explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

801: Golden Hammer

2021-04-24T23:03:02Z

172.69.135.86: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 801
| date = October 4, 2010
| title = Golden Hammer
| image = golden hammer.png
| titletext = Took me five tries to find the right one, but I managed to salvage our night out--if not the boat--in the end.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Java}} is a programming language touted for its Portability™ (the ability for software to run on many different systems "write once, run everywhere"), which sometimes leads to it being used in systems where it really just shouldn't be used. [[Cueball]] laments that the hardware he's tinkering with, despite being used for a single purpose, has its firmware written in Java; since the microprocessor is unknown, it's quite possible the {{w|Java Virtual Machine}} (JVM) had to be ported over to the processor before the hardware designers could write firmware for it. Presumably, they considered this worthwhile to be able to write the control code in a language they're comfortable with, even though it probably would have been much simpler to just write the control code in whatever language they used to port the JVM in the first place.

[[Black Hat]] explains that this is really an example of an age-old adage: "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail", also referred to as the "{{w|law of the instrument}}" or, as in the title, the "golden hammer". The hardware developers probably only knew Java, and when they thought about how to write firmware for their new device, "Java" was the only solution that occurred to them.

Of course, instead of a hammer and a nail, Black Hat's analogy is about using bolt-cutters and vodka to get through the lock on {{w|Wolf Blitzer}}'s boathouse. Not-so-coincidentally, Black Hat is holding a pair of bolt-cutters and a bottle of vodka. The implication is that Black Hat ''did'', in fact, break into Blitzer's boathouse the previous night, which is why he has just now entered the door at the start of the strip. The changes he makes to the adage implies that he believes vodka and boltcutters are designed specifically to be used on Blitzer's boathouse, an interpretation that fits Black Hat's warped and anarchic disposition. As he is carrying both of these items, it also implies that he has just used those instruments for exactly that purpose. Cueball however, being extremely jaded by the (mis)use of Java (or possibly unfazed as he knows Black Hat well), can only bring himself to tell that he's glad that Black Hat had a nice night.

The title text implies that Black Hat had to break into a number of boathouses before he found Blitzer's, and that his boat did not survive the evening. The use of the phrase 'our night' allows us to infer that Black Hat may have been with [[Danish]], his partner in crime.

==Transcript==
:[Black Hat is going through a door, a bottle in his hand. A voice speaks to him from off panel.]
:Cueball: Seriously? This thing runs ''Java?'' It's single-purpose hardware!

:[Cueball is sitting at a computer, holding some device which is wired to a box, and pointing at the screen.]
:Cueball: I bet they actually hired someone to spend six months porting this JVM so they could write their 20 lines of code in a familiar setting.

:[Black Hat has a pair of bolt cutters in the hand that had been obscured in the first panel.]
:Black Hat: Well, you know what they say— When all you have is a pair of bolt cutters and a bottle of vodka, everything looks like the lock on the door of Wolf Blitzer's boathouse.
:Cueball: I'm glad ''you ''had a nice night.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Language]]

2452: Aviation Firsts

2021-04-20T10:39:50Z

172.69.135.86: /* Cultural references */

{{comic
| number = 2452
| date = April 19, 2021
| title = Aviation Firsts
| image = aviation_firsts.png
| titletext = Mile High Club membership [✓] [ ] Discovery of parts of Amelia Earhart's skeleton [ ] [ ] Mid-flight incident that results in safe landing on the Hudson River [✓] [ ]
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a DRONE ON MARS. Put a table detailing all the events of the achievement checklist with an Earth and Mars column. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic is made in light of recent events of the [https://twitter.com/NASAPersevere/status/1384209173924089863 Ingenuity probe's first flight on Mars]. Now that Ingenuity has completed its first flight, it marks the first controlled powered flight on Mars. The previous categories were completed by the first space probes to reach and then land on Mars, while the remaining have only been completed on Earth, and grow steadily more bizarre and more specific, extending to the title text.

===Cultural references===
* The {{w|Hughes H-4 Hercules}} (the "Spruce Goose") was a prototype wooden airplane, known for being the largest flying boat ever constructed. The Hercules was designed by aviation pioneer (and, latterly, famed recluse) Howard Hughes. The design was intended as a lightweight transoceanic transport for the the military, but the prototype (built out of wood because of aluminium shortages during the 1940s) was not completed until well after the end of the Second World War and only actually flew a single time in 1947.
* In 1971, Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305 was famously hijacked by a man who bought a ticket under the pseudonym {{w|D. B. Cooper|"Dan Cooper"}} (but popularly known as D. B. Cooper). Cooper was given a $200,000 ransom and then proceeded to parachute jump out of the plane using the rear {{w|airstair}} and was seemingly never heard from again; many experts believe it was extremely unlikely that Cooper even survived the parachute jump. (Cooper was previously mentioned in [[1400: D.B. Cooper]] and [[1501: Mysteries]].)
* The "{{w|mile high club}}" is a slang term for people who have had sexual intercourse while onboard an airplane in flight. Although the notion of {{w|sex in space}} is understood to be severely hampered by the total lack of gravity, it's not known whether Mars's low gravity (compared to Earth) would make it similarly challenging to have intercourse on or near the planet's surface.
* {{w|Amelia Earhart}} was a female aviator who, along with her navigator {{w|Fred Noonan}}, went missing over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 while attempting a global circumnavigation flight and has never been found. While there's some possibility that some of Earhart and Noonan's remains will eventually be discovered somewhere on the Pacific coastline, the notion of them somehow ending up on the surface of Mars is practically impossible outside the remit of certain conspiracy theories. (Earhart was previously mentioned in [[1501: Mysteries]], [[950: Mystery Solved]], and [[2197: Game Show]].)
* The {{w|US Airways Flight 1549|Miracle on the Hudson}} was a 2009 aviation incident in which a US Airways airliner struck a flock of geese shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport in New York City. Despite the plane losing all its engine power as a result of the bird strike, Captain Chesley Sullenberger successfully crash-landed in the nearby Hudson River with minimal injuries to the passengers onboard. The joke in this case revolves around the mathematical impossibility of a powered flight suffering a problem within the atmosphere of Mars that would lead it to conduct an emergency landing on Earth.

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

:            <u>Earth</u>         <u>Mars</u>
:Flight      <big>[✓]</big>       <big>[✓]</big>
:Landing <big>[✓]</big>       <big>[✓]</big>
:Controlled landing<big>[✓]</big>       <big>[✓]</big>
:Controlled powered flight <big>[✓]</big>       <big>[✓]</big>
:Loop <big>[✓]</big>       <big>[ ]</big>
:In-flight meal <big>[✓]</big>       <big>[ ]</big>
:Planetary circumnavigation <big>[✓]</big>       <big>[ ]</big>
:Enormous wooden aircraft built by a reclusive billionaire that flies exactly once <big>[✓]</big>       <big>[ ]</big>
:Hijacking by someone dubbed "D.B. Cooper" who demands money and then jumps out mid-flight to an unknown fate <big>[✓]</big>       <big>[ ]</big>

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Mars rovers]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Sex]]

Talk:138: Pointers

2020-10-09T03:35:40Z

172.69.135.86:

[[User:Rikthoff|Rikthoff]] ([[User talk:Rikthoff|talk]]) The issue date is definitely off. Can anyone fix this?
: --done (yes, anyone can fix this.) [[User:Divad27182|Divad27182]] ([[User talk:Divad27182|talk]]) 18:49, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
Wait until he finds out they're codes for that old saving system. 21:42, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Or perhaps the Black Hat _is_ answering the question but in an obscure way. The addresses might be pointing to the locations where the game keeps its important information (such as the score count or the level), so it can be cheated by changing the data at these locations.

The problem with 0x-1 is not that it's missing digits, it's that the memory in the computer is represented as a closed loop. So if you try to go back to the cell "before the first cell", you will really access the last cell, 0x-1 really equals to 0xFFFFFFFF in the 32-bit address space. Evidently, Cueball had found a way around this only it didn't quite work out. (People deeply interested in the workings of the pointers should also read about the memory protection modes and alignment requirements, both of which might interfere with reading from the address 0xFFFFFFFF.) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.5|108.162.246.5]] 00:33, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Cueball could be playing a card game (e.g. Solitaire), and Black Hat could be telling him to play the Ace. In a rather obscure way, though. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.81.225|141.101.81.225]] 17:46, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

;Hidden message?
The three pointers spell, in ASCII:
:(!:
c99,
Ich.
Does this make any sense? The last line looks like German. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.97|108.162.254.97]] 07:01, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

The last one is German. It means "I". {{unsigned ip|141.101.104.88}}

No, you got the ASCII wrong. 73 is "s", not "I":
:(!:
c99,
sch.

[[User:Jorgbrown|Jorgbrown]] ([[User talk:Jorgbrown|talk]]) 19:49, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

I think that the title text is a Matrix reference. All humans are- being kept in a dream world so that their (erm, our) comatose cadavers can be used to generate electricity? [[User:RedHatGuy68|RedHatGuy68]] ([[User talk:RedHatGuy68|talk]]) 02:55, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Regarding the last letters, in the TASBot stuff I lead we often refer to the act of taking complete control of a game as an Arbitrary Code Execution, or an ACE. However, the term was somewhat obscure at the time this comic was released (TASBot content didn't become well known until 2015) so I don't think it's likely enough to put in the main explanation. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.142.149|172.68.142.149]] 20:34, 2 November 2017 (UTC)dwangoAC

I moved the title text explanation to the main one. Seems to make more sense that way. [[User:Dontknow|Dontknow]] ([[User talk:Dontknow|talk]]) 23:35, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

The pointers are different in ''xkcd: Volume 0''. I added that in along with a trivia section. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.135.86|172.69.135.86]] 03:35, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

138: Pointers

2020-10-09T03:34:17Z

172.69.135.86: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 138
| date = August 7, 2006
| title = Pointers
| image = pointers.png
| titletext = Every computer, at the unreachable memory address 0x-1, stores a secret. I found it, and it is that all humans ar—SEGMENTATION FAULT.
}}

== Explanation ==
This comic is about a play on the dual meaning of the word "pointer." [[Cueball]] is playing a video game, but he seems to be stuck. So he asks [[Black Hat]] for a few tips ("pointers") to progress in the game. Black Hat is, as usual, annoying, so he spits out a couple of (seemingly random) 32-bit hexadecimal addresses, which are "{{w|Pointer (computer programming)|pointers}}" in a programming language. These pointers are used to access a certain location in the computer's memory in order to fulfill a task; however, this would not be helpful in the game. Cueball is then annoyed at [[Black Hat]] for not answering his question.

A {{w|segmentation fault}}, as referred to in the title text, is a result by accessing invalid memory addresses. If you define a pointer to an invalid address, then try to access the memory location associated with it, you could end up with this exception. The hexadecimal address 0x-1 is definitely invalid, because it's out of range. If you treat pointers as signed numbers, it points below the lowest address, 0; if you treat them as unsigned (meaning the numbers wrap around, so -1 is the same as the highest address - 0xFFFFFFFF on a 32-bit system), if it's pointing at any object larger than a byte, most of that object is past the highest address. So, this is a "hidden location," but as soon as you try to read more than one byte at that location, you will get a segfault.

The ending letters of the pointers are spelling, reading top to bottom, the word ACE. As Cueball is playing a game, Black Hat could be additionally saying that he's an ace of the game.

=== Alternate Explanation ===
Pointers are often used to cheat in games and do things like change the amount of money you have. The pointers Black Hat spits out could also be cheat codes giving an extra reason for Cueball to hate him.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is playing a video game, with Black Hat standing behind him.]
:Cueball: Man, I suck at this game. Can you give me a few pointers?
:Black Hat: 0x3A28213A 0x6339392C, 0x7363682E.
:Cueball: I hate you.

==Trivia==
In ''xkcd: Volume 0'', the pointers are different, specifically 0x4B657932, 0x6F66383A, and 0x73CD4542.

{{Comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Puns]]

User:Cgrimes85

2020-09-25T15:12:34Z

172.69.135.86: Field Service Management

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visit:
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