explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2032: Word Puzzles

2018-08-14T09:22:00Z

172.68.51.46:

{{comic
| number = 2032
| date = August 13, 2018
| title = Word Puzzles
| image = word_puzzles.png
| titletext = Eno's storied aria was once soloed by Judge Lance Ito on the alto oboe at Ohio's AirAsia Arena.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a word game enthusiast - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This is another comic where [[Randall]] presents his [[:Category:My Hobby|hobby]] to fool on other people. [[Cueball]] knows that [[Megan]] is a word game enthusiast and - while both are probably at a party - he presents a complex sentence rather than just doing small talk. And he is successful as we can see that she is just thinking about the proper solution to that puzzle.

The dialog, caption, and title text contain many words that appear frequently in crossword puzzle answers because they fit well with intersecting words, in part because they have a high density of vowels. Some of the terms (parts of, start of) are also commonly used in cryptic crossword clues to indicate that nearby words should be combined or split to create an answer.

[[wikipedia:Brian Eno|Brian Eno]] is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer, writer, and visual artist. He is best known for his pioneering work in ambient music and contributions to rock, pop, electronic, and generative music. He was born on 15 May 1948, and is still alive at the time this comic was posted. Thus his post-live era has not yet started...

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball and Megan standing together. He makes some gestures with his hand and some musical notes are above him while Megan holds her first before her mouth.]
:Cueball: Parts of this aria were composed by Brian Eno's Opera Star au pair at the start of his post-live era.
:Megan (thinking): ...parts...start...eno...aria...

:[Caption below the frame:]
:My hobby: Messing with word game enthusiasts by using words that make them '''''sure''''' there's a puzzle to solve

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:My Hobby]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Music]]

Talk:1987: Python Environment

2018-08-09T00:07:18Z

172.68.51.46:

Now you can see why the BOT is written in PERL;). But I have to be honest, there are also different versions causing similar problems... --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 14:26, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Is pictorial misspelled as pictoral? --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.231|162.158.62.231]] 19:08, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
:{{Wiktionary|pictoral|Wiktionary}} says: "Probably an alteration of pictorial..." But please add new comments to the bottom. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:03, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Currently working on a table with everything. Note: Programs are boxed, and file paths are just strings. [[User:Chbs|Chbs]] ([[User talk:Chbs|talk]]) 14:44, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
:I never will understand why you guys always create tables...--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 15:59, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
::Convention? IDK. [[User:Chbs|Chbs]] ([[User talk:Chbs|talk]]) 17:06, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
:::Of course there is no convention, but often a floating text is a prettier layout. And it's easier for the editors because a single wrong char can corrupt the entire table. But we always get tables here... --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 17:49, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

"using sudo to install python packages" is probably a reference to the "(Misc folders owned by root)" [[User:Chbs|Chbs]] ([[User talk:Chbs|talk]]) 17:06, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

I swear every so often Randall just releases a comic like this to mess with us...
Just in case the last few ones have been too easy. [[User:Linker|Linker]] ([[User talk:Linker|talk]]) 14:58, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Created by a PYTHON script (well actually PERL but that's besides the point (I know a lot of people who would fight you over that comment)) - why would people fight me over this comment? [[User:Zachweix|Zachweix]] ([[User talk:Zachweix|talk]]) 15:25, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
:Only in the sense of "How dare you imply that python and perl are interchangeable!" [[User:Cgrimes85|Cgrimes85]] ([[User talk:Cgrimes85|talk]]) 16:06, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
:I've removed the "lot of people". Comments are going here. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 15:58, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
:They aren't interchangeable, but in respect to the comment above it is besides the point [[User:Zachweix|Zachweix]] ([[User talk:Zachweix|talk]]) 16:22, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Isn't the joke that installing multiple versions of Python has resulted in a Byzantine set of $path declarations, pointing all over the place? The title-text/alt-text reference to nuclear waste does not seem like the central joke, but merely compares the difficulty of cleanup. [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 16:25, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

May a file system which uses HashIDs for version tracking allow files stored anywhere within that file system to be accessible by only referencing their hash, without the use of paths? Seems like "folders" are not as useful as relational tags would be. [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 16:25, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

My has this problem. System Integrity Protection won't let me update python libraries, so whenever I need to update a library I install it in a different place and have to switch to the new version. I can't actually uninstall anything because of SIP, so multiple versions of every library I have ever used will remain on my computer forever.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.16|162.158.75.16]] 18:56, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks to the editor who added the article about the WIPP warning messages. I'd been looking for that source for a while. [[User:Cgrimes85|Cgrimes85]] ([[User talk:Cgrimes85|talk]]) 13:27, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Whoever added this pretty rude 2nd incomplete tag: who do you think you are and what this is!? we are volunteers, not your personal data entry monkeys. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.51.46|172.68.51.46]] 00:07, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Talk:2016: OEIS Submissions

2018-07-07T00:30:40Z

172.68.51.46: Additional Note about the "sorted by width in Helvetica" series.

"All integers which do not appear in the example terms of another OEIS sequence" there is no paradox: it's pecified *another* sequence
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.133|162.158.154.133]] 17:52, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

I am so sorry that this comment is not related to the strip, but is the scaling for the explanation way off? Previously the scaling of the whole website was stretched, but now it is a bit too cramped for me. It happens to the previous strips too.Boeing-787lover 18:10, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Is it too much of a stretch to mention that Chris Hemsworth stars in the movie ''Blackhat'', which is also a nickname for an XKCD character? [[User:John at work|John at work]] ([[User talk:John at work|talk]]) 19:31, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

The Sub 59 one is also a paradox, it specifies that it should include all of the author's accepted submissions, so it would have to be on it's own list itself in order to be accurate? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.58.233|172.68.58.233]] 19:47, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
:No, it would not be paradoxical. If it is accepted, then the sequence contains its identification number. If it is not accepted, that number is not in the sequence. The sequence changes depending on its own status, but there is no contradiction. This is different from e.g. the set of sets that don't contain themselves. If that set contained itself, it shouldn't contain itself, and if it didn't contain itself, it should contain itself. Both alternatives are logically impossible, so the set itself is impossible. There is nothing impossible about submission 59. [[User:Howtonotwin|Howtonotwin]] ([[User talk:Howtonotwin|talk]]) 20:15, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

The Westside IRT stops sequence is a wonderful piece of trivia. I found [https://www.nytimes.com/1987/01/27/science/in-a-random-world-he-collects-patterns.html the NYT article], which gives as its reason that at that time only infinite sequences were included. I have failed to find the necessary third-party reference to the inclusion of the sequence in OEIS (this, being an open wiki, is unacceptable) to include the point in {{w|IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line|the Wikipedia article on the West Side IRT}}. Can anybody supply one? [[User:Yngvadottir|Yngvadottir]] ([[User talk:Yngvadottir|talk]]) 20:35, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm wondering about the comment "In UTF-16, a 9 takes up 2 bytes," about the 2 TB of 9s. Does OEIS store numbers in UTF-16 format? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.174.94|172.68.174.94]] 21:01, 6 July 2018 (UTC) nprz

Helvetica seems to be one of the fonts where all digits have the same width (so that columns of numbers line up). Strangely, there seems to be a ligature for "11" that some Software uses. "Helvetica Neue" does not seem to have that ligature. (Tested using the simple HTML page in https://gist.github.com/hn3000/bec217afe666b0ee0a0430e976df4d22#file-numbers-by-width-in-font-html ).