explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2411: 1/10,000th Scale World

2021-01-14T14:36:18Z

162.158.74.137: just added a mention of what if rising steadily to description of death zone be welcome to fix any issues as i am new

{{comic
| number = 2411
| date = January 13, 2021
| title = 1/10,000th Scale World
| image = 1_10000th_scale_world.png
| titletext = OCEAN PLAY AREA RULES: No running, no horseplay, no megatsunamis, and no trying to pry the wreck of the Titanic off the bottom.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a 1/10,000TH SCALE WEATHER BALLOON. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Models of large-scale objects (cars, airplanes, etc.) are typically produced at a given scale, given as a ratio between the original object (the first number) and the model (the second number). The same applies to maps and globes. What Randall has here, though, is neither a map nor a model but a seemingly complete copy of Earth, at a 1:10,000 scale. Various features and warnings are labeled.

Real-world phenomena are reproduced at scale, for humorous effect. A real 1/10,000th scale "Earth" would have a diameter of less than a mile, and a surface area of around 2 square miles, the approximate dimensions of a medium-sized asteroid. On such an object, constrained by known physics, there would be no air, standing water, weather, or large magma bodies, and any sort of rough-housing would irrecoverably catapult the visitor into space.

Normally in a miniature model most warnings try to prevent the visitors from accidentally doing something cataclysmic to the model. Likewise, the "ocean play area rules" in the title text tell visitors not to create any {{w|megatsunami}}s, which could conceivably be induced by a cannonball dive. But as digging seems to be discouraged mainly where it causes volcanoes to break out the visitors seem to be given a far greater freedom than usual.

Visitors are also instructed not to try to pry the model of the {{w|wreck of the Titanic}} off the ocean floor. In our world, the wreck is at a depth of 12,500 feet, which would be 1 foot and 3 inches in Randall's model world. The Titanic was over 882 feet long, but the ship split in half as she sank, and now lies in two pieces about a third of a mile apart. Randall's model would have two pieces about a half-inch in size separated by about two inches. If the models are rusted and sunk in mud just like the real wreck is, trying to pry them loose would certainly damage them, but all of Randall's other rules seem to be about preventing harm to guests, not preventing damage to the model, so maybe he just doesn't want guests bending over and exerting themselves in water where they could slip, submerge their faces, and be at risk of drowning.

Earlier comics illustrating relative scale include [[482: Height]], [[681: Gravity Wells]], [[1276: Angular Size]], and [[1389: Surface Area]].

{| class="wikitable"
!Danger
!Why
!Notes
|-
| Watch out for airliners cruising near shoulder level
| Unintentional catastrophic damage to air traffic. Also, airplane speed very similar to the speed at which a bullet is fired [https://pinchito.es/2019/high-speeds]
| At this scale, the lowest airliner cruising altitude would be 3 ft or 0.9 m [https://time.com/5309905/how-high-do-planes-fly/#:~:text=Commercial%20aircraft%20typically%20fly%20between,that%20can%20present%20safety%20issues.], shoulder height for a 5-year-old [https://www.disabled-world.com/calculators-charts/height-weight-teens.php]. Scaling the height of the highest plane to ever fly [https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/columnist/cox/2017/05/28/altitude/102185856/] puts it at 9 ft, which would put it just over the head of the tallest person who ever lived [https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/records/hall-of-fame/robert-wadlow-tallest-man-ever]
|-
| Trip hazard: Appalachian Mountains
| At half a foot tall, the Appalachians could trip visitors who are not being careful.
| 6684 ft = 0.67 ft in model world
|-
| Do not stand or climb on Mt. Everest
| One may destroy the model.
|
|-
| Caution: Hydro-thermal vents underfoot
|Hydrothermal vents are extremely hot, which could cause burns to the feet of the viewers
|Underwater volcanoes and stuff
|-
| Children must be supervised while in the ocean, especially near trenches
|They might drown.
|The Challenger Deep is 36,200 feet below the surface; this equates to 3.62 feet in the model world, a depth which small children could conceivably drown in.
|-
| Danger: positive lightning! Do not touch cloud tops
| The cumulonimbus cloud is an electrocution hazard, as Megan is learning the hard way: Getting too close to the positive cloud tops risks causing lightning to arc into you down to the negative ground.
|
|-
| Avoid hypoxia by regularly sitting to bring your lungs below the death zone
| The scale world even has a scale atmosphere, and visitors are cautioned to regularly sit down so they can breathe below the {{w|death zone}}, which is approximately two and a half feet above the surface.
| The death zone is approximately 8,000 meters above the ground, equating to 0.8 meters or 2.62 feet in the model world there is also a what if on the subject [https://what-if.xkcd.com/64/].
|-
| Do <i>not</i> dig near Yellowstone
| Digging up the {{w|Yellowstone Caldera}} could potentially reactivate the {{w|supervolcano}} there.
|
|-
| Please do not smack weather balloons
| Smacking balloons around can be a fun activity, mostly done by children, but it would be very unfriendly if done to weather balloons.
|
|-
| Be careful not to step on cities with especially pointy towers, like Toronto, Seattle, and Dubai
| The {{w|CN Tower}}, the {{w|Space Needle}} and the {{w|Burj Khalifa}} are much taller than they are wide, thus, "pointy". The Burj Khalifa, the tallest of the three, would stand at 3.2 inches (8.3 cm) at this scale, making it possible to impale one's foot on it when walking
| This seems to be exclusively for the visitors' benefit, rather than that of the cities. [[File:Empire State Building (aerial view).jpg|right|100px|thumb|Pretty pointy.]]
|}

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

For visitors to my 1/10,000th scale world

1 meter = 10 km 1 ft = 10,000 ft ~ 2 miles

Watch out for airliners cruising near shoulder level

Trip hazard: Appalachian Mountains

Do not stand or climb on Mt. Everest

Caution: Hydro-thermal vents underfoot

Children must be supervised while in the ocean, especially near trenches

Danger: positive lightning! Do not touch cloud tops

Avoid hypoxia by regularly sitting to bring your lungs below the death zone

Do <i>not</i> dig near Yellowstone

Please do not smack weather balloons

Be careful not to step on cities with especially pointy towers, like Toronto, Seattle, and Dubai

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Geography]]
[[Category:Geology]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Science Girl]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]

1524: Dimensions

2020-08-21T09:43:14Z

162.158.74.137: Grammar

{{comic
| number = 1524
| date = May 13, 2015
| title = Dimensions
| image = dimensions.png
| titletext = I would say time is definitely one of my top three favorite dimensions.
}}

==Explanation==
This cartoon is a romantic musing about time, and how even though we may not always realize it the progression of time is one of the better things in life.

To accurately describe the world requires at minimum three spatial dimensions and the fourth dimension, time. The spatial dimensions don't necessarily have to be the familiar Cartesian system (Forward/backward, Right/Left, Up/Down), but can be described in many ways (like the spherical or cylindrical system). In spite of the fact that we are being pushed around the universe by being on Earth, we can exercise some control over these spatial dimensions by moving, and therefore our trajectory through these dimensions is not inexorable (impossible to stop). As we only can go one direction in time and have no way of changing the speed, we also are figuratively being pushed through time, and this movement is inexorable.

[[Cueball]] sits under a tree un-moving with [[Megan]] simply enjoying the passage of time and says, "Of the four dimensions I could have spent my life being pushed inexorably forward through, I guess "time" isn't the worst." All of this amounts to an unusually erudite way for Cueball to say he feels content with how his life has turned out, despite the natural doubts one has as they get older.

In the title text, Cueball then continues to muse about his favorite dimensions and places time in his top three dimensions. This means that one of the three spatial dimensions must be his least favorite. Though it is impossible to determine how he defines his favorite dimensions, as dimensions can be defined somewhat arbitrarily, they likely are length, height, and time as comics only use these three (time being represented by panels). Since {{what if|64|rising steadily}} and {{what if|135|digging downward}} are both pretty lethal, one could assume that Randall's least favorite dimension is up/down. (See also the ''one of my favorite halves'' comment in [[1556: The Sky]])

Previously Randall has made a comic about a man who was pushed sideways — so he was pushed both through time and fell sideways: [[417: The Man Who Fell Sideways]].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is sitting up against a tree, Megan lies with her hands behind her neck in front him under the foliage of the tree.]
:Cueball: Of the four dimensions I could have spent my life being pushed inexorably forward through, I guess "time" isn't the worst.

==Trivia==
Interestingly, [[Randall]] has already, back in the December 2014 issue of Wired magazine, published the [http://www.wired.com/2014/11/xkcd-guide-to-dimensions/ xkcd guide to dimensions] where the main part of this comic was already used in panel 9 out of 20. This issue of Wired magazine was about multiple dimensions, and Randall's section is about imagining higher dimension. The article is a mix of xkcd-style comics and captions explaining them. The panel in question show Cueball saying, "Of '''all the''' dimensions I could have spent my life being pushed inexorably through, I guess "time" isn't the worst." (the only difference being that "all the" has been changed to "the four" in this comic). In panel 15 of the Wired comic series, Randall considers how dimensions can be represented in a two-dimensional comic strip: a character moving within a panel represents movement in space but movement from panel to panel represents movement in time.

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

Talk:2346: COVID Risk Comfort Zone

2020-08-15T05:02:51Z

162.158.74.137: /* Mis-centered headline */ new section

The current text seems more like a comment than an explanation. [[User:Darthpoppins|Darthpoppins]] ([[User talk:Darthpoppins|talk]]) 21:03, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm just going to put the original explanation here:
As a fourth option, Randall might consider taking the advice that "'No' is a complete sentence" -- we don't know the context of the situation presented here, but unless there truly is some urgent reason that he would ordinarily "''have''" to go inside but for COVID (and from the second option, we know there's no such emergency here), he's just being invited inside, and he doesn't need to provide any justification at all for refusing.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.14|108.162.245.14]] 00:25, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

== Mis-centered headline ==

I notice the comic's headline is inexplicably aligned over the first and second panels, rather than the full width of the comic, and it bothers me that nobody is talking about that. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.137|162.158.74.137]] 05:02, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Talk:771: Period Speech

2020-08-10T23:49:02Z

162.158.74.137:

Although "grok" might be a slang term used among programmers, its roots are somewhat older.

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok , "Grok /ˈɡrɒk/ is a word coined by Robert A. Heinlein for his 1961 science-fiction novel, Stranger in a Strange Land,[...]" [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.35|108.162.219.35]] 11:55, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
: I don't want to live in a world where people need to determine who coined Grok by checking a reference. It's time for one of us to uninstall...life.— [[User:Kazvorpal|Kazvorpal]] ([[User talk:Kazvorpal|talk]]) 15:42, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Also, "Jive" shouldn't be taken to mean "bullshit" but "what I'm saying" or "How I'm speaking." [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.32|108.162.216.32]] 23:57, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Blogger Reenactment ''Faires''? That's a pretty hilarious typo {{unsigned ip|103.22.201.168}}

This comic comes to mind particularly painfully with respect to the Joseph Ducreux image macros. <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki> {{unsigned ip|198.41.243.243}}

Rather too late to add, but I think that a plated 'King' Arthur is not good example of anachronism. One can easily make an argument that it's not a possible historical character that is represented, but actually the one from the ''Matière de Bretaigne'' with its many retellings all through the Mediæval and Early Modern periods. Most movies are re-retellings of those.[[User:Richardelguru|Richardelguru]] ([[User talk:Richardelguru|talk]]) 10:58, 5 April 2018 (UTC)howlandbolton.com
:Here's an idea: How about comparing it to modern views and movies about the crusades?[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.128|108.162.216.128]] 20:20, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Another really late comment: I saw something in a rather silly comic which combines this idea with some time travelers doing a poor job trying to blend in: http://dresdencodak.com/2007/05/22/for-lack-of-a-better-term/ --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.137|162.158.74.137]] 23:49, 10 August 2020 (UTC)