explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2975: Classical Periodic Table

2024-08-21T17:45:34Z

172.68.174.142: minor touch-up

{{comic
| number = 2975
| date = August 21, 2024
| title = Classical Periodic Table
| image = classical_periodic_table_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x530px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Personally I think mercury is more of a 'wet earth' hybrid element.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by A CREATURE MADE OUT OF EARTH - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
An element is a basic atomic building block of the physical world. Ancient civilizations believed in a small number of broad elements. The most famous are the Hellenistic elements of earth, fire, air, water, and a fifth element such as "void" or "quintessence." The Chinese Wuxing was largely similar, adding an element for metal. Such elemental theories fell out of favor as alchemists and later scientists began to discover what we now recognize as the atomic model, and today 118 elements are recognized and organized into the {{w|Periodic Table of Elements}}.

Here, Randall has taken a modern periodic table and color-coded the modern elements with the four Hellenistic elements. Gaseous elements such as hydrogen are colored blue for "Air." Iodine and mercury, the two elements that remain liquid at room temperature, are colored dark blue for "Water." Heavily radioactive elements along the bottom of the table are red for "fire," and the rest of the chart filled in brown for "earth."

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

{{comic discussion}}

2962: President Venn Diagram

2024-07-28T19:28:30Z

172.68.174.142: revert my vandalism, but keep the real edit I made (sorry, I won't vandalize anymore)

{{comic
| number = 2962
| date = July 22, 2024
| title = President Venn Diagram
| image = president_venn_diagram_2x.png
| imagesize = 445x398px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Hard to imagine political rhetoric more microtargeted at me than 'I love Venn diagrams. I really do, I love Venn diagrams. It's just something about those three circles.'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by 2,382,203 Massachusetts write-in ballots for Randall Munroe - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
{{notice|This comic contains just one opinion as interpreted by [[Randall|the comic's author]].
Please take care to not add anything to the main article that might be your own personal political opinion. |image=warning!!.png|**NB. This warning could remain as long as Harris is a candidate in the election. Once this process concludes, we might need a different warning.}}

On the Monday that this comic was published, US Vice President {{w|Kamala Harris}} became the new presumptive {{w|Democratic_Party_(United_States)|Democratic Party}} nominee for the 2024 presidential election, having received verbal endorsements from a majority of Democratic state delegations; the day before, President {{w|Joe Biden}} had {{w|Withdrawal_of_Joe_Biden_from_the_2024_United_States_presidential_election|suspended his re-election bid}} and endorsed Harris. These major events resulted in Harris replacing Biden as one of the top two candidates for {{w|President of the United States|President}} in the 2024 election.

This comic features a three-way {{w|Venn diagram}} (which [[2721: Euler Diagrams|is also an Euler diagram]]). The three circles represent eligibility for US presidency, ability to do a good job as the US president, and love for Venn diagrams:

# '''Good President:''' [[Randall]] believes Harris would be a good president and implies as much, while making the reasonable assumption that he would not be.
# '''Eligibility:''' According to Article II of the {{w|US Constitution}}, someone is {{w|President_of_the_United_States#Eligibility|eligible for the presidency}} if they are a natural-born citizen of the United States, are at least 35 years old, and are a resident in the United States for at least 14 years. Both Randall Munroe and Kamala Harris meet these qualifications.
# '''Vocal Venn diagram affection:''' Harris' affection for Venn diagrams is something of a meme, and has been used by her in her campaign [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/kamala-harris-campaign-memes-gen-z-b2583802.html]. Randall is also known for his love of Venn diagrams, which feature heavily in xkcd. Randall especially loves Venn diagrams ABOUT Venn diagrams, like this one. While Harris frequently uses Venn diagrams with three intersecting circles as props, she also has [https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5125622/user-clip-circle-venn-diagram discussed them in the abstract, without reference to any physical diagram, even when discussing more than three intersecting categories.]

Part of the humor arises from the contrast of putting on a level playing field three characteristics that range widely from the momentous to the quirky, as well as the implication that Randall and Harris are quite similar in all but one area: their fitness to serve as US President, per Randall's opinion.

The diagram does not indicate anyone who Randall would include in the six other areas (categories) of the Venn diagram besides the two in which he listed himself and Harris.

The title text [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWR2uTfrh-k quotes Kamala Harris on her affection for Venn diagrams], and implies that the best way to target Randall with political ads is to mention how amazing Venn diagrams are.

Randall seems to express support for a Democratic Presidential candidate every 8 years, including in a 2016 comic [[I'm With Her]] endorsing {{w|Hillary Clinton}} and in [https://blog.xkcd.com/2008/01/28/obama/ a 2008 blog post] endorsing {{w|Barack Obama}}. In 2032 he will endorse [attention time-travelers/future editors, please edit this part to fill in whoever is running for president, and whether [[1688|the spiders are able to vote]].], followed by [same here] in 2040, Gabriele Cirulli in 2048, and X Æ A-12 Musk in the 2056 United States of America and Mars (USAM) election.

==Transcript==
:[A Venn diagram with three circles.]
:[Upper left circle:] Eligible to be President
:[Upper right circle:] Would be a good President
:[Lower circle:] Unusually vocal about love of Venn diagrams
:[Intersection of all three circles:] Kamala Harris
:[Intersection of the upper left and lower circles:] Me

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category: Venn diagrams]]
[[Category: Politics]]
[[Category: Elections]]
[[Category: Comics featuring politicians]]

2962: President Venn Diagram

2024-07-28T17:32:01Z

172.68.174.142: Describe Randall's coverage of Trump, and replace incorrect "Democrat" with "Democratic"

{{comic
| number = 2962
| date = July 22, 2024
| title = President Venn Diagram
| image = president_venn_diagram_2x.png
| imagesize = 445x398px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Hard to imagine political rhetoric more microtargeted at me than 'I love Venn diagrams. I really do, I love Venn diagrams. It's just something about those three circles.'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by 2,382,203 Massachusetts write-in ballots for Randall Munroe - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
{{notice|This comic contains just one opinion as interpreted by [[Randall|the comic's author]].
Please take care to not add anything to the main article that might be your own personal political opinion. |image=warning!!.png|**NB. This warning could remain as long as Harris is a candidate in the election. Once this process concludes, we might need a different warning.}}

On the Monday that this comic was published, US Vice President {{w|Kamala Harris}} became the new presumptive {{w|Democratic_Party_(United_States)|Democratic Party}} nominee for the 2024 presidential election, having received verbal endorsements from a majority of Democratic state delegations; the day before, President {{w|Joe Biden}} had {{w|Withdrawal_of_Joe_Biden_from_the_2024_United_States_presidential_election|suspended his re-election bid}} and endorsed Harris. These major events resulted in Harris replacing Biden as one of the top two candidates for {{w|President of the United States|President}} in the 2024 election.

This comic features a three-way {{w|Venn diagram}} (which [[2721: Euler Diagrams|is also an Euler diagram]]). The three circles represent eligibility for US presidency, ability to do a good job as the US president, and love for Venn diagrams:

# '''Good President:''' [[Randall]] believes either Harris or Trump would be a good president and implies as much, while making the reasonable assumption that he would not be.
# '''Eligibility:''' According to Article II of the {{w|US Constitution}}, someone is {{w|President_of_the_United_States#Eligibility|eligible for the presidency}} if they are a natural-born citizen of the United States, are at least 35 years old, and are a resident in the United States for at least 14 years. Randall Munroe, Kamala Harris, and Donald Trump meet these qualifications.
# '''Vocal Venn diagram affection:''' Harris' affection for Venn diagrams is something of a meme, and has been used by her in her campaign [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/kamala-harris-campaign-memes-gen-z-b2583802.html]. Randall is also known for his love of Venn diagrams, which feature heavily in xkcd. Randall especially loves Venn diagrams ABOUT Venn diagrams, like this one. While Harris frequently uses Venn diagrams with three intersecting circles as props, she also has [https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5125622/user-clip-circle-venn-diagram discussed them in the abstract, without reference to any physical diagram, even when discussing more than three intersecting categories.] Trump is not known to have made any public statements about Venn diagrams.

Part of the humor arises from the contrast of putting on a level playing field three characteristics that range widely from the momentous to the quirky, as well as the implication that Randall and Harris are quite similar in all but one area: their fitness to serve as US President, per Randall's opinion.

The diagram does not indicate anyone who Randall would include in the six other areas (categories) of the Venn diagram besides the three in which he listed himself, Harris, and Trump.

The title text [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWR2uTfrh-k quotes Kamala Harris on her affection for Venn diagrams], and implies that the best way to target Randall with political ads is to mention how amazing Venn diagrams are.

Randall seems to express support for a Democratic Presidential candidate every 8 years, including in a 2016 comic [[I'm With Her]] endorsing {{w|Hillary Clinton}} and in [https://blog.xkcd.com/2008/01/28/obama/ a 2008 blog post] endorsing {{w|Barack Obama}}. In 2032 he will endorse [attention time-travelers/future editors, please edit this part to fill in whoever is running for president, and whether [[1688|the spiders are able to vote]].], followed by [same here] in 2040, Gabriele Cirulli in 2048, and X Æ A-12 Musk in the 2056 United States of America and Mars (USAM) election.

==Transcript==
:[A Venn diagram with three circles.]
:[Upper left circle:] Eligible to be President
:[Upper right circle:] Would be a good President
:[Lower circle:] Unusually vocal about love of Venn diagrams
:[Intersection of all three circles:] Kamala Harris
:[Intersection of the upper left and upper right circles:] Donald Trump
:[Intersection of the upper left and lower circles:] Me

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category: Venn diagrams]]
[[Category: Politics]]
[[Category: Elections]]
[[Category: Comics featuring politicians]]

2957: A Crossword Puzzle

2024-07-10T21:05:12Z

172.68.174.142: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2957
| date = July 10, 2024
| title = A Crossword Puzzle
| image = a_crossword_puzzle_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x937px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Hint: If you ever encounter this puzzle in a crossword app, just [term for someone with a competitive and high-achieving personality].
}}

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

* It's all As
* 1 across. Famous pvt. wilhelm quote: Reference to the {{w|Wilhelm scream}}.
* 11 across. An IPv4 record is an "A" record, an IPv6 record is four times the length and is designated an "AAAA" record.
* 22 across. Unary's when you get to use just the one symbol. E.g. 32 in unary would be 11111111111111111111111111111111. The first four strings in unary, if you used A as the first (and only) symbol, would be A, AA, AAA, AAAA.
* 24 across. [https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-40/chapter-I/subchapter-C/part-63/subpart-AAAAAAA 40 Code Fed. Regs. § 63.11559], et seq., "Subpart AAAAAAA — National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for Area Sources: Asphalt Processing and Asphalt Roofing Manufacturing"
* 36 across. I.e. "open up". Or an expression of pain; particularly the only kind you can make with dental tools in your mouth. (As Autechre put it: [https://youtu.be/UppsLKz1iD4 "Now, I don't want you to panic... just lean back and relax."])
* 41 across. Macaulay Culkin's review of aftershave: Famously in the movie {{w|Home Alone}} he puts it on because he's home all alone and dislikes it, emitting a scream, which could be transcribed like A's.
* 50 acress. In Frozen2, Elsa hears spirits singing to her in a way that could be transcribed as "A A A A"
* 1 down. {{w|AaAaAA!!! – A Reckless Disregard for Gravity}} - notably the title is commonly extended in promotional material beyond 6 A's.
* 2 down. 101010101010101010101010 from base 2 to base 16 is AAAAAA.
* 9 down. Decoded from Base10 to Base26 with A being 1 you get AAAAAA
* 34 down. 440Hz is an "A" note. 7 pulses would be AAAAAAA

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Title: A CROSSWORD PUZZLE

[A crossword puzzle image, with the following clues:]

ACROSS

1. FAMOUS PVT. WILHELM QUOTE
11. IPV6 ADDRESS RECORD
15. "CIPHERTEXT" DECRYPTED WITH VIGENÈRE KEY "CIPHERTEXT"
16 0.8mm DIAMETER BATTERY
17. "WARTHOG" ATTACK AIRCRAFT
18. EVERY THIRD LETTER IN THE WORD FOR "INABILITY TO VISUALIZE"
19. AN ACROSTIC HIDDEN ON THE FIRST PAGE OF THE DICTIONARY
21. DEFAULT PAPER SIZE IN EUROPE
22. FIRST FOUR UNARY STRINGS
23. LYSINE CODON
24. 40 CFR PART 63 SUBPART CONCERNING ASPHALT POLLUTION
25. TOP BOND CREDIT RATING
26. AUDI COUPE
27. A PAIR OF SMALL REMOTE BATTERIES, WHEN INSERTED
29. UNOFFICIAL HOWARD DEAN SLOGAN
32. A 4.0 REPORT CARD
33. THE "HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS OF BASEBALL" (VOWELS ONLY)
34. 2018 KIEFER SONG
35. TOP MINOR LEAGUE TIER
36. REPLY ELICITED BY A DENTIST
38. ANAA'S AIRPORT
41. MACAULAY CULKIN'S REVIEW OF AFTERSHAVE
43. MARKETING AGENCY TRADE GRP.
44. SOARING CLIMAX OF LINDA EDER'S MAN OF LA MANCHA
46. MILITARY FLIGHT COMMUNITY ORG.
47. ICONIC LINE FROM TARZAN
48. EVERY OTHER LETTER OF JIMMY WALES'S BIRTH STATE
49. WARTHOG'S POSTSCRIPT AFTER "THEY CALL ME MISTER PIG!"
50. MESSAGE TO ELSA IN FROZEN 2
51. LOLA, WHEN BETTING IT ALL ON BLACK 20 IN RUN LOLA RUN

DOWN
1. GAME FEATURING "A RECKLESS DISREGARD FOR GRAVITY'
2. 101010101010101010101010 (base 2)-> (base 16)
3. GOOGLE PHONE RELEASED JULY '22
4. IT'S FIVE TIMES BETTER THAN THAT OTHER STEAK SAUCE
5. TOHEX (43690)
6. FREDDIE MERCURY LYRIC FROM UNDER PRESSURE
7. FULL-SIZE AUDI LUXURY SEDAN
8. FAST PATH THROUGH A MULTIPLE CHOICE MARKETING SURVEY
9. 12356631 IN BASE 26
10. VIRAL JIMMY BARNES CHORUS
11. RUBY RHOD CATCHPHRASE
12. badbeef + 9efcebbb
13. IN WET LEG'S UR MUM, WHAT THE SINGER HAS BEEN PRACTICING
14. REFRAIN FROM NORA REED BOT
20. MARIO BUTTON PRESSES TO ASCEND MINAS TRITH'S WALLS
24. VERMONT HISTORIC ROUTE NORTH FROM BENNINGTON
26. HIGH-BUDGET VIDEO GAME
28. UNORTHODOX TIC-TAC-TOE WIN
29. STRING WHOSE SHA-256 HASH ENDS...689510285e212385"
30. ARNOLD'S REMARK TO THE PREDATOR
31. THE VOWELS IN THE FIRE SALAMANDER'S BINOMIAL NAME
32. JANET LEIGH PSYCHO LINE
34. SEVEN 440Hz PULSES
37. AUDI LUXURY SPORTS SEDAN
38. A HALF-DOZEN EGGS WITH REASONABLY FIRM YOLKS
39. 2-2-2-2-2-2 ON A MULTITAP PHONE KEYPAD
40. •-•-•-•-•-•-
42. RATING FOR CHINA'S BEST TOURIST ATTRACTIONS
43. STANDARD DRUMSTICK SIZE
45. "THE RAIN/IN SPAIN/FALLS MAIN-/ LY ON THE PLAIN" RHYME SCHEME

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:1845: State Word Map

2024-01-03T03:17:56Z

172.68.174.142:

New Hampshire and Maine are merged together? Significance? [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 04:19, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
: That's weird, because there're definitely 50 words. Am I overlooking something... [[User:PvOberstein|PvOberstein]] ([[User talk:PvOberstein|talk]]) 04:22, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
:: Well, there are two words assigned to the merged state. It's just that the political boundary line is missing. [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 04:26, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
::: Oh, duh. [[User:PvOberstein|PvOberstein]] ([[User talk:PvOberstein|talk]]) 04:54, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
::::Added trivia about Randall's error. Wonder if he will spot it and correct it later?--[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:10, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
:::::The picture update here doesn't show any difference and the original picture still lacks the border line. So I've changed the trivia according to this.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 14:24, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
::::::Now the border line has been added. But the original picture here on explain xkcd also has the line. This is really weird. Anyone who has the original picture without the border line? Else we should remove the trivia, as there is no proof... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:18, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
:::::::The original both picture uploads never had that border. You must mix something up. I've done a new upload right now, but you have to wait maybe a few hours until this damn cloud server cache will show this. BTW: Please avoid double nested lists in the trivia section. That's a bad style ;)...--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:53, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

"The comic continues to make fun of Florida in the title text by saying that Florida searches for sex porn instead of porn, when porn is already about sex." [https://www.reddit.com/r/EarthPorn/ But is it really, though?] [[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.59|108.162.212.59]] 05:40, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
: Exactly - since terms like "food porn", "bacon porn" and "space porn" have started to gain popularity, the Florida approach makes more and more sense. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.66|162.158.90.66]] 07:55, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
:: Besides, we know from another XCKD that abusing link() with a modified kernel is yet another form of porn :-) --[[User:Keybounce|Keybounce]] ([[User talk:Keybounce|talk]]) 16:12, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

The <nowiki>Insert non-formatted text here</nowiki>misspelling map reference is clear, but the first thing I thought of was all the conclusions in the recently published book [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01AFXZ2F4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_qqqmzbRKZY0X0 Everybody Lies] about people's real opinions and desires drawn from Google data. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.107|108.162.246.107]] 06:27, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

The word "porn" has become slightly more generic than that in informal speech. See eg. Scenery Porn on TVTropes. So, searching for "sex porn" is probably mostly redundant, but not necessarily completely so. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.92.148|162.158.92.148]] 13:16, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
:Alas, "porn" is rather entrenched as meaning sexual, so "sex porn" is indeed pretty completely redundant. And there's enough of it that a search is unlikely to have a generic use appear in the first several pages of results, making specificity unnecessary. It's widely understood that a qualifier is required when using it generically, such as a Subreddit I know of called EarthPorn (which features beautiful landscape pictures). - NiceGuy1[[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.76|162.158.126.76]] 04:28, 8 June 2017 (UTC) I finally signed up! This comment is mine. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:28, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

As a non-native speaker and also someone who failed statistics: how is distinctive e.g. with the syphilis thing different from most? should this be explained more? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.202.160|162.158.202.160]]

"Distinctive" would indicate that it makes the state stand out from the others. If the most common cause of death in Louisiana were also one of the top 5 in most of the other states, then it would not really be distinctive in that it doesn't make Lousiana stand out from the others. If you took the list of most frequent causes of death for each state, and then removed all the causes that appeared in the "Top 10" of the other states, then the top entry for each state might (or might not) make it distinctive - for example, "eaten by an alligator". A more precise way of determining "distinctive" would be to calculate the mean and standard deviation of death rate for each cause of death across all states, and then calculate how many standard deviations each state's mean is from the national mean. The state cause that deviates the most from the national mean would be considered "distinctive" in that is an outlier in the national distribution.

Not sure if important enough to be included in official explanation, but a couple days before this comic, a map showing the most misspelled words in every state was making the rounds on Facebook, etc. http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/what-are-most-misspelled-words-every-state-n766361 the color scheme is pretty similar, too [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.135|162.158.74.135]] 17:03, 2 June 2017 (UTC)katherine

I thought an aspect of the Florida joke was a callback to the Google misspelled words map, which also featured a single state (Wisconsin) labeled with the state name instead of a word.
:It's just subtle enough that it might be. I think, though, that if it were an intended joke "Florida" would have been misspelled. [[User:OldCorps|OldCorps]] ([[User talk:OldCorps|talk]]) 14:58, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
:From the timing reported here, and the similarities (including pairing words with states) I'd say this comic is flat out a direct reference to the Google Trends map, blatantly making fun of it as a whole. I could see "Florida" landing in Florida being part of that. Oh, and according to the link provided above, "Wisconsin" wasn't an accidental label, it's actually their most misspelled word! - NiceGuy1 [[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.76|162.158.126.76]] 04:21, 8 June 2017 (UTC) I finally signed up! This comment is mine. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:28, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

"Sex porn" is not actually redundant. Some, uh, weird porn doesn't actually depict sex. There are... other things... [[Special:Contributions/172.68.174.142|172.68.174.142]] 03:17, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2656: Scientific Field Prefixes

2023-12-14T04:54:27Z

172.68.174.142: /* Computational theology */ new section

I think Mr. Monroe made up these numbers rather than researching them [[Special:Contributions/172.71.22.105|172.71.22.105]] 17:07, 9 August 2022 (UTC) anon, a mouse.
:Given how easy it is to look them up, I think this is unlikely. I haven't checked all of them, but each of the eight or so that I '''have''' checked were correct. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 19:14, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
:Checked it out of curiosity: [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22computational+dentistry%22 The data's correct], however, [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22theoretical+dentistry%22 the searches must be done with quotes]

Interestingly enough, the last time I was at a dentist, I ask them if they had seen any research work on how to do dentistry in zero-g, like if you got a toothache halfway to Mars.
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.56|162.158.107.56]] 01:58, 9 August 2022 (UTC) BCS
:Comment on comment: there should have been work done on dental procedures aboard orbiting stations, and also on e.g. Antarctic bases. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.25|162.158.134.25]] 04:39, 9 August 2022 (UTC) Pär Leijonhufvud
::That's "Space Dentistry". Or, in the other case, something that surely should involve the term "Polar Molar" somewhere in the paper abstract! :-p
::'Astro-' is "of the stars", or of the things that are more in their vicinity than not. If it isn't dentristrying (or massaging) the stars themselves, it'd be learning how to apply the parent field to astrozoological subjects (assuming xenodentristry and xenomassage aren't the best terms for the otherwise xenobiological clientelle). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.128|172.70.91.128]] 11:55, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Those who say that there's no such thing as High-Energy Theology should be taken with a pinch of salt. Or even a {{w|Lot's wife|Lot}}! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.80|172.70.91.80]] 02:05, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm a little concerned with Theoretical Theology. How much more theoritical can base theology be? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.198|108.162.250.198]] 02:22, 9 August 2022 (UTC) Beechmere

'Theoretical theology' is a tautology. So the first word is redundant.
[[User:MarquisOfCarrabass|MarquisOfCarrabass]] ([[User talk:MarquisOfCarrabass|talk]]) 06:47, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
:Theoretical theology returns 1.6 million results, so the comic is wrong, and high energy theology is wrong as well, searching on these three terms results in 602,000 results, not 0. I think perhaps Scholar.google.com has detected your skepticism, and is returning incorrect results for you, in accordance with the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Theology, in which God only exists for those who are not atheists.[[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 13:29, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
::"high energy theology" in quotes returns zero. "theoretical theology" actually returns 726 results, as in the comic. Searching without quotes is a double-edged sword: On one hand it would get results in which the terms are mentioned in separate sentences, and thus aren't relevant to the (non-existant{{Citation needed}}) scientific field called "high energy theology". On the other it would get results about fields similar to what one would imagine these combinations would describe. For example there's only one result for "marine dentistry", but there's several articles on dentistry on sea mammals, which would use both "marine" and "dentistry" in the same article. In any case, Randall used quotes in his search and his numbers look correct to me. [[User:256.256.256.256|256.256.256.256]] ([[User talk:256.256.256.256|talk about me behind my back]]) 14:19, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

I'd love to conduct research on Marine Massage! How do I find the link? (Purposes.)
:We need another dimension for Theoretical Marine Massave [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 04:03, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Unfortunately the "Marine dentistry" one appear to be a false positive: it contains the test string "...Marine, Dentistry..." in a list of possible fields where AR technology could be useful (Novakova, N.G., 2019. Innovation potential of augmented technologies in industrial context. Industry 4.0, 4(1), pp.24-28).
Also the "high-energy psychology" one was similarly a dud: student newspaper with a help wanted ad for a "high energy psychology student" (https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/217247671.pdf). The lack of manual curation of Scholar sometimes gives you these finds. Thirdly, Randall definitely searched with quote marks: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=marine+dentistry yields over 100 k results while https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%252C5&q=%22marine+dentistry%22 only yields one, with at least one of the former being papers on marine mammal dentistry (I have for practical porpoises no interest in dentistry, but I *want* to read https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781119545804.ch11). In summary: by searching for the exact phrase Randall eliminated a large number of false positives, but also missed a large number of interesting papers. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.157|162.158.134.157]] 04:32, 9 August 2022 (UTC) Pär Leijonhufvud

honestly I'm mostly worried about computational theology [[Special:Contributions/172.71.6.65|172.71.6.65]] 04:40, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
: It's a fairly common subject in science fiction. Fredric Brown's short story "Answer", for example. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 04:46, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
::Could have sworn that was Asimov's _The Last Answer_[[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 13:35, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
:::I think you're thinking of Asimov's "The Last Question", about Multivac and its descendants. His "The Last Answer" is a different story, and doesn't involve a computer. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 19:24, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
: Isn't that better known as {{w|numerology}}? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.221|172.70.85.221]] 08:49, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
:Of course, you meant to write "The Nine Billion Names of God" by Arthur C. Clarke. [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 11:35, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

I wouldn't be surprised if there was some research into use of synchrotron radiation in treating cancers in the jaw. Doesn't that count as "high energy"? [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 04:46, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

'High Energy Theology' sounds like an area of study extremely NOT conducive to the long-term survival of the human race. See this quote from the PRINCIPIA DISCORDIA:

'Mal-2 was once asked by one of his Disciples if he often prayed to Eris. He replied with these words: "No, we Erisians seldom pray, it is much too dangerous. Charles Fort has listed many factual incidences of ignorant people confronted with, say, a drought, and then praying fervently -- and then getting the entire village wiped out in a torrential flood."

We got ourselves into enough trouble when we split the atom. Gods only know what would result if we ever manage to split the thaum.

[[User:MarquisOfCarrabass|MarquisOfCarrabass]] ([[User talk:MarquisOfCarrabass|talk]]) 06:58, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
: Isn't that what happened to Soddom and Gemorrah? Genesis 19. Certainly enough energy to transmute Lot's wife into a pillar of salt. External to scripture, there's a recent theory about the image on the Shroud of Turin as well that is based in high energy physics.[[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 13:35, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Why is the "explanation" someone nitpicking the search method (and mixing up the "former" and "latter" order of unquoted vs. quoted), rather than an explanation of the joke? [[User:Conster|Conster]] ([[User talk:Conster|talk]]) 08:13, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
:Because sadly after ParL did their nitpicking, nobody else felt qualified to actually explain the joke [[User:256.256.256.256|256.256.256.256]] ([[User talk:256.256.256.256|talk about me behind my back]]) 10:09, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

I worked on giving actually competent editors a base to modify, but then someone else had already made an explanation. Here's my attempt:

"Within each branch of science, like physics, chemistry or biology, there are different scientific fields. Some of the prefixes, like theoretical, quantum or astro-, are used across multiple branches of science. For example {{w|Quantum mechanics|quantum physics}} is about the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles, while {{w|Quantum chemistry}} is about the application of quantum mechanics to chemical systems.

Randall combines a bunch of different [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TitleDrop Scientific Field Prefixes] with another bunch of scientific branches, creating combinations that form several real fields of science, but also nonsense ones. To get a grasp on whether that scientific field is real and/or well-known, he searches for the combinations on {{w|Google Scholar}}, a web search engine that indexes the contents of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines, counting the number of results for each combination. Some term combinations are common, and can thus be assumed to be real scientific fields, while others are uncommon, suggesting that those fields are not well known. Four combinations are not found even once, suggesting that they are "potential research opportunities", as the title text says.

There are problems with Randall's method though:"

Maybe some of this may be useful, I don't know [[User:256.256.256.256|256.256.256.256]] ([[User talk:256.256.256.256|talk about me behind my back]]) 11:21, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

:''Ah, that was me. Apologies. And you ECed the following attempt to post into here, so hete it is repasted. ;) Still applies. Your contribution also clearly appreciated...''
:I hated it so much, I rewrote it ("/* Explanation */ Nixing the downer 'explanation'. Perhaps some points can be extracted from it, even as my attempt is improved or (in turn) overwritten with something better."). Was going to suggest a table of prefixes/suffixes to describe each, but someone added the (sortable) tables in for the full forms (caused me much edit-conflict pain, hope I didn't cause someone else ECs in return) so maybe that's overkill. But "what exactly is 'Astro-Dentistry'?", etc, might be a useful addition in there, if it doesn't make the table(s) hard to read... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.155|172.70.162.155]] 11:28, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
::''Postscript to above'': Yes, your explanation does things that I was going to do if I hadn't had my first attempt to nix/rewrite hit the table-adding. i.e. go into the major-suffix/minor-prefix sets, or even whole-term where it exists, and spell out and wikilink accordingly. I would be honoured to see your blocked text integrated into mine (or satisfied with yours going there again with barely a smidgen of mine still remaining). Up to you/the others, though, as I'm not wanting to add further ECs to the rush... ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.13|172.70.85.13]] 11:35, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
::I like that idea, maybe as an additional table? I can imagine it would take up a whole screen so maybe putting it at the end of the page could help so those that don't need it don't have to scroll over it. I don't feel capable enough to make such a big table (especially with 48 explanations) but I do support that idea. [[User:256.256.256.256|256.256.256.256]] ([[User talk:256.256.256.256|talk about me behind my back]]) 11:36, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
:::I have added all three tables now. Both with plain numbers, for explanation and the one in the transcript (which should not be sort-able and not include massage!) Feel free to fill out the table. I have put it in a new section so editing that section or the explanation section does not edit conflict! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:52, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
:It feels like the current explanation is rather burying the core of the joke, which is about research students deliberately selecting topics in the most obscure sub-fields they can find (which are probably unstudied for a reason), more for the fact that it gives them more opportunity to produce something novel than to add something useful to the body of knowledge. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.221|172.70.85.221]] 08:15, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

High energy magic is definitely a legitimate scientific subject, see for example https://wiki.lspace.org/High_Energy_Magic_Building
--[[Special:Contributions/172.71.114.7|172.71.114.7]] 13:28, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Worth noting is that all these prefixes are those found commonly on physics and chemistry! Would you find "cosmetic physics", "veterinary physics", "paediatric physics" and so on... which are probably as common in medical field as "high-energy" or "quantum" might be in physics/chemistry. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.146.41|162.158.146.41]] 15:47, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
:Interestingly enough, "pediatric physics" gets hits. So does "pediatric theology". --[[User:Comsmomf|Comsmomf]] ([[User talk:Comsmomf|talk]]) 12:49, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Considering some of the pseudoscientific woo that my late mother-in-law believed in, and the shelves of books of "healing energy" babble she had, I'm not in the least surprised that there are hits on "quantum massage". Quantum ''anything'' is going to pop up eventually. There were books about homeopathic colour, and about magic trampolining. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 15:57, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

*"theoretical linguistics": 64,100
*"quantum linguistics": 148
*"high-energy linguistics": None
*"computational linguistics": 887,000
*"marine linguistics": 3 (two french-language results and a paper on the "development of the maritime mentality")
*"astrolinguistics": 70 (most seem to focus on designing a way to communicate with aliens)
--[[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.175|172.69.33.175]] 23:47, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Randall missed some even more interesting prefixes here. Such as: "forensic", "structural",
"poststructural", "civil", "Biblical", "feminist", "postcolonial", "pediatric".
Open research areas include "forensic massage", "poststructural engineering", "Biblical dentistry", "postcolonial physics".--[[User:Comsmomf|Comsmomf]] ([[User talk:Comsmomf|talk]]) 12:46, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

; Expansion plans
Given that multipie editors have reported differing results, one ''or more'' people need to double-check them on Scholar, Books Ngrams, and Trends for both web and news, and combine it all into a database that users can click through to some Pandas and plotting code on Colab for analysis and visualization. Maybe if I have time later. I'm thinking of using, e.g., a CSV embedded in a Colab notebook, but it would be great if those services don't require any API keys so everyone can generate and examine the results from their respective locales.

Also, is there a way we can work the {{w|simulation hypothesis}} into high-energy theology? I'm on the fence about that last one. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.105|172.70.214.105]] 21:05, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
:Why Colab and not Pyodide? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.83|172.69.33.83]] 00:57, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Doesn't fall the Higgs under High-Energy Theology, "The God Particle" and such? :-) (Not even trying to list all pop physic books with "God" in the title, for increased sales...) [[Special:Contributions/198.41.242.115|198.41.242.115]] 07:01, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Three of the theology ones (in parenthesis) are covered by the first sentence of the Nicene Creed, as well as a couple other possible combinations [in brackets]: "We believe in one God, the Father Almighty (high-energy theology), Maker of heaven (astrotheology) and earth [geotheology], and of all things visible [phototheology] and invisible (theoretical theology)." [[Special:Contributions/172.71.22.109|172.71.22.109]] 17:42, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

== Computational theology ==

I can't be the only person here who is both a theology nerd and a computer nerd, and thus thinks that computational theology sounds quite interesting. For example, can an omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, infinite, transcendent God solve the halting problem for arbitrary programs? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.174.142|172.68.174.142]] 04:54, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2206: Mavis Beacon

2023-12-01T01:08:30Z

172.68.174.142: /* Capital numbers */ new section

;So the # key, then?
Shifted or not? The implication is that it is, since that's where ‘~’ is. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.41|141.101.99.41]] 18:44, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
: On a typical German QWERTZ layout keyboard, the tilde key '~' can/must be entered via AltGr++; alternatively, Ctrl+Alt++ should work when there is no AltGr key. On certain "dead key" keyboard layouts, there even is no single and direct '~' key: To type a tilde, one would have to press AltGr++ followed directly by a space or to double-tap + while holding AltGr. This would mean even more complicated or pretty much impossible key combinations that would be needed to be pressed at the same time. However, holding AltGr or Ctrl+Alt to try and type a tilde would probably cancel out the "single" Alt key necessary for the comic's secret key code. So, once you've managed to type a tilde, it likely wouldn't count any more for the key combo, making it impossible to type this key combination on such keyboard. --[[User:Passerby|Passerby]] ([[User talk:Passerby|talk]]) 19:26, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
::I've seen many programs provide hotkey instructions calling the grave key the tilde key due to the difficulty of differentiating between the grave key and the apostrophe key. So I'd assume no shifting is required. [[User:CJB42|CJB42]] ([[User talk:CJB42|talk]]) 01:51, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
:::I don't know if Mavis Beacon was ever internationalized, but it was presumably originally designed for full-sized (non-laptop) U.S. QWERTY 101-key keyboards, where the ~ (tilde) is on the same key as the ` (back-tick) character, and which requires the use of the Shift key to activate. If Mavis Beacon was internationalized, and if this boss reward really existed and was unlocked by a particular key combination, one would hope the key combination would take into account different keyboard layouts. I would also assume that it would not require the shift (or other modifier) key, otherwise they would include that particular modifier key among the list of keys in the combination. So, like CJB42 pointed out, while they would say ~ since that's clearly labeled on the keyboard and easier to display, they really mean ` which might otherwise just look like a smudge. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 19:49, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

The link from Friday's comic to this new one is missing. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 19:21, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
: This page was created by the bot only a short while ago. I may be wrong, but I think those links will be set automagically by such bot at some point after the creation of this page. --[[User:Passerby|Passerby]] ([[User talk:Passerby|talk]]) 19:31, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Currently, the button on Comic #2205 to go to this comic is missing - someone with more technical expertise than me, please fix this [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.134|172.69.22.134]] 21:07, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
:Fixed it - to do it, go to https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2205:_Types_of_Approximation&action=Purge , this works for any page if you change "2205:_Types_of_Approximation" to what it should be. {{unsigned ip|172.68.174.88}}

Here on a touchscreen the comic hotlinks to https://www.fonts.com/content/learning/fontology/level-3/numbers/oldstyle-figures [[Special:Contributions/172.68.38.64|172.68.38.64]] 19:12, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
:It is also a link on a PC. It has been added to the explanation. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:27, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

;Unicode
Presumably a lot of this could be achieved with Unicode; any advances on 𝟙𝟚𝟛𝟜𝟝𝟞𝟟𝟠𝟡𝟘? [[User:Sabik|Sabik]] ([[User talk:Sabik|talk]]) 05:07, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Simple means of checking: <pre>
>>> import unicodedata as ucd
>>> for i in range(0x110000):
... c = chr(i)
... if ucd.normalize("NFKD", c)[0] in "0123456789":
... print(c, end=", ")
</pre>

It actually spits out <pre>0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, ², ³, ¹, ¼, ½, ¾, ⁰, ⁴, ⁵, ⁶, ⁷, ⁸, ⁹, ₀, ₁, ₂, ₃, ₄, ₅, ₆, ₇, ₈, ₉, ⅐, ⅑, ⅒, ⅓, ⅔, ⅕, ⅖, ⅗, ⅘, ⅙, ⅚, ⅛, ⅜, ⅝, ⅞, ⅟, ↉, ①, ②, ③, ④, ⑤, ⑥, ⑦, ⑧, ⑨, ⑩, ⑪, ⑫, ⑬, ⑭, ⑮, ⑯, ⑰, ⑱, ⑲, ⑳, ⒈, ⒉, ⒊, ⒋, ⒌, ⒍, ⒎, ⒏, ⒐, ⒑, ⒒, ⒓, ⒔, ⒕, ⒖, ⒗, ⒘, ⒙, ⒚, ⒛, ⓪, ㉑, ㉒, ㉓, ㉔, ㉕, ㉖, ㉗, ㉘, ㉙, ㉚, ㉛, ㉜, ㉝, ㉞, ㉟, ㊱, ㊲, ㊳, ㊴, ㊵, ㊶, ㊷, ㊸, ㊹, ㊺, ㊻, ㊼, ㊽, ㊾, ㊿, ㋀, ㋁, ㋂, ㋃, ㋄, ㋅, ㋆, ㋇, ㋈, ㋉, ㋊, ㋋, ㍘, ㍙, ㍚, ㍛, ㍜, ㍝, ㍞, ㍟, ㍠, ㍡, ㍢, ㍣, ㍤, ㍥, ㍦, ㍧, ㍨, ㍩, ㍪, ㍫, ㍬, ㍭, ㍮, ㍯, ㍰, ㏠, ㏡, ㏢, ㏣, ㏤, ㏥, ㏦, ㏧, ㏨, ㏩, ㏪, ㏫, ㏬, ㏭, ㏮, ㏯, ㏰, ㏱, ㏲, ㏳, ㏴, ㏵, ㏶, ㏷, ㏸, ㏹, ㏺, ㏻, ㏼, ㏽, ㏾, ０, １, ２, ３, ４, ５, ６, ７, ８, ９, 𝟎, 𝟏, 𝟐, 𝟑, 𝟒, 𝟓, 𝟔, 𝟕, 𝟖, 𝟗, 𝟘, 𝟙, 𝟚, 𝟛, 𝟜, 𝟝, 𝟞, 𝟟, 𝟠, 𝟡, 𝟢, 𝟣, 𝟤, 𝟥, 𝟦, 𝟧, 𝟨, 𝟩, 𝟪, 𝟫, 𝟬, 𝟭, 𝟮, 𝟯, 𝟰, 𝟱, 𝟲, 𝟳, 𝟴, 𝟵, 𝟶, 𝟷, 𝟸, 𝟹, 𝟺, 𝟻, 𝟼, 𝟽, 𝟾, 𝟿, 🄀, 🄁, 🄂, 🄃, 🄄, 🄅, 🄆, 🄇, 🄈, 🄉, 🄊</pre>

So unless you're mis-using characters which are not supposed to be numbers (which would change the screenreader experience from annoying in this case to actually unintelligible and is therefore ill-advisable), that's probably the closest you'd get. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.139|141.101.104.139]] 09:35, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

;reductio ad absurdum (or HHOS)

This article, as written, made me laugh out loud even louder than the original cartoon which also made me laugh out loud.

It seems to me that the joke of this strip originated with the idea that there really ARE lowercase numbers (also called oldstyle) which, like glyphs for lowercase letters go below and above the usual line of type. The joke also forces a meta-level of thinking by overlapping the idea of a type-font or type-face and the idea of a character being unique because of its meaning more than because of its appearance. Unicode matches integers to characters - but only in the context of a font does that have to do with the character's glyph - other aspects of characters are things like upper-case v. lower-case, phonetic value, what constitutes proper sort order, which character are digits and which are letters, which are punctuation, etc. etc. etc. A character's appearance, or glyph, (bitmap or set of analog drawing instructions) is only a small part of what makes a character a character. Godel Escher Bach deals with these meta-levels as does Russel's paradox and non-trivial concepts in math, geometry, and science, as well as other fields. As such the joke is a kind of conceptual pun. However. The joke could be taken one level further by actually making a TrueType font which really does have uppercase and lowercase numbers - like a dingbat font, but where the uppercase-ness and lowercase-ness of the characters are kept, but the glyphs of a thru j are lowercase (oldstyle) numbers and the glyphs of Z thru J are uppercase (taken from the cartoon) numbers - 0 thru 9 could be Lining Figures digits. If the font was designed using SVG (and a SVG to TrueType converter) the entire SVG file could be created with the keyboard, using only 7-bit ascii (which is a subset of UTF-8, Codepage 437, Codepage 850, Codepage 1252 and many others) and XML character entities.

I am also surprised that no one has mentioned the old DOS/Windows ALT+Numeric-Keyboard trick for entering any one-byte character - which really worked with real keyboards (and I think is still supported in MS Word). There was a time when a clever hacker could use this and the DOS prompt to create a executable by COPY CON FOO.COM - which would fit nicely with the text "use this power wisely". But maybe I am reading too much into it.

Citations:

* https://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-easily-insert-special-symbols-and-characters-windows-part-i.htm
* https://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-easily-insert-special-symbols-and-characters-windows-part-ii.htm
** EnableHexNumpad

* https://www.minitool.com/news/alt-codes-not-working-on-windows-10.html

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_page_437
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_page_850
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows-1252
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-8
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_order_mark

* https://www.computerhope.com/jargon/c/copycon.htm
* https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2354560/creating-an-executable-file-without-a-compiler
* https://colinord.blogspot.com/2015/02/extreme-programming-hand-coded.html

* https://onlineconvertfree.com/convert-format/svg-to-ttf/
* https://www.w3schools.com/graphics/svg_intro.asp
* https://www.tutorialspoint.com/xml/xml_character_entities.htm

* http://unicode.org/faq/casemap_charprop.html

* Insert the ANSI character
** https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/keyboard-shortcuts-in-word-95ef89dd-7142-4b50-afb2-f762f663ceb2#PickTab=Windows

[[User:BrianFennell|BrianFennell]] ([[User talk:BrianFennell|talk]]) 19:11, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

;Trochees
To tie this to a recurring theme in Mr. Munroe's comics... "Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing - Heroes on the half shell." [[User:Ryanker|Ryanker]] ([[User talk:Ryanker|talk]]) 20:14, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
: "Number Maven Mavis Beacon" also fits such a pattern. [[User:Enfield|Enfield]] ([[User talk:Enfield|talk]]) 17:56, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Is it worth mentioning "Typing of the Dead" and its sequel?--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.210|162.158.34.210]] 14:53, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
:It appears you have. So perhaps the former but not the latter? ;-) {{unsigned ip|172.68.47.66}}

I just wish to say hello to all others here who first experienced Mavis Beacon Typing Tutor back in the day. It was one of the few 'games' with graphics (that weren't CGA!) that was on that early PC of mine, albeit in monochrome (green on black) because of the limitations of that Hercules graphics card/chip/whatever-it-was. That and a 'Digger' game (a clone/ripoff of DigDug, it seems). Ah, nostalgia. I wonder if I can still use my old Psion Xchange suit? Time to dig up a working 5¼” drive and fit it to whatever ATAPI-enabled Mobos I can find... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.61|162.158.154.61]] 17:32, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

;Playing the same game for 30 years is rare [citation needed]

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Solitaire Windows Solitaire] was introduced on 22 May 1990. So we are less than a year from having a game that many people could have been playing for 30 years. [[User:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For]] ([[User talk:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|talk]]) 03:52, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

I like this one! I've often been irritated by the lack of a concept of capital numbers, and this is a great design. Get on it, Unicode consortium! 😜 (oh, and don't forget the arbitrary-length snakes!) [[User:PotatoGod|PotatoGod]] ([[User talk:PotatoGod|talk]]) 08:54, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

;The capital numbers remind me of transdecimal numerals:

These were invented by Michael De Vlieger to represent digits in bases higher than ten. That three-holed-eight looks a lot like the numeral for 256...
http://www.vincico.com/arqam/digits/argam-current.html

Does the zero look like a very simply drawn Death Star to anyone else? No? Just me then? Okay, just checking. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:02, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

== Capital numbers ==

When I was in first grade, one of my classmates insisted that he could write capital numbers despite the teacher's objections. He never demonstrated, though. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.174.142|172.68.174.142]] 01:08, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

1812: Onboarding

2023-11-14T03:45:04Z

172.68.174.142: /* Infrastructure Buzzwords */

{{comic
| number = 1812
| date = March 17, 2017
| title = Onboarding
| image = onboarding.png
| titletext = 'So we just have a steady flow of metal piling up in our server room? Isn't that a problem?' 'Yeah, you should bring that up at our next bismuth meeting.'
}}

==Explanation==
This is another one of [[Beret Guy|Beret Guy's]] mysterious [[:Category:Beret Guy's Business|businesses]], in which he shows new employee [[Ponytail]] around the building in which the company resides. The process of showing a new employee around the business and starting to get them introduced to people and systems and procedures is often referred to as "{{w|onboarding}}" - hence the title of the comic.

=== Existential Welcome ===

The first panel starts out as a typical welcoming of the new employee to a small indie business. Very quickly, however, Beret Guy's explanation jumps to an existential viewpoint. Very rarely do conversations or introductions involve discussing the eventual fate of our bodies, and certainly not in a professional light as in this comic. Beret Guy, however, has no problem with discussing death and decay as just part of his business. This seemingly contradicts the title text in [[1493: Meeting]], where it is claimed that employees of the company can not physically die. However, this could be a new company he has started since then. Alternatively, this is a literal statement, perhaps related to the cursed Wi-Fi mentioned later in the comic.

=== Bikeshare ===

In the second panel, Beret Guy shows Ponytail the free bikeshare system this business apparently has in place. {{w|Bicycle-sharing system|Bikesharing}} is a system in which many users share one or more bikes among themselves. Typically the bikes belong to some of the members of the group who are allowing them to be used by other members who may not have one, but Beret Guy calmly remarks that this system will only exist "until whoever owns those bikes finds out", implying that they were not donated or shared by any member of the group, but are being used without permission or the knowledge of the true owner of the bikes. This is, thus, not actually a bikeshare, and would be more properly described as theft.

=== Printer ===

In the third panel, Beret Guy shows Ponytail that the laserjet is over there '''and''' the printer is over there, thus indicating that the ''laserjet'' is not a printer. This is a bit disconcerting, since the {{w|HP LaserJet}} is in fact a common brand of {{w|laser printer}}, suggesting that his laserjet may be some rather more exotic device, such as a {{w|Laser propulsion|laser-propelled}} {{w|jet aircraft}}. In any case, however, the printer is not available, as it's been printing an infinite-scroll web page since 2013.

An [[wikt:infinite scroll|infinite-scrolling web page]] is a web page that, as the name implies, seems to have no end. This style of webpage typically has no definite pages or sections, but instead continues to feed data to the screen as the user scrolls. One such example is [https://endless.horse endless.horse], a webpage that features an infinitely tall horse. In reality, trying to print one of these would only print the current section the user was viewing, and even if it was somehow able to infinitely print, the operator could theoretically cancel the operation at any time. Presumably, this continuous printing serves some useful purpose, e.g. prints latest news, because someone would have to be refilling the paper for the printer to have kept running this long; it would have run out of paper long ago otherwise. Mistaken print jobs are sometimes notoriously difficult to stop due to many levels of buffering (application, printer driver, OS spooler, print server, printer device) and lapses in job control software.

Infinite scrolling (in the sense of an annoying UI design style for browsing large but finite documents) was previously covered in [[1309: Infinite Scrolling]]. A similar separation of the phrase "laserjet printer" has been explored in [[1681: Laser Products]].

=== Infrastructure Buzzwords ===

In the fourth panel, Beret Guy makes three more remarks.

'''Restrooms are all-digital—no pipes.''' While many technology standards nowadays are entirely digital, one's restroom is one of the things that most definitely should not be.{{Citation needed}} A restroom without pipes would have no way to bring water in and transfer wastes away, and would most certainly be at the very least an unpleasant encounter. (It's implied that the waste is being transferred digitally, although this is [[1293: Job Interview|obviously impossible]].) This could also be a pun joking with the fact that a common (in the past and reappearing recently) technology in sound amplifiers is the use of tubes, but nowadays most sound amplifiers are all-digital. So a "latest technology" restroom cannot have pipes (synonym of tubes) and has to be all-digital.

'''The Wi-Fi is very fast, but cursed.''' Fast Wi-Fi is certainly desirable, but in this case, he claims it is also cursed. Whether the curse is a side-effect of the fast Wi-Fi or totally unrelated is left unsaid, as well as what the curse is. This could possibly be a joke relating to American slang: all technology can behave inexplicably from time to time, and Wi-Fi is notorious for randomly losing connection -- this is often exaggerated and called "cursed". Knowing Beret Guy, though, [[1772: Startup Opportunity|it's probably literal]], perhaps purchased from one of the "[[1772: Startup Opportunity|mysterious shops that sell you magical items, and then it turns out they're cursed"]].

'''Our server room is carbon-neutral but produces bismuth constantly.''' Normally, {{w|carbon neutrality|carbon-neutral}} would mean that it is designed to be environmentally friendly by reducing and offsetting its carbon emissions enough that it has no net effect on the environment. The term is a little bit confusing because the meaning is of course carbon-dioxide-neutral. But while carbon is not a common material used in servers, {{w|Bismuth|bismuth}} is used as lead replacement in some {{w|solder}}s. While this replacement is often used because of the toxicity of {{w|lead}}, in this case it refers to an IBM mainframe computer where the Bi58Sn42 alloy is used because of its low temperature soldering characteristics. So producing bismuth would destroy all the electric connections in the server. An alternative explanation is a {{w|Lead-cooled fast reactor|compact nuclear reactor}} in the server room which can both make the server room carbon-neutral ''and'' leak bismuth (by creating it in the reactor). This being Beret Guy, yet another possibility is that bismuth simply appears in that room as the server operates, because he didn't want it to create carbon emissions and so it had to emit something else.

=== Lin-Manuel Miranda ===

In the last two panels, Beret Guy explains that Ponytail will be working on the infrastructure, which is apparently maintained by {{w|Lin-Manuel Miranda}}. He is among other things a songwriter but certainly not an engineer or anyone qualified to be responsible for an entire infrastructure.{{citation needed}} Ponytail knows about his songs and thus surprised asks if he is also an engineer. (This echoes [[1665: City Talk Pages]], which includes a train station designed by {{w|Andrew Lloyd Webber}}, a composer best known for writing ''{{w|The Phantom of the Opera}}'').

It is worth noting that Beret Guy actually acknowledges the mistake here, claiming the mistake "cost a fortune." This is unusual for Beret Guy, as he has of yet failed to acknowledge or recognize the oddity of every other aspect of his mysterious business, many of which are certainly stranger than this. However, he doesn't seem to mind this at all and does not wish to fire him. Instead he plans on fixing the mistake by hiring a real network engineer, Ponytail, to do the work alongside Miranda. Because, as Beret Guy continues to explain, the bright side of having Lin-Manuel Miranda in his business overshadows the lost fortune. Apparently Lin-Manuel Miranda is really nice and he makes {{w|karaoke}} nights fun, a clear reference to his engaging stage presence and vocal skills.

Off screen, Lin-Manuel Miranda is heard singing "{{w|How Far I'll Go}}", which is a song that he composed for the Disney movie ''{{w|Moana (2016 film)|Moana}}''. It was nominated for an {{w|Academy Awards|Oscar}} for {{w|Academy Award for Best Original Song|Best Original Song}} in the {{w|89th Academy Awards|2017 show}} just a few weeks prior to this comic.

=== Title Text ===

The title text mentions the potential dangers of having your server room constantly produce bismuth, but only as a prelude to a bismuth/business pun. Because of the earlier carbon reference, it could also be a parallel to the difficulty in convincing businesses to become more energy efficient and reduce greenhouse gas emissions despite the urgency, as [[Randall]] has [[:Category:Climate change|often referred]] to in xkcd with [[1732: Earth Temperature Timeline]].

==Transcript==
:[Beret Guy shakes hands with Ponytail in front of a building while he points at the two large double doors under an unreadable sign.]
:Beret Guy: Hi! Welcome to the team!
:Beret Guy: We do business here and we'll turn into dirt later.

:[Beret Guy and Ponytail walk by three bikes.]
:Beret Guy: This is our main campus.
:Beret Guy: We have a free bikeshare system, at least until whoever owns those bikes finds out.

:[Beret Guy points forward as they walk on.]
:Beret Guy: The LaserJet is over there, and the printer is over there.
:Beret Guy: You can't use it right now; it's been printing an infinite-scroll webpage since 2013.

:[Zoom in on their heads.]
:Beret Guy: Restrooms are all-digital - no pipes.
:Beret Guy: The WiFi is very fast, but cursed.
:Beret Guy: Our server room is carbon-neutral but produces bismuth constantly.

:[Beret Guy has turned towards an off-panel Ponytail holding a hand out towards her.]
:Beret Guy: You'll be working on our infrastructure, which is currently maintained by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

:[Zoom out to both facing each other. From the right singing is heard from off-panel, as indicated with two musical notes.]
:Ponytail: ...The songwriter? Is he also an engineer?
:Beret Guy: Nope, huge misunderstanding on our part. Cost a fortune. But he's really nice and it makes karaoke nights fun.
:Lin-Manuel Miranda (off-panel): ''How far I'll gooo''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]] 
[[Category:Beret Guy's Business]]
[[Category:Puns]]
[[Category:Songs]]
[[Category:Climate change]]
[[Category:Comics with cursed items]]

1812: Onboarding

2023-11-14T03:44:18Z

172.68.174.142: /* Infrastructure Buzzwords */

{{comic
| number = 1812
| date = March 17, 2017
| title = Onboarding
| image = onboarding.png
| titletext = 'So we just have a steady flow of metal piling up in our server room? Isn't that a problem?' 'Yeah, you should bring that up at our next bismuth meeting.'
}}

==Explanation==
This is another one of [[Beret Guy|Beret Guy's]] mysterious [[:Category:Beret Guy's Business|businesses]], in which he shows new employee [[Ponytail]] around the building in which the company resides. The process of showing a new employee around the business and starting to get them introduced to people and systems and procedures is often referred to as "{{w|onboarding}}" - hence the title of the comic.

=== Existential Welcome ===

The first panel starts out as a typical welcoming of the new employee to a small indie business. Very quickly, however, Beret Guy's explanation jumps to an existential viewpoint. Very rarely do conversations or introductions involve discussing the eventual fate of our bodies, and certainly not in a professional light as in this comic. Beret Guy, however, has no problem with discussing death and decay as just part of his business. This seemingly contradicts the title text in [[1493: Meeting]], where it is claimed that employees of the company can not physically die. However, this could be a new company he has started since then. Alternatively, this is a literal statement, perhaps related to the cursed Wi-Fi mentioned later in the comic.

=== Bikeshare ===

In the second panel, Beret Guy shows Ponytail the free bikeshare system this business apparently has in place. {{w|Bicycle-sharing system|Bikesharing}} is a system in which many users share one or more bikes among themselves. Typically the bikes belong to some of the members of the group who are allowing them to be used by other members who may not have one, but Beret Guy calmly remarks that this system will only exist "until whoever owns those bikes finds out", implying that they were not donated or shared by any member of the group, but are being used without permission or the knowledge of the true owner of the bikes. This is, thus, not actually a bikeshare, and would be more properly described as theft.

=== Printer ===

In the third panel, Beret Guy shows Ponytail that the laserjet is over there '''and''' the printer is over there, thus indicating that the ''laserjet'' is not a printer. This is a bit disconcerting, since the {{w|HP LaserJet}} is in fact a common brand of {{w|laser printer}}, suggesting that his laserjet may be some rather more exotic device, such as a {{w|Laser propulsion|laser-propelled}} {{w|jet aircraft}}. In any case, however, the printer is not available, as it's been printing an infinite-scroll web page since 2013.

An [[wikt:infinite scroll|infinite-scrolling web page]] is a web page that, as the name implies, seems to have no end. This style of webpage typically has no definite pages or sections, but instead continues to feed data to the screen as the user scrolls. One such example is [https://endless.horse endless.horse], a webpage that features an infinitely tall horse. In reality, trying to print one of these would only print the current section the user was viewing, and even if it was somehow able to infinitely print, the operator could theoretically cancel the operation at any time. Presumably, this continuous printing serves some useful purpose, e.g. prints latest news, because someone would have to be refilling the paper for the printer to have kept running this long; it would have run out of paper long ago otherwise. Mistaken print jobs are sometimes notoriously difficult to stop due to many levels of buffering (application, printer driver, OS spooler, print server, printer device) and lapses in job control software.

Infinite scrolling (in the sense of an annoying UI design style for browsing large but finite documents) was previously covered in [[1309: Infinite Scrolling]]. A similar separation of the phrase "laserjet printer" has been explored in [[1681: Laser Products]].

=== Infrastructure Buzzwords ===

In the fourth panel, Beret Guy makes three more remarks.

'''Restrooms are all-digital—no pipes.''' While many technology standards nowadays are entirely digital, one's restroom is one of the things that most definitely should not be.{{Citation needed}} A restroom without pipes would have no way to bring water in and transfer wastes away, and would most certainly be at the very least an unpleasant encounter. (It's implied that the waste is being transferred digitally, although this is [[1293: Job Interview|obviously impossible]].) This could also be a pun joking with the fact that a common (in the past and reappearing recently) technology in sound amplifiers is the use of tubes, but nowadays most sound amplifiers are all-digital. So a "latest technology" restroom cannot have pipes (synonym of tubes) and has to be all-digital.

'''The Wi-Fi is very fast, but cursed.''' Fast Wi-Fi is certainly desirable, but in this case, he claims it is also cursed. Whether the curse is a side-effect of the fast Wi-Fi or totally unrelated is left unsaid, as well as what the curse is. This could possibly be a joke relating to American slang: all technology can behave inexplicably from time to time, and Wi-Fi is notorious for randomly losing connection -- this is often exaggerated and called "cursed". Knowing Beret Guy, though, [[1772: Startup Opportunity|it's probably literal]], perhaps purchased from one of the "[[1772: Startup Opportunity|mysterious shops that sell you magical items, and then it turns out they're cursed"]].

'''Our server room is carbon-neutral but produces bismuth constantly.''' Normally, {{w|carbon neutrality|carbon-neutral}} would mean that it is designed to be environmentally friendly by reducing and offsetting its carbon emissions enough that it has no net effect on the environment. The term is a little bit confusing because the meaning is of course carbon-dioxide-neutral. But while carbon is not a common material used in servers, {{w|Bismuth|bismuth}} is used as lead replacement in some {{w|solder}}s. While this replacement is often used because of the toxicity of {{w|lead}}, in this case it refers to an IBM mainframe computer where the Bi58Sn42 alloy is used because of its low temperature soldering characteristics. So producing bismuth would destroy all the electric connections in the server. An alternative explanation is a {{w|Lead-cooled fast reactor|compact nuclear reactor}} in the server room which can both make the server room carbon-neutral ''and'' leak bismuth (by creating it in the reactor). This being Beret Guy, yet another possibility is that bismuth simply appears in that room as the server operates, because he didn't want it to create carbon emissions and so it had to emit something else (potentially a revenue stream, if a buyer for the bismuth could be found).

=== Lin-Manuel Miranda ===

In the last two panels, Beret Guy explains that Ponytail will be working on the infrastructure, which is apparently maintained by {{w|Lin-Manuel Miranda}}. He is among other things a songwriter but certainly not an engineer or anyone qualified to be responsible for an entire infrastructure.{{citation needed}} Ponytail knows about his songs and thus surprised asks if he is also an engineer. (This echoes [[1665: City Talk Pages]], which includes a train station designed by {{w|Andrew Lloyd Webber}}, a composer best known for writing ''{{w|The Phantom of the Opera}}'').

It is worth noting that Beret Guy actually acknowledges the mistake here, claiming the mistake "cost a fortune." This is unusual for Beret Guy, as he has of yet failed to acknowledge or recognize the oddity of every other aspect of his mysterious business, many of which are certainly stranger than this. However, he doesn't seem to mind this at all and does not wish to fire him. Instead he plans on fixing the mistake by hiring a real network engineer, Ponytail, to do the work alongside Miranda. Because, as Beret Guy continues to explain, the bright side of having Lin-Manuel Miranda in his business overshadows the lost fortune. Apparently Lin-Manuel Miranda is really nice and he makes {{w|karaoke}} nights fun, a clear reference to his engaging stage presence and vocal skills.

Off screen, Lin-Manuel Miranda is heard singing "{{w|How Far I'll Go}}", which is a song that he composed for the Disney movie ''{{w|Moana (2016 film)|Moana}}''. It was nominated for an {{w|Academy Awards|Oscar}} for {{w|Academy Award for Best Original Song|Best Original Song}} in the {{w|89th Academy Awards|2017 show}} just a few weeks prior to this comic.

=== Title Text ===

The title text mentions the potential dangers of having your server room constantly produce bismuth, but only as a prelude to a bismuth/business pun. Because of the earlier carbon reference, it could also be a parallel to the difficulty in convincing businesses to become more energy efficient and reduce greenhouse gas emissions despite the urgency, as [[Randall]] has [[:Category:Climate change|often referred]] to in xkcd with [[1732: Earth Temperature Timeline]].

==Transcript==
:[Beret Guy shakes hands with Ponytail in front of a building while he points at the two large double doors under an unreadable sign.]
:Beret Guy: Hi! Welcome to the team!
:Beret Guy: We do business here and we'll turn into dirt later.

:[Beret Guy and Ponytail walk by three bikes.]
:Beret Guy: This is our main campus.
:Beret Guy: We have a free bikeshare system, at least until whoever owns those bikes finds out.

:[Beret Guy points forward as they walk on.]
:Beret Guy: The LaserJet is over there, and the printer is over there.
:Beret Guy: You can't use it right now; it's been printing an infinite-scroll webpage since 2013.

:[Zoom in on their heads.]
:Beret Guy: Restrooms are all-digital - no pipes.
:Beret Guy: The WiFi is very fast, but cursed.
:Beret Guy: Our server room is carbon-neutral but produces bismuth constantly.

:[Beret Guy has turned towards an off-panel Ponytail holding a hand out towards her.]
:Beret Guy: You'll be working on our infrastructure, which is currently maintained by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

:[Zoom out to both facing each other. From the right singing is heard from off-panel, as indicated with two musical notes.]
:Ponytail: ...The songwriter? Is he also an engineer?
:Beret Guy: Nope, huge misunderstanding on our part. Cost a fortune. But he's really nice and it makes karaoke nights fun.
:Lin-Manuel Miranda (off-panel): ''How far I'll gooo''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]] 
[[Category:Beret Guy's Business]]
[[Category:Puns]]
[[Category:Songs]]
[[Category:Climate change]]
[[Category:Comics with cursed items]]