explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2172: Lunar Cycles

2019-07-06T10:28:10Z

162.158.92.172: add note about sun-moon relative apparent size, more info needed but it's a start

{{comic
| number = 2172
| date = July 5, 2019
| title = Lunar Cycles
| image = lunar_cycles.png
| titletext = The Antikythera mechanism had a whole set of gears specifically to track the cyclic popularity of skinny jeans and low-rise waists.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a MOONBOT. Joke cycle explanations need to be expanded and title text needs to be explained. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic shows a mixture of real, scientific lunar cycles and cycles that are comedic or fictional in nature.

*'''Nodal precession:''' The comic shows that the moon's {{w|nodal precession}} follows an 18.6 year cycle. This is true. What this means is that the points in its orbit where the moon crosses the equator (called the ascending and descending nodes) move westward, taking just over 18.6 years to complete a 360-degree cycle.

*'''Apsidal precession:''' The comic shows that the moon's apsidal precession follows an 8.9 year cycle. This is true. What this means is that the major axis of the moon's orbit - the line between the periapsis (nearest point) and apoapsis (furthest point from Earth) of its orbit - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_precession precesses] eastward, taking about 8.9 years to complete a 360-degree cycle.

*'''Phase:''' The comic also shows that phase has a 29.5 day cycle. This is true. This is the synodic month. Because the lunar cycle is based on how the sun's light shines on the moon as seen from earth, it is determined by the relative positions of the earth, moon, and sun. Because the earth has moved, very roughly, 1/12 of the way around the sun during a lunar month, it takes extra time for the moon to reach the point where it is is fully lit again, so this is longer than a sidereal month. A synodic month, or the time from one full moon to another, is about 29.5 days as stated.

*'''Distance:''' The comic shows that distance has a 27.5 day cycle. This is true. A sidereal month, which is essentially the time it takes the moon to go around the earth, is approximately this length (although the mean time for a sidereal month may be closer to 27.3 days). Because the moon's orbit around the earth is elliptical and not perfectly circular, with a periapsis of about 362600 km earth-moon distance and an apoapsis of about 405400 km earth-moon distance, the distance to the moon essentially follows this cycle with times of peak distance about 27 and a half days apart.

*'''Earth-Moon relative size''': The idea that there is a cycle in which the moon becomes larger than the earth is a joke. However, Sun-Moon Relative Apparent Size would be a real thing, with there being times when the sun appears bigger and times when the moon does.

*'''Lunar shape:''' The idea that there is a cycle in which the moon becomes a square and then a circle again is a joke. Mathematically these shapes between a circle and square are a subclass of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superellipse superellipses] called [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squircle squircles].

*'''Lunar mood:''' The idea that there is a cycle in which the moon becomes happy, then neutral, then upset, then neutral is a joke. Ironically, the section of the graph that shows a good (i.e. happy) mood has the graph line curving up then down like the mouth of a frown, and for the bad (unhappy) mood it curves down and then up, as in the mouth of a smile.

*The final image shows many different cycles superimposed on each other.
**'''Supermoon:''' see [[1394:_Superm*n]].
**'''Super blood moon:''' a blood moon refers to the moon during a lunar eclipse.
**While the popularity of '''skinny jeans''' does change over time, the idea that this is connected to a lunar cycle is also a joke.
*The '''{{w|Antikythera_mechanism|Antikythera mechanism}}''' mentioned in the title text is an ancient Greek machine, rediscovered in 1901, designed to calculate astronomical positions.

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

:Understanding lunar cycles

:Nodal precession
:[A diagram showing a broad cosine-like wave with wavelength labelled as 18.6 years. To the right are two diagrams showing an orbital cycle moving in and out of plane.]

:Apsidal precession
:[A diagram similar to the one above but with a slightly shorter wavelength, labelled as 8.9 years. To the right are two diagrams showing an elliptical orbit around a planet and the same orbit rotated.]

:Phase
:[A diagram similar to those above with a shorter wavelength, labelled as 29.5 days. To the right is a diagram showing four phases of the moon: New, Waxing crescent, Waxinf gibbos, Full.]

:Distance
:[A diagram similar to those above with a shorter wavelength, labelled as 27.5 days. To the right is a diagram showing the distance of the moon from the Earth over time, with distances marked by arrows.]

:Earth-Moon relative size
:[A wave with long wavelength with an arrow pointing to the minimum labelled 'Earth bigger' and an arrow pointing to the maximum labelled 'Moon bigger'. To the right are two diagrams of the moon and Earth, one showing the Earth bigger than the Moon and the other showing the Moon bigger than the Earth.]

:Lunar shape
:[A wave with long wavelength with an arrow pointing to the minimum labelled 'Circle' and an arrow pointing to the maximum labelled 'Square'. To the right is a diagram showing a circle, a circle transforming into a square with outward arrows at each corner and a square transforming into a circle with inward arrows.]

:Lunar mood
:[A wave with long wavelength with an arrow pointing to the minimum labelled 'Bad' and an arrow pointing to the maximum labelled 'Good'. To the right are four emojis: :), :|, :(, :|]

:[A superimposed graph of all the above waves. Different points on the graph are labelled: Harvest moon, Supermoon, Blue moon, Skinny Jeans popular, Super blood moon, Golden age of TV, Dire moon, Pork moon, Two week window in which astrology works, Total eclipse of the sea.]

{{comic discussion}}

1925: Self-Driving Car Milestones

2017-12-07T01:49:30Z

162.158.92.172: Added reference to previous comic for the honk if ... and removed quite speculative sentence about boolean satisfiability.

{{comic
| number = 1925
| date = December 6, 2017
| title = Self-Driving Car Milestones
| image = self_driving_car_milestones.png
| titletext = I'm working on a car capable of evaluating arbitrarily complex boolean expressions on "honk if [...]" bumper stickers and responding accordingly.
}}

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

This comic is a list of milestones for self-driving cars. Some have already been achieved, others are still being worked on, while others are facetious "milestones".

* Automatic emergency brakes: this is another reference to how hard it can be to program human-obvious stuff (like in [[1425: Tasks]]). A self driving car has to be able to distinguish a danger (cliff, person on foot, other cars coming the wrong way/doing weird stuff) from either the side of the road, the background, the other cars or even a light pole safely standing on the side of the road. Then the car also has to decide whether turn around, just slow down (as danger is not imminent) or actually do the strong brake (and optimally decide what would be the most effective, taking into account weather conditions, road type and traffic). There are big potential advantages for self driving cars, in case of success: computers don't panic, would have faster reaction times than humans, and would have {{w|Autonomous_car#Safety|more reliable judgment than humans}}.

* Highway lane-keeping: sometimes, especially on highways where road delimitations might be [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/11/Route_66_2073773569_7b3fae3b91_b.jpg/220px-Route_66_2073773569_7b3fae3b91_b.jpg faint or absent] or when lane markings could have faded away, a self driving car programmed to pilot based on road markings would have issues holding to the good side of the road. This is a bigger problem than in cities as cars move faster on highways, so the danger detection mentioned above might not manage to detect danger in time while breaking or avoiding the obstacle needs to be anticipated much more.

* Self-parking: already implemented in recent normal cars, that feature is important for the car not to stay in the road after use, and is sometimes considered as a difficult maneuver by to-be-drivers as it requires a good "feeling" of the car dimensions, as well as of distances and maneuverability of the car. (the latter parameters being easy to compute, with radar and back-camera aide, is made rather easy for computers)

* Full highway autonomy: the ability for a car to drive itself on a highway. As of 2017, there are [http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a13615577/self-driving-cars-lane-wisconsin/ plans] under consideration to set highway lanes aside for self-driving cars, but this milestone would require such a car to be able to operate on a highway that also has human-driven cars—as well as wildlife, pedestrians, debris, and other such obstacles should they enter the highway.

* First sex in a self-driving car: this is not a milestone for the cars themselves, but just the age-old practice of having sex in cars, performed in a car that happens to be self-driving. Whether or not this would happen while the car is in motion (other than that induced by the passengers) or on a public road is not specified, though both are implied. Given the nature of human sexuality, it is possible this has already happened, but there has not been a public documentation of this milestone.

* Full trips with no input from driver: the main point of self-driving cars, allowing all humans within to act as passengers. As of 2017, self-driving cars require a human to be able to take over just in case, but any such trip where the human never actually took control would qualify for this milestone.

* Full trips by empty cars: a more severe version of the above, since with no humans present, no human can take control. This could be considered fulfilled by the {{w|DARPA Grand Challenge}}, as the challenges are racing competitions of autonomous cars with no humans on board.

* Self-refueling of empty cars: this would either require a robotic fuel station (thus, able to refuel cars with humans inside as well), or an ordinary full-service fuel station (that is, one where the station's employee performs the refueling of the car) that happens to service a self-driving car with no humans aboard (which could be arranged as a publicity stunt).

* An empty car wandering the highways for months or years until someone notices the credit card fuel charges: the first completely facetious milestone of the list (since "first sex", despite having little to do with self-driving cars, has possibly happened). Cars are expensive enough that, were one to drive itself off and wander, some effort would be made to track it down. As this would require the self-refueling milestone, local fuel stations could be alerted to look for the "rogue" car—and in any case, whatever payment method is used to pay for the fuel would be traced.

* Cars that read other cars' bumper stickers before deciding whether to cut them off: another facetious milestone, implying self-driving cars might obtain artificial intelligence and opinions that might override safety and efficiency of transit, so this seems unlikely to actually happen.

* Autonomous engine revving at red lights: mimicking the human practice. This has probably been done for show at a race, but that is a robot following a programmed routine that has nothing directly to do with self-driving.

* Self-loathing cars: this would require cars to become sentient enough to understand, and have negative opinions about, themselves. Depending on one's definition, though, self-diagnostic software might qualify, as they would be running on a car's computer and express a negative opinion about the car (albeit limited to the context of the car needing maintenance).

* Autonomous canyon jumping: although it seems unlikely that a navigation routine would ever decide that jumping a canyon is part of an optimal route, a car could be programmed to jump a canyon as part of a stunt or show, with no human driver (or any other human aboard) at the time of the jump. It is questionable how "autonomous" such a car would be, though. Could also be a reference to the next point, with another popular setting in below mentioned discussions: "should a self-driving car leave the road and drive into a canyon, which will kill the driver (and passengers?), or stay on the road and kill others?". Possibly a reference to [https://electrek.co/2017/04/19/tesla-model-s-crash-cliff-save-life/ when a Tesla was driven off a cliff] and the driver and his passenger survived without injury.

* Cars capable of arguing about the trolley problem on {{w|Facebook}}: the {{w|Trolley problem}} is a well-known thought experiment in ethics, in which a person must choose between passively allowing several people to die, or actively causing a single person to die. Such a choice could plausibly be forced on the computer of self-driving car. For example, if the car could avoid a high-speed collision only by running down a pedestrian.

* The title text talks about evaluating arbitrarily complex Boolean expressions on "honk if [...]" bumper stickers and responding accordingly (title text): as with the cut-off milestone, this implies development of artificial intelligence unrelated to the basic functions of a car, though still imitating human drivers' behavior. This a joke is a reference to [https://xkcd.com/1033/ a previous comic about honking and formal logic].

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

:Upcoming and recently-achieved
:'''Self-driving car milestones'''

:* Automatic emergency braking
:* Highway lane-keeping
:* Self-parking
:* Full highway autonomy
:* First sex in a self-driving car
:* Full trips with no input from driver
:* Full trips by empty cars
:* An empty car wandering the highways for months or years until someone notices the credit card fuel charges
:* Cars that read other cars' bumper stickers before deciding whether to cut them off
:* Autonomous engine revving at red lights
:* Self-loathing cars
:* Autonomous canyon jumping
:* Cars capable of arguing about the trolley problem on Facebook

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Self-driving cars]]

Talk:1871: Bun Alert

2017-08-07T16:09:08Z

162.158.92.172: Added comment

I think it's about Ponytail realizing she's opened a can of worms in that she was the one who taught these people about the bun, and now everyone's infatuated with them. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.52|108.162.249.52]] 00:53, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

This is basically the title text from 1682. Is it just me, or has Randall been running out of ideas lately? [[User:Jaalenja|Jaalenja]] ([[User talk:Jaalenja|talk]]) 13:31, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
:In all fairness, Randall has been known to play the long game. There might be a thread to pull here. {{unsigned ip|172.68.143.186|13:44, 2 August 2017‎ (UTC)}}
::Yea, Randall has built on earlier ideas before. E.g. 1818 being built on an idea from What-If 141. It's non-indicative of a lack of ideas. But the notion that ideas are a finite resource is silly anyways. Watch the talk he gave at Google in 2007, it's on YouTube, and there's a bit in there where he talks about how he comes up with his comics. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.35|108.162.238.35]] 13:49, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
No idea why he's picked bunnies specifically, maybe that will become apparent in a future strip. Considering just this standalone comic, it seems to be a parody of apps that increasingly swamp the user with notifications about pointless things that one might imagine nobody would ever care about. In this instance, it might be imagined that few people would care about notifications for bunny sightings, but in the last pane it appears that someone truly does. This might compare with notifications for rare pokemon sightings in Pokémon Go (not provided in-app but there are groups on facebook etc. that alert users to rare pokemon / legendary raids) - with the difference that bunnies are extremely common. Also, is it significant that he specifically uses the word "buns" instead of "bunnies"? There may be a connection with the observation that they are just like little hopping loaves of bread.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.208|141.101.98.208]] 14:45, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
:I mean, that's pretty much what twitter is for.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.190|162.158.134.190]] 15:11, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
:Cf. memes such as "anatomy of the bun". [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.35|108.162.238.35]] 19:37, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
:Agree with the idea that it may be reference to people overreacting to trivial things and using technology to alert others about it e.g. Starbucks unicorn locations, PokemonGo, etc. No idea about the title text though, he is basically saying people may be alerted at night? Maybe some recent trend that focuses on night gatherings? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.47.72|172.68.47.72]] 20:58, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

I think this may just be an extended example of dadaism. If he carries on with the theme I think it is as likely to make less sense as it is to make more sense. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.58.189|162.158.58.189]] 15:12, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
:+1 Dada hypothesis. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.178.147|162.158.178.147]] 06:33, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Beret Guy's comment about investors and building the alert system could be a reference to [[1493: Meeting]]. Is the "loaves of bread that hop" line just a pun on the word "bun"? Is "Night Buns" a reference to something? --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.46.41|172.68.46.41]] 20:13, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

WARNING: your captchas aren't working well at all. In firefox your captcha gets crushed somehow underneath the formatting tools bar where you can do text entry when editing. I was only able to pass the captcha and get this comment posted by viewing the html source of the webpage and tracking what link the captcha was supposed to go to. I suggest you try setting up some sort of formatting on the webpage to place the captcha elsewhere on the page one sees after editing a comment-box/wiki-like page. Thanks[[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.91|162.158.154.91]] 23:25, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
:They also disappear entirely if you try to log in with HTTPS (and Firefox rightfully shows a warning when you use regular HTTP). [[User:Honnza|Honnza]] ([[User talk:Honnza|talk]]) 02:40, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Just checked out that captcha problem since I never noticed it at work where I cant log in and now here at home the captcha is showing fine nothing hidden or combined with the format bar or the comment box this on Firefox 54.0.1 (64-Bit) current window size 1279x929 [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.28|108.162.219.28]] 01:20, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

I believe with each new comic I am getting lazier and lazier with editing (any editing, old or new comics). Thank God for [[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] and the rest of you. --[[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]] ([[User talk:Lackadaisical|talk]]) 13:12, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
:Thanks for removing this NOT FUNNY ANYMORE ''Citation needed'' templates. And please do not thank God for my few edits, I don't belief in those creatures. My first edit on this comic was more than 24 hours after release and my focus is more about standards. E.g. there is no need to add categories like ''Comics from 2017''... and the trivia is below the transcript.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 18:30, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
:::Maybe the more sporadic customary userbase of this site is a bit less jaded than the top editors. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.25.28|172.68.25.28]] 20:22, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
::::I adore the Citation needed joke, where appropriate, it must refer to a blatantly obvious phenomenon which does not need a citation. Such as, "The sky is blue" or "squirrels way less than a moose," and that statement should flow naturally and not be obviously put in there just to set up the joke. The joke comes from What If? and this seems to be how Randal uses it. --[[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]] ([[User talk:Lackadaisical|talk]]) 22:08, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
::::: I must concur, I love the silly "Citation needed" jokes, they're one of my favourite parts of reading this site! :) Sorry, it's permanently funny. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 03:37, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
:::::My problem with the "joke" is that it always links to the protest comic. In the What-ifs, Randall links to something that looks or sounds vaguely like "citation". [[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.227|108.162.212.227]] 11:55, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
:::::I just realized i spelt "weigh" as "way"--[[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]] ([[User talk:Lackadaisical|talk]]) 12:15, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
:It's a common colloquialism where I'm from, said without religious intentions. I was more commenting on your work on the site rather than this particular comic, though I can see why that may have been confusing. Next time I will reserve praise for your talk page. --[[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]] ([[User talk:Lackadaisical|talk]]) 19:55, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
:: I was raised without religion, only going to churches and whatnot for weddings and such. I firmly consider myself as not having a religion. I feel we'd all be better off without religion (though I recognize people have a right to their religion). But even I have been known to say "thank god". It has become a saying, and it doesn't really have a non-religious equivalent ("thankfully" isn't used the same way, "thankfully for" is grammatically incorrect, "I'm thankful for" feels more wordy and formal). Ignore the religious aspect. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 03:37, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Massachusetts has an informal "French Toast Alert" system for grading winter storms. I wonder if the allusion to alerts about "loaves of bread that hop" could be related to that. [[User:Gmcgath|Gmcgath]] ([[User talk:Gmcgath|talk]]) 00:07, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
: Other people know better than I where Randall lives, but I don't think it's Massachusetts, and this French Toast Alert System (why french toast?) sounds like one of those things only locals know. I think it's just conflating their silly use of "bun" with the normal use of the word. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 03:41, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Is it possible that the line about investors is a dig at startups focused entirely on creating a single app that nobody even needs? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.210|141.101.105.210]] 12:57, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

A little grammar Nazi thing I picked up, in the first panel Ponytail says, "to who" instead of "to whom." [[User:ChromoTec|ChromoTec]] ([[User talk:ChromoTec|talk]]) 15:24, 4 August 2017 (UTC)ChromoTec
:Please enter new comments at the bottom. And as a German I don't like the phrase ''grammar Nazi'' because {{w|Nazi}} means fascism, I'm sure that's not your intention. But you're right, and even not a pedant, because "to whom" sounds much better. Maybe the picture will be updated in the future. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:42, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
:I think that "to who" is pretty much standard, especially in spoken English - e.g. see the "usage" section here [https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/who]. I can't imagine anyone saying "to whom" in normal speech unless they were making a joke, being overly formal. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.92.172|162.158.92.172]] 16:09, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Am I the only dirty old man that thinks that this has to to do with taking pictures of people's behinds - as in "buns of steel" kind of buns? and on alerting friends on social media regarding some particularly picturesque, ahem, tight, small, buns?[[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.216|173.245.50.216]] 02:40, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
:You are surely not the ''only dirty old man'' but gladly Randall is a little bit younger. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:53, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
::I totally missed the bread thing until I read the explanation here. Figured the cartoon was supposed to be some play on callipygian. [Thanks [http://www.gocomics.com/frazz/2003/06/04 Frazz] for adding that word to my vocabulary.] [[Special:Contributions/172.68.141.100|172.68.141.100]] 06:24, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Talk:1377: Fish

2017-03-27T11:38:26Z

162.158.92.172:

I took it to mean that we are the camouflaged fish and the extraterrestrials are the shark. We have been naturally selected to be hard to find through some means, probably by distance from a predator life form or just being tiny, and have thus not encountered any of them. -- [[User:Irino|Irino]] ([[User talk:Irino|talk]]) 06:57, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

So, Fermi's paradox is a good defense for why you caught no fish, even though "there's plenty of fish in the sea." [[Special:Contributions/103.22.201.239|103.22.201.239]] 09:06, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
:Not the Fermi paradox itself, that just questions why we could not find an evidence of extraterrestrial life out there, but this possible explanation of it. There are also other possible explanations, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox#Explaining_the_paradox_hypothetically see Wikipedia] for them. [[User:Sten|'''S<small>TEN</small>''']] <small>([[User talk:Sten|talk]])</small> 15:50, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
:No, but it could explain why I can't find a girlfriend...
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.72|108.162.216.72]] 22:41, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
:: Maybe you just are actually sexually oriented towards guys and don't consciously know it. Wait, is that a possible new explanation for the paradox itself? [[Special:Contributions/103.22.201.239|103.22.201.239]] 04:11, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

The most probable predator to civilizations is another civilization. There may be civilization out there which is so scary everyone is quiet so they don't find him. Wait ... WE may be that civilization. Half of civilization in our galaxy fears the battleships from our sci-fi shows because they thinks they are real and the other half fears that civilization with that kind of shows is going to build real battleships soon.
Ok, seriously, I already commented elsewhere ... we don't have anything so valuable it would be worth the resources needed for sending attack fleet here. We would need to REALLY piss someone off to be attacked. At least ... physically. Hey, those telescopes searching for signals from other civilization ... how good antivirus protection they have? -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 10:22, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

:We don't have anything valuable so long as another civilization doesn't need and earth sized supply of calcium, potassium, sodium, nickle, and iron.--[[User:Bmmarti3|Bmmarti3]] ([[User talk:Bmmarti3|talk]]) 12:34, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

::We do have pet ferrets. They are cute, It is unlikely that there is another source of pet ferrets in the galaxy. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.77|108.162.219.77]] 13:32, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

::They can get all of this closer. In fact, even if they actually arrive in our solar system, mining the asteroid belt would require less resources that bothering with Earth. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 10:21, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

:I've always found this to be terrible logic. In addition to sci-fi, we also broadcast news and documentaries. In addition to fictional triumphs, we also have real-life failures. We've broadcast that funding to NASA has been cut, and how he haven't been farther than the moon in what, 50 years? We have Mythbusters which is constantly debunking stupid stuff that humans believe, and also showing off the limits of our technology in a practical manner. We broadcast war, so they would be able to see just how deadly we actually are. Worst of all, we broadcast Fox News. I don't see aliens fearing us (if they're technologically advanced enough to spy on us without us seeing them), I see them wondering just what the Hell is going on here. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.218|108.162.237.218]] 18:57, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
::This all assumes that they didn't go through their own cultural phases similar to our own. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.218|108.162.237.218]] 18:59, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

:: Maybe they do know about us, but they want us (as a species) to first grow out of our weird adolescent years and crazy ideas before they interact with us. You don't go around inviting random rebellious teenagers to your house for no reason, do you? [[Special:Contributions/103.22.201.225|103.22.201.225]] 06:29, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

::That would be the better reaction for us. The worse reaction, to quote Doctor Who "...There's a horror movie called Alien? That's really offensive! No wonder everyone keeps invading you...". [[Special:Contributions/162.158.92.172|162.158.92.172]] 11:38, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

::They won't have complete annotated list. They will have pieces. They will have hard time understanding our language - or the method we encoded the images with. They don't need to have more advanced technology than we have to spy on us (well ... maybe little). The task of UNDERSTANDING what they received would be the hard one. With the percentage of broadcast occupied with real and fictional wars, it IS possible that only things they decode will make them conclude contacting us might be dangerous. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 10:21, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

:I think that while they would know we are weak, they could fear us because we might someday develop enough technology to become a threat to them. That a civilization might be so paranoid as to attempt to destroy all other instances of intelligent life in the Universe when it finds tham does not seem so far-fetched to me. Of course, such a civilization only needs to fail once to be wiped out, so it's not the greatest survival strategy. -- [[User:Quadibloc|Quadibloc]] ([[User talk:Quadibloc|talk]]) 17:35, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

I think the problem is that traditional SETI methods are of dubious effectiveness at actually detecting radio transmissions from other civilizations due to the low initial power of said transmissions which then only get weaker as they propagate. Switch to our new optical methods of planet detection which have detected scores of planets in just a few years and the "paradox" might need to be reevaluated. Optical detection also makes it doubtful that any civilization would be able to effectively hide. [[User:Sturmovik|Sturmovik]] ([[User talk:Sturmovik|talk]]) 12:45, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

:If we would use our methods of planet detection on our solar system, we would notice Jupiter, Saturn ... and unknown source of radio emission stronger that Sun itself. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 10:21, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

By the way, the Chinese sci-fi writer {{w|Liu Cixin}} has published a {{w|Three Body (science_fiction)|trilogy}} called "Three Body", focusing on this idea (he called it "dark forest"): what if all the visible civilizations have been destroyed? What if revealing your neighbor's location to the universe is similar to the MAD ({{w|Mutual assured destruction}}) situation? The English version should hit the market this year. --[[User:Ent|Ent]] ([[User talk:Ent|talk]]) 15:51, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

This is very similar to a *lot* of SF out there. Pellegrino's "The Killing Star" is one good example (with R-bombing and the problems associated with it), but it's certainly not the only one. Listing some of these might be good. Listing the "Central Park at night" example from "The Killing Star" might be a reasonable addition. [[User:Brdavis|Brdavis]] ([[User talk:Brdavis|talk]]) 16:23, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

The real reason seems clear to me: existence of other life forms in the universe is probabilistically certain, but universe is so huge (in space and time) that we have no hope of reaching it. Regarding "huge in time", for example Mars might have been like nowadays's earth one billion years ago with elaborate civilisations and yet we now struggle to find a trace of life{{Citation needed}}. Regarding "huge in space", no hope of reaching it or even have definite proof of discovery. Or, err. Well, I have not said "never", right ? But the point remains: universe is so huge that a lot of life can be "statistically everywhere" and we just can't see it because its density is too small. Which is another way to say: life most certainly exists on many planets (and other types of systems) yet the fact that we don't detect it easily means that the kind of life we are looking for never had a chance to propagate quickly enough gain enough statistical density to be easily noticed. Compare life with {{w|Cantor Dust}}. [[User:MGitsfullofsheep|MGitsfullofsheep]] ([[User talk:MGitsfullofsheep|talk]]) 10:11, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

But the Jaws theme is missing! I've tried turning the volume way up, reinstalling my sound card, making sure my MIDI drivers are working... [[User:Jorgbrown|Jorgbrown]] ([[User talk:Jorgbrown|talk]]) 23:33, 28 January 2015 (UTC)