explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2838: Dubious Islands

2023-10-06T23:50:51Z

162.158.74.63:

As a native of the North Country of Northern New York, I'm really disappointed that Randall didn't label the St. Lawrence river. :-( [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.253|162.158.158.253]] 22:49, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Had a go at the Transcript. Plenty of problems with it, but I was attempting to be partway methodical (generally heading north-to-south, seemed easier than "north-and clockwise" or any other sweep, once I started to do it) and not actually mention 'quoted' words more than once. Unless they're actually written multiple times. (looking at you, Mississippi!) 
But had no option but to repeat some of the quoted text ''within'' the label-descriptor 'tags', perhaps each actual fragment should indeed by given ''all'' boundaries, but I think that's better left for the table that will inevitably have to be put into the main Explanation. There one can actually list the named ''and unnamed'' bordering waters (river, canal, lake, sea and ocean) for actual reference. 
Also the wording. Tried not to repeat "bounded by" synonyms too much, but maybe I should just have chosen one option and repeated it anyway, given the difficulties and contextual issues of doing it absolutely unrepeatably. But it's my best try (at just gone midnight, indicating how personally familiar I might be with the continental US's geography, or not). And thus over to you people who actually know more about the Mississippi than merely how to spell it. (Not sure I've read, and thus spelt, some of the other names given right, either. Definitely check and edit as necessary.) Perhaps a geographic map could (e.g.) even identify the "Nunavuk+" territory with a better actually known descriptor, too! Canada is even less my forté than the US. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.63|162.158.74.63]] 23:50, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

2832: Urban Planning Opinion Progression

2023-09-23T22:27:59Z

162.158.74.63: /* Explanation */ Normalising to site-style templates for wikilinks.

{{comic
| number = 2832
| date = September 22, 2023
| title = Urban Planning Opinion Progression
| image = urban_planning_opinion_progression_2x.png
| imagesize = 675x2033px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = If they're going to make people ride bikes and scooters in traffic, then it should at LEAST be legal to do the Snow Crash thing where you use a hook-shot-style harpoon to catch free rides from cars.
}}

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

This comic follows Cueball, Megan, Knit Cap and Ponytail as they begin to favor pedestrian-centered design. In the first panel, Cueball and Megan complain about the common problem many car-centric cities face about not having enough space for all the cars, and give the naive suggestion of making more space for cars. In the second panel, Knit Cap mentions how he is going to visit Amsterdam, a city known for its {{w|walkability}} and bike friendliness. Ponytail expresses concern over the popularity of cycling in the street presumably because cycling in the street is dangerous where she lives and so she expects it to be dangerous in Amsterdam.

In the third panel, Cueball discusses another problem many car-centric cities face which is that there are not a lot of bike paths. Since there is a limited amount of space on a street, cities face a dilemma on how much space they should allocate to pedestrians, bicyclists and vehicles. Car-centric cities often allocate the most space to cars, leaving less space for bikes and pedestrians. Many cities try and make up for a lack of space for bike lanes by allowing cyclists to cycle in the streets with the cars. This, however, is significantly more dangerous than a city having a dedicated bike lane which is why Ponytail was likely concerned in the second panel. (There has been(?) a recent study reporting that painted bike lanes are just as dangerous as no bike lane, and only protected bike lanes are safer. [Citation unironically needed!]) This danger was discussed more in the fifth panel as well.

Megan's comment in the sixth panel is likely referring to pickup trucks in addition to regular trucks. Many pickup truck owners care a lot about the distance their vehicle is off the ground and so they will either purchase a pickup truck with a high ground clearance or raise it themselves, resulting in what is known as a lifted pickup truck. Many people believe that a vehicle with higher ground clearance will keep them safe on the road, and while this is true (I learned the opposite, that the elevated center of mass reduced safety due to reducing the stable tipping angle, although I’ve certainly appreciated high clearance on unpaved roads), it comes at the cost of potentially hurting others who are in smaller vehicles or no vehicle at all. Alternatively, it could refer to many large tractor trailer cabs or garbage trucks that if you stand directly in front of the cab you can't see the driver and they can't see you. It is particularly dangerous for children.

{{w|Induced demand}} is an economic theory in which increasing the supply of a good or service causes the demand to rise faster than the increased supply, worsening the shortage. The most common example is traffic: some US cities have tried to alleviate traffic jams by widening the roads and highways, which incentivized more people to take up driving, thereby ''worsening'' their traffic jam problem. Conversely, other cities have tried removing traffic lanes or converting them to dedicated public transit lanes, and have claimed a reduction in traffic congestion. Among urban planners, this is known as the {{w|Downs–Thomson paradox}}.

Cueball's comment in the second-to-last panel that "anything that makes a city a worse place to drive in makes it a better place to live, short of scattering random tire spikes on the road" is an exaggeration. For example, a city that allows potholes to go unrepaired will make it more difficult to drive in, but could also make it more difficult for pedestrians to safely cross the street.

The title text references a Cyberpunk book called "Snow Crash", by Neal Stephenson. An early scene in that book involves the equivalent of a skater using a magnet on a cable to attach onto the back of a pizza delivery vehicle. He swerves in order to dislodge her, she taunts him and attaches stickers to his vehicle.

=== What makes a city walkable? ===
As all of Europe''[citation not needed]'' agrees, urban planning (or zoning) must be seamlessly integrated with public transport planning. The central truth is that everybody is a pedestrian for some time, which also includes car drivers. Crucially, the average pedestrian is willing to walk about 2000 ft from their home to the next public transport stop, and an additional 2000 ft between the last public transport stop and their workplace. Opportunities for shopping and eating should exist at every connecting station, with the connections scheduled in a way that it both allows changing to the connecting train/tramway/bus immediately - as well as buying groceries.

All roads should have a sidewalk, which, of course, costs area, but make the pedestrians' lives much easier. But then, not only roads impact walkability. In the United States, many places open to the public are, by municipal ordinances, forced to provide enough parking space for [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUNXFHpUhu8 all customers at any given time], which leads to serious knock-on effects: Pedestrians must often cross a large and weather-exposed parking lot in order to shop. A building can often be only re-purposed if a neighboring building is bulldozed to create the necessary parking area. And tenants who live in an apartment, but do not own a car, are forced to pay for the parking space they do not need.

Another topic is subsidizing public traffic. Municipalities in Switzerland, for example, order bus connections - e.g. a hourly bus from 6 AM until 10 PM, and in exchange, they cover the deficit of any such connection. That way, families, who usually are better taxpayers, move to villages, and beginning with grade 5, 6 or 7, pupils can still easily commute to a district school.

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

:'''Typical urban planning opinion progression'''

:[Each panel is connected to a point on a timeline. Timeline is recognizable as the tread of a bicycle tire]

:Cueball: I wish there wasn't so much traffic to get into the city. They should put in more lanes.
:Megan: And more parking.
:Megan: Parking is so bad here.

:Knit Cap: I have to go to Amsterdam for work next week. I hear they all ride bikes there.
:Ponytail: Bikes are fine but people shouldn't ride them in the street! I worry I'm going to hit someone!

:Cueball: It would be nice if we had better transit options!
:Cueball: I tried a scooter. It was fun but I wish there were more bike paths.

:Megan: It's funny how widening roads to speed up traffic makes them more dangerous to walk near, making driving more necessary and creating more traffic.
:Megan: Really makes you think.

:Knit Cap: Visiting the Netherlands was cool!
:Knit Cap: Amsterdam is really neat.

:Cueball: We've ceded so much of our land to storing and moving cars, with the rest of us tiptoeing around the edges and making drivers mad for trespassing on "their" space.
:Cueball: Even though '''''we're''''' the ones in danger from '''''them!'''''

:Megan: Those giant trucks with front blind spots that keep hitting kids should be illegal.

:Knit Cap: We should be more like the Netherlands.
:Knit Cap: They design their streets to prioritize...

:[Cueball is frustrated.]
:Cueball: The problem is car culture. It's systemic.
:Cueball: I don't know if we can fix it.

:[Megan’s arms are thrown out, and her hair is bedraggled.]
:Megan: People approach road planning decisions from the point of view of drivers because that's how we're used to interacting with the city, so we make choices that make it more car-friendly.
:Megan: It's a vicious cycle.

:[Knit Cap is walking around with two Dutch flags raised in his hands.]
:Knit Cap: '''''Netherlands! Netherlands! Netherlands! Netherlands!'''''

:Cueball: Anything that makes a city a worse place to drive in makes it a better place to live, short of scattering random tire spikes on the road.

:Megan: Honestly, I think the city council should consider the tire spikes thing.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Knit Cap]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]

Talk:2813: What To Do

2023-08-12T20:03:23Z

162.158.74.63:

Top right kinda reminds me of https://piped.video/watch?v=5jKZ9KGtee0 [[User:Beanie|Beanie]] [[User talk:Beanie|talk]] 22:06, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

We don't need a dang [citation needed] on every single joke in the first column. Less is more. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.135.149|172.70.135.149]] 04:55, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
: Citation needed. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.127.132|172.70.127.132]] 05:13, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
: I wholeheartedly disagree, every one is funny [[User:Tiln|Tiln]] ([[User talk:Tiln|talk]]) 07:36, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

https://tiermaker.com/create/2813-xkcd-what-to-do-16046434 <- I made a tierlist for all the panels you can fill out! idk why thought it was funny [[User:Mushrooms|Mushrooms]] ([[User talk:Mushrooms|talk]]) 11:51, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

== Add background color to table? ==

Should we indicate the comic's table's red/green background colors in the description table? This could either be by changing the cells' background colors to match the comic, or adding "(Red background)" or "(Green background)" to the text. -- [[User:Dtgriscom|Dtgriscom]] ([[User talk:Dtgriscom|talk]]) 15:07, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
:I don't know whether that's typical, but I think it's a good idea.
:[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 15:50, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
:For a moment I thought you meant the Transcript, to which I would have said it was inadvisable to place a colour, seeing as in my experience the Transcript is mainly for blind people using a reader program, and I'm not sure the reader program would mention the colour of text, definitely not the background. But in the description, I would agree, and I think changing the colour is more visually informative. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:02, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
::I'd match the #RGBs of the comic (rather than #F00/#0F0). Or perhaps even tone back to half saturation. We want it to be faithful in hue but not everly distracting. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.63|162.158.74.63]] 20:03, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

2814: Perseids Pronunciation

2023-08-11T21:44:25Z

162.158.74.63: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2814
| date = August 11, 2023
| title = Perseids Pronunciation
| image = perseids_pronunciation_2x.png
| imagesize = 291x414px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = When speaking out loud, you can can [sic] call it the 'Perseids meatier shower' and no one will ever know. (If you do get caught somehow, just tell them to Google the 'Kentucky meat shower' and that will distract them while you escape.)
}}

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

This comic references the {{w|Perseids meteor shower}}, which are active in July and August. There are various ways of pronouncing them, and [[Randall]] gives the obvious ones before the comic spirals into virtual nonsense, or possibly parodies of {{wiktionary|va-jay-jay|common euphemistic replacement word}}.

The title text mentions how "meteor" sounds like "meatier," {{w|Homophone|although the meanings are completely different}}.

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

:How to pronounce the name of the Perseids meteor shower

:Generally accepted
::PER-see-ids
::PURSE-yids

:Also heard sometimes
::Per-SEE-ids
::Per-SAY-ids

:Generally frowned on
::Per-SIDES
::Per-ZAY-uds
::PER-suds

:''Definitely'' wrong
::Perky-ids
::Pewpewpews
::Per-say-says
::Percies
::Purps
::Pepsids
::Peeps

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]

Talk:2807: Bad Map Projection: ABS(Longitude)

2023-07-28T21:25:10Z

162.158.74.63:

...actually, there's quite a bit of 'foldover' that's covered by the Atlantic, but it's still not quite so much as the Pacific gap across the ±180° edge-to-edge, so forgive me if consider the likes of places in India partnered with the over-adopted American locations as being trans-Atlantic (and across the whole width of Africa and some of the Indian Ocean too) rather than anything else. It could definitely do with a more precise analysis/description, though. Plus how bits of western Western Europe are folded over onto more-central Western Europe (not a very good mirror of Scotland, I think, but I'm particularly more familiar with its effective profile than Randall has any reason to be). [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.195|172.71.242.195]] 01:20, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
This would make a great EU4 mod [[Special:Contributions/172.68.146.52|172.68.146.52]] 01:21, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Oh, good, thank you. I on ABS I couldn't get past antilock brakes. And the picture spam from the other day seemed to be tendeon repair. Looked like a surgicical procedure to to fasten cut tendons back together but I didn't see a cast to prevent movement. Shrug. Quite gross, as all surguries are. Poorly of course couldnt see all of the pic.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.222.70|172.71.222.70]] 02:35, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[[Special:Contributions/172.71.222.71|172.71.222.71]] 02:57, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Added a very basic transcript because this comic is a little too complicated for me and it's my first time. Also, we need more positive vibes considering the previous comic about anti-vaxxers and the... interesting comments in the discussions.

Also, the Galapagos being near to Singapore (that's where I live) would be interesting! [[User:R3TRI8UTI0N|R3TRI8UTI0N]] ([[User talk:R3TRI8UTI0N|talk]]) 03:48, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

This map does not appear to be particularly…correct. For instance, Seoul, South Korea, is given as about 38N/155. But actually it is at 127E longitude. That's nowhere close. On a real map, 155E longitude is several hundred miles east of Japan into the open Pacific ocean, approx. the longitude of the Marshall Islands (but far north of them). Closer to home, for Randall and for me, Boston is given as about 59, but it is really 71W. What's up with that? Is everything shifted…and why? [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 05:00, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

:Oh, wait. I was reading the coordinates like it was a cartesian plane, like on a Lambert or Mercator projection. But in retrospect this is some kind of elliptical projection ({{w|Robinson projection|Robinson}}? {{w|Winkel tripel projection|Winkel tripel}}?) such that the longitude lines are bowed out, further as you get away from the center (here 90°, I guess). That is...too hard for me to read with precision without doing too much math and drawing lines (so I guess I'm lazy), so, probably it's just fine? I dunno. [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 05:09, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
:: This projection keeps the lines of latitude horizontal, allowing the lines of longitude to "bend", with only 90 degrees being vertical. 90 degrees, east/west, it doesn't really matter for this projection. [[User:Nutster|Nutster]] ([[User talk:Nutster|talk]]) 14:12, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

I just quickly put together an abs(longitude) "projection" image based on a real (public domain) map, to show what this would look like more realistically, with overlap. Are home-made images allowed? I cannot upload though ("You do not have permission to create new pages"). Is this because I'm a new user or are uploads prohibited for most users? [[User:Mtcv|Mtcv]] ([[User talk:Mtcv|talk]]) 07:41, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
:It's just your newness (but I'm not sure how un-new/whatever you need to be). But I've 'sent in' things, before, by using some other public image host (not actually being new, but never having had the account here so of course the site won't accept my IP source - for good reason) and allowing an established uploader to spot the link, grab it and submit it locally by proxy if they thought it worthwhile.
:I'm already half tempted to do an ABS(Latitude) for my own ennoyment. Maybe even combined with the above (might be too busy, though, as I mentally model how the Eurasiamerindiafricaustralian subercontinent wouldn't leave much room for recognisable land-mass coastline). Further arbitrary overlapping transforms could also be fun, and perhaps even 'wrong but rational-looking'. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.165|172.70.90.165]] 08:16, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

::I see, thanks for the info! Well here's a link: [https://i.ibb.co/TRTW1nq/abslongitude.png]. It's not that interesting, but to me it clarifies where North America has gone, all swallowed up by Asia. Better versions than this are certainly possible. I can add the image's info if someone uploads it. Absolute latitude sounds interesting too. [[User:Mtcv|Mtcv]] ([[User talk:Mtcv|talk]]) 08:44, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

All technical analysis aside, this map is really cool and would make a fantastic fantasy setting.

So... Lemuria was South America all along! [[User:Shirluban|Shirluban]] 12:20, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

*There's a misspelling on the map: "Aleutian" is misspelled as "Aelutian". --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.127.80|172.70.127.80]] 15:02, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
* Reykjavík is misspelled as Reykjavic. Makes it kinda Serbo-Croatic-looking. --[[User:Coconut Galaxy|Coconut Galaxy]] ([[User talk:Coconut Galaxy|talk]]) 16:47, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Gondwanaland explained as a coordinate error.
[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 15:06, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

The formula added in the "Correct formula" section of the explanation is not consistent with how Randall has overlaid the negative longitudes on top of the positive longitudes. This section was added by an anonymous editor. This formula mirrors the negative longitudes into positive longitudes but leaves them in a separate hemisphere from the positive longitudes, without overlaying the two hemispheres as Randall has done. I think this section needs to be removed completely. Anyone else agree? [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 19:29, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
:I edited it. Not the author, but I think the intent was that this is what correct formula ''should'' have been used, instead of the "whoops!" indident where he actually used abs().
:So I made it more clear (or, possibly less, you decide), plus added another alternative positive-normalising form of formula.
:Though the use of mod (or % operator) may depend upon the mod-function implementation involved (whether it even needs the +360, can handle float longitudes, can perhaps even work well beyond -180..+180 input...) but it *can* be the much clearer method. Just test it with various values from all quadrants (and beyond +-180) ahead of time to make sure (what the comic map's creator should have done with ''their'' method).
:Or, in code, just run something like <code>while (lon<0) {lon+=360}; while (lon>=360) {lon-=360};</code>, or however that'd work in your chosen coding dialect's syntax. And you might need to accept a possible bit of loop-spam if the input is somehow vastly high/low, but it works well in skipping over entirely unnecessary multiplative/divisive operations (it'll do no more than one of the loops, on the way past).
:TMTOWTDI, though, and the usable methods are practically unlimited, I'd probably use whatever method looks good against the surrounding code (or shuttle it away into a subprocedure call, where I now make it look neat alongside its fellow subs).
:Anyway, I think that section isn't necessary, but it may be of interest. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.63|162.158.74.63]] 21:25, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

== an ABS(Latitude) map ==

After looking at this map, I wanted to see, what an ABS(Latitude) map would look like and [https://imgur.com/LzOp15b this is what I quickly threw together].

Unsurprisingly it doesn't change the world as much, since most of the land mass is on the northern hemisphere. The former South America has now created the worlds largest inland lake in the form of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico but the Panama Canal is still intact. Africa mostly folds up on itself and Australia is now the land bridge between China and Japan. However it was a fun and quick thing to do and I thought I should share it here.

:Can you do abs(log), abs(lat)? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.110.142|162.158.110.142]] 14:22, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

This would actually make a great fantasy map, as my father pointed out. Just swap out the city names with fantasy ones, and players would not be able to figure out where you got the map from. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.141|172.70.114.141]] 14:41, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
:Even at first glance it looks faked up though, because half the paisleys are backward.
:[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 15:06, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm in Serbia and nothing changes for me. I wonder how the Indian subcontinent and Central Asia are dealing with the sudden Americans. [[User:Andrewtheexplainer|Andrewtheexplainer]] ([[User talk:Andrewtheexplainer|talk]]) 15:27, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Talk:111: Firefox and Witchcraft - The Connection?

2023-06-30T20:25:02Z

162.158.74.63: Undo revision 316626 by 172.71.167.197 (talk) Are you still spamming?

Correlation does not equal causation.... I think that's one of the underlying points of this. That, and people who use IE don't understand that. {{unsigned ip|‎108.162.219.56}}

The link to Revelation 22 is misleading. It was written several centuries before the Bible was compiled, and the phrase "this book" presumably refers to the Book of Revelation. A better scripture to link to is [[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+4%3A2&version=ESV Deuteronomy 4:2]], which prohibits editing the words that god commands you. That's not the entire bible, but it's enough that you could realistically call it closed source. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.90|199.27.128.90]] 00:23, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

The use of the open-source closed-source terminology is flawed here: open-source simply means that the source code (the program for IE and words for the Bible) is available to be read.

It does NOT mean that you can edit it (even if you don't distribute it) as anybody who owns a TiVo or has tried reading a Terms of Service document knows; that 'right' would come under the more important "Free Software" umbrella, as [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html this article by Richard Stallman] explains.
[[User:YatharthROCK|YatharthROCK]] ([[User talk:YatharthROCK|talk]]) 06:03, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
:Open source does mean you can edit it. See the [http://opensource.org/osd-annotated Open Source Definintion]: "The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software." [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.189|108.162.219.189]] 02:48, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
::Wouldn't that be opensource.org's definition? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.124|108.162.237.124]] 22:50, 21 November 2014 (UTC) Steven

It looks like Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster's statistics on the relation between pirate's numbers and global temperature[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PiratesVsTemp(en).svg].--[[User:Anodibdogb|Anodibdogb]] ([[User talk:Anodibdogb|talk]]) 12:50, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

The Microsoft + Christianity is probably a reference to Microsoft acquiring Christianity. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.65|108.162.216.65]]

This comic was in June, not August, so it might not be brought to life like us three. EDIT: Sorry, I was wrong. He was actually brought to life and became one of the comic incarnates. And today's his birthday. [[User:Missed Connections|935: Missed Connections]] ([[User talk:Missed Connections|talk]]) 23:53, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2790: Heat Pump

2023-06-19T20:43:46Z

162.158.74.63: When someone messed with my own indentation levels, they made my explanation of why I extra-indented an inserted response totally irrelevent. Moved and split the cascade of out-of-order conversation to a more natural progression.

woah! an xkcd with color what was the last one with color? (im kinda new to xkcd) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.122.48|172.71.122.48]] 21:17, 16 June 2023 (UTC)Erfaniom
:I guess the last one with a lot of color was [[2750]]. More at [[:Category:Comics with color]]. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.167.11|162.158.167.11]] 17:29, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

I suppose color was needed to show the air temperature. Odd, though, that in summer (in the northern hemisphere), the character is trying to increase the indoor temperature. [[User:Davidhbrown|Davidhbrown]] ([[User talk:Davidhbrown|talk]]) 21:27, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
:He's not. He's moving the hot air from inside to the cooler outside. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 22:18, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
::I actully think he's warming the inside, already warmer than outside, by effectively (and literally!) squeezing the heat out of the cooler outdoors air.
::By compressing the cool outdoor air, he increases its temperature (p1v1/t1=p2v2/t2) to warmer than the warm indoor air, creating a squeezebox->room flow of heat energy, then returns to the outside before decompressing and lowering the temperature in his squeezebox below the cool-air temperature in order to create an outdoors->squeezebox flow of energy and repeat. (The comic has the cycle start at roughly half-way through that, and wraps round, but the heat-to-room seemed the most obvious starting place here.)
::Right now, I'd not wish to heat my indoors up (even at 11:30pm, like now), so I agree that it's a funny time of year show heat-adding (rather than heat removing), but it definitely is that. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.154|172.70.86.154]] 22:31, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
:::Assumption(?): Indoors is on the LHS and higher, outdoors on the RHS and lower, door opens outwards and steps down to "outside". He COULD instead be cooling a basement apartment with a door that opens inwards (like mine)... however he seems to make a noticeable difference to the red, not the blue, so... probably not. :-/ [[Special:Contributions/172.70.34.160|172.70.34.160]] 02:36, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
::: Since panel 3 shows it at its widest and bluest with "Release", I understand that to mean he's releasing the heat outside from inside - like an A/C does. The weird thing is then showing the reddest/smallest with "Radiate", that word means "make and release heat" to me. The thing is, past experience tells me Randall lives in roughly the same part of the world as me, same climate. That he's in the northern states (like, within a day's drive of the Canadian border), and the Eastern time zone, and it's summer for us. Only heat pumping people should want is pumping heat OUT of the house... [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:16, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
::::Releasing the spring. At that point, there's the same amount of heat within the device, but it's spread out more so that the temperature is lower (than it was, but also than the surrounding air, which is also ''negligibly'' compressed outwards of course). NB, it does ''not'' draw air into it.
::::Now he has a cool device, heat naturally flows into it until (sufficiently) equalised after a small wait. Take the outside-cool (and expanded) device inside and compress it (it does not expel air!) to have that amount of heat be in a smaller space and thus a higher temperature. High enough to (quite naturally) flow into the room. Thus low-temperature heat taken from outside and used to increase the higher-temperature heat inside, which is different to what happens if you trap and move cold ''air'' into a warm room. Though perhaps it looks like that on first appearance, except for the colour-cues going all screwy. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.96|162.158.74.96]] 09:55, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
::::This all rather assumes that Randall came up with the comic in response to his immediate situation, rather than just musing generally and abstractly on heat pumps and the way they work.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.51|172.71.178.51]] 10:20, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
:he's actually heating it, the comic is set in winter. It's a reference to the discussion about regulating heating systems in Germany. I added something about that in the explanation, but I don't think I made the citation right [[User:Marta]] ([[User talk:Marta|talk]]) 05:25, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
::The citation does not appear to strongly relate to the comic to me. I might be curious if Randall had a lot of comics queued and actually published a winter one in the summer, for example. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.59.112|172.69.59.112]] 00:19, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
:::I agree, I think the Germany thing might probably be coincidental. Randall lives in North-Eastern America. It's unlikely, though quite possible, he was inspired enough by such foreign matters to base a comic on it. Still, you never know from whence inspiration may strike, in which case he published when he thought of it instead of when it'd be relevant... [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:40, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
::::News of this had not otherwise reached me over the German Ocean (i.e. North Sea), never mind where Randall is, way over the Pond (i.e. Atlantic). Not saying it wasn't a prominant bit of news, in his media feeds, but usually the problem is that something 'popularly heard about' state-side confuzzles anyone in (say) Europe/ex-Europe when used as inspiration for a comic without enough setup to it. Now, ''if'' say Penn./Mass. state legislature were being similarly proactive on such matters, I'd say it might be the cue for this. Otherwise, it might be better as an afterthough/Trivia instead of the lead-on paragraph. But I also don't know enough to know that it ''isn't'' worthy of such prominance, so this is just my thoughts, leaving others to alter it if they so wish... Anybody can do it, after all... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.96|162.158.74.96]] 09:55, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
:(I'm not to editing wikis) [[User:Marta]] ([[User talk:Marta|talk]]) 05:25, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
::Nearly right. Simple "insert URL" as a 'number' is single []s, or [<url><space>some text] to have it given linking text (preferable).
:::Plus you seem to have not used the four tildes, i.e. <code><nowiki>~~~~</nowiki></code> to sign the above comment (made it correct, for you), plus confusingly replied ''before'' another reply (so I ''originally'' indented you a bit more, as well as it now having that timestamp to make precedence clear, but as soneone disliked the indentatiom I'm rearranging in 'threaded'-order).
:::But these are all things you'll pick up, I'm sure, if you're going to be getting [used] to wikis... Welcome! [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.139|172.71.178.139]] 05:35, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Wasnt there a "My hobby is to open my refrigerator and when people tell me that doesnt help, I sneak into their house and use their AC?" Comic? I cant find it, but we should link it in the "how leaving a fridge open doesnt help" section [[Special:Contributions/172.71.142.158|172.71.142.158]] 23:36, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
:Sounds like Steven Wright, he has lots of those "my hobby is" jokes. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 13:29, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

I think it's talking about leaving the door open in general i.e. forgetting to close it when getting groceries, not specifically when he's moving the heat pump [[User:Firestar233|Firestar233]] ([[User talk:Firestar233|talk]]) 23:40, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

I can't think of a good reason to say this, but my new fridge doesn't warm up on the back. It warms on the sides. A bad (and quite a PITA reason) is I had to get a new fridge. Protip: don't panic, and do put the sacks of ice into something that won't leak. First time I've met a fridge that doesn't warm on the back.
Btw, red hot blue cold. Pink? Light blue? A light blue a pink? Shrug. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.43.31|172.70.43.31]] 23:57, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

How many trips would this take? I'll leave the exact parameters of the calculation up to you. (Nerd sniping attempt.) ~ Megan she/her [[user talk:megan|talk]]/[[special:contribs/megan|contribs]] 00:20, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
: 42. But stick figures are just lines and have no surface area for heat transfer.
[[Special:Contributions/172.70.134.236|172.70.134.236]] 01:02, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Currently, the explanation says you use a heat pump to "transfer heat from a relatively cold area to a relatively hot area". I don't know anything about the named "ideal gas law" in order to be sure enough to change this, but isn't that the wrong way around? If an area is ALREADY cold, why would anybody transfer heat FROM it? 04:49, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
:Let's say it's winter, and it's cold outside. It's warmer inside, but not as warm as you'd like it to be, so you need to warm it up. Where are you going to get the heat from? Traditionally you'd use a boiler to heat up water or electric coils, but these use lots of energy. A heat pump is more efficient, it moves some of the heat from the cold air outside to the inside. You need a pump because it won't move spontaneously -- heat always goes from warmer to colder areas. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 09:49, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
:[edit conflict with the above reply, thus repetition, but as I was adding other stuff too...] It's fridge-logic! i.e., that's what fridges do... and if you're living in a cool climate, you can potentially heat your house above "too cold for indoors" temperatures by extracting heat from the "far too cold for indoors" air that is outside. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.96|162.158.74.96]] 09:55, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Technically, it's not the ''ideal'' gas law in play, since air isn't an ideal gas, and the system would behave similarly for closer-to-reality gas behaviour models. But I can't think of a good way of modifying the article to reflect that. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 16:04, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Noting you could make hand-crank manual heatpumps that are much easier to use than the one depicted. If it’s doable it’s of meaning because a heatpump can be a big electricity draw, and sometimes electricity is not available. You could also connect a horse, waterwheel, or windmill to it. Making homemade windmills out of bicycle parts is a thing. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.59.147|172.69.59.147]] 20:03, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
:You can make a [https://hackaday.com/2016/08/25/a-refrigerator-cooled-by-rubber-bands/ rubber band heatpump] which works the exact opposite: rubber bands ''heat'' when stretched and ''cool'' when the force is released. This seems counterintuitive, but stretching is adding entropy (as is compressing a gas) and releasing the tension is bringing the entropy back to normal levels again (as is relasing the gas pressure). [[User:IIVQ|IIVQ]] ([[User talk:IIVQ|talk]]) 05:04, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
::The link is to a hand-crank fridge. The rubber bands are on a wheel, and get stretched/released depending on whether they are inside or outside of the fridge. The construction is quite similar to the comic. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.255.21|172.71.255.21]] 13:39, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Folks seem to be assuming that the red side is "indoors", and the blue side is "outdoors", but in my experience exterior doors tend to swing in, not out. The hinge pins on an outwards-swinging door can more easily be accessed, which makes an out-swinging door a poor choice as an exterior door. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.100.224|172.70.100.224]] 20:26, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
:But why would you have steps leading up to the door from the inside? [[User:Firestar233|Firestar233]] ([[User talk:Firestar233|talk]]) 21:55, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
:Many exterior doors open outwards as a matter of safety, especially emergency exits. It's not a big deal if only one or two people are expected to try to exit in event of an emergency, since whoever opens the door can probably take a step backwards to make way for the door. But if there's likely to be crowding at the door, there isn't room for it to swing inwards. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 22:28, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
::For sure he is trying to heat up his house. And yes many places doors open in, but not always, and specifically not in public buildings for safety as just mentioned. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:34, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
:::Given his obvious lack of grasp of the impracticality of the solution, maybe he's actually trying to cool down the outside.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.229|172.70.162.229]] 13:34, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Maybe not the intent of the comic, but it's interesting how the red/blue for temperature are also the political colors of the united states. After recent schisms, I imagine many people feel like they are walking between huge crowds of red->blue or blue->red slowly trying to build communication like an ant building an anthill grain by grain. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.255.21|172.71.255.21]] 13:39, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
:Interesting to note that Blue and Red are UK political colours (as they are elsewhere), but that here it is Labour (left-leaning, occasionally ''very'' left leaning) as red, Conservatives (right-leaning, occasionally ''very'' right leaning) as blue. Which always amuses me when I see Democrats (right of centre) and Republicans (so right of right of centre that it's not really funny any more) coloured how they are. Also, Libertarians aren't Liberals (UK: yellow, centre-ground fence-sitters), despite the similarity of name. About the only close match are the Greens (green!), but I think your lot might tend to being more militant than ours, at least the politically-inclined ones.
: Anyway, the colours are the usual colours. At least it's less confusing than taps labelled C(old) and H(ot) in the UK, but ''F(roid) et C(haud)'' in France, at least when you see only the "C" first. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.85|141.101.99.85]] 14:55, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2295: Garbage Math

2020-04-17T19:44:25Z

162.158.74.63:

This is not a Covid19 comic. One could think that this is a comment on the difficulties of modeling the corona virus outbreak, but since discussions of exponential functions are only a small part in the comic I believe it is just a general comment on floating point arithmetic mixed in with statistical considerations. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.242|108.162.229.242]] 17:28, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
:I disagree that this is not a COVID-19 comic. I also believe the one about visualizing large numbers was COVID-19 related. On the other hand, I like the idea that Randall might produce exactly 19 comics related to SARS CoViD 2019, so I'm prepared to concede the point for the sake of arbitrary numerological appeal.
:[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 18:42, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
::I think Exa-Exabyte was a real stretch (the virus doesn't even have DNA), but there is a tenuous link so whatever. The idea that ''this'' comic is related, on the other hand, stretches past the breaking point. There's hardly anything that can't be linked to global events if we try hard enough, but that doesn't mean there's an actual link. Sometimes a comic about garbage math is just a comic about garbage math.

Well this is surprising came here thinking I understood it just to see what the discussion looked like. Ended up learning something new. I was able to understand intuitively the comic. But this is my first exposure to actually doing math on the error bars. I think I was supposed to do that in college but I don't remember anyone ever explaining how it should work. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.63.208|162.158.63.208]] 18:14, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

In recent days, there have been a number of math "quizzes" in this same type of format, albeit generally with only addition and maybe multiplication, appearing on Facebook. Should the explanation include a reference to this as a possible contributing reason for Randall's comic? One could also argue that those quizzes have been appearing on Facebook as a way to spend/waste time during the coronavirus pandemic lockdown, making he comic at least tangentially related to Covid19.

Talk:2288: Collector's Edition

2020-04-03T04:08:20Z

162.158.74.63: uh-oh

... is this going to be like [[1190: Time]]? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.63|162.158.74.63]] 04:08, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

1857: Emoji Movie

2020-01-01T23:08:55Z

162.158.74.63: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1857
| date = June 30, 2017
| title = Emoji Movie
| image = emoji_movie.png
| titletext = Some other studio should do the Antz/A Bug's Life thing and release The Dingbats Movie at the same time.
}}

==Explanation==

[[Megan]] asks [[Cueball]] if he knows about the then-upcoming ''{{w|The Emoji Movie}}''. It was released on July 28, 2017, a month after this comic, and had been widely reviled on the Internet for its lack of original plot, characters, and jokes.

Cueball responds to the topic by {{w|Damning with faint praise|damning it with faint praise}}, starting with the presumption that somebody had to make a film about a "section of Unicode".

{{w|Unicode}} is the standard by which almost all modern text, in all languages, is represented as computer data. It consists of thousands of "code points", grouped into about 280 contiguous sections known as "blocks". There is no formal term "section of Unicode", which Randall seems to be using to skirt the fact that emojis are not all represented within one Unicode block.

Examples of potential Unicode blocks include "Playing Cards", "Musical Symbols", "Tibetan", "Hangul Jamo Extended-B", "Braille Patterns" – and of course "Combining diacritical marks" and "Dingbats", referred to in the comic.

Emojis are standard pictograms which include smileys (eg 😂) and common objects such as beer (🍺) and eggplant (🍆). Dating from the late 1990s, they were added to Unicode in 2010. There is actually no Unicode block known as "Emojis". There is {{w|Emoticons (Unicode block)|Emoticons}} (U+1F600..U+1F64F), which contains 80 code points, mostly of facial expressions. However it does not include all emojis. For instance, "Baby" (👶) is U+1F476, within the {{w|Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs}} block.

The topic of emoji in Unicode also appears in [[1813: Vomiting Emoji]].

Megan responds to this presumption by facetiously suggesting that Hollywood should make a series of films about different code blocks, referencing Hollywood's current trend of reducing risk by making many sequels and adaptations. She proposes a movie about {{w|Combining Diacritical Marks}} (see [[1647: Diacritics]]), a different section of Unicode which contains 112 code points (each assigned to a character). These code points include many varieties of diacritics such as accents, cedillas and tildes which can be combined with other letters to produce an almost unlimited number of possibilities, such as "ў" (Cyrillic Y plus breve).

Cueball quips that this series would have too many characters. This is a pun on the word "character", which has the double meaning of a {{w|Character_(arts)|fictional character}}, or a {{w|Character (computing)|symbol which corresponds to a grapheme}} (e.g. letter, digit, punctuation mark). It's true that although the Combining Diacritical Marks movie would have only 112 characters, the series as a whole would have tens of thousands, including such epics as "Egyptian Hieroglyphs" (1,071) and "CJK Unified Ideographs Extension B" (42,720).

The "''{{w|Antz}}''/''{{w|A Bug's Life}}'' thing" in the title text refers to the {{w|twin films}} phenomenon, in which two films with very similar (or identical) concepts are released within roughly the same timeframe. Competing studios Dreamworks and Pixar released their respective insect-oriented films in 1998, a year infamous for many other such film pairings (see the Wikipedia article for a full list).

{{w|Dingbat}}s were an early form of pictograph included within the normal mechanisms for producing computer text, serving a similar function to emojis, but oriented towards practical symbols such as telephones, airport symbols and a wide variety arrows. Unlike emojis, they are usually black-and-white. Previously, dingbats required a specific font to render, but as part of Unicode (U+2700–U+27BF), they can now be displayed in a variety of fonts. For example: ✈ ✆ ➹ ✂ ✰ Some characters are both dingbats and emoji, and are followed with a variant-selector character to indicate whether they should be in color.

The joke is that although dingbats and emojis are superficially equivalent, a film which contains many cute human expressions would have much more potential for success than one about dry symbols such as arrows, asterisks and scissors.

Megan and Cueball's discussion about the movie is continued in [[1870: Emoji Movie Reviews]].

==Transcript==
:[Megan and Cueball are walking together while Megan is looking at her smartphone.]
:Megan: Did you see there's an emoji movie?
:Cueball: If they have to make a movie about a section of Unicode, it's not the '''''worst''''' choice...
:Megan: They should do a whole series. I would watch the ''Combining Diacritical Marks movie''.
:Cueball: That series would have '''''way''''' too many characters.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Emoji]]
[[Category:Unicode]]
[[Category:Fiction]]

1837: Rental Car

2020-01-01T22:39:30Z

162.158.74.63: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 1837
| date = May 15, 2017
| title = Rental Car
| image = rental_car.png
| titletext = Technically, both cars are haunted, but the murder ghosts can't stand listening to the broken GPS for more than a few minutes.
}}

==Explanation==

In this comic the couple [[Megan]] and [[Cueball]] want to rent a car. The [[:Category:Multiple Cueballs|Cueball-like guy]] from the {{w|car rental}} agency tells them they only have two vehicles available:
* One car that puts its occupants into mortal danger, so much such that it is called ''The Murder Car''. The danger, however, is abstract—the car is haunted by a {{w|ghost}}, and actual death befalls only "maybe one in six". (That is the equivalent of a round of {{w|Russian Roulette}}.) This is the fatality rate for drivers (in this case, Megan), while the rate for passengers is not mentioned.
* The other car, a regular {{w|Sedan (automobile)|sedan}}, has a defective {{w|GPS}} that incessantly gives instructions to go specifically to {{w|Seattle}}, regardless of the driver's intention to go there. And it cannot be turned off.

Megan believes she can ignore this and accepts the less lethal car. The comic suggests that driving with a GPS that tries to guide you to a different destination than that which you wish to visit—so it is always recalculating and asking you to do U-turns—is incredibly annoying. So annoying that given the choice between the persistent low-level annoyance of the GPS on one hand, and the ("low") probability of being murdered on the other, most people will choose the latter option. After all, they might survive murderous ghosts but they feel they will not survive long having to listen to the broken GPS.

According to the title text, the murderous ghosts haunt both cars, but as soon as the car starts driving and the GPS begins to drone on, even the ghost cannot stand listening to the broken GPS and stops possessing it.

Apart from the joke about GPS, this is also a subtle joke on the horrible cars one might get at a car rental service.

It is also possible that the car rental service is trying to drive people away from the haunted car, which we can assume is just a normal car, to get more profit when people come back and take the "haunted" car when their GPS is broken.

==Trivia==
*With an estimated 1.25 million vehicular deaths globally in 2013[http://www.who.int/gho/road_safety/mortality/traffic_deaths_number/en/] and approx. 1,187 million vehicles on the road in the same year [https://www.statista.com/statistics/281134/number-of-vehicles-in-use-worldwide/], the number of fatalities per vehicle comes to be around 0.1% or about 1 in 950. This number includes trucks and commecial vehicles.
* As of 2014, there were 253 million cars on the road in the US [http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-ihs-automotive-average-age-car-20140609-story.html] and only 32,675 deaths [https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812246], giving a rate of fatalities per car of slightly over 0.01%, or 1 in 7,700)
* The car lethality risk is lower in the US by a factor of 8, compared to the worldwide vehicular lethality risk.

*The global number of haunted cars is not available, but believed to be at least five in number. [http://www.autoblog.com/2014/10/31/five-cursed-haunted-cars/]

*Similarly, while the number of faulty car GPS devices is not available, Garmin recalled 1.3 million Nuvi GPS units in 2011. [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/26/garmin-gps-recall-nuvi_n_695967.html] These recalls were not for bad directions, but for fire hazards.

*There are records of several {{w|Death by GPS | deaths resulting from following faulty GPS directions or maps}}, particularly while traveling in unfamiliar or difficult terrain. [http://www.newser.com/story/214008/woman-killed-after-gps-takes-her-to-wrong-street.html] [http://www.npr.org/2011/07/26/137646147/the-gps-a-fatally-misleading-travel-companion] [https://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/05/death-by-gps/]

==Transcript==
:[A Cueball-like guy standing behind a desk looking at a computer screen services Megan and Cueball on the other side of the desk.]
:Guy: We have two rental cars left.
:Guy: One is the murder car. But don't let the name scare you!
:Guy: It's definitely haunted. But most drivers don't get murdered.
:Guy: Maybe one in six.

:[The guy lifts his hand and looks at Megan and Cueball.]
:Guy: The other is a regular sedan.
:Guy: But it has a GPS that's stuck trying to navigate to Seattle, and you can’t turn it off.
:Megan: ...I can ignore it, right? That's fine.

:[In a frame-less panel Megan and Cueball drive in the sedan.]
:GPS: ''Turn left''
:GPS: ''Recalculating''
:GPS: ''Make a U-turn''
:GPS: ''Recalculating''
:GPS: ''Turn right''
:GPS: ''Make a U-turn''
:GPS: ''Recalculating''

:[Megan and Cueball walk back into the agency with the guy behind his desk. Megan holds out the car keys in one hand.]
:Guy: Back already?
:Megan: We'll take the murder car.
:Guy: Popular choice.

{{comic discussion}}

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

1795: All You Can Eat

2020-01-01T22:17:49Z

162.158.74.63: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 1795
| date = February 6, 2017
| title = All You Can Eat
| image = all_you_can_eat.png
| titletext = After my absent-mindedness resulted in a bad posterboard-related stomachache, I learned to do the sign-making place last.
}}

==Explanation==
An all-you-can-eat {{w|buffet}} is when a restaurant will charge you once for entry and then continuously serve you more food at no additional cost until you have eaten all-you-can-eat. Part of the "[[:Category:My Hobby|My Hobby]]" series, this comic shows [[Randall]] wishes to pre-pend "all-you-can-eat" to random stores.

With the exception of the pet store, these stores do not sell food, so the very idea of eating their product would be ridiculous for most humans. However, this is what Randall's stunt makes the stores he defaces seem to advertise. Most people would not seriously consider eating the products these stores sell even with the signs suggesting they should, as they sell {{w|tires}}, {{w|hair cuts}}, {{w|lumber}} and {{w|flooring}} and {{w|pets}}.

The "all-you-can-eat" signs obscured the top line for three of the four shops signs. It is not really possible to read the obscured part of the first two signs, although it is likely that the first and last letters in the first sign are A and K. And also since the A is taller than the white sign, this first letter must be larger than the others which do not show above the white sign. There could be room for anything from 8 to many more letters hidden as it can be seen in the second line below that the I's take up much less space than the other letters. But from the letters below it seems likely there were 9 (maybe including a space) if no I's were used resulting in a word or two like this "A _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ K". All letters in the comic seems to be capital, but Randall sometimes use small caps, where the first capital letter is larger than the others. This would fit with this sign.

The third sign is fully visible, and it makes sense as it is not a name in the top line but part of the description of what the store provides.

The last sign is though clearly readable even though the white sign covers the name at the top, and it says "Kevin's Pet Store". There actually exists a [http://kevinspetshopcom.weebly.com/ web page with the name "Kevin's Pet Shop"], supposedly located in Texas, but there is very limited information on the page. See more about the use of Kevin in xkcd in the [[#Kevin|trivia]] below.

In the title text, Randall seems to have fallen for his own prank. After he puts the "all-you-can-eat" sign onto the signmakers' place, he proceeds to heed his own sign literally and eat the posterboards that he is supposed to make signs from. To remind himself not to make the same mistake again, he tells himself to "do the sign-making place last."

It should also be noted that sometimes "all-you-can-eat" is used to mean "unlimited usage". An all-you-can-eat data plan, for example, is another way to say unlimited data. If this definition of the word were used, all-you-can-eat would mean "unlimited copies of our product for a one time fee". A {{w|kapsalon}} can, arguably, also be called an all-you-can-eat hair salon.

Note that some pets are considered food in some cultures; rabbits are commonly kept as pets as well as served as food, dogs are consumed in some areas in eastern Asia, guinea pigs in South America and Africa, and [http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/alf/images/9/92/Cat_sandwich.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110128060130 some fictional characters] are known for eating cat. Even more normally, a cat owner that wants to buy an "all you can eat" bird feast for their cat would be happy with this last store.

Aside from pets, pet stores also sell pet food, and while frowned upon by some, it is common practice to give human nutrition supplements to pets and vice versa. Some animal snacks are considered very tasty by many people, and there even exist several brands of snacks designed to be eaten both by people and their pets so that the owners could feel somehow closer to their beloved companion. Premium pet foods are made to standards that are no worse than standards for human food, so eating them poses no health risks in the short term - long term, most pet diets would fail to deliver the right balance of nutrients needed by humans.

==Transcript==
:[The comic shows the facades of four stores next to each other on a street, with the sidewalk shown in front of them. To the top of each store's name there has been appended white signs. Three of the white signs partially cover the name part of the sign above three of the stores, but the fourth sign is placed entirely above the text of the third store. Thus that white sign's top is higher up than the building's.]

:[First store from the left. The top line of two on the store's sign is obscured by the white sign:]
:White sign: All-you-can-eat
:Store sign: Discount Tires

:[Second store from the left. The top line of two on the store's sign is obscured by the white sign:]
:White sign: All-you-can-eat
:Store sign: Hair Salon

:[Third store from the left. The white sign on this store is slightly tilted, and most of it is above the top of the store completely above the store sign:]
:White sign: All-you-can-eat
:Store sign: Lumber and
:Store sign: Flooring Depot

:[Fourth store from the left. The top line of two on the store's sign is obscured by the white sign. However, the name can still be deduced, and the top line says "Kevin's".]
:White sign: All-you-can-eat
:Store sign: Pet Store

:[Caption below the frame:]
:My hobby: Going out at night and adding "all-you-can-eat" to every store's sign

*'''Click''' to expand for a more detailed image description without any more text:
<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed leftAlign" style="width:100%">
 
:[First store from the left has one small rectangular section next to the door and then a larger window. The first section may be a poster with information about the store. It could also be a small window. Through the large window (or on it) two rectangular signs can be seen with unreadable text. There are also three half circles at the bottom of the large window, possibly chairs or tires on display. On the normal sized door there hangs an open/closed sign, but no text is visible. On the stores sign the top line of text, likely with the name of the store, is obscured by the white sign so most of the letters are completely covered. Less than half of the first capital letter and ditto for the last letter is visible. It looks like the first letter is an "A", and the last a "k".]

:[Second store from the left has two posters over each other, the top one with unreadable text, the bottom a picture of a person with messy black hair, seen from the torso and up. Next to this is a double door with large windows from below the middle and up near the top. Next to the door there is a small window. On the stores sign the top line of text, likely with the name of the store, is completely obscured by the white sign. This line is shorter than the white sign, but the letters are taller, so top and bottom of the letters can be seen. But it is not easy to guess any letters.]

:[Third store from the left has two posters over each other, but the lower poster is smaller and more to the right. Both has unreadable text, and the top one also some kind of image with two tilted rectangles. Similarly there are three signs above each other with different size and text on the right side of the store. Between them is a large open door. Wider than the double doors of store two, but there is no sign of the doors. Inside the store there are two signs, one hanging down from two rods from the ceiling, both with unreadable text. The one from the ceiling is in the center the other is partly obscured by the door frame to the left. Left and right there are two rectangular structures, which both goes behind the frame. The left is taller. In the middle there is one broad but low rectangular structure with another higher rectangle on top, which does not go to either side of the one below. The white sign on this store is slightly tilted, and most of it is above the top of the store, and thus also almost completely above the store sign. Only the top of the first and last letter in the last word in the top line is touched by the sign.]

:[Fourth store from the left has a window to the left. Behind the window is a flat surface on which two rectangular structures are standing on their long sides. Over the lowest to the left there is sign with unreadable text. Below the window there is a thin sign with more text. The normal sized door has a window from below the middle and up. There are three several signs up the left sign, and possible another three small signs at the bottom of the window. The top right corner has a curved line around the corner. No text is visible on the door. Next to the door is another square. It could be a window of a place to post things. There are one large posters to the left with unreadable text and to the top right another smaller white rectangle. Below along the bottom of the square there are three small rectangles shown in full, and two more is only partly shown, which could indicate that it is a window and that they are inside the store. On the stores sign the top line of text, with the name of the store, is obscured by the white sign. The name is just a bit longer than the white sign, and as the letters are a bit higher than in store two it can be deduced that it says "Kevin's".]
</div>
 

==Trivia==
===Kevin===
*The name Kevin has been used twice before this comic and quite recently.
**That makes this comic the third with a Kevin in only 77 comics:
***In [[1719: Superzoom]], Kevin he worked in a shop that sold superzoom cameras.
***In [[1729: Migrating Geese]], Kevin was the different goose
***In [[1795: All You Can Eat]] (this one), Kevin has a pet shop, with his name in the shops name.
**In the previous 1718 comics there seems to have been no use of Kevin except when referring to real persons like:
***Actors [[1412: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles|Kevin]] [[599: Apocalypse|Bacon]] or [[1555: Exoplanet Names 2|Costner]]
***[[1392: Dominant Players|Chess players]] Gariett and Durant.
**So maybe Kevin is Randall's new go to name when he just needs one!
***This has also been discussed in the Geese comic, see the last entry in the [[1729:_Migrating_Geese#Table of labels|table]].
**After this comic it took half a year and 78 comics before the next Kevin appeared but still a short span compared to before the three others:
***In [[1873: Email Reply]], Kevin is addressed in an e-mail by [[Cueball]].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:My Hobby]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Food]]

2236: Is it Christmas?

2019-12-16T21:08:09Z

162.158.74.63: added info to the stopped watch comparison.

{{comic
| number = 2236
| date = December 2, 2019
| title = Is it Christmas?
| image = is_it_christmas.png
| titletext = We've tested it on 30 different days and it hasn't gotten one wrong yet.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Should probably wait for Christmas to see if the comic changes or not}}
https://isitchristmas.com/ is a popular simplistic website that informs the visitor whether or not it's {{w|Christmas}}. Christmas is a holiday observed in many parts of the world on December 25 of each year. At the top on the tab of the site in the browser it says "Is it Christmas?" with a large '''NO''' printed if it is not December 25, and a '''YES''' if it is December 25. This website asks the user's browser for the date, and updates accordingly if it is indeed Christmas. In addition, isitchristmas.com gives the answer in the language of your region (i.e. for a visitor from Canada, the site gives the answer in English and French to account for Canada's bilingularity, and in most other countries just their word for No will be shown). Since the page uses the browsing computer's time setting, it is possible to easily check that the page works by changing the date on the computer used to access the page to see the text change to Yes (or No if you are reading it on December 25). This also means that the page is only as correct as the time setting on the computer used to view the page (so in case of connection problems, you may check your computer's calendar instead).

Here [[Randall]] spoofs the website. He claims to have made a competitor to isitchristmas.com which nearly always correctly tells if it is Christmas. The joke is that the comic will always display a static image reading '''NO''', even on Christmas Day, and that the rare incorrect answer is rare enough to not cause any concern.

Randall lists a rounded calculation of 99.73% for the precision of his prediction of whether or not it is Christmas. This number is accurate with or without including leap year. An average year is 365.25 days, meaning that he is only wrong 1 out of 365.25 days. So only 1/365.25 = 0.2737% of the days would the prediction be wrong, resulting in a correct reply rate of 99.726%, which he has rounded to 99.73%. Using or not using the leap year will give the same result to three decimal places.

This precision rate is only true for a definition of Christmas, which lasts only one day, regardless of which day that is (see trivia). For any definition of more than one day of Christmas, the error rate would be higher than 0.2737%. (If one considered the traditional {{w|Twelve Days of Christmas}} to all be Christmas, then Randall's website would be wrong on all 12 days, or 3.29% of the year.) However, in the US, where [[Randall]] lives, Christmas is usually defined as the single day of December 25th.

Although Randall's claim on {{w|Accuracy and precision#In binary classification|accuracy}} is true, accuracy alone doesn't make a predictive device useful. In this case, the page {{w|False positives and false_negatives#false negative rate|miss rate}} or false negative rate, that is, the percent of positive condition days (it's Christmas) that are predicted by the comic not to be Christmas, is 100%. In other words, it misses all actual events of Christmas.

When building a model for rare events, a common mistake is to ignore the implicit cost function built into the standard prediction accuracy validity statistic for binary events. Prediction accuracy (# correct guesses/total guesses) assumes that false positives and false negatives are equally bad. Given the implicit cost function of this performance statistic, the best-performing model is commonly a persistence forecast model--i.e., the optimal prediction model returns the most common value whatever the model inputs are. It's probably a better choice to optimize a model using a performance statistic which relies on a cost function that penalizes missing correct prediction of rare events more than it penalizes missing correct prediction of common events.

In fact, in most settings where a single outcome is a lot more common than any other one, predicting always that most common outcome would yield very high accuracy without any usefulness. It isn't hard to find examples even more accurate than Randall's:

* A useless test for AIDS giving always negative results would have an accuracy about 99.95% when applied to a random human, and even more if used in countries with low prevalence of AIDS.
* A website saying "You are not the cartoonist Randall Munroe" would be right for 99.9999999857% of humans.
* [https://knowyourphrase.com/even-a-broken-clock-is-right-twice A stopped watch is accurate twice a day] while a running watch is almost never accurate (and oddly, is more frequently correct the faster/slower it runs). A watch that runs backwards is right 4 times a day. If you make it spin at thousands of rpm it is right multiple times per second.

The title text is a "proof" that his service works. He claims to have tested this on 30 different days and confirmed that NO is the correct result. Any date except Christmas would result in a correct result, and the comic was the first to be released in December 2019, so unless the test had run for almost a year, he would not even have had a chance to test this on Christmas Day. Since this is a joke, the comic will of course not change to Yes on Christmas Day, because then it would be 100% accurate, as is the page the comic mocks.

Being right on most days, but not the one that mattered was also the subject of [[937: TornadoGuard]].

At the same time this Christmas comic came out, the [[xkcd Header text]] was [[xkcd_Header_text#2019-12-02_-_Into_Science|changed]] to ask if there were someone that would like Randall's new book ''[[How To]]'' as a Christmas present.

==Transcript==
\:'''<big><big><big>No*</big></big></big>'''
:<nowiki>*</nowiki>99.73% accurate

:[Caption below the panel:]
:xkcd.com presents a new "Is It Christmas" service to compete with isitchristmas.com

==Trivia==
*Randall usually makes [[:Category:Christmas|Christmas comics]] around Christmas Day, but this year he has made two comics mentioning Christmas already by the 2nd of December 2019.
**The first came two comics before this with [[2234: How To Deliver Christmas Presents]].
**Only two times before has there been released any Christmas related comics so close to Christmas without being released in the few days around Christmas Day (22-26 of December). See the explanation for Christmas comics.
*The calendar used by most of the world for civil purposes is the Gregorian calendar, instituted by Pope Gregory XIII of the Roman Catholic Church in 1582. However, most Eastern Orthodox churches continue to use the Julian calendar for the purpose of their holidays; December 25th in the Julian calendar is January 7th in the Gregorian calendar for years between 1900 and 2100, so that is the civil date when those countries observe Christmas. The author of isitchristmas.com is [https://github.com/isitchristmas/web/issues/67#issuecomment-29585160 aware that this is the case], but has chosen to recognize a single date (December 25th in the Gregorian calendar) as Christmas for the sake of simplicity.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Christmas]]

2240: Timeline of the Universe

2019-12-16T21:00:44Z

162.158.74.63: more possible explanation for the "settling" bit.

{{comic
| number = 2240
| date = December 11, 2019
| title = Timeline of the Universe
| image = timeline_of_the_universe.png
| titletext = Not actual size, except technically at one spot near the left.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by the BIG BANG. Should include a list of the events, their times, and if they're real, explain what they are, and if they're jokes, explain what they are. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic is about the size of the {{w|visible universe}}, presented as a timeline in a way typical of representations of the {{w|timeline of epochs in cosmology}}.

Some events it describes, including the {{w|Big Bang}} and {{w|Inflation (cosmology)|Inflation}} are real, but others are jokes, including the ''Medium Bang'' and ''Settling''. The size history of the visible universe is also embellished for the sake of jokes; the actual size history of the universe has one period referred to as Inflation, which occurred shortly after the Big Bang, followed by comparatively gentle but accelerating expansion. This is artistically depicted in [https://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/media/060915/060915_CMB_Timeline150.jpg this image from NASA]. Part of the humor in this comic comes from the fact that the varied rate of change in expansion is not yet fully understood, with explanations of events leading to this change including theories such as "dark matter" and "dark energy" (this might therefore be construed as "dark humour"). At the end of the drawing four possible continuations of the timeline are suggested, with director J. J. Abrams listed as the deciding factor between them, stating that all future cosmological development has been handed over to him. Abrams directed the Star Trek movie entitled ''Star Trek'', which established additional alternate timelines for Star Trek, so it may be implied that multiple timelines could result from direction by Abrams in the future. Notably, each Star Trek series has included multiple interacting timelines. For information about each of the events shown in this comic's ''Timeline of the Universe'', see detailed explanations in the section [[#Events on the Timeline of the Universe|Events on the Timeline of the Universe]] below.

The title text is a variation of one of [[Randall|Randall's]] standard jokes that his drawings are ''Not actual size''; in the case of this comic there is technically one spot near the left where the drawing depicts the actual relative size of the universe at the time the drawing represents. Where his drawing begins, at the time when the universe began, per definition, our visible universe had no measurable size. Very soon (within a tiny fraction of an attosecond) after the universe as we know it began, the inflation period blew it up very very fast and then it continued to expand until present day. So at some "time" after the big bang, our visible universe would have had a size (i.e. diameter) that would be the same as any thickness of Randall's universe "line". Since the universe as depicted in the comic goes from infinitesimal size at the moment of the Big Bang to the full size of the universe today, at some point near the left there will be a point where Randall's representation would have the same size as the universe at the correct "time period". Of course a problem with this is that there was only a very very short time period after inflation where the diameter of the observable universe is on the same scale as this comic, and that point is neither indicated nor likely to be accurate in relation to the duration of time elapsed. According to an answer given [https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/32917/size-of-universe-after-inflation here] regarding the size of the visible universe after inflation, there is reason to believe that the size was still less than 1 mm in diameter when the stage of expansion known as Inflation ended, which is less than the thickness of the line shown at the Big Bang (depending on the screen size the comic is viewed upon); So the point along the timeline where the size of our visible universe matched the line width appears after the Inflation period is thought to have ended. Since Randall includes the ''Medium Bang'' before Inflation on his drawing he has already inserted a mistake there, but as the next three epochs after Inflation are real epochs, it is likely somewhere in this part of the drawing that the visible universe would have had the same diameter as the thickness of the drawing at a relevant time epoch on the drawing. This will thus not be that far to the left but around the Quark epoch.

===Events on the Timeline of the Universe===
The events presented in the timeline are:

* '''??''' (more than 13.8 billion years ago ({{w|Billion years|Gya}})): the unknown state of the universe prior to the Big Bang, if such a statement is even sensible. There are theories that our Universe is a bubble where inflation stopped (13.8 billion years ago in this universe) in an infinite and {{w|Eternal inflation|eternally inflating}} larger universe, which would give rise to the possibility of a {{w|multiverse}} with many bubble universes like ours where inflation has stopped. See for instance this recent video on the subject: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XglOw2_lozc How Many Universes Are There?] from PBS Space Time. If this is true, the universe did not start at the big bang, but our part of the infinite universe actually began when the inflation period stopped, and not at the Big Bang.
* '''{{w|Big Bang}}''' (13.8 Gya): The model of the origin of the universe which has achieved consensus among astronomers. We have observed that all galaxies are receding away from Earth at rates that are roughly proportional to their distance, and the simplest explanation for this is that the universe is expanding. If the universe is expanding, then (unless new physics are discovered) it must have at one time been very, very small and dense; that moment in time is called the Big Bang.
* '''{{w|Timeline_of_epochs_in_cosmology#Planck_epoch|Planck Epoch}}''': The time period starting from the Big Bang, the Planck epoch or Planck era is the earliest stage of expansion currently calculable, before the time passed was equal to the Planck time (tP, or approximately 10^-43 seconds). There is no currently available physical theory to describe such short times, and it is not clear in what sense the concept of time is meaningful for values smaller than the Planck time.
* '''Medium Bang''' (a joke): If there's a Big Bang, why not have a medium one? There should probably also be a Little Bang, but maybe it's just too little to be featured on this chart.
* '''{{w|Inflation (cosmology)|Inflation}}''' (10^-36 to 10^-32 seconds after the Big Bang): A theory developed to explain the large-scale structure of the universe that postulates a period when the universe expanded very much faster than the speed of light. (The universe still expands faster than the speed of light, but only 2-3 times as fast. The limit of the speed c, is only valid for things moving in space time, not for the stretching of space itself!)
* '''{{w|Timeline_of_epochs_in_cosmology#Quarks_epoch|Quark Epoch}}''' (10^-12 seconds after the Big Bang): The universe is a quark-gluon plasma, up until 10^-6 seconds when it cools enough to coalesce into hadrons, including protons and neutrons.
* '''{{w|Timeline_of_epochs_in_cosmology#Lepton_epoch|Lepton Epoch}}''' (1 second after the Big Bang): Leptons, including electrons, and their associated neutrinos dominate.
* '''{{w|Timeline_of_epochs_in_cosmology#Photon_epoch|Photon Epoch}}''' (10 seconds after the Big Bang): The universe is dominated by photons.
* '''Cool Bug Epoch''' (a joke): There was a period around 10-17 million years after the Big Bang in which the cosmic background radiation was between 273 and 373 K, the temperature range for liquid water, but as oxygen had not yet been formed, as stars were not yet there to create it, there would have been no water. Cosmologists {{w|Avi_Loeb#Early_Universe|have speculated}} that primitive life could have arisen during this period and dubbed it the 'Habitable Epoch of the Early Universe', although it's unclear how this life would have formed since there was basically only hydrogen and helium atoms in the universe until the first Super Nova explosions some 100 million years later. Possibly this is the epoch in which the "cool red beetle" which [[Beret Guy]] added to his company's bug tracker (see [[1493: Meeting]]), or the "friendly bug" he wanted to show to a conference speaker (see [[2191: Conference Question]]), evolved.
* '''Molded grip''' (a joke): Some tools (e.g. knives) have molded finger-wells so that the user's hand settles easily and securely into a comfortable position. This epoch of the universe features repeated expansions and contractions so that this part of the timeline resembles a molded grip, at least in profile (it would be much too large to be held by any known animal's hands{{Citation needed}}, and the finger-wells are distributed over time as well as space).
* '''{{w|Timeline_of_epochs_in_cosmology#Cosmic_Dark_Age|Stars form}}''' (100 million years after the Big Bang): The universe cools enough to allow ordinary matter particles to group into stars.
* '''{{w|Stagflation}}''' (a joke): In addition to ''cosmic'' inflation, inflation can also refer to the economic phenomenon in which prices increase over time. Stagflation is combination of the terms "stagnation" and "inflation", and refers to a situation in which monetary inflation is high, economic growth is slow, and job creation is low. This epoch of the universe shows the universe beginning to contract in size, much as economists would talk about an economy contracting.
* '''Settling''' (a joke): Thanks to government intervention and quantitative easing of the {{w|cosmological constant}}, or perhaps the judicious use of the Universe Control Panel, the contraction of the universe has halted. Alternately this may be a comparison to how in a package full of smaller items, the contents can "settle" over time so the empty space in between them is more filled in so it takes up less space overall leaving open space at the top (like how a cereal box may say "some settling may occur during shipment" to explain why the box doesn't seem completely full), and is thus claiming that somehow something similar to that decreased the size of the universe.
* '''Rebound''' (a joke): Consumer confidence has returned to the universe and it has begun expanding again. Alternatively, Settling and Rebound could be a reference to crustal rebound as the mere Earth occasionally shrinks and re-expands its surface. After all, Plate Tectonics games are fun when they are played in Real Time.
* '''Someone tripped and accidentally hit the "Inflation" switch again''' (a joke). This switch must be on the Universe Control panel referenced both in [[1620: Christmas Settings]] and in [[1763: Catcalling]].
* '''Emergency Stop triggered''' (a joke). Also on the Universe Control panel see previous entry.
* '''{{w|Timeline_of_epochs_in_cosmology#Galaxy_epoch|Galaxies form}}''' (12.8 Gya)
* '''{{w|Formation_and_evolution_of_the_Solar_System#Formation_of_the_planets|Earth forms}}''' (4.5 Gya)
* '''Present day'''
* '''Future cosmological development handed over to {{w|J.J. Abrams}}, outcome unknown''' (a joke): J.J. Abrams is a science-fiction writer and filmmaker. If he were in charge of the future development of the cosmos, he might decide to subject all of us to some strange plot twist. Among many other movies, he has directed the 2009 reboot of ''{{w|Star Trek (film)|Star Trek}}'', in which the "future history" of ''Star Trek'' is altered from the timeline of the original series by Nero and Spock traveling backwards in time. He also has directed other "Star" films, including ''{{w|Star Wars: The Force Awakens}}'', and ''{{w|Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker}}'' (to be released a few weeks after the publishing of this comic). He is also involved in the {{w|Mission: Impossible (film series)|Mission: Impossible}} films.
**The dashed lines coming off the end of the timeline represent the possible fates of the universe:
*** The one curving in represents that the universe could stop expanding and begin contracting, resulting in the {{w|Big Crunch}}. In our universe, cosmological measurements have shown that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, so the Big Crunch is considered to be the least likely fate.
*** The second curve continuing the trend from before represents that the universe could settle into thermal equilibrium, which would leave no energy available for any interesting phenomena to occur. This is called the {{w|heat death of the universe}} or "Big Freeze".
*** The fourth curve represents that the universe's expansion will continue accelerating, eventually very rapidly, to the point that the accelerating expansion overcomes all forces between particles, turning the universe into a collection of particles isolated from each other by rapidly-expanding space. This is called the {{w|Big Rip}}.
***In between the second and fourth curve there seems to be something in between where the universe expansion accelerates and then slows down again. We have so far seen the expansion rate decelerate in the early life of the universe where the gravity of the more compact universe slowed the expansion, but then this turned around to an {{w|Timeline_of_epochs_in_cosmology#Acceleration|acceleration}} after about 9 billion years as the distance between galaxy clusters became so large that dark energy became the dominant force, causing the universe expansion to accelerate. So who knows if this could change again... At present our understanding says that the universe expansion-rate will keep accelerating. But left to J. J. Abrams, then the outcome is unknown. These four options represents both what we have theories for and what J. J. might come up with.

==Transcript==
:[A large header is above the main drawing:]
:<big>'''Timeline of the Universe'''</big>

:[The drawing shows a diagram of the evolution of the universe from the Big Bang (left) to the present right with lines indicating possible futures continuing right of the main drawing. The drawing is that of a black horn of plenty, very thin to the left and then it becomes broader, mainly in steps but also slightly between each step. n a few places the diameter decreases a bit. Along the "tube" are segments divided with thin white lines, with about equal distance between them. The first 20 the tube is black, but then stars form, shown as many white dots, and finally in the last 3-4 segments galaxies are shown. At the top and bottom of the opening to the right there are four dashed lines which behaves the same way. Two points inward, two continue the trend from before they begin, two goes out fast again, and then falls back to slow increase, and two goes almost straight up and down. At the far left there is a line going in to a small dot. On the line before the dot are two questions mark. A line points to the dot which has a starburst around it. It represents the Big Bang. After this firs labeled point on the drawing there are mange other labeled sections with a line going from the label to a segment on the drawing. There are 9 above, 9 below and one at each end. The one at the right end pointing to the four dashed future lines at the top. From left to right in the order they are labeled on the timeline, the labels are:]
:??
:Big Bang
:[The Universe comes in as a circle with action lines around it. It stays the same size for a while.]
:Planck Epoch
:Medium Bang
:[The Universe starts inflating very slowly]
:Inflation
:[The Universe briefly inflates very rapidly, and returns to its normal rate of expansion.]
:Quark Epoch
:Lepton Epoch
:Photon Epoch
:Cool Bug Epoch
:[The Universe starts inflating and deflating rapidly, forming a series of bumps in the universe diagram like the grip on a hand tool.]
:Molded grip
:[Stars appear in the timeline. The Universe starts inflating slightly faster than before.]
:Stars form
:Stagflation
:[The Universe starts deflating slowly.]
:Settling
:Rebound
:[The Universe starts inflating slowly again.]
:Someone tripped and accidentally hit the "Inflation" switch again
:[The Universe starts inflating at the same rate as the Inflation section.]
:Emergency Stop triggered
:[The Universe abruptly stops inflating, and stays level.]
:[Galaxies appear in the timeline. The Universe starts inflating at a medium pace.]
:Galaxies form
:Earth forms
:Present day
:[We see the edge of the Universe, with a rounded shape. Various dotted line predictions are on the edges.]
:Future Cosmological development handed over to J.J. Abrams, outcome unknown

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Timelines]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Animals]] 
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]

2007: Brookhaven RHIC

2018-06-15T15:40:03Z

162.158.74.63: Initial edit, just a brief explanation

{{comic
| number = 2007
| date = June 15, 2018
| title = Brookhaven RHIC
| image = brookhaven_rhic.png
| titletext = "Buddy, you trying to pull something? I can't buy this gold--all the electrons are missing. I could face serious charges!"
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a CASH FOR GOLD SALESMAN - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
The {{w|Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider}} is a particle accelerator designed to collide gold ions together at incredibly high speeds. This is normally done to study particle physics - the high-energy collisions allow us to learn more about how subatomic particles behave.

Randall proposes that, instead of using the beam of gold ions for particle collisions, it should be diverted and sold at cash-for-gold stores to make money. However, it would be very difficult to sell a beam of charged particles. The amount of gold involved is microscopic, and since the particle beam is moving at relativistic speeds, it wouldn't stay in the shop long enough to make a sale. It would also be very dangerous. This is probably why Brookhaven rejected Randall's proposal. Randall has done many comics describing impractical research proposals.

The title text imagines the owner of the stores complaining about the sale, not because of impracticality, but because Randall is selling gold ions (the positively-charged nucleus of the gold atom) instead of normal, electrically neutral gold atoms. This is a pun on the word "charges", which could refer to {{w|electric charge}} or to {{w|criminal charge|criminal charges}}.
==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:1950: Chicken Pox and Name Statistics

2018-02-05T20:59:00Z

162.158.74.63:

I think Randall missed an opportunity to do another “make you feel old” joke here, perhaps something like “if your age isn’t on the chart, your doctors probably still thought chicken pox was caused by imbalanced humors or angry gods” or something. [[User:PotatoGod|PotatoGod]] ([[User talk:PotatoGod|talk]]) 15:24, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Shouldn't the vaccine note have been placed at age 23, not 28, if the vaccine was introduced in 1995? [[User:Rockcell|Rockcell]] ([[User talk:Rockcell|talk]]) 15:28, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
:When do children get their first smallpox vaccine? If that's around three that might be one explanation for the position of the note. Also the vaccine wasn't only used on children born after its introduction, kids that were already a few years old but never had smallpox could still have gotten their shots. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.220|108.162.229.220]] 15:52, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

This isn't *smallpox*. Smallpox was eliminated in the middle of the 20th century, so it's weird if anyone gets it. Also: my understanding is that most people who got smallpox died before they got to be old enough to be on any of those graphs.

I found the top graph very hard to interpret, so I've included my interpretation here for posterity: If you are 35 years old, then you were a young child before the vaccine was introduced and probably 100% of the people you knew as a child got chicken pox. If you are 20-25 years old, there's a 50-50 chance that you got the vaccine and, as a result, about 50% of the people you knew as a child got chicken pox. If you are 10 years old, then you more than likely got the vaccine and have a low probably of getting chicken pox. If you are under 5, you probably don't know many other kids. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.39|162.158.62.39]] 17:03, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

: We are so used to reading graphs from left to right that this graph, with the inverse time line (current age) and the introduction of vaccines marked, seems to indicate that everyone had chicken pox after the vaccine was introduced, but that it was fairly rare before that. So this might be a stab at the antivaxx movement as well, and their use of warped statistics. [[User:Torax|Torax]] ([[User talk:Torax|talk]]) 11:36, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

Wait, this has nothing to do with confusing correlation with causation, right? The assumption is simply that if most of the kids your age got chicken pox, which is likely if you have certain names, you will consider chicken pox to be normal and common, which seems like a reasonable claim. On the other hand, if the comic hadn't said that, the implication would be that people with certain names cause chicken pox, which would be confusing correlation with causation. -[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.16|108.162.219.16]] 17:17, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

:I agree, that’s how I interpreted the comic as well [[User:PotatoGod|PotatoGod]] ([[User talk:PotatoGod|talk]]) 18:15, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

:I also agree, if anything this is doing the opposite and assuming no underlying causality between names and chickenpox likelihood, so that the people who get chickenpox at any given time should be distributed randomly amongst all names at prevalent at that time.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.184|162.158.78.184]] 19:06, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

:Basically, what he's describing is a two-step correlation (of which only the second one seems causal to me, but this is debatable). First, your first name and its popularity in particular eras leads to an estimation of your age/year of birth. Second, your year of birth and the prevalence of chicken pox shortly after this year will influence whether you think chicken pox is normal. --[[User:IByte|IByte]] ([[User talk:IByte|talk]]) 23:14, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

People with all six of those names probably think "Why do I have no less than six names?" --[[User:IByte|IByte]] ([[User talk:IByte|talk]]) 23:17, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

It would be considerably weirder if we didn't have teeth. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.25.106|172.68.25.106]] 11:39, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

: I disagree. [[User:Trevor|Trevor]] ([[User talk:Trevor|talk]]) 00:37, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

I thought the joke was that fewer people who have a rare name get chicken pox than those with a common name, therefore people with said rare name must be resistant. --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.167|172.69.33.167]] 12:41, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

I'm 30 and looking at my high school yearbook there was 1 Logan, 2 Brians, and 5 Sarahs. None of the other names appear. That makes the 2nd graph pretty accurate. However, I managed to avoid the chicken pox, so I got the vaccine when I was 12.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.40|108.162.237.40]] 15:41, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

There was an opportunity for 'old' names that have come back into common use, like, I dunno, 'Mabel', 'Eva', or 'Emmett', where you're likely to be either below 10 or over 70 years old. What percentage of Mabels remember polio, for example?[[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.63|162.158.74.63]] 20:59, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

== Logan ==

Logan becomes less popular at age 30. Coincidence? --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.10|162.158.126.10]] 19:09, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
: That just means that Logan started getting popular as a name about 30 years ago. So maybe their parents grew up watching X-Men cartoons on TV in the late 1970's through the 1980's? [[User:Nutster|Nutster]] ([[User talk:Nutster|talk]]) 20:40, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
:: I’m pretty sure the above was referencing the “Logan’s Run” and “Logan’s World” TV series and books, not X-men. It was meant as a joke.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.16|162.158.78.16]] 04:54, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

== Grammar ==

OK. Grammar check now. How many people actually have all six of these names? Can't be too many of them.
And is it only men who have this issue?
:Statistically... None. So there's your unique new baby name! [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 22:42, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

If you were to compare the top 1000 'male' and 'female' given (first) names in the USA, you'd see a number of cross-overs (such as Mary on the male list, Robert on the female list). [http://names.mongabay.com Most Common First Names and Last Names in the U.S.] [[User:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For]] ([[User talk:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|talk]]) 02:32, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Another grammar check: I'm struggling to understand "fraction of kids my age". My age is 41; there are no kids my age, only adults.
: But those people age 41 now where kids around 40 years ago. [[User:LordHorst|LordHorst]] ([[User talk:LordHorst|talk]]) 08:20, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
: Isn't everybody someone's kid? Or is there a distinction between "kid" and "child" in such kind that the former addresses small humans of young age whereas the latter describes people who are descendants from someone else? I always assumed "kid" was just informal (or maybe an American English thing?). I don't know - I'm no native speaker and in German language both is "Kind" [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 11:56, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

== Chickenpox Parties ==

As a parent with five children born between 1980 and 1988 before the chickenpox vaccine was available, I recall a phenomena called ''Chickenpox Parties''. If you had a preschooler and heard about a neighbor's child who had the chickenpox, you would arrange a playdate with sick child so that your child would catch the disease young and then be ''inoculated'' against catching it later when it was believed to have worse prognosis. Apparently this is no longer in fashion. See this article [https://www.parents.com/health/vaccines/chicken-pox/chickenpox-parties/] So the joke could be rewritten, "People named 'Sarah' and 'Brian' are more likely to have been invited to a chickenpox party than people named 'Logan' and 'Harper'." P.S. one of my 5 is named Sarah and none are named Logan or Harper. [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 13:44, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

== What's the new disease? ==

I'm 30, and absolutely everyone I knew eventually caught chickenpox (and then I even caught shingles, as a statistically improbable teenager). I even have a small scar/blemish from it on my torso. The idea that it's been practically eliminated is fantastic. What diseases do parents worry about these days? --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.141.196|172.68.141.196]] 21:32, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
: A.I.D.S., maybe? *wink* [[Special:Contributions/172.68.143.48|172.68.143.48]] 23:57, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
: Unfortunately too many parents worry about autism from vaccines, despite there being no indication of any risk what so ever. So in some areas these diseases are making a come back. [[User:Torax|Torax]] ([[User talk:Torax|talk]]) 16:12, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

1901: Logical

2017-10-11T16:20:52Z

162.158.74.63: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1901
| date = October 11, 2017
| title = Logical
| image = logical.png
| titletext = It's like I've always said--people just need more common sense. But not the kind of common sense that lets them figure out that they're being condescended to by someone who thinks they're stupid, because then I'll be in trouble.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Needs more.}}

White Hat says that problems in society could be avoided if people relied on logic and science rather than feelings -- but when Cueball presses him to back up his claim, White Hat insists that what his claim must be true, because it ''feels'' true, and the opposition (which he dismissively refers to as "these idiots") believes in things that he doesn't believe. Because the comic is only one panel long, we have no way of determining whether White Hat's statement is self-evident, or if the opposition is as uneducated as he claims them to be; without surrounding context to distract us, we see that White Hat's argument is both fallacious and hypocritical.

The title text is White Hat's opinion, where he says that people need more common sense, but not enough to have them know when he is talking down to them.

==Transcript==

:White Hat: We wouldn't have all these problems if people just learned to be more ''logical'' and ''science-driven'' instead of relying on ''feelings''.
:Cueball: Oh? What study are you basing that on?
:White Hat: It just seems obvious!
:White Hat: I mean, look at the crap these idiots believe!

:Title Text: It's like I've always said--people just need more common sense. But not the kind of common sense that lets them figure out that they're being condescended to by someone who thinks they're stupid, because then I'll be in trouble.

{{comic discussion}}