explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2176: How Hacking Works

2019-07-15T14:20:48Z

172.68.142.239:

any idea what the title text is referring to? some smash mouth lyrics, maybe? [[User:Gir|-- //gir.st/]] ([[User talk:Gir|talk]]) 13:48, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
:The first line of their most popular song, All Star, is "Somebody once told me the world is gonna roll me". [[Special:Contributions/162.158.123.97|162.158.123.97]] 13:55, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
::welp, i could have figured that out! to my defense, ducking "roll them like this" only brought up the comic itself. Thanks! [[User:Gir|-- //gir.st/]] ([[User talk:Gir|talk]]) 14:06, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
: I think Randall is referring to this https://xkcd.com/792/ with himself is the "someone" who warned them. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.142.239|172.68.142.239]] 14:20, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

2175: Flag Interpretation

2019-07-12T20:55:06Z

172.68.142.239: /* Explanation */ US half-staff regulations cover more than "only" the length of time (e.g., 4 USC 7(m) also covers the method of raising the flag)

{{comic
| number = 2175
| date = July 12, 2019
| title = Flag Interpretation
| image = flag_interpretation.png
| titletext = When Salvador Dalí died, it took months to get all the flagpoles sufficiently melted.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an IMPORTANT CLONE. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
In many countries including the United States (whose flag is depicted in the comic), it is customary to lower the flag to {{w|half staff}} when important public figures die. In the US, regulations regarding flying the flag at half staff specify the length of time for the flag to be flown at half staff, and are based on the importance of the person who has died. There are no regulations where the flag would be flown at any height other than full height or half staff, and there are no regulations where multiple flags would be flown.

Randall, as usual, makes a humorous list of fictional additional traditions.

Flying the US flag {{w|Distress_signal#Inverted_flags|upside down}} is widely considered a distress signal, and would not be intended to indicate an important figure has died. Since on average [https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/ someone dies every few seconds], it would indeed be extremely unlikely that no one would die for weeks in a row. Although not having anyone die seems good on the surface, it would trigger alarm about why this was happening; what mysterious force could possibly cause cessation of all deaths? And will it continue into the future, triggering an overpopulation crisis in short order?

The second-to-last panel is a reference to the {{w|Trolley problem}}, a well-known thought experiment in ethics: An out-of-control trolley is running toward five people who are on the tracks. If you do nothing, these five will be killed. However, you can trigger a switch that will divert the trolley onto a side track, where there is one person on the tracks who would be killed. Which is the more ethical option?

The title text is a reference to ''{{w|The Persistence of Memory}}'' and other paintings and sculptures by {{w|Salvador Dalí}} which include watches and other objects that are melting.

==Table==
{| border =1 width=100% cellpadding=5 class="wikitable"
! Flag Position !! Randall's Interpretation || Explanation
|-
|Flag at half mast
|Someone important died.
|
|-
|Flag at three-quarter mast.
|Someone died but we're not sure how we feel about them.
|Randall seems to interpret a single full-mast flag as meaning "nobody important died". If so, 3/4 mast is a compromise between that and the half mast meaning; another way to interpret it might be to say "someone half-important died".
|-
|Flag at base of the mast.
|Everyone important died.
|Likewise, if the flag is lowered halfway when one important person dies, lowering it twice as far implies that multiple important people have died. No intermediate positions are shown, so we can't be sure exactly how many.
|-
|Two flags at full mast.
|Someone important was successfully cloned.
|
|-
|Two flags at half mast.
|An important person died battling their evil clone.
|
|-
|Flag at half mast and upside-down.
|Nobody has died for weeks and that seems good but statistically it's very alarming.
|
|-
|One normal-sized flag at half mast and five tiny flags at full mast.
|Someone diverted a trolley to save five people by killing one important person.
|This may be a reference to a cardgame by Explosm Entertainment that launched on kickstarter shortly before this comic's release.
|-
|No flag on the pole.
|The person who knows where the flag is stored at night died.
|Nobody living knows where the flag is stored, and can't seem to locate it to put it on the flagpole. Presumably the flag-keeper died at night, or the flag could still be flying. Or it may have been stolen.
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[8 panels in 2 rows, 4 panels per row - each panel shows a flagpole in a different state of flying flag(s) with a caption at the bottom of the panel below the flagpole.]
:[The US flag at half mast.]
:Caption: Someone important died
:[The same flag at three-quarter mast.]
:Caption: Someone died but we're not sure how we feel about them
:[The flag at the base of the mast.]
:Caption: Everyone important died
:[Two identical flags at full mast.]
:Caption: Someone important was successfully cloned
:[Two identical flags at half mast.]
:Caption: An important person died battling their evil clone
:[An upside-down flag at half mast.]
:Caption: Nobody has died for weeks and that seems good but statistically it's very alarming.
:[A normal-sized flag at half mast and five tiny flags at full mast.]
:Caption: Someone diverted a trolley to save five people by killing one important person
:[A flagpole with no flag.]
:Caption: The person who knows where the flag is stored at night died.

{{comic discussion}}

2173: Trained a Neural Net

2019-07-11T00:36:46Z

172.68.142.239: /* Trivia */ redundant and 2nd occur in paragraph

{{comic
| number = 2173
| date = July 8, 2019
| title = Trained a Neural Net
| image = trained_a_neural_net.png
| titletext = It also works for anything you teach someone else to do. "Oh yeah, I trained a pair of neural nets, Emily and Kevin, to respond to support tickets."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a TRAINED NEURAL NET. This is an incredibly stubby explanation; please expand. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
An {{w|artificial neural network}}, or a neural net, is a computing system inspired by a human brain, which "learns" by considering lots and lots of examples to develop patterns. For example, these are used in image recognition - by analyzing thousands or millions of examples, the system is able to identify particular objects. Neural networks typically function with no prior knowledge, and are "trained" by feeding in examples of the thing that they are told to analyze.

Here, [[Cueball]] is telling [[White Hat]] how he trained a neural net to sort photos into categories. The joke in the comic is that a human brain is already a neural network, albeit a biological one instead of an artificial one. By teaching oneself (or others) to do a task, you are ''de facto'' training a neural network. So instead of designing and training an artificial neural net that could do this task, all he did was manually sort the photos.

It is not advisable to say this in real life, because you might then be expected to use your already-trained neural net to do a similar task (or redo the same task) with much greater speed, thus ruining the façade. Also, people are offended when they are referred to by programmers as deterministic automata with no free will.

The title text is a continuation of this joke, as instead of designing and training two artificial neural nets named "Emily" and "Kevin", all he has done is train two people to manually respond to support tickets.

==Transcript==
:[Single panel with White Hat and Cueball, with White Hat holding what appears to be a smartphone.]
:White Hat: Oh, hey, you organized our photo archive!
:Cueball: Yeah, I trained a neural net to sort the unlabeled photos into categories.
:White Hat: Whoa! Nice work!

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Engineering Tip: When you do a task by hand, you can technically say you trained a neural net to do it.

==Trivia==
[https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Diego_Moussallem/publication/326030040_Neural_Machine_Translation_for_Query_Construction_and_Composition Some contemporary neural nets have been trained to answer questions about the contents of Wikipedia.] You can [https://chat.dbpedia.org try one] that [https://wiki.dbpedia.org/contribute you can also help train]. Technically, improving Wikipedia helps train it, but for example [https://github.com/dbpedia/GSoC/issues/11 you can also look for problems with the net's output.] Other neural networks are being trained to extract phonological information from spoken audio, as per [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1905.06533.pdf Figure 1 here]. In [[1897: Self Driving]], Randall suggested that crowdsourced applications like ReCAPTCHA that have been used to train neural nets to recognize objects necessary for safe driving in photographs, may also be used for [[wikipedia:Wizard of Oz experiment|Wizard of Oz experiments]].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]

2134: Too Much Talking

2019-04-09T02:25:30Z

172.68.142.239: --

{{comic
| number = 2134
| date = April 8, 2019
| title = Too Much Talking
| image = too_much_talking.png
| titletext = Next time I go, I'm going to prepare a whole bunch of opinions that I'm sure are good, and make everyone sit quietly while I run through them.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a TALKATIVE PARTYGOER. Explanation needs to be expanded. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[[Cueball]] has recently returned from a party, and appears to be intoxicated to some degree. Different from most after-party regrets, he appears to have "talked too much." Likely, he expressed opinions that might be rejected or seen as embarrassing by his social circle or society as a whole, and is now remorseful and embarrassed he said such things. In his shame, he recedes under his bed, but evidently he finds new opinions to feel strongly about, and quickly returns to society.

The title text presents a suggestion that will likely not go over well, as forcing those at a party to quietly listen to you is a great way to kill it.
==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[Cueball is walking into the panel from the right]
:Off-screen: How was the party?
:Cueball: ''Taaalkiiiiiiing''
:Cueball: Blablablabla
:Cueball: I talked so much. Too much? ''Probably.''
:Cueball: My face is tired.

:[Cueball moving to retreat under a bed]
:Cueball: So many conversations.
:Cueball: I'm worried that all my opinions are bad. Why did I talk so much?
:Cueball: Time to hide under my bed and never speak to another human again.

:[The bed is shown, presumably with Cueball under it.]

:Five minutes later...
:[Cueball crawling out from under the bed]
:Cueball: I have some new opinions.
:Off-screen: That didn't take long.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Social interactions]]

1920: Emoji Sports

2017-11-24T16:13:02Z

172.68.142.239:

{{comic
| number = 1920
| date = November 24, 2017
| title = Emoji Sports
| image = emoji_sports.png
| titletext = No horse has yet managed the elusive Quadruple Crown—winning the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, the Belmont Stakes, and the Missouri Horse Hole.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Missing title text explanation - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{| class="wikitable"
!Emoji
!Sport
!Description
|-
|🤽🌋
|Lavaball
|Throwing a ball into the an active volcano would quickly end the game
|-
|🤾‍♀️🤺
|Bladeball
|Would also lead to the quick destruction of the ball
|-
|💃💃⚽
|Fancyball
|It would be difficult to kick a giant football while wearing high heels (though possible with a normal sized one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GykP0XsLIA)
|-
|🕳️🏇🏇🏇
|Horse hole
|Horses might not cooperate or be serious injured when raced into a large hole. Not to be confused with horse golf, which is one way of describing polo.
|-
|🔪🏀⛏️
|Basketball Shredding
|Another sport which would be destructive on the equipment
|-
|🥚🔭🕵️‍♀️
|Eggspotting
|This could be a combination of {{w|Egg_hunt|egg hunting}} and {{w|birdwatching}}; named like Trainspotting. A popular sport on Pinterest
|-
|⛷️🐊
|Alligator Jumping
|Fast paced and popular spectator sport but limited season when both snow and alligators are readily available. This is actually a crocodile emoji. Not to be confused with "jumping the shark".
|-
|👩🎣🧜‍♂️
|Merfishing
|You probably won't catch a lot when fishing for {{w|Mermaid|mermaids}}.
|-
|👨🏸🧚🏸👩
|Tinkerball
|Playing badminton with a fairy, named after [[wikipedia:Tinker Bell|Tinker Bell]]. Probably hazardous to the Fae.
|-
|🥌🦔🥌
|Hedgehog Curling
|Hedgehogs are generally perfectly capable of curling without assistance (although they may get stuck on the ice)
|-
|🗜️🍔
|Burger Clamping
|What everyone wants to do after ordering the 3-layer burger, then wondering how to fit it into their mouths.
|-
|👩‍🚀🏹🛰️
|Consequence archery
|Archery on a space station would lead to the potentially explosive decompression of the space station, and necessitate the evacuation of the astronauts aboard.
|-
|🦉➡️📬
|Owlstuffing
|Although the flag is up, the mailbox seems to be missing mail. Possible reference to Harry Potter owls carrying mails.
|-
|🍴🕯️🍴
|Candle Eating
|An unhealthy form of {{w|competitive eating}}. Eating large amounts of candle wax can cause {{w|Bowel_obstruction|intestinal obstruction}}.
|-
|⛳💣🏌️‍♀️
|Consequence Golf
|Rather than rewarding hole-in-ones, heavily punishes their absence. Also, would seriously damage the golf course.
|-
|👉🐍👈
|Snake Shaming
|Probably a play on snake charming. Also a possible reference to the biblical story where the snake is shamed for deceiving mankind by being doomed to crawl on its belly.
|-
|🔥🧗‍♀️🔥
|Hell Escape
|Trying to escape the {{w|lake of fire}} is the pastime of damned souls.
|-
|🎮🥑🎮
|Multiplayer Avocado
|May lead to guacamole. Very different from the adult version, multiplayer eggplant (see [[1870: Emoji Movie Reviews]]).
|}

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

{{comic discussion}}