explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:815: Mu

2020-08-18T23:23:14Z

172.68.65.60:

I don't understand the max. Do chair-sitters decrease in productivity as mu increases because they are trying in vain to spin difficult chairs? In the limiting case of a rigid chair, do chair-sitters vainly attempt to rotate their chairs anyways? {{unsigned ip|75.145.95.201}}

:I think a difficult-to-spin chair just feels uncomfortable, so it kind of subconsciously affects your productivity. In fact most people never sit completely still and often you have to turn to get something from next to your desk or move around... That can be pretty annoying to some people. The way I imagine it, this would not apply to an "infinitely" rigid chair (a simple one with four legs), because you don't expect it to move so it would still feel "right", if it's sufficiently comfortable in the other regards (softness, angle of the backrest, ...). Maybe productivity would not be as high as with an optimal spinning chair, since it would not be as much fun, but that's not in the picture anyway. [[User:Laden|Laden]] ([[User talk:Laden|talk]]) 03:07, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

:I would think that the function approaches a fixed chair production coefficient ( ;) A set number for that chair subject to other variables which are being kept constant [as Laden pointed out]) as Mu approaches infinity.
:It's most likely a peicewise function with a different value @ infinity--granted truly rigorous analysis would conclude that all chairs no matter how "rigid" would experience microscopic torques from people turning and shifting in them.

:But this doesn't affect the psychology of being frustrated in a sticky swivel chair. As such that productivity would likely be higher than the CPC, which I would expect as Laden does would be to be lower than the max CPC of a swivel chair (which if I could would by now be denoting as C sub-S and rigid chairs as C sub-R)

:A similar graph could likely be made for a chair which has a certain maximum "reclination"

:Apologies for lack of formatting I've never commented before, and clearly was completely backwards from what I intended when i originally commented. Whoops
:--Rick 20:18:~45 13-4-13 [[Special:Contributions/67.182.93.204|67.182.93.204]] 03:06, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

::Rick, I hope you don't mind, I've come through and indented your comment the way I think you intended. If this is incorrect, feel free to correct it. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]<span title="I'm an admin. I can help.">_a</span> ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 22:33, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

;Reference to electrons
I cannot shake the feeling that this comic makes a reference to the spin of electrons. However, not being a physicist, I cannot quite place the implications. Also, the graph looks quite familiar to me. --[[User:Alfons|Alfons]] ([[User talk:Alfons|talk]]) 09:50, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

:Now I know, where I know this graph from: It is an inversed [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_potential Morse potential]. Does anybody know, whether it might have something to do with the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franck%E2%80%93Condon_principle Franck-Condon principle]? --[[User:Alfons|Alfons]] ([[User talk:Alfons|talk]]) 14:56, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

::First time commenting, apologies if I'm doing it wrong. Anyway, the graph is also shaped much like the [http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/NucEne/imgnuk/bcurv.gif binding energy] for elements (minus the negative part). Coincidence maybe?

;Title of the comic
The title of the comic, mu (μ), is a symbol that is commonly used to denote the coefficient of friction. Posted by [[User:Irino.]].
:Mu is not μ, which just means micro (one per Million). I can't see the link.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 17:58, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
::[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_(letter) Mu, or μ], is a Greek letter. It is often used as an abbreviation for the prefix [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro- micro-], but can also be used as a variable for the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friction#Coefficient_of_friction coefficient of friction]. [[Special:Contributions/24.41.66.114|24.41.66.114]] 23:04, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

;Quantum mechanics
As Alfons did mention above, the graph is related to quantum mechanics. But the spin of an electron is not correct, but maybe a hint. It belongs more to this: {{w|Probability amplitude}} or {{w|Quantum tunnelling}} (the latter because of the negative values on the left.) Further investigations are needed.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:41, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

;{{w|Classical mechanics}}
Ohh, this is a very ''classical mechanics'' comic. I must have been blind. Shame on me. Look at this angular momentum wheel: {{w|Reaction wheel}}. One wheel moves its momentum to an other wheel (the spacecraft in this case). This is just simple classical physics, which also not easy to understand without knowing the basics of classical mechanics. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:49, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

What is the full form of "CoKF" (in the title text)?
"Coefficient of ___ Force"?
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.181|108.162.245.181]]

:I suppose they mean '''c'''oefficient of '''k'''inetic '''f'''riction. They should really spell these things out; I have a degree in physics and I had to think twice.
:[[Special:Contributions/172.68.65.60|172.68.65.60]] 23:23, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

We should do a formal double-blind trial.
--[[User:Blacksilver|Blacksilver]] ([[User talk:Blacksilver|talk]]) 13:13, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

2347: Dependency

2020-08-18T18:14:45Z

172.68.65.60: ImageMagick has a full featured API to its libraries as well as a command line interface. Users of the API would be just as susceptible to it breaking as those who run it on the command line.

{{comic
| number = 2347
| date = August 17, 2020
| title = Dependency
| image = dependency.png
| titletext = Someday ImageMagick will finally break for good and we'll have a long period of scrambling as we try to reassemble civilization from the rubble.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by A PROJECT [[User:Dgbrt|SOME RANDOM PERSON]] HAS BEEN THANKLESSLY MAINTAINING SINCE 2013. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Software design from the late 2010s onwards focused on a model of re-usability and modularization, creating micro-services which were the logical extreme of such a conclusion. While in theory, such a system may sound good for developers who would need to write and maintain many fewer lines of code, systems which are highly optimized are also highly susceptible to rapid changes. For example, the famous left-pad incident in Javascript's {{w|npm (software)|NPM}} package manager left many major and minor web services which at some level or another depended on it unable to build. A disgruntled developer unpublishing 11 lines of code was able to break everybody's build, because everyone was using it. [https://www.theregister.com/2016/03/23/npm_left_pad_chaos/]

The current model of libraries and open-source development (topics which Randall has addressed extensively in the past) relies heavily on the free and continued dedication of unpaid hobbyists. Though some major projects such as Linux may be able to garner enough attention to build an organization, many smaller projects, which are in turn reused by larger projects, may only be maintained by one person, either the founder or another who has taken the torch. Maintaining libraries requires both extensive knowledge of the library itself as well as any use cases and the broader community around it, which usually is suited for maintainers who have spent years at the task, and thus cannot be easily replaced. Thus, there are many abandoned projects on the internet as people move on to greener pastures. Far from the days of backwards compatibility, that's usually not a problem, unless a project happens to be far up the dependency chain, as illustrated, in which case there may be a crisis down the road for both the developers and the users down the chain.

{{w|ImageMagick}}, mentioned in the title text, is a popular, standalone utility released in 1990 that is used for performing transformations between various graphics file formats, and various other transformations. While there are also numerous libraries and API's for performing these tasks within larger programs, ImageMagick is so popular and easy to use that many programs use its API or just find it easier to {{w|Shell (computing)#Other uses|shell out}} to ImageMagick to perform a necessary transformation. They therefore {{w|Dependency hell|depend}} on ImageMagick, and would break if ImageMagick were to disappear.

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

[A tower of blocks is shown. The upper half consists of many tiny blocks balanced on top of one another to form smaller towers, labeled:]

All modern digital infrastructure

[The blocks rest on larger blocks lower down in the image, finally on a single large block. This is balanced on top of a set of blocks on the left, and on the right, a single tiny block placed on its side. This one is labeled:]

A project some random person in Nebraska has been thanklessly maintaining since 2003

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

2168: Reading in the Original

2019-06-26T14:24:47Z

172.68.65.60: Initial stab at an explanation

{{comic
| number = 2168
| date = June 26, 2019
| title = Reading in the Original
| image = reading_in_the_original.png
| titletext = The articles are much shorter, but I assume that's because this version predates the merger with the Hawaiian text that created the modern Hawaiian-Greek hybrid wiki-pedia.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
It's an ethomology joke, the word encyclopedia comes from Greek, hence Greek being the 'original' language in this case. Wiki is a Hawaiian word, hence the Hawaiian-greek hybrid.

Studying old texts in the original language is seen as being more valuable than studying them in modern translation, based on a variety of assumptions about the person reading the original language having a better grip on it than whoever wrote the translation, about the translation potentially having an agenda, etc.

The New Testament is often studied in the 'original' Greek, despite most of the protagonists actually speaking Aramaic.

Cueball's statement is based on his purported belief that Wikipedia was originally written entirely in Greek.

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

- It's in the 'Languages' box in the lower left. It took a while to learn, but I find I get so much more out of it by reading it as it was intended.

- That's not how that works!

- People get mad when I tell them I only read Wikipaedia in the original Greek.

{{comic discussion}}