[User:IByte|IByte]] ([[User talk:IByte|talk]]) 11:37, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
:I was actually surprised there was no reference to [[426|geohashing]] here. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.245.193|172.68.245.193]] 06:39, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

'''What the number of digits in your time means'''

2010s: you're talking about a zeitgeist 
2016: you're talking about a piece of culture and how it fits in that zeitgeist 
2016 Q4: you're talking about a likely release date in the future 
2016 Nov: you're doing accounting 
2016 Nov 08: you're talking about a specific historic event 
2016 Nov 08 01:30 PM: you're talking about an event to gather for, but since you didn't include timezone information, we can't tell when 
2016 Nov 08 01:41 PM: you're writing a play-by-play 
2016 Nov 08 01:41:42 PM: you're checking out the date for an online comment 
2016 Nov 08 01:41:42.135 PM: you're optimistic about your computer's ability to sync to a webserver 
2016 Nov 08 01:41:42.135623 PM: you're probably filming with an expensive slow-mo camera 
2016 Nov 08 01:41:42.135623730 PM: you're probably doing something space-related

[[Special:Contributions/172.69.190.4|172.69.190.4]] 20:54, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Before I came here I started a Google search on the Latitude and Longitude - Google offered up the correct Longitude as I entered the Latitude. Just interesting, not surprising.

2181: Inbox

2019-07-27T01:27:04Z

162.158.214.148: /* Explanation */ there for -> therefore

{{comic
| number = 2181
| date = July 26, 2019
| title = Inbox
| image = inbox.png
| titletext = Rome's declaration of war against Carthage was sent from a no-reply address, so Hannibal had to cross the Alps to deliver his "UNSUBSCRIBE" response in person.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an ANCIENT ROMAN. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{w|Email}} differs from "snail" mail, in that it usually demands a reply. And replying to an email, may lead to another email response, thus leading to a "loop" of constant replies and responses.

The {{w|ancient Romans}} are one of the model historical societies, well revered for their culture and life. A common misconception is that Romans did not have a concept of the number Zero. The Romans were aware of the concept of zero, but there is no {{w|Numeral}} for 0 in the {{w|Roman Numeral}} system, as Roman numerals do not have place values like Arabic numerals. A value of ten or greater requires Arabic numerals to represent each lesser individually, with 0 serving as a placeholder digit for empty place values. Roman numerals do not have such a placeholder digit, and so did not have a numeral for zero; the word ''nulla'' was used to refer to "zero" in the sense of "nothing". Various sources indicate that this eventually gave use to '''N''' as a Roman numeral for "zero", and such is the case for modern users of Roman numerals.

Megan plays on this misconception by claiming that they were able to accomplish a lot because they did not have the Inbox Zero philosophy. [https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/inbox-zero Inbox Zero] is a recent organizational approach to email inbox management, with the idea that an inbox should be empty or as close to empty as possible. This would involve replying to all incoming emails immediately, and then filing them away when replied to. If the receiver also implements Inbox Zero, conversations never stop. As Megan mentions in the comic, this could lead to a lot of work if you receive a lot of daily emails.

Megan implies that because ancient Romans did not have a zero, they had no concept of Inbox Zero; thus, they did not need to waste time replying to email, and therefore could accomplish more. This is of course redundant, as email did not exist at the time. {{Citation needed}}

The title text refers to {{w|Hannibal's crossing of the Alps}}, a famous military campaign by Hannibal against the Romans. Randall claims that Hannibal needed to invade Rome to tell them to stop sending him so many emails. The reason for this was that Rome's email was sent from a "[https://www.mailjet.com/blog/news/the-noreply-dilemma-going-from-no-to-yes/ no-reply]" email address, so Hannibal had no way of replying and had to tell them in person.

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

[Megan and Cueball are sitting at a desk, facing each other, each working on their laptop computers.]
:Megan: Answering email is the worst. It just leads to getting more email.
:Cueball: Yeah, email is a trap.

[Beat panel.]

[Megan looks up from her work on the computer.]
:Megan: I bet the reason the Ancient Romans got so much done was that they had no concept of Inbox Zero.
:Cueball: ''That'' explains it.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Computers]]

Talk:2171: Shadow Biosphere

2019-07-04T01:03:07Z

162.158.214.148:

Just spit-balling here, but here goes: This comic seems to be making a joke between the meaning of "shadow biosphere" and the more common meaning behind "shadow" being something unseen. I think "shadow biosphere" is currently pretty loosely defined and not widely accepted by academics, and it seems to refer simply to organisms that might exist but are not currently being studied widely. In fact to me, the use of the term "shadow" in the name is relatively misleading and simply refers to a possible case of something not understood and/or studied at length, not that it's invisible. Randall appears to be making fun of the name by suggesting it means invisible to normal life as we know it. The title text further pushes this pun by suggesting that a coating of "desert varnish" makes normally visible objects become invisible, as with the buildings where shadow biologists carry out their work. Desert varnish is in fact visible when it is found in appropriate locations on normal objects like rocks - it does not make the rocks invisible! Somehow, I think these ideas need to be incorporated into the explanation. [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 17:00, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

The first paragraph of this comic explanation is a verbatim copy from the beginning of the Wikipedia article for shadow biosphere. It seems that we really should include citations when adding something like this. ---diGGdoug {{unsigned ip|172.69.170.28}}

The desert varnish reference in the alt text is because desert varnish is the most likely example of the shadow biosphere. It seems to be doing something at least vaugely like metabolism, concentrating certain minerals far beyond expected by nature. -[[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.67|162.158.107.67]] 19:47, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Do you have a citation for that? Wikipedia article doesn't mention any metabolism. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.38.64|172.68.38.64]] 22:31, 3 July 2019 (UTC)bk

Could "Shadow" be a Babylon 5 reference? -[[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.148|162.158.214.148]] 01:03, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

618: Asteroid

2019-06-28T06:54:02Z

162.158.214.148: /* Explanation */

{{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]]

615: Avoidance

2019-06-28T06:47:45Z

162.158.214.148: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number =615
| date =July 27, 2009
| title =Avoidance
| image =avoidance.png
| titletext =Hobby: seeing how many menu selections you can get someone to go through before they realize you're not an automated system and/or hang up.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Megan]] gave her number to [[Cueball]] at a party, but now doesn't want to talk to him. Because Megan works with recording voice messages at {{w|Verizon}}, she can with no effort put on the characteristically semi-lifeless tone of professional automated answers, and answer the phone with the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkF1wbBlSz0 "call cannot be completed"-message]. Perhaps it was even she who recorded it in the first place. In this way she avoids Cueball, hence the title.

Cueball actually got through to her the first time he used her number, and since she did not know his number at the time, she took that call. After that she used her Verizon voice every time he calls. Cueball's Cueball-like friend, is suspicious, and it is him who ask if Cueball knows what Megan works with. He gets his suspicion confirmed, but seems to enjoy that Cueball hasn't understood the implications and doesn't let him in on the secret.

The title text mentions a possible hobby that [[Randall]] could think of. The hobby can be interpreted as a {{w|Reverse Turing test}} with someone imitating an {{w|Interactive voice response}} system to see how long they can keep this going before the caller either gives up and hangs up, or realizes someone is making a joke on them and calls them out. This is related to Randall's [[My Hobby|Hobby series]], but this time it is not specifically Randall's own hobby.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is sitting in a chair holding a phone to his ear while his Cueball-like friend talks to him.]
:Friend: Did you call that hot girl from the party yet?
:Cueball: I've been trying.

:[In a frame-less panel Cueball looks at his phone and talks to his friend.]
:Cueball: It's weird. I swear I got her the first time. But now it says the number's wrong.

:[Zoom in on the friend, Cueball talking to him off-panel.]
:Friend: What did you say she did, again?
:Cueball (off-panel): Voice work. At Verizon, I think.
:Cueball (off-panel): Why?
:Friend: No reason.

:[Megan is talking into a phone, in an italic voice. Cueball's remark is shown emanating from the phone with a zig-zag line, also the click from haning up the phone is shown like that.]
:Megan: ''We're sorry, your call could not be completed as dialed.''
:Cueball (over the phone): Damn.
:''*Click*''
:Megan: ''Please check the number and try again.''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]

2168: Reading in the Original

2019-06-28T05:06:14Z

162.158.214.148:

{{comic
| number = 2168
| date = June 26, 2019
| title = Reading in the Original
| image = reading_in_the_original.png
| titletext = The articles are much shorter, but I assume that's because this version predates the merger with the Hawaiian text that created the modern Hawaiian-Greek hybrid wiki-pedia.
}}

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

Many academics and aficionados argue that studying texts in the original language is more valuable than reading translations. The argument is that translations are rarely able to fully capture all of the nuances, linguistic subtleties and intent of the original author, and may even alter the meaning in some way due to the translator's interpretation and word choices.

The drawback to this is that it requires the reader to be sufficiently fluent in whatever language the text is written.

Cueball's commenting that he read works "in the original Greek" implies a high-level of literary scholarship, as this phrase is associated with scholars studying ancient Greek texts, which form a significant part of Western literature.

The joke in this comic is that Cueball has apparently taken the time to learn Greek, so that he can read Wikipedia in that language. However, he is not reading the "original" version of Wikipedia articles, but their equivalent in the [https://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%A0%CF%8D%CE%BB%CE%B7:%CE%9A%CF%8D%CF%81%CE%B9%CE%B1 modern Greek language edition of Wikipedia]. (An [https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/grc Ancient Greek Wikipedia test project] also exists, but is not nearly as large as the modern Greek one.) Wikipedia has editions in about 300 languages; many articles link to equivalent articles in other languages, but they are not usually translations of each other, having been written separately by speakers of the different languages. The dedication to appearing to be a committed scholar is contrasted with the ignorance of not understanding that Greek is not the original language of every text.

A similar thing happens with dubbed movies or TV series/anime, with people smugly remarking that they instead prefer to watch the original version, instead of the dubbed version.

The movie ''Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country'' has a joke concerning someone speaking of a foreign "original" language of something that actually was originally written in English: Chancellor Gorkon says, "You have not experienced Shakespeare until you've read it in the original Klingon." (In reality, Shakespeare lived in England, and wrote in English, not Klingon.){{Citation needed}}

The title text is an etymology joke, since "Wikipedia" was coined from two parts, "[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wiki#English wiki]", from Hawaiian, and "[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-pedia pedia]", from Greek. However, words having roots in different languages is common and does not signify any link between the separate languages; for example, while the word "Wikipedia" does have etymological roots in Hawaiian and Greek, it is not true that the site was originally composed of texts written in Hawaiian and Greek.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is addressing Megan. He is holding a hand with a thumb up out toward her. Megan is spreading her arms out as she replies.]
:Cueball: It's in the "Languages" box in the lower left. It took a while to learn, but I find I get so much more out of it by reading it as it was '''''intended'''''.
:Megan: That's not how that works!

:[Caption below the panel:]
:People get mad when I tell them I only read Wikipedia in the original Greek.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Wikipedia]]

The Rise of Open Access

2016-05-29T15:47:55Z

162.158.214.148:

{{comic
| date = October 4, 2013
| title = The Rise of Open Access
| image = the_rise_of_open_access.jpg
| before = The accelerating pace of scientific publishing and the rise of open access, as depicted by xkcd.com cartoonist Randall Munroe.
| ldomain = sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/58.full#
| extra = yes
}}

* The full-size version of this chart can be found here: http://www.sciencemag.org/site/special/scicomm/infographic.jpg.
* The original article "The Rise of Open Access" on the journal Science can be found here: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/58.full.

==Explanation==
{{Incomplete|New Page, not in main comic thread. Apparently abandoned.}}
This comic is a one-off exclusive created for the journal {{w|Science (journal)|Science}} by [[Randall Munroe]].

==Transcript==
{{Incomplete transcript}}

:'''How much science is there?'''

:Scientific publication has been accelerating--a new paper is published roughly every 20 seconds. Let's imagine a bibliography listing ''every'' scholarly paper ever written. How long would it be?

:If we can fit 140 citations per page... [image of page] > [image of stack of pages] > ...1000 pages per book... [image of book labeled "All of Botany" "Volume VII"] > ...and then we start stacking books... [image of stack of books]

:[The books in the stack are the aforementioned "All of Botany Volume VII", "Math (100000? papers)", "Applied Psych 1-17?", and "Weird Science 1984".]

:A list of papers published in 1880 would fill 100 pages.
:By 1920, the list would be growing by 500 pages a year.
:The 1975 section would fill four huge volumes.
:Today we're up to 15 volumes per year--a page every 45 minutes.

:'''...This is what the full list would look like:'''

:[Chart below showing the approximate number of volumes per year. On the right end, starting around 1990, a bubble with the words "Moved to open access" points upward to a different chart under the header "How open is it?" Under the cloud is a header "Traditional Publication", referring to the volumes in the chart. There is a box around approximately 2000-2010, with a note underneath saying detail. The years 1999 to 2014 are in a separate chart below.]

:Cueball: All scholarly articles from before 1880 fit in just a few volumes.

:[The rest are notes added to various points on the graph.]

:{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Year !! Note
|-
| 1869 || First issue of ''Nature''
|-
| 1880 || ''Science'' founded
|-
| 1987-89 || First online journals appear
|-
| 1991 || Paul Ginsparg launches ARXIV for physics reprints
|-
| 1999 || NIH director proposes an archive of free biomed papers
|-
| 2000 || Pubmed Central debuts Plos founded
|-
| 2001 || 30,000 scientists call for a boycott of journals that don't allow free access on Pubmed within 6 months
|-
| 2002 || Biomed central begins charging $500 author fee HHMI agrees to pay author feeds for open-access publication
|-
| 2003 || ''PLOS Biology'' launches, charges $1500 author's fee
|-
| 2006 || U.K. medical research council mandates free access within 6 months PLOS raises top author fee to $2500, launches ''PLOS One'', which reviews for scientific rigor, not importance
|-
| 2008 || NIH requires that papers it funds be made free within 12 months Harvard faculty agree to post papers in university repository
|-
| 2010 || PLOS becomes profitable ''PLOS One'' becomes world's biggest scientific publisher by volume
|-
| 2013 || White House orders all scientific agencies to plan to make papers free within 12 months
|-
| 2014 || European Commission will require free access within 6-12 months
|}

:[The following publications are also noted in speech bubbles in bibliography form, but are cut off by the edges of the bubbles.]

:{{w|Albert Einstein|Einstein, A.}} "{{w|Über die von der molekularkinetischen Theorie der Wärme geforderte Bewegung von in ruhenden Flüssigkeiten suspendierten Teilchen}}." (1905)
:Einstein, A. "On a Heuristic Point of View Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light." (1905) 
:Einstein, A. "Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper." (1905)
:Einstein, A. "Ist die Trägheit eines Körpers von seinem Energieinhalt abhängig?" (1905)

:{{w|Edwin Hubble|Hubble, E.}} "Effects on Red Shifts on the Distribution of Nebulae." Proceedings by the National Academy of Sciences Volume 22 Number 11 (1936)"

:{{w|Hans Bethe|Bethe, H.}}, {{w|Ralph Alpher|Alpher, R.A.}}, and {{w|George Gamow|Gamow, G.}} "{{w|Alpher–Bethe–Gamow_paper|The Origin of Chemical Elements}}." Physical Review Volume 73 Number 7 (1948)
:(Although all other names are listed in a lastName, firstInitial format, Randall put "G. Gamow" instead of "Gamow, G.".)

:(The author listed (Watson, J.D.) did not write the article (Molecular Structure of Deoxypentose Nucleic Acids) but he did write another paper on DNA that was published in the same article of ''Nature''.)
:{{w|James Watson|Watson, J.D.}} and {{w|Francis Crick|Crick, F.H.C.}} "A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid" Nature 171, 737-738 (1953)
:{{w|Maurice Wilkins|Wilkins, M.H.F.}}, Stokes, A.R. & Wilson, H.R. "Molecular Structure of Deoxypentose Nucleic Acids" Nature 171, 738-740 (1953)

:{{w|Kurt Godel|Godel, Kurt}}, B. Meltzer, {{w|Richard Schlegel|Schlegel, Richard}} "On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems." Physics Today Volume 17 Issue 1 (1964)
:(Again Randall switches the order of last name / first name and puts "Richard Schlegel".)

:'''How open is it?'''

:Since the advent of the web, much of scientific publishing has been moving to ''open access.'' According to Science-Metrix, open access reached a "tipping point" around 2011: more than 50% of new research is now made available free online.

:[The following text is inside a cloud shaped bubble.]

:'''Open access papers'''

:Megan: As journals move to open access and digitize their archives, old papers from every period move here...
:Cueball: ...In addition to the flood of new papers being published here directly.
:Black Hat: 25% of open-access papers are freely available on publication. The rest becomes free within 12 months on journal websites or other repositories.

:[Next to Cueball, a woman fishes a book out of a pile of volumes with a fishing rod.]

[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Large drawings]]

1079: United Shapes

2016-05-29T15:29:36Z

162.158.214.148:

{{comic
| number = 1079
| date = July 9, 2012
| title = United Shapes
| image = united_shapes.png
| imagesize = 800px
| titletext = That eggplant is in something of a flaccid state.
}}
The large version is here: [http://xkcd.com/1079/large/ http://xkcd.com/1079/large/]
==Explanation==
{{incomplete|The transcript should only mention what the picture looks like and the text in the pictures. All comments, should be in a separate part of the explanation with this table. Also the transcript should follow a realistic order of "reading" not alphabetical, that will be fine for the table with the explanation.}}
In this comic, each state of the United States of America has been filled-in with an object of similar shape. Due to the size range of the states, some states are too small to clearly make-out in the normal size image. Click [http://xkcd.com/1079/large/ here] to see the large version, which makes every state perfectly clear. Several years later Randall made a new map of the US mainland [[1653: United States Map]], where he shuffled the positions of the states but filled out the outline. Also in this map Michigan has been split into two separate parts. (Here it is the glove and the eagle).

Very few, if any, of the shapes used are stereotypes of the state; they are merely objects that look like the state. Some of the objects are those which the states are widely known to resemble. For example, Michigan is represented by a glove and an Eagle, and a pot with handle takes the place of Oklahoma (with the panhandle region of the state filled with a literal handle). Others, however, are more creative. Few would have likely pictured Texas as a dog or Alaska as a bear with a jet pack and laser gun. There are several incredibly simple objects filling some states. Kentucky is filled by a cloud, which conceivably could have been used for any state, and Wyoming, one of the nearly rectangular states, is simply an envelope. There are three pairs of states that are related. Georgia and Missouri each contain an image of the other, drawing attention to their similar shapes, North and South Dakota are the top and bottom halves of an amp, and Alabama and Mississippi are {{w|moai}} facing in opposite directions.)

Colorado contains what looks like a Wikipedia article. A close-up of the fake article is provided [http://xkcd.com/1079/colorado/]. The following references are made in the Colorado article:

*The pronunciation is not that for Colorado, but for {{w|Eyjafjallajökull}}, a volcano in Iceland that erupted in April 2010.
*The way it has a demilitarized zone towards Wyoming resembles {{W|North Korea}} and {{W|South Korea}}.
*Eleven dimensions refers to {{w|string theory}}.
*A {{w|wormhole}} is a theoretical relative of the {{w|black hole}}. This is a reference to the television series {{w|Stargate SG-1}} where a device capable of creating wormholes is located in the {{w|Cheyenne Mountain nuclear bunker}} in Colorado.
*A {{w|Horcrux}} is a type of magical object in the world of {{W|Harry Potter}}.
*The radiation zones around Longmont are caused by {{w|Radioactive contamination from the Rocky Flats Plant|radioactive contamination from the Rocky Flats Plant}}.
*The fake motto ''Si parare possis, vivere septem'' can be roughly translated as "With preparation, survival is possible for over a week."

New Mexico according to Randall's transcript is "A liquid container labeled for something of unusual and silly danger". The labeling is upside down and it refers to the nuclear testing facility White Sands Missile Range located in New Mexico for the nuclear bomb.
:This end up
:Property of White Sands Missile Range
:??? [Followed by a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NFPA_704 NFPA 704] Diamond with all divisions at severe risk, and a radiation symbol in the special notice division]
:Contains White Sand
:FLAMMABLE
:Warning:
:This product contains chemicals known
:only to the state of Nevada.
:Contents under pressure from parents
:If swallowed, induce labor
:56 fluid ounces
:and 14 other ounces

The title text makes fun of Florida which is sometimes called "The penis of America". Obviously, this penis is somewhat flaccid (not erect). The use of the word "state" is a pun, as it means some particular condition (flaccid state) as well as a political entity (The State of Florida).

==Chart==
{|class=wikitable
!State!!Contained Picture!!Comments
|-
|Alabama ||A moai head facing east.||{{w|Moai}} are Easter Island stone statues
|-
|Alaska ||A teddy bear with a jetpack and a ray gun||The ray gun and jetpack are fixtures of science fiction during the Cold War era, and the Russian Bear is an often-used personification of the country Russia in political cartoonage; the "teddy bear" image may be related to Alaska's former Russian heritage. The USA acquired Alaska from Russia in the Alaska Purchase of 1867 and it became a state in 1959, during the Cold War. The Cold War often featured worries of a potential Russian invasion of Alaska due to their geographical proximity across the Bering Sea and Bering Strait, which persisted through the 1980s; Alaska was the location of a large number of interceptor missiles as part of Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars Defense Initiative" intended to shoot down missiles that might be launched from the USSR. The ray gun is pointed across the Bering Strait at Russia, consistent with Alaska's often being described as the "first line of defense" against Russian aggression. The teddy bear is similar in appearance to {{w|Winnie the Pooh}}.||
|-
|Arizona ||A refrigerated shelf containing milk, bread, and pastries.||
|-
|Arkansas ||A measuring cup.||
|-
|California ||A vacuum.||An old-fashioned upright vacuum cleaner (lying down to the right), green with a yellow bag.
|-
|Colorado ||The wikipedia article on Colorado.||A fake Wikipedia article on Colorado. Below the text as seen in the provided close up:
:[web address:]
::en.wikipedia.org/wiki/colorado
:[Headers]
::Wikipedia
::Article Talk
::Colorado
:[Main article {note that Randall forgot the closing parentheses ')' after the pronunciation}]
::Colorado (Pronounced [ˈeːijaˌfjatlaˌjœːkʏtl̥] is a US State encompassing portions of the Rocky
::Mountains and the Great Plains. The region has been inhabited since at least 11,000 BCE, and
::some archaeological evidence suggest the state – with roughly its current borders – has literally
::always existed. Colorado is separated from Wyoming by a 28-mile demilitarized zone, and
::has at times exercised substantial regional
::power via the installation of puppet governments
::in neighboring states
::Geographically, Colorado is eleven-dimensional,
::though seven of those dimensions are tightly
::compacted and difficult to detect in most areas
::of the state. Colorado is home to the nation's
::oldest continually-operated wormhole and two
::of President Lincoln's horcruxes.
::The wildlife in Colorado is commonly characterized
::as "erratic", particularly in the radiation zones
::around Longmont. The State's timber wolf
::population is largely bipedal; the Park Service
::has expressed "concern" at their attempts to enroll in
:[Fact box with correct State flag and emblem and fake motto:]
::State of Colorado
::Motto:
::"Si parare possis, vivere septem."
::(With preparation, survival is
::possible for over a week.)
|-
|Connecticut ||A train conductor's hat.||
|-
|Delaware ||A meerkat.||
|-
|Florida ||An eggplant.||The title text mentions the eggplant being in a flaccid state, which might be a reference to the sexual use of the eggplant emoji.
|-
|Georgia ||Missouri.||The outline of the state of Missouri, with the {{w|Gateway Arch}} in St. Louis.
|-
|Hawaii ||The island of Hawaii is a snowball. The smaller islands are small bits of snow.||
|-
|Idaho ||A garden gnome, sitting down.||
|-
|Illinois ||A gangster with a guitar case, upside down.||
|-
|Indiana ||The brush of a paintbrush.||
|-
|Iowa ||A tomato, lettuce, cold cut and cheese sandwich.||
|-
|Kansas ||A stand-up piano.||
|-
|Kentucky ||A cloud.||
|-
|Louisiana ||A boot with some gum stuck to the bottom of it.||
|-
|Maine ||A Vulcan salute.||Maine's camp sunshine has had Star Trek related events in the past, including the opportunity to appear in a film.
|-
|Maryland ||A wolf howling to the moon, upside down.||
|-
|Massachusetts ||An elephant, being ridden by a man, carrying tea.||Might be a reference to the Boston Tea Party, which occurred in Massachusetts, and the Republican political party. The man seems to be wearing a tricorn hat.
|-
|Michigan ||A mitten for the lower portion, an eagle for the {{w|Upper Peninsula of Michigan}}.||
|-
|Minnesota ||$160 in $20 USD bills. It is tied together.||
|-
|Mississippi ||A moai head facing west.||
|-
|Missouri ||Georgia.||The outline of the state of Georgia, with a pair of {{w|Georgia Peach|Georgia peaches}}.
|-
|Montana ||One half of a muffin, sideways.||
|-
|Nebraska ||A blue VW type 2 with mattresses sticking out the back.||
|-
|Nevada ||A clothes iron.||
|-
|New Hampshire ||A tall brick factory building.||
|-
|New Jersey ||A bent-over old person. He is carrying a cane.||
|-
|New Mexico ||A liquid container labeled for something of unusual and silly danger.||A yellow liquid container with upside-down labeling.
::This end up!!
::Property of White Sands Missile Range
::Contains White Sand
:[Written inside a hazardous-materials diamond with the ? very large, and the three '4' in the three top part of a diamond shape divided in four these three sections being blue, red, yellow. The lower part has a radioactive sign on the same grey background as the large rectangle.]
::??? 4 4 4
::Flammable
::Warning
::This product contains chemicals known
::Only to the State of Nevada.
::Contents under pressure from parents
::If swallowed, induce labor
::56 fluid ounces
::and 14 other ounces
|-
|New York ||A hybrid transmission with standard manual-style gears and a torque converter sliced in half.||
|-
|North Carolina ||A bouquet of flowers. They appear similar to {w|Galium Palustre|marsh bedstraws}.||
|-
|North Dakota ||The top half of an amp.||
|-
|Ohio ||Underwear (Briefs).||
|-
|Oklahoma ||A covered pot, dripping with boil-over.||
|-
|Oregon ||A locomotive.||
|-
|Pennsylvania ||A very thick book with a bookmark.||
|-
|Rhode Island ||The bow half of a boat's hull.||
|-
|South Carolina ||A slice of pizza.||
|-
|South Dakota ||The bottom half of an amp.||
|-
|Tennessee ||A number of children's books, placed in a slightly askew pile.|| Possibly a reference to Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. The books are {{w|Where's Waldo?}}, {{w|The Wreck of the Zephyr}}, {{w|The Way Things Work}}, Free Fall, {{w|Paddle-to-the-Sea}}, What It Feels Like to Be a Building, and {{w|The Crab with the Golden Claws}}.
|-
|Texas ||A dog sitting in a bowl.||
|-
|Utah ||An oven.||
|-
|Vermont ||A microscope, upside down.||
|-
|Virginia ||A {{w|stegosaurus}}.||
|-
|Washington ||A whale.|| The Puget Sound is well known for whale watching
|-
|Washington DC ||A star.||On most maps, capitals are shown as stars. Washington DC is the capital of the United States.
|-
|West Virginia ||A {{w|frog}}.||
|-
|Wisconsin ||A skull.||
|-
|Wyoming ||An envelope.||The back side of a white envelope, sealed with red wax, with a black heart next to a signature (lower left corner).
|}

==Transcript==
:The '''United Shapes'''
:A map of things states are shaped like
:[Each state has some item wedged to stay inside its borders]

{|class=wikitable
!State!!Official Transcript!!Text!!State!!Official Transcript!!Text!!State!!Official Transcript!!Text!!State!!Official Transcript!!Text!!State!!Official Transcript!!Text!!State!!Official Transcript!!Text!!State!!Official Transcript!!Text!!State!!Official Transcript!!Text!!State!!Official Transcript!!Text!!State!!Official Transcript!!Text!!State!!Official Transcript!!Text!!State!!Official Transcript!!Text!!State!!Official Transcript!!Text
|-
|WA||whale||
|MT||half muffin||
|ND and SD||top and bottom halves of an amp||
|MN||$160 in $20 USD bills||
|WI||skull||
|MI||mitten for the lower portion, eagle for the {{w|Upper Peninsula of Michigan}}||
|NY||hybrid transmission with standard manual-style gears and a torque converter sliced in half||
|VT||microscope, upside down||
|NH||tall brick factory building||
|ME||Vulcan salute||
|MA||elephant, being ridden by a man, carrying tea||
|CT||train conductor's hat||
|RI||bow half of a boat's hull||
|-
|OR||locomotive||
|ID||garden gnome, sitting down||
|WY||envelope.||The envelope is marked with a signature, possibly Randal's
|NE||blue VW type 2 with mattresses sticking out the back||
|IA||tomato, lettuce, cold cut and cheese sandwich||
|IL||gangster with a guitar case, upside down||
|IN||brush of a paintbrush||
|OH||underwear (Briefs)||
|PA||very thick book with a bookmark||
|NJ||bent-over old person||
|-
|NV||clothes iron||
|UT||oven||
|CO||Wikipedia article on Colorado||See Link Above
|KS||stand-up piano||
|MO||Georgia||Georgia
|KY||cloud||
|WV||{{w|frog}}||
|VA||{{w|stegosaurus}}||
|DC||star.||
|MD||wolf howling to the moon, upside down||
|DE||meerkat||
|-
|CA||vacuum cleaner||
|AZ||refrigerated shelf containing milk, bread, and pastries||
|NM||liquid container with warning label||
:This end up!!
:
:Property of White Sands Missile Range
:Contains White Sand
:
:???
:
:FLAMMABLE
:
:Warning: This product contains chemicals known
:Only to the state of Nevada.
:Contents under pressure from parents.
:If swallowed, induce labor.
:
:56 Fluid Ounces
:and 14 other ounces.
|OK||covered pot, dripping with boil-over||
|AR||measuring cup||
|TN||children's books, placed in a slightly askew pile||
:Handford / WHERE'S WALDO / or wally
:The Wreck of the Zephyr / Chris Van Allsburg
:The Way Things Work / DAVID MACAULRY
:Weisner / FREE FALL
:PADDLE-TO-THE-SEA / HCH(?)
:WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE A BUILDING / Wilson
:TINTIN / The Crab with the Golden Claws / Hergé
|NC||flower bouquet||
|-
|AK||teddy bear with a jetpack and a ray gun||
|HI||snowball||
|TX||dog sitting in a bowl||
|LA||boot with some gum stuck to the bottom||
|MS||moai head facing west||
|AL||moai head facing east||
|GA||Missouri.||Missouri
|SC||pizza slice||
|FL||eggplant||
|}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Large drawings]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Maps]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Dinosaurs]]
[[Category:Wikipedia]]

1079: United Shapes

2016-05-29T01:29:30Z

162.158.214.148: /* Chart */

{{comic
| number = 1079
| date = July 9, 2012
| title = United Shapes
| image = united_shapes.png
| imagesize = 800px
| titletext = That eggplant is in something of a flaccid state.
}}
The large version is here: [http://xkcd.com/1079/large/ http://xkcd.com/1079/large/]
==Explanation==
{{incomplete|The transcript should only mention what the picture looks like and the text in the pictures. All comments, should be in a separate part of the explanation with this table. Also the transcript should follow a realistic order of "reading" not alphabetical, that will be fine for the table with the explanation.}}
In this comic, each state of the United States of America has been filled-in with an object of similar shape. Due to the size range of the states, some states are too small to clearly make-out in the normal size image. Click [http://xkcd.com/1079/large/ here] to see the large version, which makes every state perfectly clear. Several years later Randall made a new map of the US mainland [[1653: United States Map]], where he shuffled the positions of the states but filled out the outline. Also in this map Michigan has been split into two separate parts. (Here it is the glove and the eagle).

Very few, if any, of the shapes used are stereotypes of the state; they are merely objects that look like the state. Some of the objects are those which the states are widely known to resemble. For example, Michigan is represented by a glove and an Eagle, and a pot with handle takes the place of Oklahoma (with the panhandle region of the state filled with a literal handle). Others, however, are more creative. Few would have likely pictured Texas as a dog or Alaska as a bear with a jet pack and laser gun. There are several incredibly simple objects filling some states. Kentucky is filled by a cloud, which conceivably could have been used for any state, and Wyoming, one of the nearly rectangular states, is simply an envelope. There are three pairs of states that are related. Georgia and Missouri each contain an image of the other, drawing attention to their similar shapes, North and South Dakota are the top and bottom halves of an amp, and Alabama and Mississippi are {{w|moai}} facing in opposite directions.)

Colorado contains what looks like a Wikipedia article. A close-up of the fake article is provided [http://xkcd.com/1079/colorado/]. The following references are made in the Colorado article:

*The pronunciation is not that for Colorado, but for {{w|Eyjafjallajökull}}, a volcano in Iceland that erupted in April 2010.
*The way it has a demilitarized zone towards Wyoming resembles {{W|North Korea}} and {{W|South Korea}}.
*Eleven dimensions refers to {{w|string theory}}.
*A {{w|wormhole}} is a theoretical relative of the {{w|black hole}}. This is a reference to the television series {{w|Stargate SG-1}} where a device capable of creating wormholes is located in the {{w|Cheyenne Mountain nuclear bunker}} in Colorado.
*A {{w|Horcrux}} is a type of magical object in the world of {{W|Harry Potter}}.
*The radiation zones around Longmont are caused by {{w|Radioactive contamination from the Rocky Flats Plant|radioactive contamination from the Rocky Flats Plant}}.
*The fake motto ''Si parare possis, vivere septem'' can be roughly translated as "With preparation, survival is possible for over a week."

New Mexico according to Randall's transcript is "A liquid container labeled for something of unusual and silly danger". The labeling is upside down and it refers to the nuclear testing facility White Sands Missile Range located in New Mexico for the nuclear bomb.
:This end up
:Property of White Sands Missile Range
:??? [Followed by a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NFPA_704 NFPA 704] Diamond with all divisions at severe risk, and a radiation symbol in the special notice division]
:Contains White Sand
:FLAMMABLE
:Warning:
:This product contains chemicals known
:only to the state of Nevada.
:Contents under pressure from parents
:If swallowed, induce labor
:56 fluid ounces
:and 14 other ounces

The title text makes fun of Florida which is sometimes called "The penis of America". Obviously, this penis is somewhat flaccid (not erect). The use of the word "state" is a pun, as it means some particular condition (flaccid state) as well as a political entity (The State of Florida).

==Chart==
{|class=wikitable
!State!!Contained Picture!!Comments
|-
|Alabama ||A moai head facing east.||{{w|Moai}} are Easter Island stone statues
|-
|Alaska ||A teddy bear with a jetpack and a ray gun||The ray gun and jetpack are fixtures of science fiction during the Cold War era, and the Russian Bear is an often-used personification of the country Russia in political cartoonage; the "teddy bear" image may be related to Alaska's former Russian heritage. The USA acquired Alaska from Russia in the Alaska Purchase of 1867 and it became a state in 1959, during the Cold War. The Cold War often featured worries of a potential Russian invasion of Alaska due to their geographical proximity across the Bering Sea and Bering Strait, which persisted through the 1980s; Alaska was the location of a large number of interceptor missiles as part of Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars Defense Initiative" intended to shoot down missiles that might be launched from the USSR. The ray gun is pointed across the Bering Strait at Russia, consistent with Alaska's often being described as the "first line of defense" against Russian aggression. The teddy bear is similar in appearance to {{w|Winnie the Pooh}}.||
|-
|Arizona ||A refrigerated shelf containing milk, bread, and pastries.||
|-
|Arkansas ||A measuring cup.||
|-
|California ||A vacuum.||An old-fashioned upright vacuum cleaner (lying down to the right), green with a yellow bag.
|-
|Colorado ||The wikipedia article on Colorado.||A fake Wikipedia article on Colorado. Below the text as seen in the provided close up:
:[web address:]
::en.wikipedia.org/wiki/colorado
:[Headers]
::Wikipedia
::Article Talk
::Colorado
:[Main article {note that Randall forgot the closing parentheses ')' after the pronunciation}]
::Colorado (Pronounced [ˈeːijaˌfjatlaˌjœːkʏtl̥] is a US State encompassing portions of the Rocky
::Mountains and the Great Plains. The region has been inhabited since at least 11,000 BCE, and
::some archaeological evidence suggest the state – with roughly its current borders – has literally
::always existed. Colorado is separated from Wyoming by a 28-mile demilitarized zone, and
::has at times exercised substantial regional
::power via the installation of puppet governments
::in neighboring states
::Geographically, Colorado is eleven-dimensional,
::though seven of those dimensions are tightly
::compacted and difficult to detect in most areas
::of the state. Colorado is home to the nation's
::oldest continually-operated wormhole and two
::of President Lincoln's horcruxes.
::The wildlife in Colorado is commonly characterized
::as "erratic", particularly in the radiation zones
::around Longmont. The State's timber wolf
::population is largely bipedal; the Park Service
::has expressed "concern" at their attempts to enroll in
:[Fact box with correct State flag and emblem and fake motto:]
::State of Colorado
::Motto:
::"Si parare possis, vivere septem."
::(With preparation, survival is
::possible for over a week.)
|-
|Connecticut ||A train conductor's hat.||
|-
|Delaware ||A meerkat.||
|-
|Florida ||An eggplant.||
|-
|Georgia ||Missouri.||The outline of the state of Missouri, with the {{w|Gateway Arch}} in St. Louis.
|-
|Hawaii ||The island of Hawaii is a snowball. The smaller islands are small bits of snow.||
|-
|Idaho ||A garden gnome, sitting down.||
|-
|Illinois ||A gangster with a guitar case, upside down.||
|-
|Indiana ||The brush of a paintbrush.||
|-
|Iowa ||A tomato, lettuce, cold cut and cheese sandwich.||
|-
|Kansas ||A stand-up piano.||
|-
|Kentucky ||A cloud.||
|-
|Louisiana ||A boot with some gum stuck to the bottom of it.||
|-
|Maine ||A Vulcan salute.||Maine's camp sunshine has had Star Trek related events in the past, including the opportunity to appear in a film.
|-
|Maryland ||A wolf howling to the moon, upside down.||
|-
|Massachusetts ||An elephant, being ridden by a man, carrying tea.||Might be a reference to the Boston Tea Party, which occurred in Massachusetts, and the Republican political party. The man seems to be wearing a tricorn hat.
|-
|Michigan ||A mitten for the lower portion, an eagle for the {{w|Upper Peninsula of Michigan}}.||
|-
|Minnesota ||$160 in $20 USD bills. It is tied together.||
|-
|Mississippi ||A moai head facing west.||
|-
|Missouri ||Georgia.||The outline of the state of Georgia, with a pair of {{w|Georgia Peach|Georgia peaches}}.
|-
|Montana ||One half of a muffin, sideways.||
|-
|Nebraska ||A blue VW type 2 with mattresses sticking out the back.||
|-
|Nevada ||A clothes iron.||
|-
|New Hampshire ||A tall brick factory building.||
|-
|New Jersey ||A bent-over old person. He is carrying a cane.||
|-
|New Mexico ||A liquid container labeled for something of unusual and silly danger.||A yellow liquid container with upside-down labeling.
::This end up!!
::Property of White Sands Missile Range
::Contains White Sand
:[Written inside a hazardous-materials diamond with the ? very large, and the three '4' in the three top part of a diamond shape divided in four these three sections being blue, red, yellow. The lower part has a radioactive sign on the same grey background as the large rectangle.]
::??? 4 4 4
::Flammable
::Warning
::This product contains chemicals known
::Only to the State of Nevada.
::Contents under pressure from parents
::If swallowed, induce labor
::56 fluid ounces
::and 14 other ounces
|-
|New York ||A hybrid transmission with standard manual-style gears and a torque converter sliced in half.||
|-
|North Carolina ||A bouquet of flowers. They appear similar to {w|Galium Palustre|marsh bedstraws}.||
|-
|North Dakota ||The top half of an amp.||
|-
|Ohio ||Underwear (Briefs).||
|-
|Oklahoma ||A covered pot, dripping with boil-over.||
|-
|Oregon ||A locomotive.||
|-
|Pennsylvania ||A very thick book with a bookmark.||
|-
|Rhode Island ||The bow half of a boat's hull.||
|-
|South Carolina ||A slice of pizza.||
|-
|South Dakota ||The bottom half of an amp.||
|-
|Tennessee ||A number of children's books, placed in a slightly askew pile.|| Possibly a reference to Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. The books are {w|Where's Waldo?}, {w|The Wreck of the Zephyr}, {w|The Way Things Work}, Free Fall, {w|Paddle-to-the-Sea}, What It Feels Like to Be a Building, and {w|The Crab with the Golden Claws}.
|-
|Texas ||A dog sitting in a bowl.||
|-
|Utah ||An oven.||
|-
|Vermont ||A microscope, upside down.||
|-
|Virginia ||A {{w|stegosaurus}}.||
|-
|Washington ||A whale.|| The Puget Sound is well known for whale watching
|-
|Washington DC ||A star.||On most maps, capitals are shown as stars. Washington DC is the capital of the United States.
|-
|West Virginia ||A {{w|frog}}.||
|-
|Wisconsin ||A skull.||
|-
|Wyoming ||An envelope.||The back side of a white envelope, sealed with red wax, with a black heart next to a signature (lower left corner).
|}

==Transcript==
:The '''United Shapes'''
:A map of things states are shaped like
:[Each state has some item wedged to stay inside its borders]

{|class=wikitable
!State!!Official Transcript!!Text!!State!!Official Transcript!!Text!!State!!Official Transcript!!Text!!State!!Official Transcript!!Text!!State!!Official Transcript!!Text!!State!!Official Transcript!!Text!!State!!Official Transcript!!Text!!State!!Official Transcript!!Text!!State!!Official Transcript!!Text!!State!!Official Transcript!!Text!!State!!Official Transcript!!Text!!State!!Official Transcript!!Text!!State!!Official Transcript!!Text
|-
|WA||whale||
|MT||half muffin||
|ND and SD||top and bottom halves of an amp||
|MN||$160 in $20 USD bills||
|WI||skull||
|MI||mitten for the lower portion, eagle for the {{w|Upper Peninsula of Michigan}}||
|NY||hybrid transmission with standard manual-style gears and a torque converter sliced in half||
|VT||microscope, upside down||
|NH||tall brick factory building||
|ME||Vulcan salute||
|MA||elephant, being ridden by a man, carrying tea||
|CT||train conductor's hat||
|RI||bow half of a boat's hull||
|-
|OR||locomotive||
|ID||garden gnome, sitting down||
|WY||envelope.||The envelope is marked with a signature, possibly Randal's
|NE||blue VW type 2 with mattresses sticking out the back||
|IA||tomato, lettuce, cold cut and cheese sandwich||
|IL||gangster with a guitar case, upside down||
|IN||brush of a paintbrush||
|OH||underwear (Briefs)||
|PA||very thick book with a bookmark||
|NJ||bent-over old person||
|-
|NV||clothes iron||
|UT||oven||
|CO||Wikipedia article on Colorado||See Link Above
|KS||stand-up piano||
|MO||Georgia||Georgia
|KY||cloud||
|WV||{{w|frog}}||
|VA||{{w|stegosaurus}}||
|DC||star.||
|MD||wolf howling to the moon, upside down||
|DE||meerkat||
|-
|CA||vacuum cleaner||
|AZ||refrigerated shelf containing milk, bread, and pastries||
|NM||liquid container with warning label||
:This end up!!
:
:Property of White Sands Missile Range
:Contains White Sand
:
:???
:
:FLAMMABLE
:
:Warning: This product contains chemicals known
:Only to the state of Nevada.
:Contents under pressure from parents.
:If swallowed, induce labor.
:
:56 Fluid Ounces
:and 14 other ounces.
|OK||covered pot, dripping with boil-over||
|AR||measuring cup||
|TN||children's books, placed in a slightly askew pile||
:Handford / WHERE'S WALDO / or wally
:The Wreck of the Zephyr / Chris Van Allsburg
:The Way Things Work / DAVID MACAULRY
:Weisner / FREE FALL
:PADDLE-TO-THE-SEA / HCH(?)
:WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE A BUILDING / Wilson
:TINTIN / The Crab with the Golden Claws / Hergé
|NC||flower bouquet||
|-
|AK||teddy bear with a jetpack and a ray gun||
|HI||snowball||
|TX||dog sitting in a bowl||
|LA||boot with some gum stuck to the bottom||
|MS||moai head facing west||
|AL||moai head facing east||
|GA||Missouri.||Missouri
|SC||pizza slice||
|FL||eggplant||
|}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Large drawings]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Maps]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Dinosaurs]]
[[Category:Wikipedia]]

980: Money

2016-05-29T01:09:17Z

162.158.214.148: /* Dollars */

{{comic
| number = 980
| date = November 21, 2011
| title = Money
| image = money.png
| titletext = There, I showed you it.
}}
{{TOC}}

'''Note:''' Clicking on the image on xkcd (click the date above the comic to go to the comic on xkcd) takes you to an [http://xkcd.com/980/huge/ interactive] and '''much much''' larger image. 
On the interactive image there are two links: 
One takes you to the [http://xkcd.com/980/sources/ sources and downloads] page where a list of sources can be downloaded (DataDump.csv). 
Also the [http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/money_huge.png full image] can be downloaded here (it is a PNG of considerable size: 12528x8352 pixels). 
This is one of the comics that can be [http://store.xkcd.com/products/money-poster bought as a poster] on xkcd and the other link takes you there.

==Explanation==
{{Incomplete|There is not much explanation of the individual items.}}
This is another [[:Category:Charts|chart]] comic - a type of comic that [[Randall]] does from time to time. He has for instance done [[Online Communities|maps of the Internet]] ([[Online Communities 2|twice]]!) and other huge visualizations like this chart [[Radiation]] with a similar structure as this chart but with Radiation as the subject. The Radiation chart is most likely the inspiration for this much more comprehensive Money chart.

In the chart there are five boxes with items on different scales of monetary value. Each scale of dollar increments are different colors. One dollar increments are green - naturally, because American paper money is green. Thousands are Orange/Red. Millions are gray. Billions are yellow. Trillions are blue. This comic uses {{w|Long and short scales|the short scale}} for naming large numbers (so a billion = 1000 millions = 109 rather than a million millions = 1012 as in continental Europe).

Because the comic is so huge and complex the explanation has been split into several parts and also individual pages:
:Below are [[#Tables with explanations|five tables]] with explanation for some of the items.
:The [[#Transcript|transcript]] is (as is usually the case with huge comics) only given for the text that is visible on the picture shown here above. 
:However the '''[[980: Money/Transcript|full transcript]]''' for all the text in the [http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/money_huge.png huge image] has also been completed.
:Finally some [[980: Money/Prices in tables|tables with prices]] has been made (although they are not yet complete).

In the Billions box there is a vague term called the "Economic Vortex" as well as arrows that flow between different blocks of this box. This is to show where the money goes. Where it is collected from, and where it is distributed to.

Included in one frame is a small man with a red and white striped shirt, blue pants, a cane and a knit cap. He is known as Wally or Waldo (in the US) from the {{w|Where's Wally?|Where's Waldo books}}. To not give anything away for those who wish to search for him themselves there will be no spoiler here. But if someone needs a little help... Then by clicking this [[980: Money/Transcript#Billions|link]] you will be directed to the relevant section amongst the five sections where Waldo can be found. (The link will take you to that section of the full transcript page). If you still cannot find him (or give up in advance) then just search the transcript page for Wally or Waldo.

The title text is a reference to the phrase "Show me the money!" which originates from the film ''{{w|Jerry Maguire}}''.

==Tables with explanations==
===Dollars===
{| class="wikitable"
|+Dollars
|-
|Top-left
|The price of various common bills and commodities. The One Dollar Menu is a type of menu at various fast food restaurants.
|-
|Middle-left
|Pet Ownership. The {{w|ASPCA}} is the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
|-
|Bottom-right
|Four boxes indicate that the CEO pay has skyrocketed from $490.31 (hourly) to $5,419.97 (hourly) in the same time period in which the average worker's salary has skyrocketed 10 cents.
|}

===Thousands===
{| class="wikitable"
|+Thousands
|-
|Top-right
|Hogwarts degree: a reference to {{w|Hogwarts|Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy}} from the popular book series by {{w|J.K. Rowling}} about {{w|Harry Potter}}.
One box is the estimated yearly tuition for the school and the next is how much seven years at the school would cost. To get a degree at the school, it takes 7 years (starting at age 11, ending at age 18).
|-
|Bottom
|A reference to the song by {{w|Bare Naked Ladies}} entitled "{{w|If I Had $1000000}}" and all the things referenced in the song to buy the love of another person.
|-
|Bottom
|A few items on the marriage of {{w|Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton|Kate Middleton and Prince William}}, the major royal wedding of 2011, including:
*a {{w|Wedding dress of Kate Middleton|wedding dress with its own Wikipedia page}} of 3 times the annual per capita income of the average UK person,
*an 8-tier [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1381944/Royal-Wedding-cake-Kate-Middleton-requested-8-tiers-decorated-900-flowers.html wedding cake],
*and the flowers for the wedding. These re-appear in the Millions section of the graph, where they also list the costs for the security around the event ($20 million).
|}

===Millions===
{| class="wikitable"
|+Millions
|-
|Left
|Dr. Evil's ransom demands from the film "Austin Powers" corrected for inflation between 1969 and 1997.
|-
|Middle-right
|Another reference to JK Rowling, comparing her (actual $1 billion) net worth as an author with her (imagined $82,000) net worth as a rapper.
The magnified 82 orange/red ($1,000) boxes are footnoted "Professional assessment by rapper/geek culture expert MC Frontalot." {{w|MC Front-A-Lot}} is the creator of the subgenre of {{w|hip-hop}} known as {{w|Nerd Core}}.
|-
|Middle
|An [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-22_Raptor F-22 Raptor fighter jet] (valued at $154.5M) is compared to a Velociraptor ($1.9M in production costs for the film Jurassic Park)
|}

===Billions===
{| class="wikitable"
|+Billions
|-
|Top-Left ((Fictional)Billionaires section)
|{{w|Carlisle Cullen}} is from the {{w|Twilight (series)|Twilight Series}} of books and movies. He is a vampire and adoptive father of {{w|Edward Cullen|Edward}}, {{w|Emmett Cullen|Emmett}} and {{w|Alice Cullen (Twilight)|Alice Cullen}}, as well as {{w|Rosalie Hale|Rosalie}} and {{w|Jasper Hale}}. He was born in the 1640s and amassed his wealth through many years of compound interest and investments.
|{{w|Scrooge McDuck}} is a cartoon character from many {{w|Disney}} properties including the afternoon cartoon, {{w|Duck Tales}}. Scrooge McDuck has a "money bin" full of coins and other sorts of collectibles that he routinely [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMU2NwaaXEA goes swimming in].
|{{w|Bruce Wayne}} is {{w|Batman}}. {{w|Batman}} is {{w|Bruce Wayne}}. He is portrayed in many comic books, graphic novels, TV shows and movies by many different actors.
|{{w|Artemis Fowl II|Artemis Fowl}} is an Irish child prodigy and a ruthless master criminal from the {{w|Artemis Fowl (series)|eponymous book series}}. He uses his intelligence to build his family fortune through crime.
|}

===Trillions===
{| class="wikitable"
|+Trillions
|-
|As Randall already indicated in the transcript, this is the block for world, continent and nation finances. The numbers are really huge. There are no jokes in here (apart from the fact that Randall tried to make the shapes of the GDP look like the continent), likely because financial values this large aren't funny to start with.
|-
|GDP is {{w|Gross domestic product}}, the market value of all goods and services produced in a nation.
*The major chart in the center shows the development of the GDP in the world since the 1940s. So far the US GDP has always grown, except for a small reduction in the early 1980s, a flat line around the 1991 global recession and a flat line in the second half of the naughts. The world-wide GDP is growing more rapidly, but is also much more volatile.
|-
|In the middle of the box, it shows the worth of all gold ever mined in 2011 prices. This is important because of the concept of the {{w|Gold standard}}, a concept where monetary values are linked to the value of gold. As indicated in the top-right of the box, both the EU and the USA have more debt than the total value of all gold in the world.
|-
|{{w|Derivative (finance)|Derivatives}} are a complex financial instrument where one is not trading in something tangible, but in derived values - like options. Derivatives thus are dangerous as one trades in concepts instead of values. Critics claim that derivatives are at the base of the 'economic bubble'.
*The growth of the derivatives market size is incredible - more than doubling every four years. The derivatives market thus is much larger than the GDP of the entire world.
*We get a reference to [http://landartgenerator.org/blagi/archives/127 a proposed project to power the world] by erecting massive solar farms out in the deserts. The area of Texas alone would be enough to match almost all of our modern power costs (though the people who live in Texas wouldn't enjoy being displaced).
|}

==Transcript==
:[This transcript is only reproducing text visible on the [http://www.xkcd.com/980/ front page comic].]
:[Title panel at the top left has one large heading, and then it is possible to read the first and third out of five lines (but not for instance the second line which is just the word "almost"):]
:'''Money''' 
:A chart of 
:all of it 
:[Below this there are 5 large panels, each with a series of plots, comparing the values of various things. The only clearly visible text is the title of each panel written in white on black background at the top of each panel] 
:[The first section covers single coffees up to the hourly salaries of CEOs. It is located below the title panel and there are a lot of green groups marked by unreadable text.]
:'''Dollars'''
:[The next section discusses values from around $1000 to $1,000,000, including a dissection of the song If I had $1000000. It is located directly below the Dollars section and has mainly orange groups (but also some gren) marked by unreadable text.]
:'''Thousands'''
:[The third section focuses on $1,000,000 to $1,000,000,000, with a large section on campaign contributions of American political presidential campaigns, values of expensive works of art, and J. K. Rowling. It is located to the right of the Thousands section below the Billions section and there are a lot of gray groups (but also some orange) marked by unreadable text.]
:'''Millions'''
:[The fourth section gets into larger scale finances, profits of various sectors, costs of natural disasters, and net worths of the richest people on the planet. Also, Donald Trump. It is located to the right of the Dollars section and above both the Millions and Trillions section and has mainly yellow groups (but also some gray and red) all marked by unreadable text. There are, however, a few large headings that can be read:]
:'''Billions'''
:Education
:The Economic (...?)
:US household income
:Federal budget
:[In the last panel global financial status is described. It discusses derivatives, liquid assets, public debt by nation and GDP by continent, culminating with the total economic production of the human race to date. It is located below the Billions section to the right of the Millions section and has mainly cyan groups (but also one yellow) all marked by unreadable text.]
:'''Trillions'''
:['''For the full transcript of the [http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/money_huge.png huge image] see [[980: Money/Transcript]].''']
==Trivia==
*XKCD comics are usually posted at, or around, midnight Eastern time the day of the comic (Monday, Wednesday, Friday). This one was posted at about noon on Monday
**The reason for this was that it was difficult to get it all finished in time, as was explained in the [[Blag]] post titled [http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/11/24/money-chart/ Money chart] released three days later.
**This post also states that this was the first big project he undertook after his [http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/06/30/family-illness/ fiancée was diagnosed] with breast [[:Category:Cancer|cancer]].
*Most of the amounts has a [http://xkcd.com/980/sources/ source at XKCDS]. In the dollars section there is an [[980: Money/Transcript#Important notes|important note]] that at every possible opportunity Randall used a scholarly work or government publication as a source.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Large drawings]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Velociraptors]]
[[Category:Playpen balls]]
[[Category:Star Wars]]
[[Category:The Lion King]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Twilight]]

1655: Doomsday Clock

2016-03-14T07:10:00Z

162.158.214.148: /* Explanation */ arizona didn't, which i know entirely because kingdom of loathing :v

{{comic
| number = 1655
| date = March 14, 2016
| title = Doomsday Clock
| image = doomsday_clock.png
| titletext = After a power outage at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the new Digital Doomsday Clock is flashing 00:00 and mushroom clouds keep appearing and then retracting once a second.
}}

==Explanation==
{{Incomplete|More detail on what is happening in the comic, and more history of the clock}}
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is an academic journal which has a recurring feature known as the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock Doomsday Clock], which shows the Bulletin's judgment on the current state of the world. The idea is that when the clock hits midnight, the world ends (originally conceived as in a nuclear war), so how close the clock is to midnight is a scale of the world's current state of risk. Its current setting is at "three minutes to midnight" (11:57 PM or 23:57).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Daylight_saving_time&redirect=no Daylight saving time] (DST) is a feature in many countries where in the summer months, everyone moves their clock forward an hour to artificially postpone sunset and thereby have a longer time of sunlight in the afternoon. The day before this comic came out, most of the United States switched from standard time to DST.

[[Cueball]] is inside the office of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and comes across the Doomsday Clock, which is apparently an actual clock. Citing a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonic mnemonic], "Spring forward, fall back", referring to which direction to move the hour hand in the season when DST begins or ends, he pushes the hour hand forward one hour, so instead of the world being three minutes ''from'' the end of the world, it is now 57 minutes ''into'' it, so the final panel simply shows the world erupting in a [https://youtu.be/NFkryh6hC-k?t=23s ''Dr. Strangelove''-esque] nuclear apocalypse.

The title text continues on this same theme, with the clock (apparently replaced by a digital one) being reset by a power outage. Many digital clocks blink 00:00 once per second after a power outage, only stopping when the clock is reset. This is interpreted as the world actually blinking out of the Doomsday Clock's midnight, so a nuclear explosion would naturally appear and disappear in sync with the clock.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Time]]

1638: Backslashes

2016-03-05T04:25:21Z

162.158.214.148: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1638
| date = February 3, 2016
| title = Backslashes
| image = backslashes.png
| titletext = I searched my .bash_history for the line with the highest ratio of special characters to regular alphanumeric characters, and the winner was: cat out.txt | grep -o "\\\[[(].*\\\[\])][^)\]]*$" ... I have no memory of this and no idea what I was trying to do, but I sure hope it worked.
}}

==Explanation==
Most programming languages use the concept of a {{w|String literal|string}} literal, which is just a text between some delimiters, usually quotes. For example, "Hello, world" is a string literal. The text being represented is ''Hello, world'' without the quotes. However, the quotes are also written to mark the beginning and end of the string. This is a problem when the text itself contains a quote, as in "This is a "quoted" string". The quotes around the word "quoted" are intended to be part of the text, but the {{w|Lexical analysis|language processor}} will likely confuse it for the end of the string, which would thus be two strings with ''quoted'' outside these strings (probably resulting in a syntax error).

To avoid this problem, an {{w|Escape character|escape character}} (usually a backslash) is prepended to non-string-terminating quotes. So, the previous text would be written as "This is a \"quoted\" string". The language processor will substitute every occurrence of \" with only the quote character, and the string terminates at the quote character which does not immediately follow a backslash. In this case the resulting text string would be ''This is a "quoted" string'' as intended.

However, the problem now is that the intended text might contain a backslash itself. For example, the text "C:\" will now be interpreted as an unterminated string containing a quote character. To avoid this, literal backslashes also are escaped with a second backslash, i.e. instead of "C:\" we write "C:\\", where the language processor interprets \\ as one single backslash and the quote terminates the string to give ''C:\'' as the output.

This doubling of backslashes happens in most programming and scripting languages, but also in other syntactic constructs such as {{w|Regular expression|regular expressions}}. So, when several of these languages are used in conjunction, backslashes pile up exponentially (each layer has to double the number of slashes). See example of a backslash explosion and alternatives to avoid this [[#Backslash explosion and alternatives|below]].

This kind of backslash explosion is known as {{w|Leaning toothpick syndrome}}, and can happen in [[1313: Regex Golf|many situations]]. Below is an explanation of all the [[#Entries in the list|entries in the comic]].

The backslash explosion in the '''title text''' is about a {{w|Bash (Unix shell)|bash}} command (which uses the backslash to escape arguments) invoking the {{w|grep}} utility which searches for text following a pattern specified by means of a regular expression (which also uses the backslash to escape special characters). This leads to 3 backslashes in a row in the command, which could easily become 7 backslashes in a row if the text being searched for also contains a backslash.

Even advanced users who completely understand the concept often have a hard time figuring out exactly how many backslashes are required in a given situation. It is hopelessly frustrating to carefully calculate exactly the number of backslashes and then noticing that there's a mistake so the whole thing doesn't work. At a point, it becomes easier to just keep throwing backslashes in until things work than trying to reason what the correct number is.

It's unclear whether the regular expression in the title text is valid or not. A long discussion about the validity of the expression has occurred here on this explanation's [[Talk:1638: Backslashes|talk page]]. The fact that many editors of the site, often themselves extremely technically qualified{{Citation needed}}, can't determine whether the expression is valid or not, adds a meta layer to the joke of the comic. This is an example of [[356: Nerd Sniping|nerd sniping]] (oh, the irony\!\!\!\).

===Entries in the list===
*The first four examples have names that are (somewhat) based on what they actually produce:
**'''Backslash''': 1 backslash appropriately named
**'''Real backslash''': 2 backslashes are labeled correctly as they do indeed refer to an escaped backslash.
**'''''Real'' real backslash''': 3 backslashes would refer to an escaped backslash followed by an unescaped one. The first two backslashes would combine to make a ''real backslash'' while the third one would combine with the character following it to form an {{w|Escape sequence|escape sequence}}. The name does thus not make a lot of sense, as this is two escape sequences and not a single "very real" one.
**'''Actual backslash, for real this time''': 4 backslashes form one single backslash escaped twice (the first escaping produces two backslashes, the second escaping doubles each of the backslashes). This is so common that even the documentation for the {{w|Python (programming language)|Python}} regular expression library has a section called [https://docs.python.org/2/library/re.html Regular expression operations] that mentions "\\\\" explicitly. In this case, the backslash has to be escaped once for being part of a regular expression and then once more as the regular expression is inside a Python string. This is named in reference to the fact that the previous examples didn't contain enough escaping.
*The remaining five examples of backslashes have more and more occult names (explanations) and does not refer any more to real uses of backslash escapes:
**'''Elder backslash''': 5 backslashes would be a doubly-escaped backslash plus an unescaped one. The reference to {{w|Elder}} in the comic has many meanings. It has become known through fantasy media; Most prominent with the {{w|Elder Days}}, which are the first Ages of {{w|Middle-earth}} in {{w|The Silmarillion}}, the more-or-less prequel to {{w|The Lord of the Rings}}. More recently it has been used in the {{w|Harry Potter}} universe where the ''Deathly Hallow'' called the ''{{w|Magical_objects_in_Harry_Potter#Deathly_Hallows|Elder wand}}'', made from {{w|Sambucus|Elder wood}}, is a very important part of the last book ''{{w|Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows}}''. Other examples are the {{w|Elder Gods}} of the {{w|Cthulhu Mythos}} as well as various 'Elder' magical items and beings in the {{w|Dungeons and Dragons}} mythologies.
**'''Backslash which escapes the screen and enters your brain''': 6 backslashes is a play on the word "escape" as the backslash is supposed to be an "escape character" but obviously not "escaping the screen" and entering your brain. This could also be understood as the programmer is getting backslashes on his mind, when he goes beyond the ''Elder backslash'' domain...
**'''Backslash so real it transcends time and space ''': 7 backslashes goes further than escaping the screen as they now {{w|Transcendence (philosophy)|transcends}} both {{w|Spacetime|time and space}}
**'''Backslash to end all other text''': 8 backslashes would be a triply-escaped backslash (same as 4 backslashes but with an additional escaping layer). It is said to "end all other text", i.e. there should never be anymore text if someone uses eight in a row. But there could be more as indicated in the last example.
**'''The true name of Ba'al, the Soul-Eater''': {{w|Infinity|∞ backslashes}} (11 is shown but followed by "..." to indicate that they continue forever). If you could write an infinite number of backslashes it would actually be ''The true name of {{w|Baal (demon)|Ba'al}}, the {{w|Soul eater (folklore)|Soul-Eater}}''. This indicates that if you continue misusing backslashes like this you will end up devoured by a demon, for instance {{w|Beelzebub}}, for being so thoughtless... Ba'al has been mentioned before in the title text of [[1246: Pale Blue Dot]] and in [[1419: On the Phone]].

===Backslash explosion and alternatives===
A reasonable example of a backslash explosion would be a {{w|PHP}} script on a web server which writes {{w|JavaScript}} code to be run on the client. If the JavaScript code has to output a smiley for scratching one's head (i.e. <code>r:-\</code> ), it would look like this:
document.write ("r:-\\");
However, since this JavaScript code is to be written through a PHP script, the PHP code would be:
echo "document.write (\"r:-\\\\\");";
where:
* The word <code>echo</code> is the PHP command for writing something
* The first quote starts the string
* The <code>document.write (</code> - including the open parenthesis - is written literally
* The <code>\"</code> following that is a literal quote to be written
* The <code>r:-</code> is written literally
* The first two slashes produce one single slash
* The next two slashes produce another single slash
* The next <code>\"</code> produces a literal quote character
* The close parenthesis and the semicolon are to be written literally
* The next quote finishes the string.
* The final semicolon terminates the <code>echo</code> command
So, the presented scenario has escalated from a simple <code>r:-\</code> smiley to no less than five backslashes in a row (an ''Elder backslash'') without stepping out of the most common operations.

If we go a bit further and try to write a {{w|Java (programming language)|Java}} program that outputs our PHP script, we'd have:
System.out.println ("echo \"document.write (\\\"r:-\\\\\\\\\\\");\";");
Here, we have 11 backslashes in a row: the first 10 produce the 5 we need in our PHP script, and the last one is for escaping the quote character. (This comes close to ''The true name of Ba'al, the Soul-Eater'').

Some programming languages provide alternative matching string literal delimiters to limit situations where escaping of delimiters is needed. Often, one can begin and end a string with either a single quote or a double quote. This allows one to write <code>'This is a "quoted" string'</code> if double quote marks are intended in the string literal or <code>"This is a 'quoted' string"</code> if single quote marks are intended. Both kinds of delimiters can't be used in the same string literal, but if one needs to construct a string containing both kinds of quote marks one can often concatenate two string literals, each of which uses a different delimiter.

Another feature that seems to be popular in modern programming languages is to provide an alternative syntax for string delimiters designed specifically to limit leaning toothpick syndrome. For example, in Python 3, a string literal starting with <code>r"</code> is a "raw string" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_literal#Raw_strings] in which no escape processing is done, with similar semantics for a string starting with <code>@"</code> in C#. This allows one to write <code>r"C:\"</code> in Python 3 or <code>@"C:\"</code> in C# without the need to escape the backslash. This does not allow one to embed the terminating delimiter in the middle of the string and prevents the use of the backslash to encode the newline character as <code>\n</code>, but comes in handy when writing a string encoding of a regular expression in which the backslash is escaping one or more other punctuation characters or a shorthand character class (e.g., <code>\s</code> for a whitespace character). For example, when looking for an anchor tag in HTML, I may encode the regular expression as <code><[Aa]\s[^>]*></code>. If I express this regular expression as a raw string literal, my code looks like <code>r"<[Aa]\s[^>]*>"</code> instead of <code>"<[Aa]\\s[^>]*>"</code>. The point here is that leaning toothpick syndrome is such a real problem that it has influenced programming language implementations.

==Transcript==
:[A list of the names of different numbers of backslashes. After each "item" there is a gray line to the text describing each item. As the text is aligned above each other, the lines becomes shorter as the sequence of backslashes becomes longer until there is just a line with the length of a single hyphen for the last item. There are 1 to 8 backslashes and then 11 plus "..." in the last entry.]
:\------------ Backslash
:\\----------- Real backslash
:\\\---------- ''Real'' real backslash
:\\\\---------- Actual backslash, for real this time
:\\\\\--------- Elder backslash
:\\\\\\-------- Backslash which escapes the screen and enters your brain
:\\\\\\\------- Backslash so real it transcends time and space
:\\\\\\\\------ Backslash to end all other text
:\\\\\\\\\\\...- The true name of Ba'al, the Soul-Eater

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Regex]]
[[Category:Programming]]

1210: I'm So Random

2016-02-28T03:22:37Z

162.158.214.148: /* Explanation */ brown noise or bust tbh

{{comic
| number = 1210
| date = May 10, 2013
| title = I'm So Random
| image = im so random.png
| titletext = In retrospect, it's weird that as a kid I thought completely random outbursts made me seem interesting, given that from an information theory point of view, lexical white noise is just about the opposite of interesting by definition.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Hairy]] walks up to [[Black Hat]], utters a nonsense phrase and them proclaims that he is "so random". This is a reference to a modern phenomenon in which people make "random" statements, and somehow imagine themselves to be funny and interesting because of this. Black Hat, never one to hesitate over bringing someone down hard, replies that he is also random, proving this by pouring forth a torrential stream of numbers that nearly overcomes poor Hairy. Black Hat then resumes his posture at the computer, as if nothing has happened.

It is true that when brilliant and creative people speak passionately about a subject, they can make mental leaps and changes of context that might seem bewildering to an outsider. The conversation may even seem to be "random". However, simply vocalizing nonsense is not analogous, or even desirable; it is more likely a character trait of someone who has difficulty in following or adding to a normal human conversation.

Black Hat's "random" numbers are actually quoted from [http://oeis.org/A002205 the first lines] of ''{{w|A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates}}'' making it both "officially random", but also essentially not. See also: [[221: Random Number]].

A side note is that "Monkey tacos" is a phrase which contains two trochees. A {{w|trochee}} is a {{w|Foot_(prosody)|metric foot}} with one stressed beat and one unstressed beat; it may be a reference to or an unconscious allusion to [[856: Trochee Fixation]].

The title text elaborates on "random text", stating that he once would have believed that Hairy's random outbursts made him interesting despite the definition of "interesting" meaning the opposite. {{w|White noise}} is essentially random sounds waves which taken en masse blend into audio static essentially taking on a macroscopically uniform sound experience despite their random nature. This can be used in some sleep or relaxation therapies, which foils well with the random assault experienced in the comic. There are also other {{w|colors of noise}}, and yes, [[915: Connoisseur|people have strong opinions as to which one is better]].

==Transcript==
:[Black Hat sitting at his desk at a computer. Hairy runs up behind him.]
:Hairy: ''MONKEY TACOS!'' I'm so random.

:Black Hat: Yeah, me too.

:[Black Hat swings in his chair to face Hairy and emits a massive speech bubble filled with random numbers, knocking Hairy to the ground.]
:Black Hat: 100973253376520135863467354
:::: 876809590911739292749453754
:::: 204805648947429624805240372
:::: 063610402002291665084226895
:::: 319645093032320902560159533
:::: 476435080336069901902529093

:[Black Hat resumes work at his computer.]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]

1641: Hot Dogs

2016-02-10T15:37:56Z

162.158.214.148: /* Explanation */ grammar

{{comic
| number = 1641
| date = February 10, 2016
| title = Hot Dogs
| image = hot_dogs.png
| titletext = Okay, I'm just gonna order pizza, and let's never talk about this again.
}}

==Explanation==
A common staple of trite comedy is "[http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/11/dont-hot-dogs-hot-dog-buns-come-packs-number-start/ why do hot dogs come in packages of ten but hot dog ''buns'' in bags of eight?]" The phenomenon is mildly frustrating as it often leaves leftover food, though it's becoming less true as different companies start selling hot dog buns in bags of ten or hot dogs in packages of eight, though the old standard is still the norm.

Here, [[Cueball]] attempts to raise the question as he is standing with a bag of {{w|hot dogs}} in one hand and a bag of {{w|Hot dog bun|buns}} in the other hand (presumably for their dinner), but a person offscreen interrupts him mid sentence and mentions {{w|condoms}} instead of buns. Cueball mulls the subject over in his mind, and when he realizes his friend is putting hot dogs in condoms he is promptly grossed out, maybe from considering why they would do this.

The title text makes it clear that Cueball's new found association of [http://www.snopes.com/college/risque/hotdog.asp hot dogs with sexual activity], has put him totally off the idea of eating any of them this evening, and he suggest ordering {{w|pizza}}, which he then can hope will not be used for [http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/advice/a5943/pizza-sex-tip/ similar comparisons]... And also please do not mention this again...

==Transcript==

:[Cueball is standing in the frame holding a bag and a package of hot dogs.]
:Cueball: Hey, why do hot dogs come in packages of ten-
:Offscreen: -But condoms come in strips of six? I know, right?!
:Cueball: ...Eww.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Sex]]
[[Category:Food]]

1638: Backslashes

2016-02-03T05:58:59Z

162.158.214.148: