explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2478: Alien Visitors 2

2021-06-18T18:31:58Z

172.68.129.132:

Sorry for intruding, I am just delighted that I am early [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.161|162.158.166.161]] 14:02, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

"Maybe we shouldn't stand right under it." This line might (inadvertently?) reference the common alien-movie fail in which massive spacecraft hover at low altitude over human populations without obliterating them and their infrastructure. It might also be bathroom humor. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.129.134|172.68.129.134]] 15:56, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
:I'm with the original explanation. The aliens just don't seem very advanced, so they're worried that the spaceships are poorly constructed and pieces might fall off, or the entire ship might just drop. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 16:19, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
:You are probably correct with respect to Randall's intentions. The situation, though, brings to my mind Turtledove's [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldwar_series Worldwar series], in which "The Race" had very advanced technology (hence little risk of spaceships crashing on their own) but had, at least initially, a poor opinion about human technologies and their advancement. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.129.132|172.68.129.132]] 18:31, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

2468: Inheritance

2021-05-27T02:43:01Z

172.68.129.132: /* Explanation */ previous mention of Agricola

{{comic
| number = 2468
| date = May 26, 2021
| title = Inheritance
| image = inheritance.png
| titletext = People ask me whether I feel any moral qualms about the source of the points, but if he hadn't introduced factory farming to Agricola, someone else would have.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a GRANDMOTHER WRITING HER VICTORY POINT WILL. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic is in reference to {{w|Strategy game|strategy board games}}, which often score players on some type of point system based on a variety of possible achievements. The joke in this comic is that Cueball has a massive sum of points that were not scored in the current game but rather handed down from his grandfather. Board games do not normally include an inheritance from previous sessions{{Citation needed}}, in contrast to real life where some people become wealthy by inheriting vast sums of money from ancestors. Such inheritances tend to lead to 'successes' in life for those who have done little, if anything, to earn their wealth. Cueball offers to distribute a trifling fraction of his points to the other players, teasing them, but he will still have an insurmountable advantage. Despite his 'generosity', no one wants to play a game that they have no chance of winning. The value of his score, 10,019, seems to indicate that he "earned" 19 points during the course of the game (less than his competitors) and then added 10,000 from his 'inheritance'.

Some board games do include a "legacy" mechanic where players who have played the game previously (and thus benefit from meta knowledge) can be granted additional items or challenges to keep the game interesting for them, but not usually to the point of breaking the game's balance. As well, gifting these achievements to anyone else is seen as absurd.

See also the '[https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/a-small-loan-of-a-million-dollars Small Loan of a Million Dollars]' trope of a profile in which the author or subject discusses the simple tricks they used to retire early or buy a house, often involving a hurried admission of financial assistance from a family.

The title text asks Cueball if he has any moral qualms over the source of these points, then indicates his grandfather's fortune was made through {{w|factory farming}} in the farm-themed board game {{w|Agricola_(board_game)|''Agricola''}}. Factory farming is sometimes brought up as immoral. Unlike the real world, in a board game, you cannot simply invent something and make money (or points) from it. Large fortunes in real life are sometimes created, grown, and protected by immoral actions, creating an ethical dilemma for those who inherit them.

It could also be a reference to inheritance in programming, where a class truly inherits everything from its 'ancestors'. The game Agricola was previously mentioned in [[778: Scheduling]].

==Transcript==

:[Ponytail, White Hat, Megan, and Cueball are playing a board game. There are drinks on the table. Ponytail is writing something]

:Ponytail: Let's see...I got 31, you have 28, 35 for you, and-
:Cueball: -I've got 10,019.
:Ponytail: *Sigh*
:Cueball: Hey, add another 20 to everyone, on me!
:White Hat: ''I hate this''.

:[Caption beneath the panel:]
:No one wants to play board games with me ever since I inherited 4,000,000 victory points from my grandfather.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Board games]]

Talk:2468: Inheritance

2021-05-26T18:50:12Z

172.68.129.132:

Does anyone feel this is kind of a reference to feudalism?
:Seems more like commentary on modern-day capitalism, particularly in the US with increasing inequality and more and more inherited wealth. Randall seems more comfortable with social commentary in recent years.[[User:DKMell|DKMell]] ([[User talk:DKMell|talk]]) 18:41, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
:In 2019 and 2020, the [https://www.edelman.com/trust Edelman Trust Barometer] cited CEOs as the most trusted persons globally. Your company is your castle, with its leader your Lord. That trust collapsed per the 2021 Barometer, so just maybe resistance is not feudal.[[Special:Contributions/172.68.129.132|172.68.129.132]] 18:50, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Might be related to the rise of legacy board games, in which outcomes of prior matches influence future games. Usually, those have a limited number of plays and they are designed such that prior winner's don't have too much of an advantage in future games. But one could imagine a game that, (if it has no limit to the number of plays), after being played for generations gives a significant advantage to whomever inherited a specific character/player role. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.94.234|162.158.94.234]] 14:21, 26 May 2021 (UTC) Tobl

Obligatory reminder to everybody that (1) life is not a competition and (2) money is not "victory points". There are ways to cynically portray these things as such, but fully buying into this paradigm inevitably results in profound unhappiness. mezimm [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.178|172.69.71.178]] 14:54, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

This one was pretty early... maybe Randall’s getting back to schedule? --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.132.119|172.68.132.119]] 15:14, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Anyone notice anything special about 4000000 and 10019, also what is arigola

:Agricola is a board game [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricola_(board_game) LINK] [[Special:Contributions/172.68.102.194|172.68.102.194]] 15:37, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

:I'm thinking 10019 means Cueball allocated 10000 points from his inheritance, then earned 19 through the course of the game. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.142.160|162.158.142.160]] 16:44, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

: Can someone create a [[:Category:Board Games]]? [[:Category:Chess]] should be subcategory of this category, and this comic, and [[1566: Board Game]], [[492: Scrabble]], [[839: Explorers]], [[778: Scheduling]], [[738: Incision]] can be added to it. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.35.39|172.69.35.39]] 18:48, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

2466: In Your Classroom

2021-05-22T17:34:09Z

172.68.129.132:

{{comic
| number = 2466
| date = May 21, 2021
| title = In Your Classroom
| image = in_your_classroom.png
| titletext = Ontology is way off to the left and geography is way off to the right.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a QUASAR IN YOUR CLASSROOM. The table is still a work in progress. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Randall has created a thought experiment and corresponding chart about school courses. The idea is, "the subject of the class appears in the classroom" and the chart compares how dangerous and how unusual that would be.

{| class="wikitable"
|+Breakdown of Subjects
|-
!Course Topic
!Weirdness
!Danger
!Explanation
|-

!scope=row|Atmospheric Physics
|0%
|0%
|The presence of atmosphere in the classroom is quite common, as humans require the presence of an atmosphere to remain alive, and cannot learn while dead.{{Citation needed}}
|-

!scope=row|Ethics
|25%
|0%
|Ethical thinking and behavior are widely considered good and should normally be present in education, but are sadly not universal.
|-

!scope=row|Education
|0%
|10%
|Learning usually goes on in classrooms, so education as a concept is both being learned about and present in the form of learning itself.
|-

!scope=row|Bibliography
|25%
|7%
|Bibliography is the study of books, and books are normally present in classrooms, particularly bibliography classrooms.
|-

!scope=row|Human Physiology
|0%
|20%
|This comic assumes that there are humans learning in the classroom, which was true at the time this comic was published, although in many places at the time the comic was published, many classrooms were closed due to COVID-19 restrictions. Additionally, as of 2038 the Earth has been overtaken and education is forbidden for mere mortals.{{Actual citation needed}}
|-

!scope=row|Public Speaking
|25%
|15%
|Some classes require students to present things in front of the class, which is likely a requirement in a public speaking class. Thus, public speaking itself would be present in the class.
Some classes also have a teacher talking or presenting to the students from the front of the class, another form of public speaking.
|-

!scope=row|Architecture
|0%
|30%
|All buildings can be considered architecture, and most classes take place in buildings. This comic also refers to a class''room'', which is a room, and therefore considered architecture.
|-

!scope=row|Library Science
|25%
|25%
|Library science is concerned with the organization of knowledge, and is useful for finding information. Many classes require research papers that require the use of books and other sources of information to complete them. This would be even more appropriate for a class actually taught in the school library.
|-

!scope=row|Furniture Design
|0%
|40%
|Most rooms have furniture,{{Citation needed}} so this would probably be present in a classroom
|-

!scope=row|Culinary Arts
|40%
|30%
|Most studies of culinary arts include the teacher and/or students preparing food using the tools and/or techniques that have been taught, so it would be fairly normal for food to be a result of classroom activities. How ''good'' it is, however, can be a mixed bag, especially for student cooking attempts.
|-

!scope=row|Ergonomics
|5%
|45%
|Ergonomic equipment and workspaces promote comfort and efficiency, while non-ergonomic ones may be unpleasant, unhealthy, or even immediately dangerous.
|-

!scope=row|Botany
|40%
|40%
|The near-neutral position of Botany (aka Plant Biology) obscures a wide range of possible outcomes, from the banal to the malignant. A teacher might have brought in a potted plant for decoration or show-n-tell, which would have zero weirdness and (if a non-allergenic species) zero danger. Or, a tree might have fallen through the roof, highly dangerous and weird, especially if it occurred during calm weather (weather likely to result in trees falling would probably have closed the school prior to treefall). This assumes that the event involves a vegetable and not an element of consumerism or purchasing.
|-

!scope=row|20th Century Authors
|65%
|10%
|A literature class would, normally, benefit greatly from an open discussion or interview with the author himself. Sadly such things are rare. Authors who were published in the 20th century would mostly be in retirement age in 2021, so securing an interview with them could be somewhat difficult.
|-

!scope=row|Exobiology
|100%
|0%
|Exobiology is the study of extraterrestrial life. This would mean that an alien life-form was in the classroom.
|-

!scope=row|21st Century Authors
|60%
|20%
|21st century authors have the advantage (over 19th and 20th century authors) of being alive and active at the time this comic was published. However, few of those born during the century have had time to achieve professional success, while those who have published in the 21st century mostly await final literary judgement on their work. Those authors with sufficient notoriety to be welcome in a classroom might charge appearance fees that schools cannot afford, and might, regardless of money, only agree to appear via virtual conference - hence, an elevated weirdness score. Dangers of an actual physical appearance include COVID risk and possible clashes between an author's activist stance and school policies.
|-

!scope=row|19th Century Authors
|100%
|15%
|Like other authors, the class would benefit from having an actual author show up, but this would be extremely weird since no 19th century author is still alive.{{Citation needed}}
|-

!scope=row|Paleontology
|100%
|25%
|Paleontology is the study of fossils. It would be normal to have some fossils in the classroom, so Randall is probably implying the weirdness of finding a live dinosaur.
|-

!scope=row|Robotics
|55%
|30%
|A course on robotics would often be expected to have some form of working models of the robots being discussed.
|-

!scope=row|Martian Soil Chemistry
|100%
|35%
|Martian soil only reaches Earth in small amounts, so it would be unusual to find a meaningful amount anywhere, except Mars.
|-

!scope=row|Tourism
|75%
|40%
|Tourists coming into an active classroom would be quite unusual. It could refer to the students leaving to become tourists in another location.
|-

!scope=row|Child Psychology
|60%
|45%
|Child study is the study of the psychological processes of children and how they differ from those of adults. It could mean one group of children in the class analyzing the behaviour of the other group and vice versa, which could mean each student has their own interpretation of the other group's behaviour, or it could mean that the teacher analyses the behaviour of the children and explaining it, which could mean a psychologist has to be involved.
|-

!scope=row|Entomology
|15%
|55%
|Insects in the classroom.
|-

!scope=row|Occupational Therapy
|10%
|62%
|Injury, illness or mental health problem that hinder your participation in life/school. Many students who have significant physical injuries and conditions that require occupational therapy would generally not engage in those activities during a class, although volunteers may be brought in as a demonstration of a particular health problem or method of treatment.
|-

!scope=row|Hydraulic Engineering
|40%
|62%
|Likely in the form of flooding or plumbing problems.
|-

!scope=row|Pest Control
|25%
|70%
|Pests may be naturally present in the building, depending on age and level of maintenance done, so students may get the opportunity to partake in some informal pest-control methods during class (such as killing via blunt-force impact). Professional pest control, however, usually involves using harmful chemicals as a method of mass extermination, limiting the ability of students to observe the process, besides causing unhealthy exposure to large amounts of pesticides. (Although, watching a professional pest controller at work would be an immense boon to students studying the topic).
|-

!scope=row|Foodborne Illness
|15%
|80%
|Sometimes students in a culinary arts class do not properly observe hygiene standards and the food they present would lead to illness in those that consume the food. Thankfully, this is rare if the teacher is paying enough attention to proceedings. Students could also be ill from food eaten outside of class.
|-

!scope=row|Criminal Law
|45%
|85%
|This might happen if a crime occurs in the class.
|-

!scope=row|Physiology of Stress
|0%
|90%
|This would be a sign of stress severe enough to affect bodily functions, likely to an unhealthy extent.
|-

!scope=row|Oncology
|25%
|100%
|Someone in the room likely has cancer.
|-

!scope=row|Ornithology
|60%
|55%
|[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birds_(film) Birds] in the classroom?
|-

!scope=row|Animation
|100%
|56%
|Examples of animated works might be displayed to the students in an animation class. It would be weird for animated characters to appear physically in the classroom instead of being projected on screens.
|-

!scope=row|Petroleum Geology
|65%
|60%
|Crude oil coming up through the floor of the classroom would be ''very'' weird.
|-

!scope=row|Highway Engineering
|75%
|65%
|A highway being built through an active classroom would be very unusual and not that safe.
|-

!scope=row|Toxicology
|55%
|75%
|Most likely, a toxic substance is present in the room. This is not very weird if the room is in a building that has asbestos-containing insulation (typically associated with buildings constructed before the 1990s, although it has not been specifically outlawed) or lead paint (which was fully outlawed in 1978, so any paint must have been applied prior to that date). However, toxic substances are, by definition, unsafe for humans (even students).
|-

!scope=row|Hematology
|75%
|70%
|Hematology is the study of blood. Given that there should be blood in each of the students present{{Citation needed}}, we should probably assume Randall means "large quantities of blood outside of one's body", which would indeed be both bad and weird.
|-

!scope=row|Hostage Negotiation
|70%
|85%
|Reasons as to why there would be hostage negotiations taking place at a school have horrifying implications for the students and teacher.
|-

!scope=row|History of Siege Warfare
|100%
|80%
|This would mean that the students would be trapped in the building until they ran out of resources, possibly dying of thirst and starvation (depending on whether or not the opposing army destroyed the school's water lines).
|-

!scope=row|Trauma Surgery
|55%
|95%
|Trauma surgery is an incredibly painful procedure, and difficult to look at for many. It would undoubtedly be disturbing to the class, especially if the patient was one of them.
|-

!scope=row|Volcanology
|75%
|95%
|Having a live volcano in one's classroom is both very dangerous and very weird. Volcanoes mature over very long time frames, but even the earliest stages are highly disruptive and potentially deadly, as seen in the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Par%C3%ADcutin#Formation 1943 eruption of Paricutín] and the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_lower_Puna_eruption#Eruption 2018 flank eruption of Kilauea]. Note this also applies to [[1611: Baking Soda and Vinegar | baking soda and vinegar volcanoes that are offshoots of much larger vinegar hotspots]].
|-

!scope=row|Quasar Astronomy
|75%
|100%
|Quasars are distant astronomical objects that release large amounts of energy. Not only would the power of a quasar destroy the classroom (as well as the building the classroom is in, the town the school is in, and the entire planet Earth,) quasars are too large to fit inside any known classroom. For example, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ULAS_J1342%2B0928 ULAS J1342+0928] has a mass of 8*10^8 solar masses. This means the event horizon of the black hole is almost 16 AU in radius, and this size does not include the accretion disk.
|-

!scope=row|Ontology (Title Text)
|<0%
|?
|Ontology is the philosophical study of existence and being. Since there must be ''something'' learning in the classroom, it is unsurprising that ontology is a normal subject to appear in the classroom.
|-

!scope=row|Geography (Title Text)
|>100%
|?
|Logistics aside, having a planet's terrain newly appear in one's classroom would almost certainly be a distraction to the learning environment.

|}

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

:[Caption above scatter plot with labeled axes]
:Caption: The thing you study just showed up in your classroom! That's...
:Upper y-axis label: Good
:Lower y-axis label: Bad
:Upper x-axis label: Normal
:Lower x-axis label: Weird

:[First quadrant (left to right, top to bottom):]
:20th century authors
:Exobiology
:21st century authors
:19th century authors
:Robotics
:Paleontology
:Martian soil chemistry
:Child psychology
:Tourism
:[Second quadrant]
:Atmospheric physics
:Ethics
:Education
:Bibliography
:Human physiology
:Public speaking
:Architecture
:Library science
:Furniture design
:Culinary arts
:Ergonomics
:Botany
:[Third quadrant]
:Entomology
:Occupational therapy
:Hydraulic engineering
:Pest control
:Foodborne illness
:Criminal law
:Physiology of stress
:Oncology
:[Fourth quadrant]
:Ornithology
:Animation
:Petroleum geology
:Highway engineering
:Toxicology
:Hematology
:Hostage negotiation
:History of siege warfare
:Trauma surgery
:Volcanology
:Quasar astronomy

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

2466: In Your Classroom

2021-05-22T05:51:24Z

172.68.129.132:

{{comic
| number = 2466
| date = May 21, 2021
| title = In Your Classroom
| image = in_your_classroom.png
| titletext = Ontology is way off to the left and geography is way off to the right.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a QUASAR IN YOUR CLASSROOM. The table is still a work in progress. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Randall has created a thought experiment and corresponding chart about school courses. The idea is, "the subject of the class appears in the classroom" and the chart compares how dangerous and how unusual that would be.

{| class="wikitable"
|+Breakdown of Subjects
|-
!Course Topic
!Weirdness
!Danger
!Explanation
|-

!scope=row|Atmospheric Physics
|0%
|0%
|The presence of atmosphere in the classroom is quite common, as humans require the presence of an atmosphere to remain alive, and cannot learn while dead.{{Citation needed}}
|-

!scope=row|Ethics
|25%
|0%
|Ethical thinking and behavior are widely considered good and should normally be present in education, but are sadly not universal.
|-

!scope=row|Education
|0%
|10%
|Learning usually goes on in classrooms, so education as a concept is both being learned about and present in the form of learning itself.
|-

!scope=row|Bibliography
|25%
|7%
|A bibliography is a list of sources, and students should ideally learn to cite their sources. Presumably, this would be a bibliography at the end of a school paper about bibliographies.
|-

!scope=row|Human Physiology
|0%
|20%
|This comic assumes that there are humans learning in the classroom, which was true at the time this comic was published. However, as of 2038 the Earth has been overtaken and education is forbidden for mere mortals.{{Actual citation needed}}
|-

!scope=row|Public Speaking
|25%
|15%
|Some classes require students to present things in front of the class, which is likely a requirement in a public speaking class. Thus, public speaking itself would be present in the class.
|-

!scope=row|Architecture
|0%
|30%
|All buildings can be considered architecture, and most classes take place in buildings. This comic also refers to a class''room'', which is a room, and therefore considered architecture.
|-

!scope=row|Library Science
|25%
|25%
|Library science is concerned with the organization of knowledge, and is useful for finding information. Many classes require research papers that require the use of books and other sources of information to complete them.
|-

!scope=row|Furniture Design
|0%
|40%
|Most rooms have furniture,{{Citation needed}} so this would probably be present in a classroom
|-

!scope=row|Culinary Arts
|40%
|30%
|
|-

!scope=row|Ergonomics
|5%
|45%
|Ergonomic equipment and workspaces promote comfort and efficiency, while non-ergonomic ones may be unpleasant, unhealthy, or even immediately dangerous.
|-

!scope=row|Botany
|40%
|40%
|The near-neutral position of Botany (aka Plant Biology) obscures a wide range of possible outcomes, from the banal to the malignant. A teacher might have brought in a potted plant for decoration or show-n-tell, which would have zero weirdness and (if a non-allergenic species) zero danger. Or, a tree might have fallen through the roof, highly dangerous and weird, especially if it occurred during calm weather (weather likely to result in trees falling would probably have closed the school prior to treefall). This assumes that the event involves a vegetable and not an element of consumerism or purchasing.
|-

!scope=row|20th Century Authors
|65%
|10%
|A literature class would, normally, benefit greatly from an open discussion or interview with the author himself. Sadly such things are rare. Authors who were published in the 20th century would mostly be in retirement age in 2021, so securing an interview with them could be somewhat difficult.
|-

!scope=row|Exobiology
|100%
|0%
|Exobiology is the study of extraterrestrial life. This would mean that an alien lifeform was in the classroom.
|-

!scope=row|21st Century Authors
|60%
|20%
|21st century authors have the advantage (over 19th and 20th century authors) of being alive and active at the time this comic was published. However, few of those born during the century have had time to achieve professional success, while those who have published in the 21st century mostly await final literary judgement on their work. Those authors with sufficient notoriety to be welcome in a classroom might charge appearance fees that schools cannot afford, and might, regardless of money, only agree to appear via virtual conference - hence, an elevated weirdness score. Dangers of an actual physical appearance include COVID risk and possible clashes between an author's activist stance and school policies.
|-

!scope=row|19th Century Authors
|100%
|15%
|Like other authors, the class would benefit from having an actual author show up, but this would be extremely weird since no 19th century author is still alive.
|-

!scope=row|Paleontology
|100%
|25%
|
|-

!scope=row|Robotics
|55%
|30%
|
|-

!scope=row|Martian Soil Chemistry
|100%
|35%
|Martian soil only reaches Earth in small amounts, so it would be unusual to find a meaningful amount anywhere.
|-

!scope=row|Tourism
|75%
|40%
|
|-

!scope=row|Child Psychology
|60%
|45%
|
|-

!scope=row|Entomology
|15%
|55%
|Insects in the classroom.
|-

!scope=row|Occupational Therapy
|10%
|62%
|
|-

!scope=row|Hydraulic Engineering
|40%
|62%
|Likely in the form of flooding or plumbing problems.
|-

!scope=row|Pest Control
|25%
|70%
|
|-

!scope=row|Foodborne Illness
|15%
|80%
|
|-

!scope=row|Criminal Law
|45%
|85%
|
|-

!scope=row|Physiology of Stress
|0%
|90%
|This would be a sign of stress severe enough to affect bodily functions, likely to an unhealthy extent.
|-

!scope=row|Oncology
|25%
|100%
|Someone in the room likely has cancer.
|-

!scope=row|Ornithology
|60%
|55%
|
|-

!scope=row|Animation
|100%
|56%
|
|-

!scope=row|Petroleum Geology
|65%
|60%
|
|-

!scope=row|Highway Engineering
|75%
|65%
|
|-

!scope=row|Toxicology
|55%
|75%
|Someone in the room has been exposed to a toxic substance.
|-

!scope=row|Hematology
|75%
|70%
|Hematology is the study of blood. Given that there should be blood in each of the students present{{Citation needed}}, we should probably assume Randall means "large quantities of blood outside of one's body", which would indeed be both bad and weird.
|-

!scope=row|Hostage Negotiation
|70%
|85%
|Reasons as to why there would be hostage negotiations taking place at a school have horrifying implications for the students and teacher.
|-

!scope=row|History of Siege Warfare
|100%
|80%
|This would mean that the students would be trapped in the building until they ran out of resources, possibly dying of thirst and starvation (depending on whether or not the opposing army destroyed the school's water lines).
|-

!scope=row|Trauma Surgery
|55%
|95%
|Trauma surgery is an incredibly painful procedure, and difficult to look at for many. It would undoubtedly be disturbing to the class, especially if the patient was one of them.
|-

!scope=row|Volcanology
|75%
|95%
|Having a live volcano in one's classroom is both very dangerous and very weird, as volcanoes take very long times to form. Note this also applies to [[1611: Baking Soda and Vinegar | baking soda and vinegar volcanoes that are offshoots of much larger vinegar hotspots]].
|-

!scope=row|Quasar Astronomy
|75%
|100%
|Quasars are distant astronomical objects that release large amounts of energy. Not only would the power of a quasar destroy the classroom (as well as the building the classroom is in, the town the school is in, and the entire planet Earth,) quasars are too large to fit inside any known classroom. For example, [ULAS J1342+0928](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ULAS_J1342%2B0928) has a mass of 8*10^8 solar masses. This means the event horizon of the black hole is almost 16 AU in radius, and this size does not include the accretion disk.
|-

!scope=row|Ontology (Title Text)
|<0%
|?
|Ontology is the philosophical study of existence and being. Since there must be ''something'' learning in the classroom, it is unsurprising that ontology is a normal subject to appear in the classroom.
|-

!scope=row|Geography (Title Text)
|>100%
|?
|Logistics aside, having a planet's terrain in one's classroom would almost certainly be a distraction to the learning environment.

|}

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

:[Caption above scatter plot with labeled axes]
:Caption: The thing you study just showed up in your classroom! That's...
:Upper y-axis label: Good
:Lower y-axis label: Bad
:Upper x-axis label: Normal
:Lower x-axis label: Weird

:[First quadrant (left to right, top to bottom):]
:20th century authors
:Exobiology
:21st century authors
:19th century authors
:Robotics
:Paleontology
:Martian soil chemistry
:Child psychology
:Tourism
:[Second quadrant]
:Atmospheric physics
:Ethics
:Education
:Bibliography
:Human physiology
:Public speaking
:Architecture
:Library science
:Furniture design
:Culinary arts
:Ergonomics
:Botany
:[Third quadrant]
:Entomology
:Occupational therapy
:Hydraulic engineering
:Pest control
:Foodborne illness
:Criminal law
:Physiology of stress
:Oncology
:[Fourth quadrant]
:Ornithology
:Animation
:Petroleum geology
:Highway engineering
:Toxicology
:Hematology
:Hostage negotiation
:History of siege warfare
:Trauma surgery
:Volcanology
:Quasar astronomy

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

2466: In Your Classroom

2021-05-22T05:43:35Z

172.68.129.132:

2466: In Your Classroom

2021-05-22T05:13:06Z

172.68.129.132:

2463: Astrophotography

2021-05-15T08:39:20Z

172.68.129.132: /* Explanation */ People know how solar eclipses work. If they dont, the wikepedia page on solar eclipse has already been linked. No point to telling people that the sun is larger than the moon

{{comic
| number = 2463
| date = May 15, 2021
| title = Astrophotography
| image = astrophotography.png
| titletext = [One hill over, a competing astrophotographer does a backflip over a commercial airliner while throwing a tray of plastic space stations into the air, through which a falcon swoops to 'grab' the real one.]
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BACKFLIPPING ASTROPHOTOGRAPHER. Title text needs to be outlined as the main explanation. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Astrophotographers like to take photos of things transiting the {{w|Sun}}. Typical things include planes, the {{w|International Space Station}} (ISS), and the {{w|Moon}} ({{w|Solar eclipses}}).

During the [[:Category:Total Solar Eclipse 2017|Total Solar Eclipse 2017]] visible across US it was possible to see the ISS pass in front of the Sun during a partial part of the Eclipse (from a site that was later in the total Eclipse zone.) This was [https://www.smartereveryday.com/eclipse photographed] and filmed by Destin from Smarter Every Day and can be seen in his video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lepQoU4oek4&feature=youtu.be Space Station Transiting 2017 ECLIPSE]. (Go to the time of the flyby of the ISS in the video [https://youtu.be/lepQoU4oek4?t=209 here]).

The practice of "one-upmanship" refers to the practice of achieving something superior to what another has achieved, or "getting one up on" them. The caption claims that the photo shown in the comic is the result of a continuous string of one-upmanship among astrophotographers in a community, each striving to one-up the other.

In this comic there seems to be an abundance of things:
* The sun is setting or rising from behind a hill.
* The ISS can be seen transiting in the upper center.
* There is an ongoing {{w|partial solar eclipse}} so the view of the Sun is partially obscured by the Moon in the upper right quadrant.
** These two things are what Destin managed. But this photographer did several one up on him.
* [[Megan]] is standing slightly below the peak of a hill and seems to be juggling, with five balls, which are also in front of the sun.
* [[Cueball]] is standing at the peak of the hill, shooting an arrow from a bow, one arrow has pierced what at first appears to be one of the juggling balls, but may be a {{w|Transit of Venus}}.
* A simultaneous Eclipse and Transit of Venus is actually expected in the future, but not until April 5, 15232 (13211 years after the publishing of this comic). It would though likely be easier to make the arrow "hit" Venus than one of the joggled balls, as the planet's position is constant at the time the photo is taken. The other four balls are too large that any of them could represent Mercury, the only other planet that can transit the Sun, when seen from Earth. But Megan has been careful to make one ball go so much higher than the middle two, that it seems to fit that Venus has been shot out from between them.
* Two airplanes flying above them are pulling signs with the words "nice" and "shot" (which could refer to both the archer and the photographer). The signs will have to be made with see-through holes through the canvas letting sun through. As there is an O it cannot just be holes in the canvas!

Taking the picture required precisely scheduling and arranging the relative positions of several of the various subjects (and photographer) to coincide with the predictable but rare conjunctions of the rest of the scene, as well as special equipment:
* All this had to be timed very very precisely as the [https://youtu.be/lepQoU4oek4?t=209 flyby of the ISS only takes a second].
* A solar filter must be used to photograph the sun without overexposing the image or even damaging equipment.
* The photograph must be taken during a partial solar eclipse. These only happen a few times per year and are only visible in part of the world.
* Related to the last point, a nearby person appears larger than the moon. It is possible to photograph the silhouette of a person or a cityscape in front of a full moon, making the moon look comparatively larger or smaller by adjusting the distance to the closer subject, and then the lenses used by the photographer to make them both fill just the right amount of the frame. The photographer needed to carefully choose their position relative to the subjects to make this happen.
* The exposure time of the photograph had to be short enough to capture clear silhouettes of the ISS, the juggling balls and the arrow while these were in the air.
* The mountain had to be in a location that would happen to see the ISS passing in front of the sun at the same time as the sun was rising from behind it.
* The subjects had to achieve a moment in which four juggling balls were in the air and an arrow had pierced the point where Venus would appear, while sideways relative to the sun's light, with still near normal intensity.
* The planes also needed to be flying in the correct directions for the text of the signs to be visible, and with very precise timing for them to be in the correct positions to read "Nice" as coming before "Shot" just as the ISS passes by.

The title text describes a similarly outlandish photo.

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

:[Cueball and Megan stand on a hill with the sun behind them. Cueball is at the top-left of the hill, holding a bow in his left arm, which has been recently shot, with the arrow to right. Megan is at the bottom-right of the hill, juggling some balls. There are two planes going in opposite directions with banners on them. Above the planes is the ISS. All these items are silhouetted against the sun partially eclipsed by the moon in the upper right.]

:[Banners]: Nice Shot

:[Caption beneath the panel]:
:Our astrophotography community's one-upmanship is getting out of hand.

==Trivia==
Randall has commented on extreme photography in comics ([[1855:_Telephoto|1855: ''Telephoto'']] and [[1719:_Superzoom|1719: ''Superzoom'']]) and the ''How To'' chapter "How to take a selfie".

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Space]]

2456: Types of Scientific Paper

2021-04-29T02:05:04Z

172.68.129.132: /* Explanation */ That is true about ALL of the article titles, the point of the comic is to have generic enougth titles that they could be in any field and possibly only of interest to a few

{{comic
| number = 2456
| date = April 28, 2021
| title = Types of Scientific Paper
| image = types_of_scientific_paper.png
| titletext = Others include "We've incrementally improved the estimate of this coefficient," "Maybe all these categories are wrong," and "We found a way to make student volunteers worse at tasks."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a RESEARCH DEPARTMENT ON A LUNCHBREAK. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
In this comic, Randall describes categories of scientific papers with somewhat humorous generalized titles.

{| class="wikitable"
|+Breakdown of Papers
|-
|Paper Title
|Explanation
|Article Description
|-
|We put a camera somewhere new
|This may involve miniaturisation or other improvements of imaging sensors, power supply, transmission or retention of data, environmental hardening and (possibly) recovery afterwards. Photographs and videos can be especially helpful in understanding what is or was going on, especially for the layman, than more limited signal traces.

Cameras have been inserted into ''every'' obvious bodily orifice (including swallowed, to be later excreted), placed in habitats to monitor wildlife, attached to wildlife to monitor habitats, sent into volcanic craters/ocean trenches/high altitudes/nuclear reactors, launched into space and sent past/round/onto several of the solar-system's more interesting bodies.

|
|-
|Hey, I found a trove of old records! They don't turn out to be particularly useful, but still, cool!
|Rather than starting with the aim of investigating some question, and finding some way of answering it by uncovering evidence, sometimes a writer may have stumbled upon a cache of historic documents that they then feel compelled to justify the resulting 'WikiWalk' they may have found themselves sucked into.
|
|-
|My colleague is wrong and I can finally prove it
| This title refers to the occasional rivalries between scientists within a field, which can push them to seek proof that they, and not their colleague, are correct.
|Note the lack of headers, suggesting an argument more than an explanation of data
|-
|The immune system is at it again
|The human immune system is notoriously complex, and there are countless papers in medical fields just describing its strangeness
|
|-
|We figured out how to make this exotic material, so email us if you need some
|Researchers often attempt to create materials despite there not being any demand, predicting that in the future their material will be game-changing without any actual applications. These researchers have created such a material, and are offering to produce it for anyone who needs it
|
|-
|What are fish even doing down there
|Deep sea marine biology regularly discovers [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7QXdlSBGGY strange lifeforms] in unexpected places, and theories explaining deep sea ecosystems are regularly confounded by new data.
|This paper does not appear to have any headers
|-
|This task I had to do anyway turned out to be hard enough for its own paper
|There is a huge variety in the complexity and importance of subjects studied in scientific papers, and often some supposedly easy task will be sufficiently complicated as to merit its own paper.
|
|-
|Hey, at least we showed that this method can produce results! That's not nothing, right?
|One of the struggles of the scientific method is that many experiments will not produce the results scientists desired or expected. These results are still (sometimes) important, but are often ignored compared to research with important findings
|
|-
|Check out this weird thing one of us saw while out for a walk
|This paper may be imagined as an opportunistic publication. A department or team has seen itself low down on the local 'league table' for academic output. A brainstorming session for a way of rectifying this led to desperately seizing upon the first idle comment made (in lieu of any better sounding ideas) that can somehow be shoehorned into their respective subject area.
This also works in the context of entomology. Insects have the most species of any class of animals [https://www.si.edu/spotlight/buginfo/bugnos by a wide margin], but due to their small size, they're not easily seen. As a result, new species are constantly being discovered in places as innocuous as [https://wildlife.org/video-entomologists-discover-30-new-species-in-la-backyards/ someone's backyard.]
|
|-
|We are 500 scientists and here's what we've been up to for the last 10 years
| Some papers summarize the work of big research teams, like those working on the [https://repositorio.uc.cl/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11534/13948/Observation%20of%20a%20new%20particle%20in%20the%20search%20for%20the%20Standard%20Model%20Higgs%20boson%20with%20the%20ATLAS%20detector%20at%20the%20LHC.pdf Higgs Boson] (list of authors starts at page 17) or LIGO. Since the discoveries which are made are a team effort, probably outlasting many of the individual tenures involved, the papers have many authors listed.
A credit for participation may not mean any particularly great contribution by each individual, but being left out (even for one summer's secondment, seven years before any results could be recorded) would be taken as a slight, and an opportunity missed to be 'citable' in the future.
|A huge portion of the page is taken up by the presumably 500 authors' names, above the main horizontal bar.
|-
|Some thoughts on how everyone else is bad at research
|Similar to the "my colleague is wrong" paper, but in this case applied to far greater swathes of the community by the author(s) of this (possibly unfocussed) tract.
|
|-
|We scanned some undergraduates
|Some initial research, especially that on a low budget, may recruit students at the same institution as easily available test-subjects. Quite often these are psychological or sociological studies, but can involve more medical (but non-invasive) 'scans', from simple eyeball-tracking to full-body MRI.
|
|-
|We've incrementally improved the estimate of this coefficient
|Often scientific research, e.g. in cosmology or physics, will work with an assumed constant value that is known to be only an 'educated guess' of the actual definite value, or an inclusive range. However accurate/certain this is, further experimentation or observation may further narrow down the uncertainty involved to a statistically significant degree.
|rowspan="3"|(Only referenced in Title Text)
|-
|Maybe all these categories are wrong
|In some field that relies heavily upon classification (e.g. phylogenetic biology, or the Standard Model in physics) sometimes observations arise that cast doubt on the previously established ideas. It seems that this may have happened here, hopefully with a suggestion of how to reimagine the situation.
|-
|We found a way to make student volunters worse at tasks
|Possibly a pyschology experiment, and maybe not even the result expected. In general, the repetition of an activity will induce greater skill/capacity in a tested individual. By accident or design, the study group in this instance has induced the opposite correlation.
|}

===Trivia===
Originally, this comic's title text misspelt "volunteers" as "volunters". This could have been intentional (''we'' might be the volunteers), but probably not as it was quickly corrected.

==Transcript==
Types of Scientific Paper

''An array of scientific papers is shown, with only their titles legible. Titles are as follows:''

We put a camera somewhere new

Hey, I found a trove of old records! They don't turn out to be particularly useful, but still, cool!

My colleague is wrong and I can finally prove it

The immune system is at it again

We figured out how to make this exotic material, so email us if you need some

What are fish even doing down there

This task I had to do anyway turned out to be hard enough for its own paper

Hey, at least we showed that this method can produce results! That's not nothing, right?

Check out this weird thing one of us saw while out for a walk

We are 500 scientists and here's what we've been up to for the last 10 years

Some thoughts on how everyone else is bad at research

We scanned some undergraduates

{{comic discussion}}

2450: Post Vaccine Social Scheduling

2021-04-16T01:34:59Z

172.68.129.132: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2450
| date = April 14, 2021
| title = Post Vaccine Social Scheduling
| image = post_vaccine_social_scheduling.png
| titletext = As if these problems weren't NP-hard enough.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an UNVACCINATED MOVIEGOER. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
The comic shows a timeline of a multitude of (presumably) friends and acquaintances getting two doses of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Due to the recommended delay between shots, as well as few weeks needed to build antibodies after the second shot, planning get-togethers becomes complicated by who is free to meet, or not yet.

The diagram is some form of Scheduling Diagram, maybe akin to a {{w|Gantt chart}}, which helps to coordinate the status of several individual 'processes' (personal vaccination schedules) and demonstrate where dependent activities (meet-ups) are mutually possible.

Eventually, everyone can start getting together, but during the time where some people have only received one dose, or neither dose, or their second dose recently, the scheduling is complicated. The complication is increased by the fact that people who have received one or two doses of vaccine, but haven't gone through the whole waiting period, can be expected to have some protection, but possibly not full protection (as represented by the dashed line). In that case, there's the added question of how important it is that the person be at an event, and how much risk the people involved are willing to tolerate. This may be the reason for the "movie" set, in which all participants will have received both doses, but one will not have completed the final waiting period.

The title text references NP-hardness, a theme that has come up in past comics. {{w|NP-hardness}} describes a particular level of computational difficulty. Scheduling problems are normally NP-hard. But when extra challenges such as having to deal with whether or not people are vaccinated they become even more difficult.

In this case though, {{w|Critical Path}} dependencies seem trivial enough. Events (vertical lozanges across the dot-marked timelines of those included) are trivial to validate as possible for those selected to attend. Fixed events in time can be scanned to show all those allowed to participate at that moment. Movable events can be rescheduled until (enough of) those hoped to be included are 'valid'. Complications may arise for those whose presence relies upon [[2441|the status of others]] potentially attending, or the need to maintain time between two events (in either order) with part-shared attendees as a precautionary 'cool-down' isolation. It is not obvious that either of these issues factor in, any more than basic scheduling conflicts would.

The third person being scheduled for a movie before being fully vaccinated may be a direct reference to [[2441: IMDb Vaccines]], discussing the number of people that needs to be vaccinated to record a particular scene. Other than each line's identifying portrait (which are not of the Throne Room characters) no explicit age/vulnerability information is given to justify this, presumably the chart's users are aware of the specifics.

The third person in the table is included in a movie viewing (for which masks could be worn) shortly after their second immunization, but not included in dinner group until full benefit of vaccine. CDC guidelines permit vaccinated individuals to visit inside a home or private setting without a mask with one household of unvaccinated people who are not at risk for severe illness. Therefore the movie gathering conforms to CDC recommendations provided that the single unvaccinated person is not at increased risk of severe illness and the movie is in a home or private setting.

The third person in the table appears to have received the second shot both times. This is possibly a reference to [[2422: Vaccine Ordering]].

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[From top to bottom, there are eleven people standing on the left side of the image: Danish, Cueball #1, Hairbun, Black Hat, Ponytail, Science Girl, White Hat, Hairy, Blondie, Cueball #2, and Megan, with even-numbered characters standing slightly further to the left. Each character’s first and second doses of the vaccine are labelled ① and ②, respectively. The time before each character’s first dose is drawn with a grey solid line; the time between their first dose and after they are fully vaccinated (two weeks after their second dose) is drawn with a grey dashed line; and the time after they are fully vaccinated is drawn with a black solid line. Black Hat, Science Girl, Blondie, Cueball #2, and Megan have all received their first doses prior to the comic’s time frame. Social activities are drawn with a ellipse around the top and bottom members, and each participating character is identified with a large filled-in circle on their timeline. The ellipses are labelled:]

DINNER GAMES MOVIE BIRTHDAY DINNER CABIN

[The events that happen, in chronological order (from left to right), are:

* Cueball #1 receives his first dose;
* Blondie receives her second dose;
* Ponytail receives her first dose;
* Hairy receives his first dose;
* White Hat receives his first dose;
* Danish receives her first dose;
* Black Hat receives his second dose;
* Blondie is fully vaccinated;
* Science Girl receives her second dose;
* Cueball #2 receives his second dose;
* Megan receives her second dose;
* Hairbun receives her first dose (erroneously labelled as ②);
* Ponytail receives her second dose;
* Black Hat is fully vaccinated;
* Black Hat and Blondie go to dinner;
* Danish receives her second dose;
* Cueball #1 receives his second dose;
* Science Girl is fully vaccinated;
* Cueball #2 is fully vaccinated;
* Megan is fully vaccinated;
* Hairy receives his second dose;
* White Hat receives his second dose;
* Science Girl, Blondie, Cueball #2, and Megan play games;
* Ponytail is fully vaccinated;
* Hairbun receives her second dose;
* Hairbun, Black Hat, and Ponytail go to the movies or make a movie (the label is just "Movie");
* Danish is fully vaccinated;
* Cueball #1 is fully vaccinated;
* Hairy is fully vaccinated;
* White Hat is fully vaccinated;
* Danish, Cueball #1, Ponytail, White Hat, and Hairy attend a birthday party;
* Hairbun is fully vaccinated;
* Hairbun and Blondie go to dinner;
* Black Hat, Science Girl, White Hat, Hairy, and Cueball #2 go to a cabin.

Caption below the panel:]

Post-Vaccine Social Scheduling

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category: COVID-19]]
[[Category: COVID-19 vaccine]]
[[Category:Timelines]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Blondie]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Science Girl]]
[[Category: Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Danish]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Black Hat]]

2450: Post Vaccine Social Scheduling

2021-04-16T01:34:43Z

172.68.129.132: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2450
| date = April 14, 2021
| title = Post Vaccine Social Scheduling
| image = post_vaccine_social_scheduling.png
| titletext = As if these problems weren't NP-hard enough.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an UNVACCINATED MOVIEGOER. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
The comic shows a timeline of a multitude of (presumably) friends and acquaintances getting two doses of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Due to the recommended delay between shots, as well as few weeks needed to build antibodies after the second shot, planning get-togethers becomes complicated by who is free to meet, or not yet.

The diagram is some form of Scheduling Diagram, maybe akin to a {{w|Gantt chart}}, which helps to coordinate the status of several individual 'processes' (personal vaccination schedules) and demonstrate where dependent activities (meet-ups) are mutually possible.

Eventually, everyone can start getting together, but during the time where some people have only received one dose, or neither dose, or their second dose recently, the scheduling is complicated. The complication is increased by the fact that people who have received one or two doses of vaccine, but haven't gone through the whole waiting period, can be expected to have some protection, but possibly not full protection (as represented by the dashed line). In that case, there's the added question of how important it is that the person be at an event, and how much risk the people involved are willing to tolerate. This may be the reason for the "movie" set, in which all participants will have received both doses, but one will not have completed the final waiting period.

The title text references NP-hardness, a theme that has come up in past comics. {{w|NP-hardness}} describes a particular level of computational difficulty. Scheduling problems are normally NP-hard. But when extra challenges such as having to deal with whether or not people are vaccinated they become even more difficult.

In this case though, {{w|Critical Path}} dependencies seem trivial enough. Events (vertical lozanges across the dot-marked timelines of those included) are trivial to validate as possible for those selected to attend. Fixed events in time can be scanned to show all those allowed to participate at that moment. Movable events can be rescheduled until (enough of) those hoped to be included are 'valid'. Complications may arise for those whose presence relies upon [[2441|the status of others]] potentially attending, or the need to maintain time between two events (in either order) with part-shared attendees as a precautionary 'cool-down' isolation. It is not obvious that either of these issues factor in, any more than basic scheduling conflicts would.

The third person being scheduled for a movie before being fully vaccinated may be a direct reference to [[2441: IMDb Vaccines]], discussing the number of people that needs to be vaccinated to record a particular scene. Other than each line's identifying portrait (which are not of the Throne Room characters) no explicit age/vulnerability information is given to justify this, presumably the chart's users are aware of the specifics.

The third person in the table is included in a movie viewing (for which masks could be worn) shortly after their second immunization, but not included in dinner group until full benefit of vaccine. CDC guidelines permit vaccinated individuals to visit inside a home or private setting without a mask with one household of unvaccinated people who are not at risk for severe illness. Therefore the movie gathering conforms to CDC recommendations provided that the single unvaccinated person is not at increased risk of severe illness and the movie is in a home or private setting.

The third person in the table appears to have received the second shot both times. This is possibly a reference to [[2422 : Vaccine Ordering]].

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[From top to bottom, there are eleven people standing on the left side of the image: Danish, Cueball #1, Hairbun, Black Hat, Ponytail, Science Girl, White Hat, Hairy, Blondie, Cueball #2, and Megan, with even-numbered characters standing slightly further to the left. Each character’s first and second doses of the vaccine are labelled ① and ②, respectively. The time before each character’s first dose is drawn with a grey solid line; the time between their first dose and after they are fully vaccinated (two weeks after their second dose) is drawn with a grey dashed line; and the time after they are fully vaccinated is drawn with a black solid line. Black Hat, Science Girl, Blondie, Cueball #2, and Megan have all received their first doses prior to the comic’s time frame. Social activities are drawn with a ellipse around the top and bottom members, and each participating character is identified with a large filled-in circle on their timeline. The ellipses are labelled:]

DINNER GAMES MOVIE BIRTHDAY DINNER CABIN

[The events that happen, in chronological order (from left to right), are:

* Cueball #1 receives his first dose;
* Blondie receives her second dose;
* Ponytail receives her first dose;
* Hairy receives his first dose;
* White Hat receives his first dose;
* Danish receives her first dose;
* Black Hat receives his second dose;
* Blondie is fully vaccinated;
* Science Girl receives her second dose;
* Cueball #2 receives his second dose;
* Megan receives her second dose;
* Hairbun receives her first dose (erroneously labelled as ②);
* Ponytail receives her second dose;
* Black Hat is fully vaccinated;
* Black Hat and Blondie go to dinner;
* Danish receives her second dose;
* Cueball #1 receives his second dose;
* Science Girl is fully vaccinated;
* Cueball #2 is fully vaccinated;
* Megan is fully vaccinated;
* Hairy receives his second dose;
* White Hat receives his second dose;
* Science Girl, Blondie, Cueball #2, and Megan play games;
* Ponytail is fully vaccinated;
* Hairbun receives her second dose;
* Hairbun, Black Hat, and Ponytail go to the movies or make a movie (the label is just "Movie");
* Danish is fully vaccinated;
* Cueball #1 is fully vaccinated;
* Hairy is fully vaccinated;
* White Hat is fully vaccinated;
* Danish, Cueball #1, Ponytail, White Hat, and Hairy attend a birthday party;
* Hairbun is fully vaccinated;
* Hairbun and Blondie go to dinner;
* Black Hat, Science Girl, White Hat, Hairy, and Cueball #2 go to a cabin.

Caption below the panel:]

Post-Vaccine Social Scheduling

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category: COVID-19]]
[[Category: COVID-19 vaccine]]
[[Category:Timelines]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Blondie]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Science Girl]]
[[Category: Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Danish]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Black Hat]]

2417: 1/1,000th Scale World

2021-01-27T22:47:26Z

172.68.129.132:

{{comic
| number = 2417
| date = January 27, 2021
| title = 1/1,000th Scale World
| image = 1_1000th_scale_world.png
| titletext = We're worried that a regular whale will get into a 30-foot-deep ocean trench section and filter-feed on all the tiny whales.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a STATUE OF LIBERTY MINIFIG. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic is a follow up to a previous two, [[2412: 1/100,000th Scale World]] and [[2411: 1/10,000th Scale World]], with a smaller scale and thus a larger world. As in the previous comics, [[Randall]] has another seemingly complete copy of Earth, this time at a 1:1000 scale, with various features and warnings labeled. Again, real-world features and phenomena are replicated at scale. As before, the model is very extensive, with several underground neutrino detectors/observatories being replicated.

Several of the warnings point out humorous consequences of the scale, such as goldfish eating blue whales.

===Table===
{| class="wikitable"
!Rule
!Reason
!Notes
|-
| Keep hot objects off the ice sheet over the south pole neutrino observatory
| Hot objects may emit Cherenkov radiation, which would result in the observatory detecting false positives of neutrino observations.
|
|-
| Be patient: Niagara falls will take a few minutes to fill your water glass
| The flow rate is scaled down with the size. According to https://what-if.xkcd.com/147/, the Niagara Falls flow is regulated to 100.000 cubic feet per second on the tourist season and to 50.000 cubic feet per second offseason and at night. Once scaled to 1/1000, that flow would be 2.83 or 1.41ml per second. If a standard glass of water is 250ml, it would take 1-2 minutes for the waterfall to fill it.

However, a 1/1000th replica of scale Niagra falls would be over a meter wide, so without some kind of system to divert the whole flow into one spot, it would not be possible to fill a glass this quickly. Also, the height of the scaled-down Niagra falls would be 5cm, with another 5cm between the water level and the riverbed, so it might be difficult to fill a glass depending on its height.
| This item is likely to be a reference to the famous Arthur C. Clarke quote: "Getting information from the internet is like getting a glass of water from the Niagara Falls."
|-
| Watch for small planes
| Taking the popular Cessna 172 as an example, 1/1000th scale small planes would be about 8mm in length, and cruise at speeds of about 6cm/s, much slower than comparable flying insects. A Cessna of that size traveling at that speed would probably cause much more damage to itself than a person if it crashed into one, so the warning is probably there to protect the models rather than the guests.
|
|-
| Warning! Choking hazard! Keep small children away from ascending/descending airliners
| Airplanes are apparently small enough for children to fit into their mouths but large enough to potentially make them choke.
| In the US, small parts are defined by [https://www.cpsc.gov/Business--Manufacturing/Business-Education/Business-Guidance/Small-Parts-for-Toys-and-Childrens-Products 16 C.F.R. Part 1501.2] as fitting in a cylindrical test fixture of 1.25 inches diameter that approximates the size of the fully expanded throat of a child under three years old. Once scaled, any object smaller than 31.75 meters would fit in that cylinder. A lot of medium-sized and small airplanes would qualify. Furthermore, since pieces that break off during testing that simulates use or abuse by children could also pose a choking hazard, even large airliners are also a choking hazard because stripped wings and parts of the fuselage would fit in the required size.
|-
| Do not remove safety caps
| This is a reference to the warning, "Be careful not to step on cities with especially pointy towers, like Toronto, Seattle, and Dubai" from [[2411: 1/10,000th Scale World]]. It's possible that many visitors to that scaled world did not heed the warnings and complained to the scaled world's creators, causing them to cover pointy towers with safety caps for this scaled world. However, now there are [[Black Hat|people who apparently want to cause harm to others]], or at least don't care about not causing harm to others, by removing these safety caps.
The tip of the Burj Khalifa - the tallest building in the scale world - appears to be about a meter and a half wide, or 1.5mm at 1/1000th scale.
|
|-
| No open flames in Zeppelin area
| Zeppelins are filled with hydrogen due to its very low density, which allows them to float. However, it is also very flammable and prone to explosions. The most famous of these Zeppelin disasters was when the {{w|Hindenburg disaster|Hindenburg exploded}} in 1937.
|-
| Do not bother the meteor crater ducks
| Meteor Crater in Arizona is over a kilometer wide, so at 1/1000 scale it could be a small duck pond of 1.186m diameter, and 17cm deep at its deepest point. This is (barely) enough space for a duck to swim in if filled to the brim with water.
| Meteor Crater is not filled with water in real life.
|-
| Trip hazard: The Gateway Arch
| The {{w|Gateway Arch}} is a monument in Saint Louis, Missouri. Being a 192 m high arch, once scaled it would be 19.2 cm high, ideal for tripping.
|
|-
| Drone altitude limit
| The FAA drone altitude limit is 400ft above the ground, which would be about 12cm in 1/1000th scale. This appears to be the number Randall is using, as the limit in the comic is about the same height as the pyramids, which are also around 400ft tall in the real world.
|
|-
| Do not mix up the USS Enterprises
|
The ship is presumably a model of the USS Enterprise (CVN-65), the longest naval vessel ever built, which would be 34cm long in 1/1000th scale.
The spaceship is the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) from the Star Trek franchise.
It's unclear whether mixing up the models is prohibited because it would damage them, or simply because that's not where they are supposed to be.
The Starship Enterprise might be corroded by seawater, or unable to handle external pressure (spacecraft are designed for the exact opposite pressures in a vacuum). If lifted into the air, the Aircraft Carrier Enterprise would probably fall back down because it can't fly (and be damaged or even destroyed upon hitting the ground or water surface), but then again, it's unclear how the model Enterprise is able to fly or hover.
The Enterprise from the JJ Abrams films has been seen to hide underwater and take off again without significant problems. However, it is unclear whether other versions of the Enterprise also possess this ability, nor which version is represented in the comic.
|
|-
| No connecting the Dead Sea to the ocean
| If there are models of Israeli and Jordanian cities next to the Dead Sea, they could get damaged by the water. Also, the model world would be less accurate because the Dead Sea is not connected to the ocean in real life.
|
|-
| Do not let ants into the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory
| Getting them out of the tunnel network would probably be difficult.
|
|-
| Only one person on the Golden Gate Tightrope at a time
| The {{w|Golden Gate Bridge}} is a suspension bridge in San Francisco, of width 27m. Scaled-down, it would be 2.7cm wide and it would be tempting to use it as a tightrope.
| In 1987, approximately 300,000 people [https://www.sfgate.com/local-donotuse/article/Golden-Gate-bridge-walk-1987-anniversary-disaster-13896571.php walked across the Golden Gate Bridge], which could be the largest weight it has supported: 80kg * 300,000 = 2.4*10^7kg. A visitor to the scaled world would expect to weigh (1000^3) times as much as a standard human: 8*(10^10), above the [https://www.vibrationdata.com/golden.htm total mass of the bridge]: 3.8*(10^8)
|-
| Do not remove Statue of Liberty LEGO minifig
| Whoever has made this model has decided to use a small LEGO minifigure rather than a more accurately sculpted replica of the Statue of Liberty. The person would likely not want it to be removed because it would then have to be replaced.
| LEGO has released a [https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/magnet-statue-of-liberty-2016-853600 Statue of Liberty minifigure] which is 5.3cm tall. The real Statue of Liberty, from head to toe, is 46 meters tall. At 1/1000 scale this would be a 4.6cm figurine, so the LEGO minifigure would indeed be an appropriate representation at that scale.
|-
| Please stop releasing goldfish into the ocean. They eat all of the blue whales.
| Blue whales usually grow to about 20m long in real life, meaning that at 1/1000th scale they would be only 2cm long, meaning that they could easily be consumed by a goldfish. Goldfish are omnivores, so they would eat tiny blue whales. But they are also freshwater fish, so would they survive long enough in seawater to put the whales at risk? This could perhaps be considered carping. And perhaps Randall's customers have access to [https://mashable.com/2017/09/20/saltwater-bearing-goldfish-australia/ Australian goldfish].
| This also begs the question of where one would get such tiny blue whales. In the mouseover text, Randall mentions that if real blue whales were to be released into the 1/1000th scale ocean they would filter-feed on the miniature versions. Blue whales usually eat minuscule krill, however, the tiny whales would provide a similarly-sized substitute.
|
|}

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

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Illustrations of scale]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Science Girl]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Scale World]]

2417: 1/1,000th Scale World

2021-01-27T22:44:57Z

172.68.129.132:

{{comic
| number = 2417
| date = January 27, 2021
| title = 1/1,000th Scale World
| image = 1_1000th_scale_world.png
| titletext = We're worried that a regular whale will get into a 30-foot-deep ocean trench section and filter-feed on all the tiny whales.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a STATUE OF LIBERTY MINIFIG. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic is a follow up to a previous two, [[2412: 1/100,000th Scale World]] and [[2411: 1/10,000th Scale World]], with a smaller scale and thus a larger world. As in the previous comics, [[Randall]] has another seemingly complete copy of Earth, this time at a 1:1000 scale, with various features and warnings labeled. Again, real-world features and phenomena are replicated at scale. As before, the model is very extensive, with several underground neutrino detectors/observatories being replicated.

Several of the warnings point out humorous consequences of the scale, such as goldfish eating blue whales.

===Table===
{| class="wikitable"
!Rule
!Reason
!Notes
|-
| Keep hot objects off the ice sheet over the south pole neutrino observatory
| Hot objects may emit Cherenkov radiation, which would result in the observatory detecting false positives of neutrino observations.
|
|-
| Be patient: Niagara falls will take a few minutes to fill your water glass
| The flow rate is scaled down with the size. According to https://what-if.xkcd.com/147/, the Niagara Falls flow is regulated to 100.000 cubic feet per second on the tourist season and to 50.000 cubic feet per second offseason and at night. Once scaled to 1/1000, that flow would be 2.83 or 1.41ml per second. If a standard glass of water is 250ml, it would take 1-2 minutes for the waterfall to fill it.

However, a 1/1000th replica of scale Niagra falls would be over a meter wide, so without some kind of system to divert the whole flow into one spot, it would not be possible to fill a glass this quickly. Also, the height of the scaled-down Niagra falls would be 5cm, with another 5cm between the water level and the riverbed, so it might be difficult to fill a glass depending on its height.
| This item is likely to be a reference to the famous Arthur C. Clarke quote: "Getting information from the internet is like getting a glass of water from the Niagara Falls."
|-
| Watch for small planes
| Taking the popular Cessna 172 as an example, 1/1000th scale small planes would be about 8mm in length, and cruise at speeds of about 6cm/s, much slower than comparable flying insects. A Cessna of that size traveling at that speed would probably cause much more damage to itself than a person if it crashed into one, so the warning is probably there to protect the models rather than the guests.
|
|-
| Warning! Choking hazard! Keep small children away from ascending/descending airliners
| Airplanes are apparently small enough for children to fit into their mouths but large enough to potentially make them choke.
| In the US, small parts are defined by [https://www.cpsc.gov/Business--Manufacturing/Business-Education/Business-Guidance/Small-Parts-for-Toys-and-Childrens-Products 16 C.F.R. Part 1501.2] as fitting in a cylindrical test fixture of 1.25 inches diameter that approximates the size of the fully expanded throat of a child under three years old. Once scaled, any object smaller than 31.75 meters would fit in that cylinder. A lot of medium-sized and small airplanes would qualify. Furthermore, since pieces that break off during testing that simulates use or abuse by children could also pose a choking hazard, even large airliners are also a choking hazard because stripped wings and parts of the fuselage would fit in the required size.
|-
| Do not remove safety caps
| This is a reference to the warning, "Be careful not to step on cities with especially pointy towers, like Toronto, Seattle, and Dubai" from [[2411: 1/10,000th Scale World]]. It's possible that many visitors to that scaled world did not heed the warnings and complained to the scaled world's creators, causing them to cover pointy towers with safety caps for this scaled world. However, now there are [[Black Hat|people who apparently want to cause harm to others]], or at least don't care about not causing harm to others, by removing these safety caps.
The tip of the Burj Khalifa - the tallest building in the scale world - appears to be about a meter and a half wide, or 1.5mm at 1/1000th scale.
|
|-
| No open flames in Zeppelin area
| Zeppelins are filled with hydrogen due to its very low density, which allows them to float. However, it is also very flammable and prone to explosions. The most famous of these Zeppelin disasters was when the {{w|Hindenburg disaster|Hindenburg exploded}} in 1937.
|-
| Do not bother the meteor crater ducks
| Meteor Crater in Arizona is over a kilometer wide, so at 1/1000 scale it could be a small duck pond of 1.186m diameter, and 17cm deep at its deepest point. This is (barely) enough space for a duck to swim in if filled to the brim with water.
| Meteor Crater is not filled with water in real life.
|-
| Trip hazard: The Gateway Arch
| The {{w|Gateway Arch}} is a monument in Saint Louis, Missouri. Being a 192 m high arch, once scaled it would be 19.2 cm high, ideal for tripping.
|
|-
| Drone altitude limit
| The FAA drone altitude limit is 400ft above the ground, which would be about 12cm in 1/1000th scale. This appears to be the number Randall is using, as the limit in the comic is about the same height as the pyramids, which are also around 400ft tall in the real world.
|
|-
| Do not mix up the USS Enterprises
|
The ship is presumably a model of the USS Enterprise (CVN-65), the longest naval vessel ever built, which would be 34cm long in 1/1000th scale.
The spaceship is the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) from the Star Trek franchise.
It's unclear whether mixing up the models is prohibited because it would damage them, or simply because that's not where they are supposed to be.
The Starship Enterprise might be corroded by seawater, or unable to handle external pressure (spacecraft are designed for the exact opposite pressures in a vacuum). If lifted into the air, the Aircraft Carrier Enterprise would probably fall back down because it can't fly (and be damaged or even destroyed upon hitting the ground or water surface), but then again, it's unclear how the model Enterprise is able to fly or hover.
The Enterprise from the JJ Abrams films has been seen to hide underwater and take off again without significant problems. However, it is unclear whether other versions of the Enterprise also possess this ability, nor which version is represented in the comic.
|
|-
| No connecting the Dead Sea to the ocean
| If there are models of Israeli and Jordanian cities next to the Dead Sea, they could get damaged by the water. Also, the model world would be less accurate because the Dead Sea is not connected to the ocean in real life.
|
|-
| Do not let ants into the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory
| Getting them out of the tunnel network would probably be difficult.
|
|-
| Only one person on the Golden Gate Tightrope at a time
| The {{w|Golden Gate Bridge}} is a suspension bridge in San Francisco, of width 27m. Scaled-down, it would be 2.7cm wide and it would be tempting to use it as a tightrope.
| In 1987, approximately 300,000 people [https://www.sfgate.com/local-donotuse/article/Golden-Gate-bridge-walk-1987-anniversary-disaster-13896571.php walked across the Golden Gate Bridge], which could be the largest weight it has supported: 80kg * 300,000 = 2.4*10^7kg. A visitor to the scaled world would expect to weigh (1000^3) times as much as a standard human: 8*(10^10), above the [https://www.vibrationdata.com/golden.htm total mass of the bridge]: 3.8*(10^8)
|-
| Do not remove Statue of Liberty LEGO minifig
| Whoever has made this model has decided to use a small LEGO minifigure rather than a more accurately sculpted replica of the Statue of Liberty. The person would likely not want it to be removed because it would then have to be replaced.
| LEGO has released a [https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/magnet-statue-of-liberty-2016-853600 Statue of Liberty minifigure] which is 5.3cm tall. The real Statue of Liberty, from head to toe, is 46 meters tall. At 1/1000 scale this would be a 4.6cm figurine, so the LEGO minifigure would indeed be an appropriate representation at that scale.
|-
| Please stop releasing goldfish into the ocean. They eat all of the blue whales.
| Blue whales usually grow to about 20m long in real life, meaning that at 1/1000th scale they would be only 2cm long, meaning that they could easily be consumed by a goldfish. Goldfish are omnivores, so they would eat tiny blue whales. But they are also freshwater fish, so would they survive long enough in seawaterto put the whales at risk? This could perhaps be considered carping. And perhaps Randall's customers have access to [https://mashable.com/2017/09/20/saltwater-bearing-goldfish-australia/ Australian goldfish].
| This also begs the question of where one would get such tiny blue whales. In the mouseover text, Randall mentions that if real blue whales were to be released into the 1/1000th scale ocean they would filter-feed on the miniature versions. Blue whales usually eat minuscule krill, however, the tiny whales would provide a similarly-sized substitute.
|
|}

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

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Illustrations of scale]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Science Girl]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Scale World]]

2417: 1/1,000th Scale World

2021-01-27T22:35:43Z

172.68.129.132:

{{comic
| number = 2417
| date = January 27, 2021
| title = 1/1,000th Scale World
| image = 1_1000th_scale_world.png
| titletext = We're worried that a regular whale will get into a 30-foot-deep ocean trench section and filter-feed on all the tiny whales.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a STATUE OF LIBERTY MINIFIG. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic is a follow up to a previous two, [[2412: 1/100,000th Scale World]] and [[2411: 1/10,000th Scale World]], with a smaller scale and thus a larger world. As in the previous comics, [[Randall]] has another seemingly complete copy of Earth, this time at a 1:1000 scale, with various features and warnings labeled. Again, real-world features and phenomena are replicated at scale. As before, the model is very extensive, with several underground neutrino detectors/observatories being replicated.

Several of the warnings point out humorous consequences of the scale, such as goldfish eating blue whales.

===Table===
{| class="wikitable"
!Rule
!Reason
!Notes
|-
| Keep hot objects off the ice sheet over the south pole neutrino observatory
| Hot objects may emit Cherenkov radiation, which would result in the observatory detecting false positives of neutrino observations.
|
|-
| Be patient: Niagara falls will take a few minutes to fill your water glass
| The flow rate is scaled down with the size. According to https://what-if.xkcd.com/147/, the Niagara Falls flow is regulated to 100.000 cubic feet per second on the tourist season and to 50.000 cubic feet per second offseason and at night. Once scaled to 1/1000, that flow would be 2.83 or 1.41ml per second. If a standard glass of water is 250ml, it would take 1-2 minutes for the waterfall to fill it.

However, a 1/1000th replica of scale Niagra falls would be over a meter wide, so without some kind of system to divert the whole flow into one spot, it would not be possible to fill a glass this quickly. Also, the height of the scaled-down Niagra falls would be 5cm, with another 5cm between the water level and the riverbed, so it might be difficult to fill a glass depending on its height.
| This item is likely to be a reference to the famous Arthur C. Clarke quote: "Getting information from the internet is like getting a glass of water from the Niagara Falls."
|-
| Watch for small planes
| Taking the popular Cessna 172 as an example, 1/1000th scale small planes would be about 8mm in length, and cruise at speeds of about 6cm/s, much slower than comparable flying insects. A Cessna of that size traveling at that speed would probably cause much more damage to itself than a person if it crashed into one, so the warning is probably there to protect the models rather than the guests.
|
|-
| Warning! Choking hazard! Keep small children away from ascending/descending airliners
| Airplanes are apparently small enough for children to fit into their mouths but large enough to potentially make them choke.
| In the US, small parts are defined by [https://www.cpsc.gov/Business--Manufacturing/Business-Education/Business-Guidance/Small-Parts-for-Toys-and-Childrens-Products 16 C.F.R. Part 1501.2] as fitting in a cylindrical test fixture of 1.25 inches diameter that approximates the size of the fully expanded throat of a child under three years old. Once scaled, any object smaller than 31.75 meters would fit in that cylinder. A lot of medium-sized and small airplanes would qualify. Furthermore, since pieces that break off during testing that simulates use or abuse by children could also pose a choking hazard, even large airliners are also a choking hazard because stripped wings and parts of the fuselage would fit in the required size.
|-
| Do not remove safety caps
| This is a reference to the warning, "Be careful not to step on cities with especially pointy towers, like Toronto, Seattle, and Dubai" from [[2411: 1/10,000th Scale World]]. It's possible that many visitors to that scaled world did not heed the warnings and complained to the scaled world's creators, causing them to cover pointy towers with safety caps for this scaled world. However, now there are [[Black Hat|people who apparently want to cause harm to others]], or at least don't care about not causing harm to others, by removing these safety caps.
The tip of the Burj Khalifa - the tallest building in the scale world - appears to be about a meter and a half wide, or 1.5mm at 1/1000th scale.
|
|-
| No open flames in Zeppelin area
| Zeppelins are filled with hydrogen due to their very low density, which allows them to float. However, it is also very flammable and prone to explosions. The most famous of these Zeppelin disasters was when the {{w|Hindenburg disaster|Hindenburg exploded}} in 1937.
|-
| Do not bother the meteor crater ducks
| Meteor Crater in Arizona is over a kilometer wide, so at 1/1000 scale it could be a small duck pond of 1.186m diameter, and 17cm deep at its deepest point. This is (barely) enough space for a duck to swim in if filled to the brim with water.
| Meteor Crater is not filled with water in real life.
|-
| Trip hazard: The Gateway Arch
| The {{w|Gateway Arch}} is a monument in Saint Louis, Missouri. Being a 192 m high arch, once scaled it would be 19.2 cm high, ideal for tripping.
|
|-
| Drone altitude limit
| The FAA drone altitude limit is 400ft above the ground, which would be about 12cm in 1/1000th scale. This appears to be the number Randall is using, as the limit in the comic is about the same height as the pyramids, which are also around 400ft tall in the real world.
|
|-
| Do not mix up the USS Enterprises
|
The ship is presumably a model of the USS Enterprise (CVN-65), the longest naval vessel ever built, which would be 34cm long in 1/1000th scale.
The spaceship is the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) from the Star Trek franchise.
It's unclear whether mixing up the models is prohibited because it would damage them, or simply because that's not where they are supposed to be.
The Starship Enterprise might be corroded by seawater, or unable to handle external pressure (spacecraft are designed for the exact opposite pressures in a vacuum). If lifted into the air, the Aircraft Carrier Enterprise would probably fall back down because it can't fly (and be damaged or even destroyed upon hitting the ground or water surface), but then again, it's unclear how the model Enterprise is able to fly or hover.
The Enterprise from the JJ Abrams films has been seen to hide underwater and take off again without significant problems. However, it is unclear whether other versions of the Enterprise also possess this ability, nor which version is represented in the comic.
|
|-
| No connecting the Dead Sea to the ocean
| If there are models of Israeli and Jordanian cities next to the Dead Sea, they could get damaged by the water. Also, the model world would be less accurate because the Dead Sea is not connected to the ocean in real life.
|
|-
| Do not let ants into the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory
| Getting them out of the tunnel network would probably be difficult.
|
|-
| Only one person on the Golden Gate Tightrope at a time
| The {{w|Golden Gate Bridge}} is a suspension bridge in San Francisco, of width 27m. Scaled-down, it would be 2.7cm wide and it would be tempting to use it as a tightrope.
| In 1987, approximately 300,000 people [https://www.sfgate.com/local-donotuse/article/Golden-Gate-bridge-walk-1987-anniversary-disaster-13896571.php walked across the Golden Gate Bridge], which could be the largest weight it has supported: 80kg * 300,000 = 2.4*10^7kg. A visitor to the scaled world would expect to weigh (1000^3) times as much as a standard human: 8*(10^10), above the [https://www.vibrationdata.com/golden.htm total mass of the bridge]: 3.8*(10^8)
|-
| Do not remove Statue of Liberty LEGO minifig
| Whoever has made this model has decided to use a small LEGO minifigure rather than a more accurately sculpted replica of the Statue of Liberty. The person would likely not want it to be removed because it would then have to be replaced.
| LEGO has released a [https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/magnet-statue-of-liberty-2016-853600 Statue of Liberty minifigure] which is 5.3cm tall. The real Statue of Liberty, from head to toe, is 46 meters tall. At 1/1000 scale this would be a 4.6cm figurine, so the LEGO minifigure would indeed be an appropriate representation at that scale.
|-
| Please stop releasing goldfish into the ocean. They eat all of the blue whales.
| Blue whales usually grow to about 20m long in real life, meaning that at 1/1000th scale they would be only 2cm long, meaning that they could easily be consumed by a goldfish. Goldfish are omnivores, so they would eat tiny blue whales. But they are also freshwater fish, so would they survive long enough to put the whales at risk? This could perhaps be considered carping. And perhaps Randall's customers have access to [https://mashable.com/2017/09/20/saltwater-bearing-goldfish-australia/ Australian goldfish].
| This also begs the question of where one would get such tiny blue whales. In the mouseover text, Randall mentions that if real blue whales were to be released into the 1/00th scale ocean they would filter-feed on the miniature versions. Blue whales usually eat minuscule krill, however, the tiny whales would provide a similarly-sized substitute.
|
|}

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

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Illustrations of scale]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Science Girl]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Scale World]]

2411: 1/10,000th Scale World

2021-01-14T05:44:26Z

172.68.129.132: /* Explanation */

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

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

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

Real-world phenomena are reproduced at scale, for humorous effect. A real 1/10,000th scale "Earth" would have a diameter of less than a mile, and a surface area of around 10 miles, the approximate dimensions of a medium-sized asteroid. On such an object, constrained by known physics, there would be no air, standing water, weather, or large magma bodies, and any sort of rough-housing would irrecoverably catapult the visitor into space. The scenario depicted better fits the case of Earth at 1x and the visitors at 10,000x. The biological consequences of such a scenario would be unfortunate - as if humans weren't already doing enough environmental damage. Assuming that a human on a 1x Earth weighing 750 tons would be able to do anything but instantly collapse and suffocate.

There are warnings to prevent the visitors from accidentally doing something cataclysmic. Likewise, the "ocean play area rules" in the title text tell visitors not to create any {{w|megatsunami}}s, which could conceivably be induced by a cannonball dive.

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

{| class="wikitable"
!Danger
!Why
!Notes
|-
| Watch out for airliners cruising near shoulder level
| Unintentional catastrophic damage to air traffic
| At 1/10,000th scale, a jumbo jet is less than half an inch long (gnat-sized) easy to miss and easy to crush.
|-
| Trip hazard: Appalachian Mountains
| At half a foot tall, the Appalachians could trip visitors who are not being careful.
| 6684 ft = 0.67 ft in model world
|-
| Do not stand or climb on Mt. Everest
| One may destroy the model.
|
|-
| Caution: Hydro-thermal vents underfoot
|Hydrothermal vents are extremely hot, which could cause burns to the feet of the viewers
|Underwater volcanoes and stuff
|-
| Children must be supervised while in the ocean, especially near trenches
|They might drown.
|The Challenger Deep is 36,200 feet below the surface; this equates to 3.62 feet in the model world, a depth which small children could conceivably drown in.
|-
| Danger: positive lightning! Do not touch cloud tops
| The cumulonimbus cloud is an electrocution hazard, as Megan is learning the hard way: Getting too close to the positive cloud tops risks causing lightning to arc into you down to the negative ground.
|
|-
| Avoid hypoxia by regularly sitting to bring your lungs below the death zone
| The scale world even has a scale atmosphere, and visitors are cautioned to regularly sit down so they can breathe below the {{w|death zone}}, which is approximately two and a half feet above the surface.
| The death zone is approximately 8,000 meters above the ground, equating to 0.8 meters or 2.62 feet in the model world.
|-
| Do not dig near Yellowstone
| Digging up the {{w|Yellowstone Caldera}} could potentially reactivate the {{w|supervolcano}} there.
|
|-
| Please do not smack weather balloons
| It's not very nice
|
|-
| Be careful not to step on cities with especially pointy towers, like Toronto, Seattle, and Dubai
| Pointy things hurt
| There's a note "not to step on cities with especially pointy towers," although this seems to be exclusively for the visitors' benefit, rather than that of the cities.
|}

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

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

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

Watch out for airliners cruising near shoulder level

Trip hazard: Appalachian Mountains

Do not stand or climb on Mt. Everest

Caution: Hydro-thermal vents underfoot

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

Danger: positive lightning! Do not touch cloud tops

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

Do not dig near Yellowstone

Please do not smack weather balloons

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

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

2411: 1/10,000th Scale World

2021-01-14T05:32:15Z

172.68.129.132: /* Explanation */

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

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

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

Real-world phenomena are reproduced at scale, for humorous effect. A real 1/10,000th scale "Earth" would have a diameter of less than a mile, and a surface area of around 10 miles, the approximate dimensions of a medium-sized asteroid. On such an object, constrained by known physics, there would be no air, standing water, weather, or large magma bodies, and any sort of rough-housing would irrecoverably catapult the visitor into space. The scenario depicted better fits the case of Earth at 1x and the visitors at 10,000x. The biological consequences of such a scenario would be unfortunate - as if humans weren't already doing enough environmental damage. Assuming that a human on a 1x Earth weighing 750 tons would be able to do anything but instantly collapse and suffocate.

There are warnings to prevent the visitors from accidentally doing something cataclysmic. Likewise, the "ocean play area rules" in the title text tell visitors not to create any {{w|megatsunami}}s, which could conceivably be induced by a cannonball dive.

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

{| class="wikitable"
!Danger
!Why
!Notes
|-
| Watch out for airliners cruising near shoulder level
|
| I am just setting out the basic layout for everyone else. Feel free to change the text, this is all just placeholder.
|-
| Trip hazard: Appalachian Mountains
| At half a foot tall, the Appalachians could trip visitors who are not being careful.
| 6684 ft = 0.67 ft in model world
|-
| Do not stand or climb on Mt. Everest
| One may destroy the model.
|
|-
| Caution: Hydro-thermal vents underfoot
|Hydrothermal vents are extremely hot, which could cause burns to the feet of the viewers
|Underwater volcanoes and stuff
|-
| Children must be supervised while in the ocean, especially near trenches
|They might drown.
|The Challenger Deep is 36,200 feet below the surface; this equates to 3.62 feet in the model world, a depth which small children could conceivably drown in.
|-
| Danger: positive lightning! Do not touch cloud tops
| The cumulonimbus cloud is an electrocution hazard, as Megan is learning the hard way: Getting too close to the positive cloud tops risks causing lightning to arc into you down to the negative ground.
|
|-
| Avoid hypoxia by regularly sitting to bring your lungs below the death zone
| The scale world even has a scale atmosphere, and visitors are cautioned to regularly sit down so they can breathe below the {{w|death zone}}, which is approximately two and a half feet above the surface.
| The death zone is approximately 8,000 meters above the ground, equating to 0.8 meters or 2.62 feet in the model world.
|-
| Do not dig near Yellowstone
| Digging up the {{w|Yellowstone Caldera}} could potentially reactivate the {{w|supervolcano}} there.
|
|-
| Please do not smack weather balloons
| It's not very nice
|
|-
| Be careful not to step on cities with especially pointy towers, like Toronto, Seattle, and Dubai
| Pointy things hurt
| There's a note "not to step on cities with especially pointy towers," although this seems to be exclusively for the visitors' benefit, rather than that of the cities.
|}

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

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

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

Watch out for airliners cruising near shoulder level

Trip hazard: Appalachian Mountains

Do not stand or climb on Mt. Everest

Caution: Hydro-thermal vents underfoot

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

Danger: positive lightning! Do not touch cloud tops

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

Do not dig near Yellowstone

Please do not smack weather balloons

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

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

2411: 1/10,000th Scale World

2021-01-14T05:22:17Z

172.68.129.132:

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

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

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

Real-world phenomena are reproduced at scale, for humorous effect. A real 1/10,000th scale "Earth" would have a diameter of less than a mile, and a surface area of around 10 miles, the approximate dimensions of a medium-sized asteroid. On such an object, constrained by known physics, there would be no air, standing water, weather, or large magma bodies, and any sort of rough-housing would irrecoverably catapult the visitor into space. The scenario depicted better fits the case of Earth at 1x and the visitors at 10,000x. The biological consequences of such a scenario would be unfortunate - as if humans weren't already doing enough environmental damage.

There are warnings to prevent the visitors from accidentally doing something cataclysmic. Likewise, the "ocean play area rules" in the title text tell visitors not to create any {{w|megatsunami}}s, which could conceivably be induced by a cannonball dive.

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

{| class="wikitable"
!Danger
!Why
!Notes
|-
| Watch out for airliners cruising near shoulder level
|
| I am just setting out the basic layout for everyone else. Feel free to change the text, this is all just placeholder.
|-
| Trip hazard: Appalachian Mountains
| At half a foot tall, the Appalachians could trip visitors who are not being careful.
| 6684 ft = 0.67 ft in model world
|-
| Do not stand or climb on Mt. Everest
| One may destroy the model.
|
|-
| Caution: Hydro-thermal vents underfoot
|Hydrothermal vents are extremely hot, which could cause burns to the feet of the viewers
|Underwater volcanoes and stuff
|-
| Children must be supervised while in the ocean, especially near trenches
|They might drown.
|The Challenger Deep is 36,200 feet below the surface; this equates to 3.62 feet in the model world, a depth which small children could conceivably drown in.
|-
| Danger: positive lightning! Do not touch cloud tops
| The cumulonimbus cloud is an electrocution hazard, as Megan is learning the hard way: Getting too close to the positive cloud tops risks causing lightning to arc into you down to the negative ground.
|
|-
| Avoid hypoxia by regularly sitting to bring your lungs below the death zone
| The scale world even has a scale atmosphere, and visitors are cautioned to regularly sit down so they can breathe below the {{w|death zone}}, which is approximately two and a half feet above the surface.
| The death zone is approximately 8,000 meters above the ground, equating to 0.8 meters or 2.62 feet in the model world.
|-
| Do not dig near Yellowstone
| Digging up the {{w|Yellowstone Caldera}} could potentially reactivate the {{w|supervolcano}} there.
|
|-
| Please do not smack weather balloons
| It's not very nice
|
|-
| Be careful not to step on cities with especially pointy towers, like Toronto, Seattle, and Dubai
| Pointy things hurt
| There's a note "not to step on cities with especially pointy towers," although this seems to be exclusively for the visitors' benefit, rather than that of the cities.
|}

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

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

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

Watch out for airliners cruising near shoulder level

Trip hazard: Appalachian Mountains

Do not stand or climb on Mt. Everest

Caution: Hydro-thermal vents underfoot

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

Danger: positive lightning! Do not touch cloud tops

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

Do not dig near Yellowstone

Please do not smack weather balloons

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

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

2394: Contiguous 41 States

2020-12-05T19:28:34Z

172.68.129.132:

{{comic
| number = 2394
| date = December 4, 2020
| title = Contiguous 41 States
| image = contiguous_41_states.png
| titletext = Linguists, settling some inscrutable grudge, have been steadily sneaking more backdated synonyms for 'sharing borders' into the dictionary. They've added 'contiguous,' 'coterminous,' 'conterminous,' and next year they're adding 'conterguous.'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a MISSING STATE. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
The United States of America is composed of {{w|List_of_states_and_territories_of_the_United_States|50}} states, {{w|Contiguous United States|48 of which are contiguous}} – meaning they share a common border. Two states are separated from the other 48 states, {{w|Alaska}} and {{w|Hawaii}}. Alaska, purchased from Russia in 1867, is separated from the rest of the United States by the country of Canada. Hawaii, annexed in 1898, is a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean. As these states are not ''contiguous'' to the rest of the 48 states, they may be omitted from maps of the United States. Typically, these 2 states are included in inset maps, separate sections at the bottom of the map.

The map in this comic is "Alaska and Hawaii's revenge", with seven additional states removed: North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. Most of these are accomplished by eliminating a column of states: North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas. Oklahoma and Texas, which are directly south of these, are slid over to the west into the space freed up by deleting New Mexico. The other two deleted states are Pennsylvania and Delaware, with the states to their south and north slid/extended to fill the gap.

The map is also missing {{w|Isle Royale}}, Michigan, the third-largest island in the contiguous U.S. This seems to be a legitimate oversight, as the map includes numerous smaller islands in detail, including Michigan's Beaver Island and North Manitou Island. Even the non-contiguous {{w|Northwest Angle}} of Minnesota is depicted.

The United States did have exactly 41 states for a few days in 1889, from the admission of Montana, the 41st state, on November 8, to the admission of Washington (the state, not DC), the 42nd state, on November 11. However, it was not the same 41 as shown here; for example, Pennsylvania and Delaware were two of the original 13 states (Delaware calls itself the first state, based on date of ratification of the Constitution) and Arizona and Oklahoma did not become states until the early 1900s.

The title text riffs on synonyms for "shared borders", which, according to Randall, linguists are inventing more of (while claiming they already existed) to make life more complicated for modern English users, for obscure reasons.

In fact, 'contiguous', 'coterminous', and 'conterminous' all date from early modern English, early-to-mid 17th century (just after the time of Shakespeare). 'Coterminous' and 'conterminous' are alternate spellings from the same Latin root ('cum' + 'terminus'), whereas 'contiguous' is from a different root (Latin 'contiguus'). Randall, facetiously, accuses linguists of having fabricated this history.

'Conterguous' is a neologism by Randall, though he blames it on linguists, consistent with his claim that they made up all the others. It is a portmanteau of 'CONTERminous' and 'contiGUOUS'. It is etymologically absurd (the prefix 'conter-' is meaningless). Its 'top-down' introduction into the language would simply be for the purpose of messing with people's minds, as Randall suggests. However, should the word catch on with English speakers, perhaps precisely because it is a joke, its 'bottom-up' entry into the language is certainly possible. One could then argue just how much Randall would have to answer for.

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

:The Contiguous 41 States

:[A map of the United States, missing Delaware, Kansas, New Mexico, Nebraska, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota, along with the District of Columbia, Alaska and Hawaii]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Tired of being left off maps of the US, Alaska and Hawaii begin producing maps with ''other'' states missing, too.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Maps]]
[[Category:Language]]

2394: Contiguous 41 States

2020-12-05T19:08:31Z

172.68.129.132:

{{comic
| number = 2394
| date = December 4, 2020
| title = Contiguous 41 States
| image = contiguous_41_states.png
| titletext = Linguists, settling some inscrutable grudge, have been steadily sneaking more backdated synonyms for 'sharing borders' into the dictionary. They've added 'contiguous,' 'coterminous,' 'conterminous,' and next year they're adding 'conterguous.'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a MISSING STATE. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
The United States of America is composed of {{w|List_of_states_and_territories_of_the_United_States|50}} states, {{w|Contiguous United States|48 of which are contiguous}} – meaning they share a common border. Two states are separated from the other 48 states, {{w|Alaska}} and {{w|Hawaii}}. Alaska, purchased from Russia in 1867, is separated from the rest of the United States by the country of Canada. Hawaii, annexed in 1898, is a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean. As these states are not ''contiguous'' to the rest of the 48 states, they may be omitted from maps of the United States. Typically, these 2 states are included in inset maps, separate sections at the bottom of the map.

The map in this comic is "Alaska and Hawaii's revenge", with seven additional states removed: North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. Most of these are accomplished by eliminating a column of states: North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas. Oklahoma and Texas, which are directly south of these, are slid over to the west into the space freed up by deleting New Mexico. The other two deleted states are Pennsylvania and Delaware, with the states to their south and north slid/extended to fill the gap.

The map is also missing {{w|Isle Royale}}, Michigan, the third-largest island in the contiguous U.S. This seems to be a legitimate oversight, as the map includes numerous smaller islands in detail, including Michigan's Beaver Island and North Manitou Island. Even the non-contiguous {{w|Northwest Angle}} of Minnesota is depicted.

The United States did have exactly 41 states for a few days in 1889, from the admission of Montana, the 41st state, on November 8, to the admission of Washington (the state, not DC), the 42nd state, on November 11. However, it was not the same 41 as shown here; for example, Pennsylvania and Delaware were two of the original 13 states (Delaware calls itself the first state, based on date of ratification of the Constitution) and Arizona and Oklahoma did not become states until the early 1900s.

The title text riffs on synonyms for "shared borders", which, according to Randall, linguists are inventing more of (while claiming they already existed) to make life more complicated for modern English users, for obscure reasons.

In fact, 'contiguous', 'coterminous', and 'conterminous' all date from early modern English, early-to-mid 17th century (just after the time of Shakespeare). 'Coterminous' and 'conterminous' are alternate spellings from the same Latin root ('cum' + 'terminus'), whereas 'contiguous' is from a different root (Latin 'contiguus').

'Conterguous' is a neologism by Randall, though he blames it on linguists. It is a portmanteau of 'CONTERminous' and 'contiGUOUS'. It is etymologically absurd (the prefix 'conter-' is meaningless). Its 'top-down' introduction into the language would simply be for the purpose of messing with people's minds, as Randall suggests. However, should the word catch on with English speakers, perhaps precisely because it is a joke, its 'bottom-up' entry into the language is certainly possible. One could then argue just how much Randall would have to answer for.

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

:The Contiguous 41 States

:[A map of the United States, missing Delaware, Kansas, New Mexico, Nebraska, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota, along with the District of Columbia, Alaska and Hawaii]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Tired of being left off maps of the US, Alaska and Hawaii begin producing maps with ''other'' states missing, too.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Maps]]
[[Category:Language]]

Talk:2394: Contiguous 41 States

2020-12-05T16:18:54Z

172.68.129.132:

Missing contiguous states: Delaware, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota
[[Special:Contributions/172.69.42.92|172.69.42.92]] 23:57, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
:I knew something was off, but I couldn't pinpoint anything until reading the explanation. That's so weird. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.66|172.69.22.66]] 07:54, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

'''Contiguous''' has more specific meaning that "share borders" - it means that you can travel (on land in the case of map) from any point to any point, and there would be no breaks and spaces in the territory. --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 09:56, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

I know acting like descriptivism is the objectively correct approach to language is all the rage these days, but I don't think you can describe a linguistic event (a word catching on) as "descriptivist" or "prescriptivist", as the page proposed for "conterguous". That's like referring to an economic occurrence as "normative" or "positive". It's not either of those, it just happens. Descriptivism refers to a quality of linguistics itself, not to language; it means, well, describing language. It doesn't stand for organic growth (or the explicit endorsement thereof, which would actually be prescriptive, and there's nothing wrong with that). So I nixed the reference to it; I think the supplied top-down and bottom-up are apt enough to stand on their own for that tangent. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.206.92|172.68.206.92]] 12:37, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
:I wondered. "Prescriptive" and "descriptive" identify, I reckon, 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' processes, both are required to allow a language to grow while remaining comprehensible to all its speakers, and, at the time, the idea of linking an absurd "rage" with an absurd word seemed too good to pass on. Thanks for the correction. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.129.132|172.68.129.132]] 16:18, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

This is like a puzzle with almost fitting pieces, so by carefully removing some states, it results in a fake border, as shown here: https://imgur.com/a/W8RMKMF . [[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.40|162.158.134.40]] 15:49, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Talk:2394: Contiguous 41 States

2020-12-05T16:17:58Z

172.68.129.132:

Missing contiguous states: Delaware, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota
[[Special:Contributions/172.69.42.92|172.69.42.92]] 23:57, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
:I knew something was off, but I couldn't pinpoint anything until reading the explanation. That's so weird. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.66|172.69.22.66]] 07:54, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

'''Contiguous''' has more specific meaning that "share borders" - it means that you can travel (on land in the case of map) from any point to any point, and there would be no breaks and spaces in the territory. --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 09:56, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

I know acting like descriptivism is the objectively correct approach to language is all the rage these days, but I don't think you can describe a linguistic event (a word catching on) as "descriptivist" or "prescriptivist", as the page proposed for "conterguous". That's like referring to an economic occurrence as "normative" or "positive". It's not either of those, it just happens. Descriptivism refers to a quality of linguistics itself, not to language; it means, well, describing language. It doesn't stand for organic growth (or the explicit endorsement thereof, which would actually be prescriptive, and there's nothing wrong with that). So I nixed the reference to it; I think the supplied top-down and bottom-up are apt enough to stand on their own for that tangent. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.206.92|172.68.206.92]] 12:37, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
:I wondered. "Prescriptive" and "descriptive" identify, I reckon, 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' processes, both are required to allow a language to grow while remaining comprehensible to all its speakers, and, at the time, the idea of linking an absurd "rage" with an absurd word seemed too good to pass on. Thanks for the correction.----

This is like a puzzle with almost fitting pieces, so by carefully removing some states, it results in a fake border, as shown here: https://imgur.com/a/W8RMKMF . [[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.40|162.158.134.40]] 15:49, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Talk:2394: Contiguous 41 States

2020-12-05T16:17:12Z

172.68.129.132:

Missing contiguous states: Delaware, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota
[[Special:Contributions/172.69.42.92|172.69.42.92]] 23:57, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
:I knew something was off, but I couldn't pinpoint anything until reading the explanation. That's so weird. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.66|172.69.22.66]] 07:54, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

'''Contiguous''' has more specific meaning that "share borders" - it means that you can travel (on land in the case of map) from any point to any point, and there would be no breaks and spaces in the territory. --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 09:56, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

I know acting like descriptivism is the objectively correct approach to language is all the rage these days, but I don't think you can describe a linguistic event (a word catching on) as "descriptivist" or "prescriptivist", as the page proposed for "conterguous". That's like referring to an economic occurrence as "normative" or "positive". It's not either of those, it just happens. Descriptivism refers to a quality of linguistics itself, not to language; it means, well, describing language. It doesn't stand for organic growth (or the explicit endorsement thereof, which would actually be prescriptive, and there's nothing wrong with that). So I nixed the reference to it; I think the supplied top-down and bottom-up are apt enough to stand on their own for that tangent. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.206.92|172.68.206.92]] 12:37, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
:I wondered. "Prescriptive" and "descriptive" identify, I reckon, 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' processes, both are required to allow a language to grow while remaining comprehensible to all its speakers, and, at the time, the idea of linking an absurd "rage" with an absurd word seemed too good to pass on. Thanks for the correction. ----

This is like a puzzle with almost fitting pieces, so by carefully removing some states, it results in a fake border, as shown here: https://imgur.com/a/W8RMKMF . [[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.40|162.158.134.40]] 15:49, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Talk:2394: Contiguous 41 States

2020-12-05T16:14:30Z

172.68.129.132:

Missing contiguous states: Delaware, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota
[[Special:Contributions/172.69.42.92|172.69.42.92]] 23:57, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
:I knew something was off, but I couldn't pinpoint anything until reading the explanation. That's so weird. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.66|172.69.22.66]] 07:54, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

'''Contiguous''' has more specific meaning that "share borders" - it means that you can travel (on land in the case of map) from any point to any point, and there would be no breaks and spaces in the territory. --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 09:56, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

I know acting like descriptivism is the objectively correct approach to language is all the rage these days, but I don't think you can describe a linguistic event (a word catching on) as "descriptivist" or "prescriptivist", as the page proposed for "conterguous". That's like referring to an economic occurrence as "normative" or "positive". It's not either of those, it just happens. Descriptivism refers to a quality of linguistics itself, not to language; it means, well, describing language. It doesn't stand for organic growth (or the explicit endorsement thereof, which would actually be prescriptive, and there's nothing wrong with that). So I nixed the reference to it; I think the supplied top-down and bottom-up are apt enough to stand on their own for that tangent. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.206.92|172.68.206.92]] 12:37, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
:I wondered. "Prescriptive" and "descriptive" identify, I reckon, 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' processes, both are required to allow a language to grow while remaining comprehensible to all its speakers, and, at the time, the idea of linking an absurd "rage" with an absurd word seemed too good to pass on. Thanks for the correction.

This is like a puzzle with almost fitting pieces, so by carefully removing some states, it results in a fake border, as shown here: https://imgur.com/a/W8RMKMF . [[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.40|162.158.134.40]] 15:49, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

2394: Contiguous 41 States

2020-12-05T02:01:47Z

172.68.129.132:

{{comic
| number = 2394
| date = December 4, 2020
| title = Contiguous 41 States
| image = contiguous_41_states.png
| titletext = Linguists, settling some inscrutable grudge, have been steadily sneaking more backdated synonyms for 'sharing borders' into the dictionary. They've added 'contiguous,' 'coterminous,' 'conterminous,' and next year they're adding 'conterguous.'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a MISSING STATE. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
The United States of America is composed of 50 states, {{w|Contiguous United States|48 of which are contiguous}} - meaning sharing a common border. Two states are separated from the other 48 states, {{w|Alaska}} and {{w|Hawaii}}. Alaska, purchased from Russia in 1867, is separated from the rest of the United States by the country of Canada. Hawaii, annexed in 1898, is a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean. As these states are not ''contiguous'' to the rest of the 48 states, they may not be included in maps of the United States. Typically, these 2 states are included in inset maps, separate sections at the bottom of the map.

The map in this comic is "Alaska and Hawaii's revenge", with seven additional states removed: North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. Most of these are accomplished by eliminating a column of states — North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas; Oklahoma and Texas, which are directly south of these, are slid over to the west into the space freed up by deleting New Mexico. The other two deleted states are Pennsylvania and Delaware, with the states to their south and north slid/extended to fill the gap.

The title text riffs on synonyms for "shared borders", which, according to Randall, linguists are deliberately resurrecting from the history of language to make life more complicated for modern English users, for obscure reasons (perhaps they blame ignorant responses to COVID-19 for loss of livelihood, as US universities cut Linguistics departments and professorships in a desperate effort to stay solvent).

In fact, 'contiguous', 'coterminous', and 'conterminous' all date from early modern English, early-to-mid 17th century (just after the time of Shakespeare). 'Coterminous' and 'conterminous' are alternate spellings from the same Latin root ('com' + 'terminus'), whereas 'contiguous' is from a different root (Latin 'contiguus').

'Conterguous' is a neologism by Randall, though he blames it on linguists. It is a portmanteau of 'CONTERminous' and 'contiGUOUS'. It is etymologically absurd (the prefix 'conter-' is meaningless). Its prescriptivist ('top-down') introduction into the language would simply be for the purpose of messing with people's minds, as Randall suggests. However, should the word catch on with English speakers, perhaps precisely because it is a joke, its descriptivist ('bottom up') entry into the language is certainly possible. One could then argue just how much Randall would have to answer for.

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

:The Contiguous 41 States

:[A map of the United States, missing Delaware, Kansas, New Mexico, Nebraska, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota, along with Alaska and Hawaii]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Tired of being left off maps of the US, Alaska and Hawaii begin producing maps with ''other'' states missing, too.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Maps]]
[[Category:Language]]

2394: Contiguous 41 States

2020-12-05T01:59:59Z

172.68.129.132:

{{comic
| number = 2394
| date = December 4, 2020
| title = Contiguous 41 States
| image = contiguous_41_states.png
| titletext = Linguists, settling some inscrutable grudge, have been steadily sneaking more backdated synonyms for 'sharing borders' into the dictionary. They've added 'contiguous,' 'coterminous,' 'conterminous,' and next year they're adding 'conterguous.'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a MISSING STATE. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
The United States of America is composed of 50 states, {{w|Contiguous United States|48 of which are contiguous}} - meaning sharing a common border. Two states are separated from the other 48 states, {{w|Alaska}} and {{w|Hawaii}}. Alaska, purchased from Russia in 1867, is separated from the rest of the United States by the country of Canada. Hawaii, annexed in 1898, is a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean. As these states are not ''contiguous'' to the rest of the 48 states, they may not be included in maps of the United States. Typically, these 2 states are included in maps in inset maps, at the bottom of the map.

The map in this comic is "Alaska and Hawaii's revenge", with seven additional states removed: North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. Most of these are accomplished by eliminating a column of states — North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas; Oklahoma and Texas, which are directly south of these, are slid over to the west into the space freed up by deleting New Mexico. The other two deleted states are Pennsylvania and Delaware, with the states to their south and north slid/extended to fill the gap.

In the title text, Randall picks on linguists, who use the similar words ''contiguous'', ''coterminus'', and ''conterminous'' which have the similar meaning of "sharing a common border". He coins a new word "conterguous".

The title text riffs on synonyms for "shared borders", which, according to Randall, linguists are deliberately resurrecting from the history of language to make life more complicated for modern English users, for obscure reasons (perhaps they blame ignorant responses to COVID-19 for loss of livelihood, as US universities cut Linguistics departments and professorships in a desperate effort to stay solvent).

In fact, 'contiguous', 'coterminous', and 'conterminous' all date from early modern English, early-to-mid 17th century (just after the time of Shakespeare). 'Coterminous' and 'conterminous' are alternate spellings from the same Latin root ('com' + 'terminus'), whereas 'contiguous' is from a different root (Latin 'contiguus').

'Conterguous' is a neologism by Randall, though he blames it on linguists. It is a portmanteau of 'CONTERminous' and 'contiGUOUS'. It is etymologically absurd (the prefix 'conter-' is meaningless). Its prescriptivist ('top-down') introduction into the language would simply be for the purpose of messing with people's minds, as Randall suggests. However, should the word catch on with English speakers, perhaps precisely because it is a joke, its descriptivist ('bottom up') entry into the language is certainly possible. One could then argue just how much Randall would have to answer for.

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

:The Contiguous 41 States

:[A map of the United States, missing Delaware, Kansas, New Mexico, Nebraska, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota, along with Alaska and Hawaii]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Tired of being left off maps of the US, Alaska and Hawaii begin producing maps with ''other'' states missing, too.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Maps]]
[[Category:Language]]

2379: Probability Comparisons

2020-10-31T07:15:29Z

172.68.129.132:

{{comic
| number = 2379
| date = October 30, 2020
| title = Probability Comparisons
| image = probability_comparisons.png
| titletext = Call me, MAYBE.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by LEBRON JAMES THROWING BASKETBALLS AT A KEYBOARD. The table for the explanations of the chances isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This is a list of probabilities for different events. There are a number of recurring themes, of which the most common are free throws (13 entries), birthdays (12), dice (12, split about evenly between d6 and d20 dies), M&M candies (11), playing cards (9), Scrabble tiles (7), coins (7), white Christmases (7), and the NBA players Stephen Curry and Lebron James (7 each).

Themes are variously repeated and combined, for humorous effect. For instance, there are entries for both the probability that St. Louis will have a white Christmas (21%) and that it will not (79%). Also given is the 40% probability that a random Scrabble tile will contain a letter from the name "Steph Curry".

There are 80 items in the list, the last two of which devolve into absurdity - perhaps from the stress of preparing the other 78 entries.

The probabilities are calculated from [https://xkcd.com/2379/sources/ these sources], as mentioned in the bottom left corner.

{| class="wikitable sortable"
! Odds
! Text
! Explanation
|-
| 0.01%
| You guess the last four digits of someone's {{w|Social Security Number}} on the first try
|(1/10)4 = 0.0001, or 0.01%
|-
| 0.1%
| Three randomly chosen people are all left-handed
| The chances of being left handed is about 10%, and 10%3 = 0.1%.
|-
| rowspan="2" | 0.2%
| You draw 2 random {{w|Scrabble}} tiles and get M and M
|
|-
| You draw 3 random {{w|M&Ms}} and they're all red
|
|-
| 0.3%
| You guess someone's birthday in one try.
| Matching birthdays is more likely than might be expected; see {{w|Birthday problem}} for details.
|-
| rowspan="2" | 0.5%
| An {{w|NBA}} team down by 30 at halftime wins
|
|-
| You get 4 M&Ms and they're all brown or yellow
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | 1%
| {{w|Steph Curry}} gets two free throws and misses both
|
|-
|{{w|LeBron James}} guesses your birthday, if each guess costs one free throw and he loses if he misses
|
|-
|}

The title text refers to the song [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_Me_Maybe Call Me Maybe] by Carly Rae Jepsen (cited twice in the table). "MAYBE" is emphasized because the probability of getting her phone number correct, as in the last item in the list, is very low.

==Trivia==
In the original comic, "outside" in the 88% probability section is spelled incorrectly as "outide".
==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Statistics]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]

2373: Chemist Eggs

2020-10-17T19:00:52Z

172.68.129.132:

{{comic
| number = 2373
| date = October 16, 2020
| title = Chemist Eggs
| image = chemist_eggs.png
| titletext = Chemists actually find it simpler to define a general odor of rotten eggs as a baseline, and the LACK of rotten eggs as a distinct smell.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a HOUSE FULL OF EGGS. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Please do not delete this tag too soon.}}

English, like many languages, lacks many words for describing smells. Though there are words like 'fragrant' or 'pungent', these are very broad categories, unlike for example words describing what an object looks like where much more vocabulary is available (eg. a balloon is big, red, round, made of rubber, and floats). As a result, it's actually quite challenging to tell someone what something they've never smelled smells like without using comparisons to other similar smells.

In this comic, [[Ponytail]] explains to [[Cueball]] that if he smells sulfides then the chemistry experiment on which they're working has failed. Ponytail then clarifies that sulfides smell like rotten eggs. The main and most distinct chemical rotten eggs emit is {{w|hydrogen sulfide}}, hence most people who smell them will link the chemical with "rotten egg smell".

Cueball replies, however, that he doesn't actually know what rotten eggs smell like, and it's odd that everyone uses that as a comparison. This is a result of changing times - decades ago, when the 'rotten eggs' descriptor became commonplace in chemistry education at high schools and universities, rotten eggs were indeed common enough that cooks avoided adding eggs directly to other ingredients, lest the rotten egg, not detected until after it was too late, force the cook to discard everything and start over. Vastly improved farming, shipping, and marketing practices have made the rotten egg vanishingly rare, at least at supermarkets in the USA. Moreover, much greater recognition of the health hazards of hydrogen sulfide means that, due to various occupational safety precautions, opportunities for sniffing the gas have become scarce, and usually engender swift reactions such as building evacuation.

Thus, the comparison has outlived the circumstances that spawned it, and chemistry teachers parrot a line they learned as students, which is no longer relevant to the student's experience. Given the health hazards of hydrogen sulfide and the regulations now enforced in recognition of those hazards, the chemistry teacher probably doesn't often experience the smell either. Since hydrogen sulfide deadens the sense of smell, taking this smell as a 'baseline' is improbable and potentially dangerous, and it's unfortunate that the title text makes this suggestion.

Cueball then takes the disconnect between the trope and his experience and pushes it for all it's worth. This could be taken as symbolic of people who spot such discordances and blow them out of proportion to troll others (in which case, Cueball has most definitely succeeded, based on how Ponytail reacts - she is clenching her fists in anger as she leaves the conversation, presumably to avoid further irritation.)

Some of [[Cueball]]'s questions suggest that chemists use eggs in place of other items. For example, the superstitious may react to a spilling of salt by picking it up and throwing it over their left shoulder as an attempt to blind the Devil. Another relates to the upcoming 30th October celebrations, known by a [[2372|wide range of names]], where kids are known to throw eggs at houses.

Even though rotten eggs (and hydrogen sulfide in general) are much less common nowadays, many fuel gases are mixed with odorant compounds to make it easy to know when there is a leak present. People who use natural gas or propane stoves should be familiar with the similarly rotten smell of {{w|methanethiol}}, {{w|ethanethiol}}, and/or {{w|tert-butylthiol}} (the "-SH" thiol group is a common feature of many pungent odors, including garlic and skunk spray).

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Ponytail face a table with something like a lab stirrer or heater on it, supporting a flat-bottomed and -topped container from which bubbles are rising.]
:Cueball: How will I know if the reaction fails?
:Ponytail: You'll smell the sulfides.
:Cueball: What do those smell like?
:Ponytail: Sulfurous. Rotten eggs.

:[A new panel, the table is gone. Cueball is now facing Ponytail.]
:Cueball: Chemists always compare sulfur to rotten eggs.
:Cueball: But why would I know that smell?
:Ponytail: I dunno, It's a common thing!

:[Ponytail puts her hand out.]
:Cueball: Is it? My kitchen is messy, but there aren't eggs lying around rotting.
:Ponytail: You must have smelled one at ''some'' point.

:[Ponytail is now walking right off-panel, away from Cueball. She is clenching her hands and is evidently annoyed]
:Cueball: Are all chemists' houses full of random raw eggs? Do you toss them over your shoulder for good luck?
:Ponytail: '''''My house is not full of eggs!'''''
:Cueball: What do you consider a normal amount of eggs in a house?
:Cueball: If kids egg your house this Halloween, how will you know?

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Chemistry]]

2373: Chemist Eggs

2020-10-17T05:55:47Z

172.68.129.132:

{{comic
| number = 2373
| date = October 16, 2020
| title = Chemist Eggs
| image = chemist_eggs.png
| titletext = Chemists actually find it simpler to define a general odor of rotten eggs as a baseline, and the LACK of rotten eggs as a distinct smell.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a HOUSE FULL OF EGGS. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Please do <s>not</s> delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic details how some people attribute smells to certain things that aren't always common to smell - in 2020. Decades ago, when the 'rotten eggs' descriptor became commonplace in chemistry education at high schools and universities, rotten eggs were indeed common enough that cooks avoided adding eggs directly to other ingredients, lest the rotten egg, not detected until after it was too late, force the cook to discard everything and start over. Vastly improved farming, shipping, and marketing practices have made the rotten egg vanishingly rare, at least in the USA. Moreover, much greater recognition of the health hazards of {{w|hydrogen sulfide}} gas (the principal chemical associated with the rotten egg smell) means that, due to various occupational safety precautions, opportunities for sniffing the gas have become scarce, and usually engender swift reactions such as building evacuation.

The trope, however, has outlived the circumstances that spawned it, thus chemistry teachers parrot a line they learned as students, which is no longer relevant to the student's experience. Given the health hazards of hydrogen sulfide and the regulations now enforced in recognition of those hazards, the competent, and compliant, chemistry teacher doesn't often experience the smell either. Thus, the crack in the title text ("chemists actually use the rotten-egg smell as a baseline for measurement") is unfunny and potentially dangerous, not least because a characteristic of hydrogen sulfide is its ability to deaden the sense of smell, so that a person in an environment with toxic amounts of hydrogen sulfide will not smell the gas.

[[Cueball]] takes the disconnect between the trope and his experience and pushes it for all it's worth. This could be taken as symbolic of people who spot such discordances and blow them out of proportion to troll others (in which case, Cueball has most definitely succeeded, based on how [[Ponytail]] reacts - she is clenching her fists in anger as she leaves the conversation, presumably to avoid further irritation.)

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Please delete this tag too soon.}}

:[Cueball and Ponytail face a table with something like a lab stirrer or heater on it, supporting a flat-bottomed and -topped container from which bubbles are rising.]
:Cueball: How will I know if the reaction fails?
:Ponytail: You'll smell the sulfides.
:Cueball: What do those smell like?
:Ponytail: Sulfurous. Rotten eggs.

:[A new panel, the table is gone. Cueball is now facing Ponytail.]
:Cueball: Chemists always compare sulfur to rotten eggs.
:Cueball: But why would I know that smell?
:Ponytail: I dunno, It's a common thing!

:[Ponytail puts her hand out.]
:Cueball: Is it? My kitchen is messy, but there aren't eggs lying around rotting.
:Ponytail: You must have smelled one at ''some'' point.

:[Ponytail is now walking right off-panel, away from Cueball. She is clenching her hands and is evidently annoyed]
:Cueball: Are all chemists' houses full of random raw eggs? Do you toss them over your shoulder for good luck?
:Ponytail: '''''My house is not full of eggs!'''''
:Cueball: What do you consider a normal amount of eggs in a house?
:Cueball: If kids egg your house this Halloween, how will you know?

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Chemistry]]

2373: Chemist Eggs

2020-10-17T05:32:32Z

172.68.129.132:

{{comic
| number = 2373
| date = October 16, 2020
| title = Chemist Eggs
| image = chemist_eggs.png
| titletext = Chemists actually find it simpler to define a general odor of rotten eggs as a baseline, and the LACK of rotten eggs as a distinct smell.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a HOUSE FULL OF EGGS. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Please do <s>not</s> delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic details how some people attribute smells to certain things that aren't always common to smell - in 2020. Decades ago, when the 'rotten eggs' descriptor became commonplace in chemistry education at high schools and universities, rotten eggs were indeed common enough that cooks avoided adding eggs directly to other ingredients, lest the rotten egg, not detected until after it was too late, force the cook to discard everything and start over. Vastly improved farming, shipping, and marketing practices have made the rotten egg vanishingly rare, at least in the USA. Moreover, much greater recognition of the health hazards of {{w|hydrogen sulfide}} gas (the principal chemical associated with the rotten egg smell) means that, due to various occupational safety precautions, opportunities for sniffing the gas have become scarce, and usually engender swift reactions such as building evacuation.

The trope, however, has outlived the circumstances that spawned it, thus chemistry teachers parrot a line they learned as students, which is no longer relevant to the student's experience. Given the health hazards of hydrogen sulfide and the regulations spawned in recognition of those hazards, the competent chemistry teacher doesn't often experience the smell either. Thus, the crack in the title text ("chemists actually use the rotten-egg smell as a baseline for measurement") is unfunny and potentially dangerous, not least because a characteristic of hydrogen sulfide is its ability to deaden the sense of smell, so that a person in an environment with toxic amounts of hydrogen sulfide will not smell the gas.

[[Cueball]] takes the disconnect between the trope and his experience and pushes it for all it's worth. This could be taken as symbolic of people who spot such discordances and blow them out of proportion to troll others (in which case, Cueball has most definitely succeeded, based on how [[Ponytail]] reacts - she is clenching her fists in anger as she leaves the conversation, presumably to avoid further irritation.)

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Please delete this tag too soon.}}

:[Cueball and Ponytail face a table with something like a lab stirrer or heater on it, supporting a flat-bottomed and -topped container from which bubbles are rising.]
:Cueball: How will I know if the reaction fails?
:Ponytail: You'll smell the sulfides.
:Cueball: What do those smell like?
:Ponytail: Sulfurous. Rotten eggs.

:[A new panel, the table is gone. Cueball is now facing Ponytail.]
:Cueball: Chemists always compare sulfur to rotten eggs.
:Cueball: But why would I know that smell?
:Ponytail: I dunno, It's a common thing!

:[Ponytail puts her hand out.]
:Cueball: Is it? My kitchen is messy, but there aren't eggs lying around rotting.
:Ponytail: You must have smelled one at ''some'' point.

:[Ponytail is now walking right off-panel, away from Cueball. She is clenching her hands and is evidently annoyed]
:Cueball: Are all chemists' houses full of random raw eggs? Do you toss them over your shoulder for good luck?
:Ponytail: '''''My house is not full of eggs!'''''
:Cueball: What do you consider a normal amount of eggs in a house?
:Cueball: If kids egg your house this Halloween, how will you know?

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Chemistry]]

2326: Five Word Jargon

2020-06-30T18:51:27Z

172.68.129.132:

{{comic
| number = 2326
| date = June 29, 2020
| title = Five Word Jargon
| image = five_word_jargon.png
| titletext = My other (much harder) hobby is trying to engineer situations where I have an excuse to use more than one of them in short succession.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by BARYOGENESIS. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Another comic in [[Randall]]'s [[: Category:My Hobby|My Hobby series]], this hobby involves "collecting" and presumably using five-words-long technical jargon. In the comic, [[White Hat]] uses one of the phrases when talking to [[Cueball]], causing Cueball to look up the jargon on his phone, or possibly record the words for future usage. Randall then proceeds to list 4 such phrases as a caption below the panel.

In the title text, Randall says that he has a second hobby to find or create situations to use ''multiple'' such phrases. It would seem difficult to combine the 4 listed phrases in a conversation, as they are from 4 separate fields (medicine, economics/statistics, biology, and physics/cosmology), but he has succeeded in using them close together in this comic.

===Technical jargon===
'''Transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt placement''':
: A {{w|transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt}} (TIPS) is "an artificial channel within the liver that connects the inflow portal vein and the outflow hepatic vein". It is used to treat various intestinal bleeding. This term can be found in this publication: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16850140/
:;transjugular
::the shunt is inserted via the jugular vein
:;intrahepatic
::within the liver
:;portosystemic
::blood is shunted from the portal vein (draining blood from the intestines to the liver) to the systemic circulation (returning blood from the liver to the heart)
:;shunt
::a tube within the body that bypasses the normal flow of something (whether a natural defect, or an artificial device)
:;placement
::the operation to insert it

'''Generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity model''':
: A {{w|Autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity|generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity}} (GARCH) model is a statistical model for economic research. An autoregressive model of a time series is one that uses previous values of the time series to predict the next value. A conditional probability model is one that divides data into inputs and outputs and models the relation between them using a conditional probability distribution of the outputs given the inputs. A heteroskedastic distribution is one in which the variance (or standard deviation) of a random variable is not the same across all values of the variable. This phrase can be found in this publication: https://www.scirp.org/html/11-1241334_99870.htm

'''Unicellular diazotrophic cyanobacteria group A''':
: A {{w|unicellular}} {{w|diazotrophic}} {{w|cyanobacterium}} is a single-celled type of bacteria that is able to convert atmospheric nitrogen into a more usable form, and also generates oxygen through photosynthesis. "Group A" refers to the "first" group of several groups in a controlled experiment, or a scientific study; in this case, it is the first of several (B,C) groups of phylogenetically-related organisms, for which there is as yet no published scientific name, see here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308030272_The_small_unicellular_diazotrophic_symbiont_UCYN-A_is_a_key_player_in_the_marine_nitrogen_cycle. This term can be found in this publication: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4303622/

'''Anomalous electroweak sphaleron transition baryogenesis''':
: This is a term from {{w|Particle physics}}/{{w|cosmology}}. {{w|Baryon}}s are subatomic particles containing an odd number of quarks; protons and neutrons are the most familiar examples. {{w|Baryogenesis}} is the hypothetical physical process that took place during the early universe that produced more matter than antimatter in the observable universe (or it could be any process that produces baryons). {{w|Sphaleron}} is a static (time-independent) solution to the {{w|electroweak}} field equations of the Standard Model of particle physics, and is involved in certain hypothetical processes that change the number of baryons or {{w|leptons}} (e.g. forming baryons and removing leptons). It is believed that the electroweak interaction is responsible for baryogenesis, but that at the temperatures involved (~1015 K), sphaleron interactions would wipe out any excess of baryons; therefore, for baryogenesis to "stick", it must have occurred at the ''transition'' out of the electroweak era...unless there were some kind of ''anomaly'' in the formation or interaction of sphalerons. Google reports no matches (other than this page) for the entire phrase in quotes, but shows about 70 results unquoted, indicating it finds only partial matches.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[White Hat is speaking to Cueball, who has his phone out, searching the phrase. White Hat has his palm raised.]
:White Hat: Yeah, I learned about it when I was researching anomalous electroweak sphaleron transition baryogenesis.
:Cueball: Cooool.
:Phone: ''A-N-O-M-''

:[Caption below the panel:]
:My Hobby: Collecting really satisfying-sounding five-word technical phrases.

:Current favorites
:<li>Transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt placement
:<li>Generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity model
:<li>Unicellular diazotrophic cyanobacteria group A
:<li>Anomalous electroweak sphaleron transition baryogenesis

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:My Hobby]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Statistics]]

2307: Alive Or Not

2020-05-16T09:09:04Z

172.68.129.132:

{{comic
| number = 2307
| date = May 15, 2020
| title = Alive Or Not
| image = alive_or_not.png
| titletext = Computer viruses currently fall somewhere between prions and fire.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SLIME MOLD. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic is another in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] related to the {{w|2019–20 coronavirus outbreak|2020 pandemic}} of the {{w|coronavirus}} {{w|SARS-CoV-2}}, which causes {{w|COVID-19}}. Using this comic to spark the discussion about virus (COVID-19 for starters) are alive. This comic thus follows directly after the one with anthropomorphized cold viruses in comic [[2306: Common Cold]].

There is no universally-accepted definition of "life"; all definitions thus far proposed have either excluded some things commonly understood to be alive or included some things commonly understood to not be alive. Take reproduction, a trait commonly assumed to be essential and unique to life; by this definition, anything which cannot reproduce (including mules, worker bees, and postmenopausal women) would be considered nonliving, while anything which can duplicate itself (including computer viruses, advanced 3D printers, and fire—see below) would be considered alive.

Many more elaborate definitions of life have been attempted over the decades. Some common additional factors include:

* {{w|Homeostasis}}, the ability to control an internal environment to maintain a constant state;
* {{w|Metabolism}}, converting nutrients into energy and building blocks for growth, reproduction, and so on;
* {{w|Adaptation}} through heredity and natural selection; and
* Responding to the environment.

Despite all of this, the only definite definition of "life" is "something everyone agrees is alive". This comic attempts to rank several types of things by how likely people are to perceive them as "alive".

=== Things ranked as alive ===

* '''Animals (normal)'''
* '''Animals (weird ones like jellyfish and coral)''': Randall's categorization of animals as "normal" or "weird" is a simplified version of the {{w|Great chain of being}}, a philosophical framework in which humans are seen as the most "advanced" form of life, followed by a divine or otherwise justified hierarchy of progressively lesser life-forms (mammals, birds, fish, lizards, insects, and so on).
* '''{{w|Fungi}}''': Fungi represent a unique lineage of eukaryotic, mostly multicellular organisms. Although historically studied by botanists specializing in the sub-discipline "mycology", modern scholarship places fungi in the "opisthokont" lineage, which contains both the animals and the fungi. Fungi, like animals, cannot make complex organic molecules from carbon dioxide, and must consume organic molecules as food to survive. Like plants, fungi are typically unable to move on their own. The various types of fungi include mushrooms, yeasts, rusts, smuts, and molds.
* '''Plants''':
* '''{{w|Slime mold}}s''': Slime molds are eukaryotic single-celled organisms (so "more advanced" than bacteria). In the "plasmodial" slime molds, the "single cell" may expand to spread across several feet of territory, and weigh several pounds, while the "cellular" slime molds are most notable for their occasional congregation into macro-sized colonies which can appear to move as a single creature. It's interesting that Randall ranks them as "less alive" than fungi (which they were once thought to be), especially given some of their curious behaviors (e.g. [https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/feb/18/slime-mould-rail-road-transport-routes optimizing transportation networks] when presented with a collection of food flakes and obstacles).
* '''Bacteria''':
* '''{{w|Archaea}}''': Archaea (misspelled as ''Archea'' by Randall) is a {{w|domain (biology)|domain}} of organisms, which do not fall under eukaryotes or bacteria. They are single-celled organisms that lack a nucleus.
* '''{{w|Virus}}es''': Viruses are infectious agents consisting of a genome surrounded by a protein or lipid shell. When a virus contacts a cell, it delivers its genome inside the cell which causes the cells' reproductive machinery to create more viruses. As viruses are incapable of reproducing without the aid of larger cells, it is often debated whether or not they are actually alive. Randall has ranked viruses as "alive".

===Things ranked as not alive===
* '''{{w|Prions}}''': Prions are misfolded proteins that can spread and change the structure of other proteins. Similarly to viruses prions require something else to replicate
* (from title text) '''{{w|Computer virus}}es''':
* '''{{w|Fire}}''': Fire is a common example of something which meets many common definitions for life; it grows, reproduces by spreading seeds (sparks), and consumes energy and excretes waste (ashes and smoke) by the same net chemical process as respiration. However, while fire can be a necessary part of the life cycle of other organisms (e.g. redwood trees), it does not maintain a constant environment within itself, nor does it perform {{w|anabolism}}, the construction of larger molecules from smaller ones. Respirating life-forms use helper molecules to moderate the oxidation reaction into small steps to produce useful units of energy, rather than letting it all happen at once to produce heat.
* '''Clouds
* '''{{w|Fossils}}''': Fossils are the petrified remains of once-living organisms, so in that sense they are more connected to life than "regular rocks", and some may hold DNA that could theoretically be used to clone the fossilized life-form.
* '''Rocks shaped like faces''': Humans have an extremely advanced capability for seeing patterns, and one of the most powerful patterns we seek is {{w|Face perception|faces}}, so much so that we see faces even where they don't exist (a common form of {{w|pareidolia}}). Humans instinctively anthropomorphize any object which vaguely resembles a face as having a sense of attention and mood, and so a rock shaped like a face would likely be treated differently than a rock not shaped like a face. Randall does not distinguish between rocks intentionally carved to look like faces (such as the famous {{w|Moai}} sculptures) or rocks that happen to look vaguely like faces under the right lighting conditions (such as the famous {{w|Face on Mars}}.)
* '''Regular rocks''': Modern taxonomy originates from Carl Linnaeus, who categorized all objects on Earth as animals, plants (often stated as "''vegetable''" in quiz games like Twenty Questions), or minerals. Minerals are most obviously not alive, although some cultures and works of fiction have creatures that turn to stone and will return later to life.

==Transcript==
:[A chart consisting of vertical line, with 14 dots and a horizontal dashed dividing line drawn across the list a bit below the middle. Each dot has a label to the right of the line with a line pointing to the dot they belong to. Above and below the dividing line is a label with a broad arrow pointing up above and down below.]
:Up arrow: Alive
:Down arrow: Not alive

:[Dot labels from top to bottom above the dashed line:]
:Animals (Normal)
:Animals (Weird ones like Jellyfish and Coral)
:Fungi
:Plants
:Slime Molds
:Bacteria
:Archea
:Viruses

:[Dot labels from top to bottom belov the dashed line:]
:Prions
:Fire
:Clouds
:Fossils
:Rocks shaped like faces
:Regular rocks

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Geology]]

2307: Alive Or Not

2020-05-16T09:07:41Z

172.68.129.132:

{{comic
| number = 2307
| date = May 15, 2020
| title = Alive Or Not
| image = alive_or_not.png
| titletext = Computer viruses currently fall somewhere between prions and fire.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SLIME MOLD. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic is another in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] related to the {{w|2019–20 coronavirus outbreak|2020 pandemic}} of the {{w|coronavirus}} {{w|SARS-CoV-2}}, which causes {{w|COVID-19}}. Using this comic to spark the discussion about virus (COVID-19 for starters) are alive. This comic thus follows directly after the one with anthropomorphized cold viruses in comic [[2306: Common Cold]].

There is no universally-accepted definition of "life"; all definitions thus far proposed have either excluded some things commonly understood to be alive or included some things commonly understood to not be alive. Take reproduction, a trait commonly assumed to be essential and unique to life; by this definition, anything which cannot reproduce (including mules, worker bees, and postmenopausal women) would be considered nonliving, while anything which can duplicate itself (including computer viruses, advanced 3D printers, and fire—see below) would be considered alive.

Many more elaborate definitions of life have been attempted over the decades. Some common additional factors include:

* {{w|Homeostasis}}, the ability to control an internal environment to maintain a constant state;
* {{w|Metabolism}}, converting nutrients into energy and building blocks for growth, reproduction, and so on;
* {{w|Adaptation}} through heredity and natural selection; and
* Responding to the environment.

Despite all of this, the only definite definition of "life" is "something everyone agrees is alive". This comic attempts to rank several types of things by how likely people are to perceive them as "alive".

=== Things ranked as alive ===

* '''Animals (normal)'''
* '''Animals (weird ones like jellyfish and coral)''': Randall's categorization of animals as "normal" or "weird" is a simplified version of the {{w|Great chain of being}}, a philosophical framework in which humans are seen as the most "advanced" form of life, followed by a divine or otherwise justified hierarchy of progressively lesser life-forms (mammals, birds, fish, lizards, insects, and so on).
* '''{{w|Fungi}}''': Fungi represent a unique lineage of eukaryotic, mostly multicellular organisms. Although historically studied by botanists specializing in the sub-discipline "mycology", modern scholarship places fungi in the "opisthokont" lineage, which contains both the animals and the fungi. organisms that are part of a separate grouping than other organisms. They are neither plants nor animals. Fungi, like animals, cannot make complex organic molecules from carbon dioxide, and must consume organic molecules as food to survive. Like plants, fungi are typically unable to move on their own. The various types of fungi include mushrooms, yeasts, rusts, smuts, and molds.
* '''Plants''':
* '''{{w|Slime mold}}s''': Slime molds are eukaryotic single-celled organisms (so "more advanced" than bacteria). In the "plasmodial" slime molds, the "single cell" may expand to spread across several feet of territory, and weigh several pounds, while the "cellular" slime molds are most notable for their occasional congregation into macro-sized colonies which can appear to move as a single creature. It's interesting that Randall ranks them as "less alive" than fungi (which they were once thought to be), especially given some of their curious behaviors (e.g. [https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/feb/18/slime-mould-rail-road-transport-routes optimizing transportation networks] when presented with a collection of food flakes and obstacles).
* '''Bacteria''':
* '''{{w|Archaea}}''': Archaea (misspelled as ''Archea'' by Randall) is a {{w|domain (biology)|domain}} of organisms, which do not fall under eukaryotes or bacteria. They are single-celled organisms that lack a nucleus.
* '''{{w|Virus}}es''': Viruses are infectious agents consisting of a genome surrounded by a protein or lipid shell. When a virus contacts a cell, it delivers its genome inside the cell which causes the cells' reproductive machinery to create more viruses. As viruses are incapable of reproducing without the aid of larger cells, it is often debated whether or not they are actually alive. Randall has ranked viruses as "alive".

===Things ranked as not alive===
* '''{{w|Prions}}''': Prions are misfolded proteins that can spread and change the structure of other proteins. Similarly to viruses prions require something else to replicate
* (from title text) '''{{w|Computer virus}}es''':
* '''{{w|Fire}}''': Fire is a common example of something which meets many common definitions for life; it grows, reproduces by spreading seeds (sparks), and consumes energy and excretes waste (ashes and smoke) by the same net chemical process as respiration. However, while fire can be a necessary part of the life cycle of other organisms (e.g. redwood trees), it does not maintain a constant environment within itself, nor does it perform {{w|anabolism}}, the construction of larger molecules from smaller ones. Respirating life-forms use helper molecules to moderate the oxidation reaction into small steps to produce useful units of energy, rather than letting it all happen at once to produce heat.
* '''Clouds
* '''{{w|Fossils}}''': Fossils are the petrified remains of once-living organisms, so in that sense they are more connected to life than "regular rocks", and some may hold DNA that could theoretically be used to clone the fossilized life-form.
* '''Rocks shaped like faces''': Humans have an extremely advanced capability for seeing patterns, and one of the most powerful patterns we seek is {{w|Face perception|faces}}, so much so that we see faces even where they don't exist (a common form of {{w|pareidolia}}). Humans instinctively anthropomorphize any object which vaguely resembles a face as having a sense of attention and mood, and so a rock shaped like a face would likely be treated differently than a rock not shaped like a face. Randall does not distinguish between rocks intentionally carved to look like faces (such as the famous {{w|Moai}} sculptures) or rocks that happen to look vaguely like faces under the right lighting conditions (such as the famous {{w|Face on Mars}}.)
* '''Regular rocks''': Modern taxonomy originates from Carl Linnaeus, who categorized all objects on Earth as animals, plants (often stated as "''vegetable''" in quiz games like Twenty Questions), or minerals. Minerals are most obviously not alive, although some cultures and works of fiction have creatures that turn to stone and will return later to life.

==Transcript==
:[A chart consisting of vertical line, with 14 dots and a horizontal dashed dividing line drawn across the list a bit below the middle. Each dot has a label to the right of the line with a line pointing to the dot they belong to. Above and below the dividing line is a label with a broad arrow pointing up above and down below.]
:Up arrow: Alive
:Down arrow: Not alive

:[Dot labels from top to bottom above the dashed line:]
:Animals (Normal)
:Animals (Weird ones like Jellyfish and Coral)
:Fungi
:Plants
:Slime Molds
:Bacteria
:Archea
:Viruses

:[Dot labels from top to bottom belov the dashed line:]
:Prions
:Fire
:Clouds
:Fossils
:Rocks shaped like faces
:Regular rocks

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Geology]]

2295: Garbage Math

2020-04-17T22:49:24Z

172.68.129.132:

{{comic
| number = 2295
| date = April 17, 2020
| title = Garbage Math
| image = garbage_math.png
| titletext = 'Garbage In, Garbage Out' should not be taken to imply any sort of conservation law limiting the amount of garbage produced.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a ZILOG Z80. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic explains the "{{w|garbage in, garbage out}}" concept using arithmetical expressions. Just like the comic says, if you get garbage in any part of your workflow, you get garbage as a result.

Some of these rules correspond to the rules of {{w|floating point arithmetic}}, while others may be inspired by the rules of {{w|Propagation_of_uncertainty#Example_formulae| propagation of uncertainty}} where a "garbage" number would correspond to an estimate with a high degree of uncertainty, and the uncertainty of the result of arithmetic operations will tend to be dominated by the term with the highest uncertainty. The rule about N pieces of independent garbage reflects the {{w|central limit theorem}} and how it predicts that the uncertainty (or {{w|standard error}}) of an estimate will be reduced when independent estimates are averaged.

This comic is not explicitly related to the {{w|2019–20 coronavirus outbreak|2020 pandemic}} of the {{w|coronavirus}} {{w|SARS-CoV-2}}, which causes {{w|COVID-19}}, seemingly breaking the streak of comics preceding this on [[:Category:COVID-19|topics relating to COVID-19]], after (rather appropriately) 19 comics (not counting the [[2288: Collector's Edition|April Fools' comic]]). However, given the topic of the immediately preceding comic (2294), plus the ongoing debate about how meaningful, or not, the numbers and analyses surrounding the COVID-19 news like a cloud of bats (see, for example, [https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-comic-strip-tour-of-the-wild-world-of-pandemic-modeling/?cid=referral_taboola_feed here]) really are, the comic is at least thematically consistent with the COVID-19 comic set.

This comic is about the propagation of errors in numerical analysis and statistics, but described in much more colloquial terms. Numbers with low precision are termed "garbage" and numbers with high precision are labeled "precise".

{| class="wikitable"
!Formula
!Explanation
|-
|Precise number + Precise number = Slightly less precise number
|If we know absolute error bars, then adding two precise numbers will at worst add the sizes of the two error bars. For example, if our precise numbers are 1 (±10-6) and 1 (±10-6), then our sum is 2 (±2·10-6). It is possible to lose a lot of relative precision, if the resultant sum is close to zero as a result of adding a number and then close to its inverse. This phenomenon is known as catastrophic cancellation. Therefore, it is likely that all numbers referred here are positive numbers, which does not exhibit this phenomenon.
|-
|Precise number × Precise number = Slightly less precise number
|Here, instead of absolute error, relative error will be added. For example, if our precise numbers are 1 (±10-6) and 1 (±10-6), then our product is 1 (±2·10-6).
|-
|Precise number + Garbage = Garbage
|If one of the numbers has a high absolute error, and the numbers being added are of comparable size, then this error will be propagated to the sum.
|-
|Precise number × Garbage = Garbage
|Likewise, if one of the numbers has a high relative error, then this error will be propagated to the product. Here, this is independent of the sizes of the numbers.
|-
|<math>\sqrt{\text{Garbage}} = \text{Less bad garbage}</math>
| When the square root of a number is computed, its relative error will be halved. Depending on the application, this might not be all that much ''better'', but it's at least ''less bad''.
|-
|Garbage2 = Worse garbage
|Likewise, when a number is squared, its relative error will be doubled. This is a corollary to multiplication adding relative errors.
|-
|<math>\frac{1}{N}\sum(\text{N pieces of statistically independent garbage}) = \text{Better garbage}</math>
|By aggregating many pieces of statistically independent observations (for instance, surveying many individuals), it is possible to reduce relative error. This is the basis of statistical sampling.
|-
|Precise numberGarbage = Much worse garbage
|The exponent is very sensitive to changes, which may also magnify the effect based on the magnitude of the precise number.
|-
|Garbage – Garbage = Much worse garbage
|This line involves catastrophic cancellation. If both pieces of garbage are about the same (e.g. if their error bars overlap), then it is possible that the answer is positive, zero, or negative.
|-
|<math>\frac{\text{Precise number}}{\text{Garbage}-\text{Garbage}}</math> = Much worse garbage, possible division by zero
|Indeed, as with above, if error bars overlap then we might end up dividing by zero.
|-
|Garbage × 0 = Precise number
|Multiplying anything by 0 results in 0, an extremely precise number in the sense that it has no error whatsoever since we supply the 0 ourselves. This is equivalent to discarding garbage data from a statistical analysis.
|}

The title text refers to the computer science maxim of "garbage in, garbage out," which states that when it comes to computer code, supplying incorrect initial data will produce incorrect results, even if the code itself accurately does what it is supposed to do. As we can see above, however, when plugging data into mathematical formulas, this can possibly magnify the error of our input data, though there are ways to reduce this error (such as aggregating data). Therefore, the quantity of garbage is not necessarily conserved.

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

[A series of mathematical equations are written from top to bottom]

Precise number + Precise number = Slightly less precise number

Precise number × Precise number = Slightly less precise number

Precise number + Garbage = Garbage

Precise number × Garbage = Garbage

√Garbage = Less bad garbage

1/N Σ (N pieces of statistically independent garbage) = Better garbage

(Precise number)Garbage = Much worse garbage

Garbage – Garbage = Much worse garbage

Precise number / ( Garbage – Garbage ) = Much worse garbage, possible division by zero

Garbage × 0 = Precise number

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

2295: Garbage Math

2020-04-17T22:48:41Z

172.68.129.132:

{{comic
| number = 2295
| date = April 17, 2020
| title = Garbage Math
| image = garbage_math.png
| titletext = 'Garbage In, Garbage Out' should not be taken to imply any sort of conservation law limiting the amount of garbage produced.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a ZILOG Z80. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic explains the "{{w|garbage in, garbage out}}" concept using arithmetical expressions. Just like the comic says, if you get garbage in any part of your workflow, you get garbage as a result.

Some of these rules correspond to the rules of {{w|floating point arithmetic}}, while others may be inspired by the rules of {{w|Propagation_of_uncertainty#Example_formulae| propagation of uncertainty}} where a "garbage" number would correspond to an estimate with a high degree of uncertainty, and the uncertainty of the result of arithmetic operations will tend to be dominated by the term with the highest uncertainty. The rule about N pieces of independent garbage reflects the {{w|central limit theorem}} and how it predicts that the uncertainty (or {{w|standard error}}) of an estimate will be reduced when independent estimates are averaged.

This comic is not explicitly related to the {{w|2019–20 coronavirus outbreak|2020 pandemic}} of the {{w|coronavirus}} {{w|SARS-CoV-2}}, which causes {{w|COVID-19}}, seemingly breaking the streak of comics preceding this on [[:Category:COVID-19|topics relating to COVID-19]], after (rather appropriately) 19 comics (not counting the [[2288: Collector's Edition|April Fools' comic]]). However, given the topic of the immediately preceding comic (2294), plus the ongoing debate about how meaningful, or not, the numbers and analyses surrounding the COVID-19 news like a cloud of bats (see, for example, [https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-comic-strip-tour-of-the-wild-world-of-pandemic-modeling/?cid=referral_taboola_feed here]), the comic is at least thematically consistent with the COVID-19 comic set.

This comic is about the propagation of errors in numerical analysis and statistics, but described in much more colloquial terms. Numbers with low precision are termed "garbage" and numbers with high precision are labeled "precise".

{| class="wikitable"
!Formula
!Explanation
|-
|Precise number + Precise number = Slightly less precise number
|If we know absolute error bars, then adding two precise numbers will at worst add the sizes of the two error bars. For example, if our precise numbers are 1 (±10-6) and 1 (±10-6), then our sum is 2 (±2·10-6). It is possible to lose a lot of relative precision, if the resultant sum is close to zero as a result of adding a number and then close to its inverse. This phenomenon is known as catastrophic cancellation. Therefore, it is likely that all numbers referred here are positive numbers, which does not exhibit this phenomenon.
|-
|Precise number × Precise number = Slightly less precise number
|Here, instead of absolute error, relative error will be added. For example, if our precise numbers are 1 (±10-6) and 1 (±10-6), then our product is 1 (±2·10-6).
|-
|Precise number + Garbage = Garbage
|If one of the numbers has a high absolute error, and the numbers being added are of comparable size, then this error will be propagated to the sum.
|-
|Precise number × Garbage = Garbage
|Likewise, if one of the numbers has a high relative error, then this error will be propagated to the product. Here, this is independent of the sizes of the numbers.
|-
|<math>\sqrt{\text{Garbage}} = \text{Less bad garbage}</math>
| When the square root of a number is computed, its relative error will be halved. Depending on the application, this might not be all that much ''better'', but it's at least ''less bad''.
|-
|Garbage2 = Worse garbage
|Likewise, when a number is squared, its relative error will be doubled. This is a corollary to multiplication adding relative errors.
|-
|<math>\frac{1}{N}\sum(\text{N pieces of statistically independent garbage}) = \text{Better garbage}</math>
|By aggregating many pieces of statistically independent observations (for instance, surveying many individuals), it is possible to reduce relative error. This is the basis of statistical sampling.
|-
|Precise numberGarbage = Much worse garbage
|The exponent is very sensitive to changes, which may also magnify the effect based on the magnitude of the precise number.
|-
|Garbage – Garbage = Much worse garbage
|This line involves catastrophic cancellation. If both pieces of garbage are about the same (e.g. if their error bars overlap), then it is possible that the answer is positive, zero, or negative.
|-
|<math>\frac{\text{Precise number}}{\text{Garbage}-\text{Garbage}}</math> = Much worse garbage, possible division by zero
|Indeed, as with above, if error bars overlap then we might end up dividing by zero.
|-
|Garbage × 0 = Precise number
|Multiplying anything by 0 results in 0, an extremely precise number in the sense that it has no error whatsoever since we supply the 0 ourselves. This is equivalent to discarding garbage data from a statistical analysis.
|}

The title text refers to the computer science maxim of "garbage in, garbage out," which states that when it comes to computer code, supplying incorrect initial data will produce incorrect results, even if the code itself accurately does what it is supposed to do. As we can see above, however, when plugging data into mathematical formulas, this can possibly magnify the error of our input data, though there are ways to reduce this error (such as aggregating data). Therefore, the quantity of garbage is not necessarily conserved.

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

[A series of mathematical equations are written from top to bottom]

Precise number + Precise number = Slightly less precise number

Precise number × Precise number = Slightly less precise number

Precise number + Garbage = Garbage

Precise number × Garbage = Garbage

√Garbage = Less bad garbage

1/N Σ (N pieces of statistically independent garbage) = Better garbage

(Precise number)Garbage = Much worse garbage

Garbage – Garbage = Much worse garbage

Precise number / ( Garbage – Garbage ) = Much worse garbage, possible division by zero

Garbage × 0 = Precise number

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

2295: Garbage Math

2020-04-17T22:48:08Z

172.68.129.132:

{{comic
| number = 2295
| date = April 17, 2020
| title = Garbage Math
| image = garbage_math.png
| titletext = 'Garbage In, Garbage Out' should not be taken to imply any sort of conservation law limiting the amount of garbage produced.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a ZILOG Z80. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic explains the "{{w|garbage in, garbage out}}" concept using arithmetical expressions. Just like the comic says, if you get garbage in any part of your workflow, you get garbage as a result.

Some of these rules correspond to the rules of {{w|floating point arithmetic}}, while others may be inspired by the rules of {{w|Propagation_of_uncertainty#Example_formulae| propagation of uncertainty}} where a "garbage" number would correspond to an estimate with a high degree of uncertainty, and the uncertainty of the result of arithmetic operations will tend to be dominated by the term with the highest uncertainty. The rule about N pieces of independent garbage reflects the {{w|central limit theorem}} and how it predicts that the uncertainty (or {{w|standard error}}) of an estimate will be reduced when independent estimates are averaged.

This comic is not explicitly related to the {{w|2019–20 coronavirus outbreak|2020 pandemic}} of the {{w|coronavirus}} {{w|SARS-CoV-2}}, which causes {{w|COVID-19}}, seemingly breaking the streak of comics preceding this on [[:Category:COVID-19|topics relating to COVID-19]], after (rather appropriately) 19 comics (not counting the [[2288: Collector's Edition|April Fools' comic]]). However, given the topic of the immediately preceding comic (2294), plus the ongoing debate about how meaningful, or not, the numbers and analyses surrounding the COVID-19 news like a cloud of bats (see, for example, [https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-comic-strip-tour-of-the-wild-world-of-pandemic-modeling/?cid=referral_taboola_feed here], the comic is at least thematically consistent with the COVID-19 comic set.

This comic is about the propagation of errors in numerical analysis and statistics, but described in much more colloquial terms. Numbers with low precision are termed "garbage" and numbers with high precision are labeled "precise".

{| class="wikitable"
!Formula
!Explanation
|-
|Precise number + Precise number = Slightly less precise number
|If we know absolute error bars, then adding two precise numbers will at worst add the sizes of the two error bars. For example, if our precise numbers are 1 (±10-6) and 1 (±10-6), then our sum is 2 (±2·10-6). It is possible to lose a lot of relative precision, if the resultant sum is close to zero as a result of adding a number and then close to its inverse. This phenomenon is known as catastrophic cancellation. Therefore, it is likely that all numbers referred here are positive numbers, which does not exhibit this phenomenon.
|-
|Precise number × Precise number = Slightly less precise number
|Here, instead of absolute error, relative error will be added. For example, if our precise numbers are 1 (±10-6) and 1 (±10-6), then our product is 1 (±2·10-6).
|-
|Precise number + Garbage = Garbage
|If one of the numbers has a high absolute error, and the numbers being added are of comparable size, then this error will be propagated to the sum.
|-
|Precise number × Garbage = Garbage
|Likewise, if one of the numbers has a high relative error, then this error will be propagated to the product. Here, this is independent of the sizes of the numbers.
|-
|<math>\sqrt{\text{Garbage}} = \text{Less bad garbage}</math>
| When the square root of a number is computed, its relative error will be halved. Depending on the application, this might not be all that much ''better'', but it's at least ''less bad''.
|-
|Garbage2 = Worse garbage
|Likewise, when a number is squared, its relative error will be doubled. This is a corollary to multiplication adding relative errors.
|-
|<math>\frac{1}{N}\sum(\text{N pieces of statistically independent garbage}) = \text{Better garbage}</math>
|By aggregating many pieces of statistically independent observations (for instance, surveying many individuals), it is possible to reduce relative error. This is the basis of statistical sampling.
|-
|Precise numberGarbage = Much worse garbage
|The exponent is very sensitive to changes, which may also magnify the effect based on the magnitude of the precise number.
|-
|Garbage – Garbage = Much worse garbage
|This line involves catastrophic cancellation. If both pieces of garbage are about the same (e.g. if their error bars overlap), then it is possible that the answer is positive, zero, or negative.
|-
|<math>\frac{\text{Precise number}}{\text{Garbage}-\text{Garbage}}</math> = Much worse garbage, possible division by zero
|Indeed, as with above, if error bars overlap then we might end up dividing by zero.
|-
|Garbage × 0 = Precise number
|Multiplying anything by 0 results in 0, an extremely precise number in the sense that it has no error whatsoever since we supply the 0 ourselves. This is equivalent to discarding garbage data from a statistical analysis.
|}

The title text refers to the computer science maxim of "garbage in, garbage out," which states that when it comes to computer code, supplying incorrect initial data will produce incorrect results, even if the code itself accurately does what it is supposed to do. As we can see above, however, when plugging data into mathematical formulas, this can possibly magnify the error of our input data, though there are ways to reduce this error (such as aggregating data). Therefore, the quantity of garbage is not necessarily conserved.

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

[A series of mathematical equations are written from top to bottom]

Precise number + Precise number = Slightly less precise number

Precise number × Precise number = Slightly less precise number

Precise number + Garbage = Garbage

Precise number × Garbage = Garbage

√Garbage = Less bad garbage

1/N Σ (N pieces of statistically independent garbage) = Better garbage

(Precise number)Garbage = Much worse garbage

Garbage – Garbage = Much worse garbage

Precise number / ( Garbage – Garbage ) = Much worse garbage, possible division by zero

Garbage × 0 = Precise number

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

2289: Scenario 4

2020-04-04T23:38:06Z

172.68.129.132:

{{comic
| number = 2289
| date = April 4, 2020
| title = Scenario Four
| image = sequence-four.png
| titletext = Remember, models aren't for telling you facts, they're for exploring dynamics. This model apparently explores time travel.
}}
==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by GRAPHING ERRORS. Needs elaborating on the comic, and needs an explanation of the title text.}}
This is another comic in the coronavirus series. In the context of the information (and misinformation) explosion associated with the COVID-19 pandemic (ongoing at the time that this comic was published), many graphs have been shown highlighting the prevalence of the disease - the number of cases at any one time and place, and the change in the number of cases over time.

Several of these graphs have attempted to predict the future, using statistical tools ("models") to process existing data and generate a forecast. Inputs to the model(s) may include different assessments of (examples appropriate to COVID-19) how much travel will be allowed to happen over the interval to be forecast, or how effective social distancing measures will be. Four scenarios are presented here, presumably showing what a particular model (probably only one despite the reference to "new modelS" in the comic) forecasts given different, unspecified, inputs.

The first, "best" scenario recalls "flatten the curve" graphs commonly associated with the desired result of the most stringent social restrictions on COVID-19 disease progression, which predict that such efforts will lower the number of disease cases at any given time (generally at the cost, not shown here, of extending the duration of the outbreak). The second and third scenarios assume less effective, or less stringently applied, social restrictions, leading to more cases per unit time in the near future. These are deemed progressively worse.

The fourth curve is only possible if cases (as of COVID-19) are allowed to increase while time goes backwards. Hence the remark, "this model explores time travel", in the title text. This a brain cramp to visualize, and the consequences of it actually happening would be calamitous on several levels. Yes, one would definitely wish to avoid this one. (Real modelers might encounter such "graphing errors" while they are developing their models and testing their functions, but persons who went so far as to present such glitches in public, except for a laugh as here, would likely be asked to hand in their modeler's cards.)

==Transcript==
Placeholder
{{comic discussion}}

2287: Pathogen Resistance

2020-03-31T23:01:44Z

172.68.129.132:

{{comic
| number = 2287
| date = March 30, 2020
| title = Pathogen Resistance
| image = pathogen_resistance.png
| titletext = We're not trapped in here with the coronavirus. The coronavirus is trapped in here with us.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a MACROPHAGE HUGGING A BACTERIOPHAGE. Should briefly summarize the immune system (esp. macrophages and antibodies) and why it is so terrifying to pathogens. Also maybe use [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170307142718.htm this link]. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic is the 13th comic in a row in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] about the {{w|2019–20 coronavirus outbreak|2020 pandemic}} of the {{w|coronavirus}} - {{w|SARS-CoV-2}}.

Rather than expressing humanity's fears and pessimism about the pandemic, this strip anthropomorphizes some of the pathogens which afflict humanity and presents ''their'' fears and pessimism about possibly going extinct. This serves as a roundabout way of expressing hope and wonder at the ingenuity and tenacity of humans in the face of diseases past (with water sanitation, mosquito netting, and condoms) and present (with the power of social distancing and {{w|Gloria Gaynor}}'s hit song ''{{w|I Will Survive}}''). Gaynor recorded [https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/12/entertainment/coronavirus-gloria-gaynor-i-will-survive-trnd/index.html a video of herself washing her hands] for 20 seconds (the recommended length of time to wash hands for optimal cleanliness) to the background of her hit song.

The three pathogens presented are a {{w|bacteriophage}}, a small colony of a {{w|coccus}}-shaped bacterium (such as ''{{w|Streptococcus}}''), and a {{w|protozoon}} (a caricature of a {{w|ciliate}}). Bacteriophages do not infect human cells (as the name suggests, they only infect bacteria), and have been studied for use as "{{w|phage therapy}}" ''for'' humans, especially in dealing with antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections (which is usually what people mean when they talk about "resistance" in the context of pathogens), but they are iconic, instantly-recognizable viruses, and some have been found to [https://phys.org/news/2015-11-bacteria-bacteriophages-collude-formation-clinically.html collude with bacteria] in forming certain antibiotic-resistant {{w|biofilm}}s. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balantidiasis Only one kind of ciliate] is known to cause human disease. However, ciliates are iconic for protozoa just as bacteriophages are for viruses (see, for example, Gary Larson's now-venerable [https://www.thefarside.com ''The Far Side''] cartoons). The ciliate may be a 'stand-in' for protozoa that cause widespread and dangerous human diseases, such as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaria malaria].

"The scariest thing in the universe" to these microbes is the human immune system, represented in the second panel and later by antibodies (Y-shaped drawings) and anthropomorphized white blood cells. Specifically, the white blood cells shown are [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_cell T cells], the immune system's 'first responders'. As briefly described [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170307142718.htm here], if a T cell encounters an antigen that it is programmed to recognize (such as, for instance, a molecule of the viral protein coat), it 'hugs' the cell presenting the antigen as a precursor to summoning the immune system's heavy artillery. Hence the faux-Care Bears battle cry of the T cells, "Who wants a HUUUG?"

The comic humorously considers pasta as an essential part of humans' fight against coronavirus. Pasta is an example of a dried food that can last a long time, if the orders to stay indoors continue. However, not every culture consumes or likes pasta.

The colony of cocci protests that it shouldn't be possible for humans to evolve "pathogen resistance" in the short period of months since the breakout of COVID-19, when humans require over a decade to reach sexual maturity, and in modern times often wait at least two decades before having children. Bacteria and viruses, on the other hand, reproduce in a matter of minutes, so that there may be hundreds of generations per day (comparable to the number of generations that have passed for humanity since the beginnings of agriculture), each of which presents opportunities to evolve new antigens that are not recognized by any antibodies present in the body or to evolve resistance to whatever antibiotic drugs a human might be using. However, as the bacteriophage explains, humans generally do not become resistant against pathogens by genetic drift (although there are researchers who are seeking to identify genes that encode resistances to various diseases and then propagate them to other humans through gene editing, as in the {{w|He Jiankui affair}}). Instead, humans "evolve" pathogen resistance through behavioral changes. The behaviors presented in this comic strip include:

* Municipal water supplies, which are filtered and treated to prevent the spread of waterborne diseases, like cholera and dysentery.
* Mosquito netting over beds, and also anti-insect poisoning, to prevent the spread of vector-borne diseases, like malaria.
* Condoms, to prevent the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases, such as AIDS and syphilis.
* Social or physical distancing, hand-washing, storable food, and electronic communications, to prevent the spread of diseases through casual contact, like COVID-19.

These behaviors do not come from our genomes, passed along through reproduction, but from our brains, passed along by communication. Some of the language of epidemiology is also used in discussion of communication, most notably "going viral" -- in this case, information is going viral to prevent viruses from going viral.

The title text reverts to the point of view of humans and references a famous line from the graphic novel ''{{w|Watchmen}}'', where {{w|Rorschach (character)|Rorschach}}, whilst in prison and surrounded by enemies who want to kill him, proclaims: "I'm not locked up in here with YOU. You're locked up in here with ME." This presents an alternate perspective on quarantine and isolation that some may find more bearable: rather than passively hiding indoors in fear of the virus, we are taking action to fragment the virus population so that our immune systems (and medical intervention, in more serious cases) can {{w|defeat in detail|defeat it in detail}}.

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

:[A small colony of coccus bacteria, a bacteriophage, and a protozoon are floating together.]
:Bacteriophage: I'm worried about humans developing resistance to us.
:Bacteriophage: Using pasta.

:[Cutaway to macrophages and antibodies chasing three protozoa. One protozoon is already covered in antibodies.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): The human immune system is a nightmare.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): It's the worst.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): It's the scariest thing in the universe.
:Macrophage: ''Who wants a HUUGGG''
:Antibody-covered protozoon: ''Nooo!''

:[Close-up on bacteriophage]
:Bacteriophage: We can only survive by staying ahead of it. Keep jumping from person to person, keep mutating and evolving.
:Bacteriophage: But now humans are adapting too fast.

:[Water pipes. A mosquito net with a bed under it. An unopened condom package.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We spread through their water. They built pipes.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We used mosquitoes. They put out nets and poison everywhere.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We spread through sex, and suddenly they all had these plastic things.

:[Depictions of coronavirus with spikes. Hairbun and Cueball shaking hands, with droplets spraying from both their mouths.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): This time, we really thought we had them.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): One of us got good at transmission through everyday contact.

:[A row of 4 sets of human lungs, the first with several black dots, the second and third with increasing black parts, the fourth completely filled with black. A graph showing exponential growth.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): It was great. We were tearing through lungs, spreading like wildfire.
:Voice offscreen: Hooray!
:Voice 2 offscreen: I ''hate'' lungs.

:[Close-up of bacteriophage "head".]
:Bacteriophage: Then, all of a sudden, humans everywhere just...''stopped''. They stopped working, stopped seeing friends.

:[Megan is sitting on a couch, watching a flat screen. Cueball is at a sink with a mirror, washing his hands. They are facing away from each other.]
:Voice offscreen: What are they ''doing''?
:Voice 2 offscreen: Nothing!
:Voice 2 offscreen: They're just sitting there in their houses washing their hands.

:[A single human in a empty room, surrounded by fallen droplets. Among the droplets is a coronavirus.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): Suddenly humans became dead ends. We tried to jump from one to the next, but there's no one to jump to.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We can't escape.
:Coronavirus: Help!

:[Coronaviruses, encroached on by macrophages and streams of antibodies.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We're trapped in there with those ghastly immune systems.
:Antibodies: ''IT'S HUUG TIIIIIME''
:Macrophage: Come here for a HUUUG
:Macrophage: HUUUUGS

:[Coronaviruses covered in antibodies and surrounded by macrophages. Some of the macrophages are devouring viruses. Others contain broken-down remnants.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): Even if we win a fight, there's nowhere to go.
:Macrophage: HUUUUUUUGGSS
:Macrophage: HUUUUGS
:Bacteriophage (narrating): By staying inside, humans have become resistant.

:[Back to the discussion between the coccus, the bacteriophage and the protozoon.]
:Coccus bacteria: How could they evolve that fast? Humans take decades to reproduce!
:Bacteriophage: It's not evolution. It's something with their brains.
:Protozoon: I ''wondered'' what those were for!

:[Bacteriophage pointing to: Cueball and Megan looking at their phones; Megan and Cueball walking to the right; Megan and Cueball at separate sinks washing their hands.]
:Bacteriophage: Humans started looking at their phones, talking, writing words, and making signs. A human named "Gloria Gaynor" filmed herself singing at her bathroom sink.
:Bacteriophage: And then they bought lots of pasta.
:Bacteriophage: Then, around the world, they all went home and started washing their hands.

:[Bacteriophage and protozoon.]
:Bacteriophage: They saw what we were doing and changed their behavior to stop us.
:Protozoon: Brains are the ''worst''.

:[Coccus, bacteriophage and protozoon.]
:Coccus bacteria: It's not over, right? They can't sustain this. They must be bored and tired.
:Coccus bacteria: Will they give up?
:Bacteriophage: I don't know. They seem determined to protect each other.

:[Coccus, bacteriophage and protozoon.]
:Bacteriophage: And
:Bacteriophage: They have a ''lot'' of pasta.

==Trivia==
* The title text originally contained a typo in the form of a double negative "We're not not trapped..." This has since been corrected.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]

2287: Pathogen Resistance

2020-03-31T22:39:33Z

172.68.129.132:

{{comic
| number = 2287
| date = March 30, 2020
| title = Pathogen Resistance
| image = pathogen_resistance.png
| titletext = We're not trapped in here with the coronavirus. The coronavirus is trapped in here with us.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a MACROPHAGE HUGGING A BACTERIOPHAGE. Should briefly summarize the immune system (esp. macrophages and antibodies) and why it is so terrifying to pathogens. Also maybe use [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170307142718.htm this link]. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic is the 13th comic in a row in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] about the {{w|2019–20 coronavirus outbreak|2020 pandemic}} of the {{w|coronavirus}} - {{w|SARS-CoV-2}}.

Rather than expressing humanity's fears and pessimism about the pandemic, this strip anthropomorphizes some of the pathogens which afflict humanity and presents ''their'' fears and pessimism about possibly going extinct. This serves as a roundabout way of expressing hope and wonder at the ingenuity and tenacity of humans in the face of diseases past (with water sanitation, mosquito netting, and condoms) and present (with the power of social distancing and {{w|Gloria Gaynor}}'s hit song ''{{w|I Will Survive}}''). Gaynor recorded [https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/12/entertainment/coronavirus-gloria-gaynor-i-will-survive-trnd/index.html a video of herself washing her hands] for 20 seconds (the recommended length of time to wash hands for optimal cleanliness) to the background of her hit song.

The three pathogens presented are a {{w|bacteriophage}}, a small colony of a {{w|coccus}}-shaped bacterium (such as ''{{w|Streptococcus}}''), and a {{w|protozoon}} (a caricature of a {{w|ciliate}}). Bacteriophages do not infect human cells (as the name suggests, they only infect bacteria), and have been studied for use as "{{w|phage therapy}}" ''for'' humans, especially in dealing with antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections (which is usually what people mean when they talk about "resistance" in the context of pathogens), but they are iconic, instantly-recognizable viruses, and some have been found to [https://phys.org/news/2015-11-bacteria-bacteriophages-collude-formation-clinically.html collude with bacteria] in forming certain antibiotic-resistant {{w|biofilm}}s. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balantidiasis Only one kind of ciliate] is known to cause human disease. However, ciliates are iconic for protozoa just as bacteriophages are for viruses (see, for example, Gary Larson's now venerable [https://www.thefarside.com ''The Far Side''] cartoons). The ciliate may be a 'stand-in' for protozoa that cause widespread and dangerous human diseases, such as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaria malaria].

The comic humorously considers pasta as an essential part of humans' fight against coronavirus. Pasta is an example of a dried food that can last a long time, if the orders to stay indoors continue. However, not every culture consumes or likes pasta.

The colony of cocci protests that it shouldn't be possible for humans to evolve "pathogen resistance" in the short period of months since the breakout of COVID-19, when humans require over a decade to reach sexual maturity, and in modern times often wait at least two decades before having children. Bacteria and viruses, on the other hand, reproduce in a matter of minutes, so that there may be hundreds of generations per day (comparable to the number of generations that have passed for humanity since the beginnings of agriculture), each of which presents opportunities to evolve new antigens that are not recognized by any antibodies present in the body or to evolve resistance to whatever antibiotic drugs a human might be using. However, as the bacteriophage explains, humans generally do not become resistant against pathogens by genetic drift (although there are researchers who are seeking to identify genes that encode resistances to various diseases and then propagate them to other humans through gene editing, as in the {{w|He Jiankui affair}}). Instead, humans "evolve" pathogen resistance through behavioral changes. The behaviors presented in this comic strip include:

* Municipal water supplies, which are filtered and treated to prevent the spread of waterborne diseases, like cholera and dysentery.
* Mosquito netting over beds, and also anti-insect poisoning, to prevent the spread of vector-borne diseases, like malaria.
* Condoms, to prevent the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases, such as AIDS and syphilis.
* Social or physical distancing, hand-washing, storable food, and electronic communications, to prevent the spread of diseases through casual contact, like COVID-19.

These behaviors do not come from our genomes, passed along through reproduction, but from our brains, passed along by communication. Some of the language of epidemiology is also used in discussion of communication, most notably "going viral" -- in this case, information is going viral to prevent viruses from going viral.

The title text reverts to the point of view of humans and references a famous line from the graphic novel ''{{w|Watchmen}}'', where {{w|Rorschach (character)|Rorschach}}, whilst in prison and surrounded by enemies who want to kill him, proclaims: "I'm not locked up in here with YOU. You're locked up in here with ME." This presents an alternate perspective on quarantine and isolation that some may find more bearable: rather than passively hiding indoors in fear of the virus, we are taking action to fragment the virus population so that our immune systems (and medical intervention, in more serious cases) can {{w|defeat in detail|defeat it in detail}}.

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

:[A small colony of coccus bacteria, a bacteriophage, and a protozoon are floating together.]
:Bacteriophage: I'm worried about humans developing resistance to us.
:Bacteriophage: Using pasta.

:[Cutaway to macrophages and antibodies chasing three protozoa. One protozoon is already covered in antibodies.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): The human immune system is a nightmare.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): It's the worst.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): It's the scariest thing in the universe.
:Macrophage: ''Who wants a HUUGGG''
:Antibody-covered protozoon: ''Nooo!''

:[Close-up on bacteriophage]
:Bacteriophage: We can only survive by staying ahead of it. Keep jumping from person to person, keep mutating and evolving.
:Bacteriophage: But now humans are adapting too fast.

:[Water pipes. A mosquito net with a bed under it. An unopened condom package.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We spread through their water. They built pipes.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We used mosquitoes. They put out nets and poison everywhere.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We spread through sex, and suddenly they all had these plastic things.

:[Depictions of coronavirus with spikes. Hairbun and Cueball shaking hands, with droplets spraying from both their mouths.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): This time, we really thought we had them.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): One of us got good at transmission through everyday contact.

:[A row of 4 sets of human lungs, the first with several black dots, the second and third with increasing black parts, the fourth completely filled with black. A graph showing exponential growth.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): It was great. We were tearing through lungs, spreading like wildfire.
:Voice offscreen: Hooray!
:Voice 2 offscreen: I ''hate'' lungs.

:[Close-up of bacteriophage "head".]
:Bacteriophage: Then, all of a sudden, humans everywhere just...''stopped''. They stopped working, stopped seeing friends.

:[Megan is sitting on a couch, watching a flat screen. Cueball is at a sink with a mirror, washing his hands. They are facing away from each other.]
:Voice offscreen: What are they ''doing''?
:Voice 2 offscreen: Nothing!
:Voice 2 offscreen: They're just sitting there in their houses washing their hands.

:[A single human in a empty room, surrounded by fallen droplets. Among the droplets is a coronavirus.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): Suddenly humans became dead ends. We tried to jump from one to the next, but there's no one to jump to.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We can't escape.
:Coronavirus: Help!

:[Coronaviruses, encroached on by macrophages and streams of antibodies.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We're trapped in there with those ghastly immune systems.
:Antibodies: ''IT'S HUUG TIIIIIME''
:Macrophage: Come here for a HUUUG
:Macrophage: HUUUUGS

:[Coronaviruses covered in antibodies and surrounded by macrophages. Some of the macrophages are devouring viruses. Others contain broken-down remnants.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): Even if we win a fight, there's nowhere to go.
:Macrophage: HUUUUUUUGGSS
:Macrophage: HUUUUGS
:Bacteriophage (narrating): By staying inside, humans have become resistant.

:[Back to the discussion between the coccus, the bacteriophage and the protozoon.]
:Coccus bacteria: How could they evolve that fast? Humans take decades to reproduce!
:Bacteriophage: It's not evolution. It's something with their brains.
:Protozoon: I ''wondered'' what those were for!

:[Bacteriophage pointing to: Cueball and Megan looking at their phones; Megan and Cueball walking to the right; Megan and Cueball at separate sinks washing their hands.]
:Bacteriophage: Humans started looking at their phones, talking, writing words, and making signs. A human named "Gloria Gaynor" filmed herself singing at her bathroom sink.
:Bacteriophage: And then they bought lots of pasta.
:Bacteriophage: Then, around the world, they all went home and started washing their hands.

:[Bacteriophage and protozoon.]
:Bacteriophage: They saw what we were doing and changed their behavior to stop us.
:Protozoon: Brains are the ''worst''.

:[Coccus, bacteriophage and protozoon.]
:Coccus bacteria: It's not over, right? They can't sustain this. They must be bored and tired.
:Coccus bacteria: Will they give up?
:Bacteriophage: I don't know. They seem determined to protect each other.

:[Coccus, bacteriophage and protozoon.]
:Bacteriophage: And
:Bacteriophage: They have a ''lot'' of pasta.

==Trivia==
* The title text originally contained a typo in the form of a double negative "We're not not trapped..." This has since been corrected.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]

2287: Pathogen Resistance

2020-03-31T16:56:11Z

172.68.129.132:

{{comic
| number = 2287
| date = March 30, 2020
| title = Pathogen Resistance
| image = pathogen_resistance.png
| titletext = We're not trapped in here with the coronavirus. The coronavirus is trapped in here with us.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a WORRIED BACTERIOPHAGE. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic is the 13th comic in a row in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] about the {{w|2019–20 coronavirus outbreak|2020 pandemic}} of the {{w|coronavirus}} - {{w|SARS-CoV-2}}.

Rather than expressing humanity's fears and pessimism about the pandemic, this strip anthropomorphizes some of the pathogens which afflict humanity and presents ''their'' fears and pessimism about possibly going extinct. This serves as a roundabout way of expressing hope and wonder at the ingenuity and tenacity of humans in the face of diseases past (with water sanitation, mosquito netting, and condoms) and present (with the power of social distancing and {{w|Gloria Gaynor}}'s hit song ''{{w|I Will Survive}}''). Gaynor recorded [https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/12/entertainment/coronavirus-gloria-gaynor-i-will-survive-trnd/index.html a video of herself washing her hands] for 20 seconds (the recommended length of time to wash hands for optimal cleanliness) to the background of her hit song.

The three pathogens presented are a {{w|bacteriophage}}, a small colony of a {{w|coccus}}-shaped bacterium (such as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streptococcus ''Streptococcus'']), and a [https://www.thefreedictionary.com/protozoon protozoon] (a caricature of a {{w|ciliate}}). Bacteriophages do not infect human cells (as the name suggests, they only infect bacteria), and have been studied for use as "{{w|phage therapy}}" ''for'' humans, especially in dealing with antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections (which is usually what people mean when they talk about "resistance" in the context of pathogens), but they are iconic, instantly-recognizable viruses, and some have been found to [https://phys.org/news/2015-11-bacteria-bacteriophages-collude-formation-clinically.html collude with bacteria] in forming certain antibiotic-resistant {{w|biofilm}}s.

The comic humorously considers pasta as an essential part of humans' fight against coronavirus. Pasta is an example of a dried food that can last a long time, if the orders to stay indoors continue. However, not every culture consumes or likes pasta.

The colony of cocci protests that it shouldn't be possible for humans to evolve "pathogen resistance" in the short period of months since the breakout of COVID-19, when humans require over a decade to reach sexual maturity, and in modern times often wait at least two decades before having children. Bacteria and viruses, on the other hand, reproduce in a matter of minutes, so that there may be hundreds of generations per day (comparable to the number of generations that have passed for humanity since the beginnings of agriculture), each of which presents opportunities to evolve new antigens that are not recognized by any antibodies present in the body or to evolve resistance to whatever antibiotic drugs a human might be using. However, as the bacteriophage explains, humans generally do not become resistant against pathogens by genetic drift (although there are researchers who are seeking to identify genes that encode resistances to various diseases and then propagate them to other humans through gene editing, as in the {{w|He Jiankui affair}}). Instead, humans "evolve" pathogen resistance through behavioral changes. The behaviors presented in this comic strip include:

* Municipal water supplies, which are filtered and treated to prevent the spread of waterborne diseases, like cholera and dysentery.
* Mosquito netting over beds, and also anti-insect poisoning, to prevent the spread of vector-borne diseases, like malaria.
* Condoms, to prevent the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases, such as AIDS and syphilis.
* Social or physical distancing, hand-washing, storable food, and electronic communications, to prevent the spread of diseases through casual contact, like COVID-19.

These behaviors do not come from our genomes, passed along through reproduction, but from our brains, passed along by communication. Some of the language of epidemiology is also used in discussion of communication, most notably "going viral" -- in this case, information is going viral to prevent viruses from going viral.

The title text reverts to the point of view of humans and references a famous line from the graphic novel ''{{w|Watchmen}}'', where {{w|Rorschach (character)|Rorschach}}, whilst in prison and surrounded by enemies who want to kill him, proclaims: "I'm not locked up in here with YOU. You're locked up in here with ME." This presents an alternate perspective on quarantine and isolation that some may find more bearable: rather than passively hiding indoors in fear of the virus, we are taking action to fragment the virus population so that our immune systems (and medical intervention, in more serious cases) can {{w|defeat in detail|defeat it in detail}}.

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

:[A small colony of coccus bacteria, a bacteriophage, and a protozoon are floating together.]
:Bacteriophage: I'm worried about humans developing resistance to us.
:Bacteriophage: Using pasta.

:[Cutaway to macrophages and antibodies chasing three protozoans. One protozoan is already covered in antibodies.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): The human immune system is a nightmare.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): It's the worst.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): It's the scariest thing in the universe.
:Macrophage: ''Who wants a [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170307142718.htm HUUGGG]''
:Antibody-covered protozoan: ''Nooo!''

:[Close-up on bacteriophage]
:Bacteriophage: We can only survive by staying ahead of it. Keep jumping from person to person, keep mutating and evolving.
:Bacteriophage: But now humans are adapting too fast.

:[Water pipes. A mosquito net with a bed under it. An unopened condom package.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We spread through their water. They built pipes.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We used mosquitoes. They put out nets and poison everywhere.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We spread through sex, and suddenly they all had these plastic things.

:[Depictions of coronavirus with spikes. Hairbun and Cueball shaking hands, with droplets spraying from both their mouths.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): This time, we really thought we had them.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): One of us got good at transmission through everyday contact.

:[A row of 4 sets of human lungs, the first with several black dots, the second and third with increasing black parts, the fourth completely filled with black. A graph showing exponential growth.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): It was great. We were tearing through lungs, spreading like wildfire.
:Voice offscreen: Hooray!
:Voice 2 offscreen: I ''hate'' lungs.

:[Close-up of bacteriophage "head".]
:Bacteriophage: Then, all of a sudden, humans everywhere just...''stopped''. They stopped working, stopped seeing friends.

:[Megan is sitting on a couch, watching a flat screen. Cueball is at a sink with a mirror, washing his hands. They are facing away from each other.]
:Voice offscreen: What are they ''doing''?
:Voice 2 offscreen: Nothing!
:Voice 2 offscreen: They're just sitting there in their houses washing their hands.

:[A single human in a empty room, surrounded by fallen droplets. Among the droplets is a coronavirus.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): Suddenly humans became dead ends. We tried to jump from one to the next, but there's no one to jump to.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We can't escape.
:Coronavirus: Help!

:[Coronaviruses, encroached on by macrophages and streams of antibodies.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We're trapped in there with those ghastly immune systems.
:Antibodies: ''IT'S HUUG TIIIIIME''
:Macrophage: Come here for a HUUUG
:Macrophage: HUUUUGS

:[Coronaviruses covered in antibodies and surrounded by macrophages. Some of the macrophages are devouring viruses. Others contain broken-down remnants.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): Even if we win a fight, there's nowhere to go.
:Macrophage: HUUUUUUUGGSS
:Macrophage: HUUUUGS
:Bacteriophage (narrating): By staying inside, humans have become resistant.

:[Back to the discussion between the coccus, the bacteriophage and the protozoan.]
:Coccus bacteria: How could they evolve that fast? Humans take decades to reproduce!
:Bacteriophage: It's not evolution. It's something with their brains.
:Protozoon: I ''wondered'' what those were for!

:[Bacteriophage pointing to: Cueball and Megan looking at their phones; Megan and Cueball walking to the right; Megan and Cueball at separate sinks washing their hands.]
:Bacteriophage: Humans started looking at their phones, talking, writing words, and making signs. A human named "Gloria Gaynor" filmed herself singing at her bathroom sink.
:Bacteriophage: And then they bought lots of pasta.
:Bacteriophage: Then, around the world, they all went home and started washing their hands.

:[Bacteriophage and protozoan.]
:Bacteriophage: They saw what we were doing and changed their behavior to stop us.
:Protozoon: Brains are the ''worst''.

:[Coccus, bacteriophage and protozoan.]
:Coccus bacteria: It's not over, right? They can't sustain this. They must be bored and tired.
:Coccus bacteria: Will they give up?
:Bacteriophage: I don't know. They seem determined to protect each other.

:[Coccus, bacteriophage and protozoan.]
:Bacteriophage: And
:Bacteriophage: They have a ''lot'' of pasta.

==Trivia==
* The title text originally contained a typo in the form of a double negative "We're not not trapped..." This has since been corrected.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]

2287: Pathogen Resistance

2020-03-31T16:50:50Z

172.68.129.132:

{{comic
| number = 2287
| date = March 30, 2020
| title = Pathogen Resistance
| image = pathogen_resistance.png
| titletext = We're not trapped in here with the coronavirus. The coronavirus is trapped in here with us.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a WORRIED BACTERIOPHAGE. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic is the 13th comic in a row in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] about the {{w|2019–20 coronavirus outbreak|2020 pandemic}} of the {{w|coronavirus}} - {{w|SARS-CoV-2}}.

Rather than expressing humanity's fears and pessimism about the pandemic, this strip anthropomorphizes some of the pathogens which afflict humanity and presents ''their'' fears and pessimism about possibly going extinct. This serves as a roundabout way of expressing hope and wonder at the ingenuity and tenacity of humans in the face of diseases past (with water sanitation, mosquito netting, and condoms) and present (with the power of social distancing and {{w|Gloria Gaynor}}'s hit song ''{{w|I Will Survive}}''). Gaynor recorded [https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/12/entertainment/coronavirus-gloria-gaynor-i-will-survive-trnd/index.html a video of herself washing her hands] for 20 seconds (the recommended length of time to wash hands for optimal cleanliness) to the background of her hit song.

The three pathogens presented are a {{w|bacteriophage}}, a small colony of a {{w|coccus}}-shaped bacterium (such as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streptococcus ''Streptococcus'']), and a [https://www.thefreedictionary.com/protozoon protozoon] (a caricature of a {{w|ciliate}}). Bacteriophages do not infect human cells (as the name suggests, they only infect bacteria), and have been studied for use as "{{w|phage therapy}}" ''for'' humans, especially in dealing with antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections (which is usually what people mean when they talk about "resistance" in the context of pathogens), but they are iconic, instantly-recognizable viruses, and some have been found to [https://phys.org/news/2015-11-bacteria-bacteriophages-collude-formation-clinically.html collude with bacteria] in forming certain antibiotic-resistant {{w|biofilm}}s.

The comic humorously considers pasta as an essential part of humans' fight against coronavirus. Pasta is an example of a dried food that can last a long time, if the orders to stay indoors continue. However, not every culture consumes or likes pasta.

The colony of cocci protests that it shouldn't be possible for humans to evolve "pathogen resistance" in the short period of months since the breakout of COVID-19, when humans require over a decade to reach sexual maturity, and in modern times often wait at least two decades before having children. Bacteria and viruses, on the other hand, reproduce in a matter of minutes, so that there may be hundreds of generations per day (comparable to the number of generations that have passed for humanity since the beginnings of agriculture), each of which presents opportunities to evolve new antigens that are not recognized by any antibodies present in the body or to evolve resistance to whatever antibiotic drugs a human might be using. However, as the bacteriophage explains, humans generally do not become resistant against pathogens by genetic drift (although there are researchers who are seeking to identify genes that encode resistances to various diseases and then propagate them to other humans through gene editing, as in the {{w|He Jiankui affair}}). Instead, humans "evolve" pathogen resistance through behavioral changes. The behaviors presented in this comic strip include:

* Municipal water supplies, which are filtered and treated to prevent the spread of waterborne diseases, like cholera and dysentery.
* Mosquito netting over beds, and also anti-insect poisoning, to prevent the spread of vector-borne diseases, like malaria.
* Condoms, to prevent the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases, such as AIDS and syphilis.
* Social or physical distancing, hand-washing, storable food, and electronic communications, to prevent the spread of diseases through casual contact, like COVID-19.

These behaviors do not come from our genomes, passed along through reproduction, but from our brains, passed along by communication. Some of the language of epidemiology is also used in discussion of communication, most notably "going viral" -- in this case, information is going viral to prevent viruses from going viral.

The title text reverts to the point of view of humans and references a famous line from the graphic novel ''{{w|Watchmen}}'', where {{w|Rorschach (character)|Rorschach}}, whilst in prison and surrounded by enemies who want to kill him, proclaims: "I'm not locked up in here with YOU. You're locked up in here with ME." This presents an alternate perspective on quarantine and isolation that some may find more bearable: rather than passively hiding indoors in fear of the virus, we are taking action to fragment the virus population so that our immune systems (and medical intervention, in more serious cases) can {{w|defeat in detail|defeat it in detail}}.

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

:[A small colony of coccus bacteria, a bacteriophage, and a protozoon are floating together.]
:Bacteriophage: I'm worried about humans developing resistance to us.
:Bacteriophage: Using pasta.

:[Cutaway to macrophages and antibodies chasing three protozoans. One protozoan is already covered in antibodies.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): The human immune system is a nightmare.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): It's the worst.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): It's the scariest thing in the universe.
:Macrophage: ''Who wants a HUUGGG''
:Antibody-covered protozoan: ''Nooo!''

:[Close-up on bacteriophage]
:Bacteriophage: We can only survive by staying ahead of it. Keep jumping from person to person, keep mutating and evolving.
:Bacteriophage: But now humans are adapting too fast.

:[Water pipes. A mosquito net with a bed under it. An unopened condom package.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We spread through their water. They built pipes.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We used mosquitoes. They put out nets and poison everywhere.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We spread through sex, and suddenly they all had these plastic things.

:[Depictions of coronavirus with spikes. Hairbun and Cueball shaking hands, with droplets spraying from both their mouths.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): This time, we really thought we had them.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): One of us got good at transmission through everyday contact.

:[A row of 4 sets of human lungs, the first with several black dots, the second and third with increasing black parts, the fourth completely filled with black. A graph showing exponential growth.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): It was great. We were tearing through lungs, spreading like wildfire.
:Voice offscreen: Hooray!
:Voice 2 offscreen: I ''hate'' lungs.

:[Close-up of bacteriophage "head".]
:Bacteriophage: Then, all of a sudden, humans everywhere just...''stopped''. They stopped working, stopped seeing friends.

:[Megan is sitting on a couch, watching a flat screen. Cueball is at a sink with a mirror, washing his hands. They are facing away from each other.]
:Voice offscreen: What are they ''doing''?
:Voice 2 offscreen: Nothing!
:Voice 2 offscreen: They're just sitting there in their houses washing their hands.

:[A single human in a empty room, surrounded by fallen droplets. Among the droplets is a coronavirus.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): Suddenly humans became dead ends. We tried to jump from one to the next, but there's no one to jump to.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We can't escape.
:Coronavirus: Help!

:[Coronaviruses, encroached on by macrophages and streams of antibodies.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We're trapped in there with those ghastly immune systems.
:Antibodies: ''IT'S HUUG TIIIIIME''
:Macrophage: Come here for a HUUUG
:Macrophage: HUUUUGS

:[Coronaviruses covered in antibodies and surrounded by macrophages. Some of the macrophages are devouring viruses. Others contain broken-down remnants.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): Even if we win a fight, there's nowhere to go.
:Macrophage: HUUUUUUUGGSS
:Macrophage: HUUUUGS
:Bacteriophage (narrating): By staying inside, humans have become resistant.

:[Back to the discussion between the coccus, the bacteriophage and the protozoan.]
:Coccus bacteria: How could they evolve that fast? Humans take decades to reproduce!
:Bacteriophage: It's not evolution. It's something with their brains.
:Protozoon: I ''wondered'' what those were for!

:[Bacteriophage pointing to: Cueball and Megan looking at their phones; Megan and Cueball walking to the right; Megan and Cueball at separate sinks washing their hands.]
:Bacteriophage: Humans started looking at their phones, talking, writing words, and making signs. A human named "Gloria Gaynor" filmed herself singing at her bathroom sink.
:Bacteriophage: And then they bought lots of pasta.
:Bacteriophage: Then, around the world, they all went home and started washing their hands.

:[Bacteriophage and protozoan.]
:Bacteriophage: They saw what we were doing and changed their behavior to stop us.
:Protozoon: Brains are the ''worst''.

:[Coccus, bacteriophage and protozoan.]
:Coccus bacteria: It's not over, right? They can't sustain this. They must be bored and tired.
:Coccus bacteria: Will they give up?
:Bacteriophage: I don't know. They seem determined to protect each other.

:[Coccus, bacteriophage and protozoan.]
:Bacteriophage: And
:Bacteriophage: They have a ''lot'' of pasta.

==Trivia==
* The title text originally contained a typo in the form of a double negative "We're not not trapped..." This has since been corrected.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]

2287: Pathogen Resistance

2020-03-31T16:49:24Z

172.68.129.132:

{{comic
| number = 2287
| date = March 30, 2020
| title = Pathogen Resistance
| image = pathogen_resistance.png
| titletext = We're not trapped in here with the coronavirus. The coronavirus is trapped in here with us.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a WORRIED BACTERIOPHAGE. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic is the 13th comic in a row in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] about the {{w|2019–20 coronavirus outbreak|2020 pandemic}} of the {{w|coronavirus}} - {{w|SARS-CoV-2}}.

Rather than expressing humanity's fears and pessimism about the pandemic, this strip anthropomorphizes some of the pathogens which afflict humanity and presents ''their'' fears and pessimism about possibly going extinct. This serves as a roundabout way of expressing hope and wonder at the ingenuity and tenacity of humans in the face of diseases past (with water sanitation, mosquito netting, and condoms) and present (with the power of social distancing and {{w|Gloria Gaynor}}'s hit song ''{{w|I Will Survive}}''). Gaynor recorded [https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/12/entertainment/coronavirus-gloria-gaynor-i-will-survive-trnd/index.html a video of herself washing her hands] for 20 seconds (the recommended length of time to wash hands for optimal cleanliness) to the background of her hit song.

The three pathogens presented are a {{w|bacteriophage}}, a small colony of a {{w|coccus}}-shaped bacterium (such as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streptococcus ''Streptococcus''], and a [https://www.thefreedictionary.com/protozoon protozoon] (a caricature of a {{w|ciliate}}). Bacteriophages do not infect human cells (as the name suggests, they only infect bacteria), and have been studied for use as "{{w|phage therapy}}" ''for'' humans, especially in dealing with antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections (which is usually what people mean when they talk about "resistance" in the context of pathogens), but they are iconic, instantly-recognizable viruses, and some have been found to [https://phys.org/news/2015-11-bacteria-bacteriophages-collude-formation-clinically.html collude with bacteria] in forming certain antibiotic-resistant {{w|biofilm}}s.

The comic humorously considers pasta as an essential part of humans' fight against coronavirus. Pasta is an example of a dried food that can last a long time, if the orders to stay indoors continue. However, not every culture consumes or likes pasta.

The colony of cocci protests that it shouldn't be possible for humans to evolve "pathogen resistance" in the short period of months since the breakout of COVID-19, when humans require over a decade to reach sexual maturity, and in modern times often wait at least two decades before having children. Bacteria and viruses, on the other hand, reproduce in a matter of minutes, so that there may be hundreds of generations per day (comparable to the number of generations that have passed for humanity since the beginnings of agriculture), each of which presents opportunities to evolve new antigens that are not recognized by any antibodies present in the body or to evolve resistance to whatever antibiotic drugs a human might be using. However, as the bacteriophage explains, humans generally do not become resistant against pathogens by genetic drift (although there are researchers who are seeking to identify genes that encode resistances to various diseases and then propagate them to other humans through gene editing, as in the {{w|He Jiankui affair}}). Instead, humans "evolve" pathogen resistance through behavioral changes. The behaviors presented in this comic strip include:

* Municipal water supplies, which are filtered and treated to prevent the spread of waterborne diseases, like cholera and dysentery.
* Mosquito netting over beds, and also anti-insect poisoning, to prevent the spread of vector-borne diseases, like malaria.
* Condoms, to prevent the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases, such as AIDS and syphilis.
* Social or physical distancing, hand-washing, storable food, and electronic communications, to prevent the spread of diseases through casual contact, like COVID-19.

These behaviors do not come from our genomes, passed along through reproduction, but from our brains, passed along by communication. Some of the language of epidemiology is also used in discussion of communication, most notably "going viral" -- in this case, information is going viral to prevent viruses from going viral.

The title text reverts to the point of view of humans and references a famous line from the graphic novel ''{{w|Watchmen}}'', where {{w|Rorschach (character)|Rorschach}}, whilst in prison and surrounded by enemies who want to kill him, proclaims: "I'm not locked up in here with YOU. You're locked up in here with ME." This presents an alternate perspective on quarantine and isolation that some may find more bearable: rather than passively hiding indoors in fear of the virus, we are taking action to fragment the virus population so that our immune systems (and medical intervention, in more serious cases) can {{w|defeat in detail|defeat it in detail}}.

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

:[A small colony of coccus bacteria, a bacteriophage, and a protozoon are floating together.]
:Bacteriophage: I'm worried about humans developing resistance to us.
:Bacteriophage: Using pasta.

:[Cutaway to macrophages and antibodies chasing three protozoans. One protozoan is already covered in antibodies.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): The human immune system is a nightmare.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): It's the worst.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): It's the scariest thing in the universe.
:Macrophage: ''Who wants a HUUGGG''
:Antibody-covered protozoan: ''Nooo!''

:[Close-up on bacteriophage]
:Bacteriophage: We can only survive by staying ahead of it. Keep jumping from person to person, keep mutating and evolving.
:Bacteriophage: But now humans are adapting too fast.

:[Water pipes. A mosquito net with a bed under it. An unopened condom package.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We spread through their water. They built pipes.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We used mosquitoes. They put out nets and poison everywhere.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We spread through sex, and suddenly they all had these plastic things.

:[Depictions of coronavirus with spikes. Hairbun and Cueball shaking hands, with droplets spraying from both their mouths.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): This time, we really thought we had them.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): One of us got good at transmission through everyday contact.

:[A row of 4 sets of human lungs, the first with several black dots, the second and third with increasing black parts, the fourth completely filled with black. A graph showing exponential growth.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): It was great. We were tearing through lungs, spreading like wildfire.
:Voice offscreen: Hooray!
:Voice 2 offscreen: I ''hate'' lungs.

:[Close-up of bacteriophage "head".]
:Bacteriophage: Then, all of a sudden, humans everywhere just...''stopped''. They stopped working, stopped seeing friends.

:[Megan is sitting on a couch, watching a flat screen. Cueball is at a sink with a mirror, washing his hands. They are facing away from each other.]
:Voice offscreen: What are they ''doing''?
:Voice 2 offscreen: Nothing!
:Voice 2 offscreen: They're just sitting there in their houses washing their hands.

:[A single human in a empty room, surrounded by fallen droplets. Among the droplets is a coronavirus.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): Suddenly humans became dead ends. We tried to jump from one to the next, but there's no one to jump to.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We can't escape.
:Coronavirus: Help!

:[Coronaviruses, encroached on by macrophages and streams of antibodies.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We're trapped in there with those ghastly immune systems.
:Antibodies: ''IT'S HUUG TIIIIIME''
:Macrophage: Come here for a HUUUG
:Macrophage: HUUUUGS

:[Coronaviruses covered in antibodies and surrounded by macrophages. Some of the macrophages are devouring viruses. Others contain broken-down remnants.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): Even if we win a fight, there's nowhere to go.
:Macrophage: HUUUUUUUGGSS
:Macrophage: HUUUUGS
:Bacteriophage (narrating): By staying inside, humans have become resistant.

:[Back to the discussion between the coccus, the bacteriophage and the protozoan.]
:Coccus bacteria: How could they evolve that fast? Humans take decades to reproduce!
:Bacteriophage: It's not evolution. It's something with their brains.
:Protozoon: I ''wondered'' what those were for!

:[Bacteriophage pointing to: Cueball and Megan looking at their phones; Megan and Cueball walking to the right; Megan and Cueball at separate sinks washing their hands.]
:Bacteriophage: Humans started looking at their phones, talking, writing words, and making signs. A human named "Gloria Gaynor" filmed herself singing at her bathroom sink.
:Bacteriophage: And then they bought lots of pasta.
:Bacteriophage: Then, around the world, they all went home and started washing their hands.

:[Bacteriophage and protozoan.]
:Bacteriophage: They saw what we were doing and changed their behavior to stop us.
:Protozoon: Brains are the ''worst''.

:[Coccus, bacteriophage and protozoan.]
:Coccus bacteria: It's not over, right? They can't sustain this. They must be bored and tired.
:Coccus bacteria: Will they give up?
:Bacteriophage: I don't know. They seem determined to protect each other.

:[Coccus, bacteriophage and protozoan.]
:Bacteriophage: And
:Bacteriophage: They have a ''lot'' of pasta.

==Trivia==
* The title text originally contained a typo in the form of a double negative "We're not not trapped..." This has since been corrected.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]

2287: Pathogen Resistance

2020-03-31T04:23:13Z

172.68.129.132:

{{comic
| number = 2287
| date = March 30, 2020
| title = Pathogen Resistance
| image = pathogen_resistance.png
| titletext = We're not not trapped in here with the coronavirus. The coronavirus is trapped in here with us.
}}

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

This is yet another comic in the [[:Category:COVID-19|marathon of comic strips related to COVID-19]]. Rather than expressing humanity's fears and pessimism about the pandemic, this strip anthropomorphizes the pathogens which afflict humanity and presents ''their'' fears and pessimism about possibly going extinct. This serves as a roundabout way of expressing hope and wonder at the ingenuity and tenacity of humans in the face of diseases past (with water sanitation, mosquito netting, and condoms) and present (with the power of pasta and {{w|Gloria Gaynor}}'s hit song ''{{w|I Will Survive}}'').

A bacteriophage, a coccus-shaped bacterium, and a protozoon (a caricature of a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciliate ciliate]) talk about humans.

The title text references a famous line from the graphic novel ''{{w|Watchmen}}'', where [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_(character) Rorschach], whilst in prison and surrounded by enemies who want to kill him proclaims: "I'm not locked up in here with YOU. You're locked up in here with ME."

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

[A small colony of coccus bacteria, a bacteriophage, and a large bacterium are floating together.]
:Bacteriophage: I'm worried about humans developing resistance to us.
:Bacteriophage: Using pasta.
[Cutaway to macrophages and antibodies chasing bacteria]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): The human immune system is a nightmare.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): It's the worst.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): It's the scariest thing in the universe.
:Macrophage: ''Who wants a HUUGGG''
:Bacteria: ''Nooo!''
[Close-up on bacteriophage]
:Bacteriophage: We can only survive by staying ahead of it. Keep jumping from person to person, keep mutating and evolving.
:Bacteriophage: But now humans are adapting too fast.
[Water pipes. A mosquito net with a person under it. A condom.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We spread through their water. They built pipes.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We used mosquitoes. They put out nets and poison everywhere.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We spread through sex, and suddenly they all had these plastic things.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:COVID-19]]

2287: Pathogen Resistance

2020-03-31T04:21:45Z

172.68.129.132:

{{comic
| number = 2287
| date = March 30, 2020
| title = Pathogen Resistance
| image = pathogen_resistance.png
| titletext = We're not not trapped in here with the coronavirus. The coronavirus is trapped in here with us.
}}

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

This is yet another comic in the [[:Category:COVID-19|marathon of comic strips related to COVID-19]]. Rather than expressing humanity's fears and pessimism about the pandemic, this strip anthropomorphizes the pathogens which afflict humanity and presents ''their'' fears and pessimism about possibly going extinct. This serves as a roundabout way of expressing hope and wonder at the ingenuity and tenacity of humans in the face of diseases past (with water sanitation, mosquito netting, and condoms) and present (with the power of pasta and {{w|Gloria Gaynor}}'s hit song ''{{w|I Will Survive}}'').

A bacteriophage, a coccus-shaped bacteria, and a protozoon (a caricature of a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciliate ciliate]) talk about humans.

The title text references a famous line from the graphic novel ''{{w|Watchmen}}'', where [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_(character) Rorschach], whilst in prison and surrounded by enemies who want to kill him proclaims: "I'm not locked up in here with YOU. You're locked up in here with ME."

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

[A small colony of coccus bacteria, a bacteriophage, and a large bacterium are floating together.]
:Bacteriophage: I'm worried about humans developing resistance to us.
:Bacteriophage: Using pasta.
[Cutaway to macrophages and antibodies chasing bacteria]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): The human immune system is a nightmare.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): It's the worst.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): It's the scariest thing in the universe.
:Macrophage: ''Who wants a HUUGGG''
:Bacteria: ''Nooo!''
[Close-up on bacteriophage]
:Bacteriophage: We can only survive by staying ahead of it. Keep jumping from person to person, keep mutating and evolving.
:Bacteriophage: But now humans are adapting too fast.
[Water pipes. A mosquito net with a person under it. A condom.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We spread through their water. They built pipes.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We used mosquitoes. They put out nets and poison everywhere.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We spread through sex, and suddenly they all had these plastic things.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:COVID-19]]

2287: Pathogen Resistance

2020-03-31T04:19:27Z

172.68.129.132:

{{comic
| number = 2287
| date = March 30, 2020
| title = Pathogen Resistance
| image = pathogen_resistance.png
| titletext = We're not not trapped in here with the coronavirus. The coronavirus is trapped in here with us.
}}

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

This is yet another comic in the [[:Category:COVID-19|marathon of comic strips related to COVID-19]]. Rather than expressing humanity's fears and pessimism about the pandemic, this strip anthropomorphizes the pathogens which afflict humanity and presents ''their'' fears and pessimism about possibly going extinct. This serves as a roundabout way of expressing hope and wonder at the ingenuity and tenacity of humans in the face of diseases past (with water sanitation, mosquito netting, and condoms) and present (with the power of pasta and {{w|Gloria Gaynor}}'s hit song ''{{w|I Will Survive}}'').

A bacteriophage, a coccus-shaped bacteria, and a protozoon (a caricature of a ciliate) talk about humans.

The title text references a famous line from the graphic novel ''{{w|Watchmen}}'', where [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_(character) Rorschach], whilst in prison and surrounded by enemies who want to kill him proclaims: "I'm not locked up in here with YOU. You're locked up in here with ME."

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

[A small colony of coccus bacteria, a bacteriophage, and a large bacterium are floating together.]
:Bacteriophage: I'm worried about humans developing resistance to us.
:Bacteriophage: Using pasta.
[Cutaway to macrophages and antibodies chasing bacteria]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): The human immune system is a nightmare.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): It's the worst.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): It's the scariest thing in the universe.
:Macrophage: ''Who wants a HUUGGG''
:Bacteria: ''Nooo!''
[Close-up on bacteriophage]
:Bacteriophage: We can only survive by staying ahead of it. Keep jumping from person to person, keep mutating and evolving.
:Bacteriophage: But now humans are adapting too fast.
[Water pipes. A mosquito net with a person under it. A condom.]
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We spread through their water. They built pipes.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We used mosquitoes. They put out nets and poison everywhere.
:Bacteriophage (narrating): We spread through sex, and suddenly they all had these plastic things.

{{comic discussion}}

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