explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

3044: Humidifier Review

2025-02-01T00:25:14Z

172.69.194.139: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 3044
| date = January 29, 2025
| title = Humidifier Review
| image = humidifier_review_2x.png
| imagesize = 285x287px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = They should add a little sticker that certifies that the humidifier supports water conservation, but in the sense of energy conservation or momentum conservation.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a 101% EFFICIENT TOASTER. This page was clearly autogenerated by an AI that does not understand the comic nor humidity engineering. I tried to improve the first paragraph. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic shows a review of a {{w|humidifier}}, with the reviewer complaining that it uses too much water to increase the humidity of the room to 45%. On the face of it, someone buying a humidifier for the first time might not have an understanding of how much water the device needs, and could be taken by surprise (possibly when their water bill arrives, or by the number of times they are required to manually refill its reservoir). The review in the comic has taken it a step further, voicing their complaint as a flaw in this specific humidifier and wishing another model could somehow achieve the same results with less water.

A humidifier works by evaporating water from a tank, causing the air around it to become more humid. The law of {{w|conservation of mass}} states that the amount of matter in the universe must stay constant. Therefore, the amount of water used by the humidifier must be at least the amount gained by the air. Aside from small efficiency improvements (and [[2710: Hydropower Breakthrough|machinery made by Beret Guy]]), it is very hard to reduce the amount of water used to humidify a room without sealing the room better to prevent humid air from leaving it, which has nothing to do with the humidifier. The humor is thus at the expense of people who don't understand the requirements of their appliances (or other hypothetical services) and complain in ignorance about the impossible not being made possible for their convenience.

Strictly speaking there are other ways to increase the humidity of a room, though all of them are still constrained by the laws of conservation. In theory a humidifier could start a chemical reaction to create water from some other chemicals - which would still need to be supplied. A humidifier could also increase relative humidity by cooling the air, even using no water at all, since humidity (when given as a percentage measure such as the stated 45%) is indirectly relative to the water capacity of the air at its current temperature; however, this is not always viable, and depending on the climate could require more energy than evaporating the water. Unless some chemical or physical reaction was being used to {{w|Endothermic_process|absorb heat}}, the heat would have to be ''transferred'' away.

In principle, a {{w|particle accelerator}} could be used to create protons from energy, either directly, or indirectly as a product of the decay of other particles. Protons are hydrogen nuclei, and could be reacted with oxygen from the air to create water. However, such devices are not conveniently small, consume vast amounts of energy, involve dangerous and inconvenient radiation and magnetic fields, and generate a great deal of heat which would decrease the relative humidity. Thus, they are not a practical method of increasing humidity in a room.{{Citation needed}}

Other examples of commonly-used, commonly-reviewed household devices whose operational efficiency is limited by the laws of physics themselves include {{w|space heater|space heaters}}, {{w|electric water boiler|electric kettles}}, {{w|air conditioning|air conditioners}}, and {{w|refrigerator|refrigerators}}. For instance, a space heater {{what if|35|cannot produce more heat than the electrical energy it consumes}}, as dictated by the laws of thermodynamics. Similarly, an electric kettle cannot heat water with less energy than the amount required to raise its temperature, due to the specific heat capacity of water. Air conditioners and refrigerators operate by transferring heat rather than creating "cold," and their efficiency is constrained by the {{w|Carnot cycle}}, which defines the maximum possible efficiency of a heat engine.

Reviews which indicate the ignorance or [[937:_TornadoGuard|gullibility]] of the reviewer, or which indicate the [[325:_A-Minus-Minus|vindictive nature]] of the vendor, are a common theme in XKCD.

The joke in the title text is based on different senses of the word "conservation". To most people this refers to reducing wasted use of some material, e.g. "water conservation" means avoiding waste of water. But to physicists, it means that some quantity in a system stays the same; for instance, conservation of energy means that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. For many years, most appliances have had {{w|Energy Star}} stickers that indicate their impact on the environment; by adopting the physicists' sense, they can trivially say they support water conservation.

==Transcript==
:[A product review is shown. At the top left is a small drawing of a humidifier within a rectangle. To the right of that rectangle the product name is given. Beneath this is is a line of illegible text, followed by a shorter line of illegible text within a rectangle.]
:HydroPro Humidifier

:[Then below this is a header above a horizontal line that separates the above from a small close-up drawing of Hairy in a circle to the left with two lines of illegible text to his right. Below this is his review (3/5 stars) with a heading and his review text below:]
:Reviews
:★★★☆☆ '''Good but inefficient'''
:It keeps the humidity at 45% pretty well. I'd give it 5 stars if it didn't use so much water.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:My favorite reviews are the ones that penalize products for not violating the laws of physics.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Online reviews]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]

Talk:3038: Uncanceled Units

2025-01-16T00:36:40Z

172.69.194.139: Doh. Flipped my adjustments.

DUDE I'M STILL IN SCHOOL RN, WHAT?
(also, the joke is that energy is power*time, so kWh is kJ/s... in an hour [[User:CalibansCreations|'''Caliban''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 13:27, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

I guess not every comic can be a winner. Talking about an appliance using a certain amount of kWH per day is clear and normal. Power gets billed by the kWh, not the Joule. While technically not wrong, wanting "cancel" a sub-part of the commonly-used energy unit kWh and leaving it in deliberately-obscured units most people are less familiar with is the sort of insanity I'd more expect from White Hat than Cueball. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.35.171|172.70.35.171]] 13:39, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
:Maybe that is a meta-joke? To frame kWh/day as something crazy by giving that line to whitehat --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 13:52, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
:There's a difference between instantaneous power draw, and the total "volume"(/area, really) of power over time. Though a fridge is "always on", it is still only irregularly at full-draw. But, to the power company (or to the gas company, who will generally give a kWh measure of 'energy taken from the network'), they don't (generally) care whether you used twice as many kW over half the time or half as many over twice the time, within any given total billing period, even if it affects what you think. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.46|172.70.163.46]] 14:39, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
::Using joule as if it was an everyday unit of energy would be weird but I don't agree that watt is crazy. It's a normal unit of energy consumption that does mean something to people, e.g. 1000W microwave, 100W (incandescent) light bulb. Don't get me wrong kWh/day is also useful to translate it to your energy bill, but I do feel slightly uncomfortable every time I see that time divided by time :-) [[User:Mtcv|Mtcv]] ([[User talk:Mtcv|talk]]) 14:40, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

This is especially funny with US units. My car needs about 5l/100km, or 0.05mm². Now I am wondering how many ft^(-2) my car does... --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 13:49, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
: You make a good point about the units (at least in one instance). Shouldn't the reduced units for fuel economy be inverse area? Effectively, it is a measure of the distance the vehicle could travel while consuming a column of fuel with a specific height and specific top (or bottom) surface area. Or, The better the fuel economy, the less the surface area that is necessary to move a specific distance. [[User:SammyChips|SammyChips]] ([[User talk:SammyChips|talk]]) 20:41, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
::It depends on what the original unit is. In my country (Germany) we measure it in volume/distance, which would reduce to area. North American convention is in distance/volume which would reduce to inverse area. Good thing about distance/volume is that "high number = good". However I think outside of escaping from a nuclear disaster or in a zombie apocalypse it isn't a really helpful thing to know. Because how often do you know "I got x amount of fuel. Wonder how far I can get." But you will likely be in the situation where you quickly want to see "How much fuel do I need to get to place x which is y distance from here". --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 21:57, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
:: More usefully imagined as the front (or back) end of a horizontal column (or, twisting as it may, a pipeline) that traverses the journey made by the vehicle. As if (instantaneous variations excepted) you consume precisely the fuel that your vehicle passes 'through/around'. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.92|141.101.76.92]] 20:45, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
::: Yeah. Maybe we should express fuel consumption in terms of the speed fuel needs to be drawn through a standard fuel line. [[User:SammyChips|SammyChips]] ([[User talk:SammyChips|talk]]) 21:01, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

fridge [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.147|172.70.126.147]] 14:22, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

The late [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_J._C._MacKay Sir David MacKay] wrote an excellent book, [http://www.withouthotair.com/ Sustainable Energy – without the hot air] (which is available free online).
On [http://www.withouthotair.com/c2/page_24.shtml this page] he talks about the units he uses in the book: kWh for energy ("one unit") and kWh/day for power - becuase it's simple for lay-people to understand - how many units does this appliance use per day.
It's a good book if any of you are interested in sustainable energy (although it was written in 2008, so some bits might be out of date by now) {{unsigned ip|172.70.85.33|14:33, 15 January 2025}}

If anyone's curious, I found an online gallons per square foot calculator: https://www.omnicalculator.com/construction/gallons-per-square-foot [[Special:Contributions/172.71.223.6|172.71.223.6]] 15:54, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

The answer to Cueball's question is likely NO in the US and YES in the UK, due not just to gallon size but also fridge size (a model like that is a particularly large fridge, when I bought one 10 years ago going for the smallest available I had to modify my cabinet above the fridge as there wasn't one less than 6'8"- the fridge hole was 6' previous).[[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 16:02, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

I disagree with this comic, and I think the final paragraph in the explanation about Hubble's constant best explains why. [[User:Beanie|Beanie]] [[User talk:Beanie|talk]] 15:57, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Technically, kWh should be written as kW⋅h or kW h, because it literally means "kilowatts multiplied by one hour", not "kilowatts per hour" as many people assume. However, almost nobody writes it correctly. (kW/h is sometimes also seen, but egregiously incorrect.) Also, particularly now that electric vehicles are becoming more popular, people often get confused between kW and kW h. The car can charge at a peak or average rate expressed in kW, but energy billed by a charging service provider is expressed in kWh. People frequently either add or remove the "h" incorrectly because they don't understand the difference. In some places like India, a kilowatt-hour is simply referred to as a "unit" to avoid confusion. In my opinion, it was an enormous mistake to use kWh when we could be using mJ instead, which I think is probably something close to the point Randall may have been trying to make. Anyway, I wasn't sure if there was a place for any of this random trivia in the article itself, but feel free to use it. [[User:Equites|Equites]] ([[User talk:Equites|talk]]) 17:11, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Relevant XKCD… I mean relevant YouTube video: "Cursed units" 1 and 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkfIXUjkYqE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg7xe8MkJHs [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 17:31, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

: Highly relevant, in fact. The first video referred to the kilowatt-hour as "cursed", which became a highly polarizing issue in the comments, something that was addressed at the beginning of part 2. Assuming these responses weren't cherry-picked, I get the impression that there are a lot of people on both sides of this. It seems like the same kind of thing we're seeing in this very comment section. [[User:ISaveXKCDpapers|ISaveXKCDpapers]] ([[User talk:ISaveXKCDpapers|talk]]) 18:10, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

I always wonder why people here prefer liter/m^2 for the amount of rain. Where the same number as mm is way easier to imagine. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.50.99|172.68.50.99]] 18:14, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
: At first, I was wondering if you would have rather had it in microliters/mm^2, but you meant the column height of the rain, like inches are used in the US. Along the line of L/m^2, something like mL/cm^2 might be nice considering the density of water, although the value also would be different by a factor. [[User:SammyChips|SammyChips]] ([[User talk:SammyChips|talk]]) 20:51, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
: That's the neat thing about the metric system, they are trivially simple to convert. 1l/m² is exactly 1mm. The fact that the meteorology uses the former just stems from the fact that that's how they measure it. The catch the rain on an area of 1m² into a beaker that contains some volume which is measured in liters. What annoys me though, is that noone seems to be talking about how terribly inefficient the fridge in the comic is. Mine only needs a tenth of the one that Whitehat tries to sell, and that's not even particularly good. --21:21, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
:: UK measurements, once it gets to weather reports/forecasts, tend to be in millimetres (or centimetres, where more for the layperson who don't need mm-resulution; or occasionally recast as 'old money' inches, with ''really'' bad rain events summarised in relation to whole feet), which is implicitly the depth to which ''any'' area would be filled (in a case where large catchment + funnelling valley situation is concerned, suffering from the run-off, might be ''reported'' as "equivalent to ''N'' feet of rain", down where the bad effects get concentrated, but this is not a meteorological measure as such).
:: Not sure I've ever seen volume/area as an end-result figure (might be relevent as an intermediate for measurement/calculation, especially when discussing the funelling effects of the given local geography), but of course it's trivially relatable.
:: Density of water would only figure in from replacing litres with kilogrammes (litres are 1/1000th of metres³ and any m² is 10,000 times the cm² (or millilitre), so a factor of 10 between L/m² and mL/cm²; divide L to mL by 1000, times m² to cm² by 10,000, => 10x) but I always find it useful to know that three 2L bottles of pop are (very close to, going by the nominal water content alone) 6kg... makes me feel better about lugging the weekly shopping home, where these might be the single most significant part of the weight. More usefully than cross-converting into length-cubed measure. ;) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.69|141.101.98.69]] 21:42, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Isn't the point that KwH/day can be simplified to Watts (an average perhaps, but still) {{unsigned ip|162.158.41.72|21:24, 15 January 2025}}
: Yes, the joke seems pretty clearly about watts or kilowatts, not megajoules. Using megajoules doesn't result in any units being canceled; the denominator remains "/day". [[User:BatmanAoD|BatmanAoD]] ([[User talk:BatmanAoD|talk]]) 23:52, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

If the argument for kWh/day is that it's easy for the consumer to understand how it will affect their electricity bill – then kWh/month would be the right choice, because I doubt anyone receives an electricity bill every day. But the salesman prefers 3 kWh/day because it sounds like a smaller number than 90 kWh/month. And of course, if electricity bills were written in joules instead of illogical watt-hours, then MJ/month would be the easiest for the consumer. {{unsigned ip|162.158.134.90|22:31, 15 January 2025}}
:Per-month is tricky. You seem to assume month=30 days, when it can be 28-31 and is only 30 days a third of the time. Per quarter(-year) is a bit more consistent, less fractionally variant ''and'' closer to most utility bill frequencies as well, if you're looking for something not as eye-wateringly frightening as an annual estimate (which 'only' varies every 4.1237... years, on average). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.47|172.70.163.47]] 00:21, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

3034: Features of Adulthood

2025-01-08T16:12:34Z

172.69.194.139: /* Events */

{{comic
| number = 3034
| date = January 6, 2025
| title = Features of Adulthood
| image = features_of_adulthood_2x.png
| imagesize = 704x620px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = I don't dig pit traps and cover them with sticks and a thin layer of leaves nearly as much as I expected; I find a chance to do it barely once a month.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete| Unexpectedly created by an adult BOT digging pit traps - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic is a graph comparing the (mostly) common ideas of adulthood from a young person's perspective with the sad reality of it. The features that are most expected but don't actually come up (quicksand, grappling hooks, crocodiles, and twins switching places) are common tropes in fiction. At the opposite end, some very mundane activities are common but we don't expect them to be important when we're young: deciding what to eat, dealing with weird noises and smells.

It is clear that many of the things that were imagined more likely than they turned out to be are ''direct'' references to fictional scenarios on film or TV, especially with a number of action movie tropes, throughout the 'lower-right triangle'. In contrast, the complimentary 'upper-left triangle' has situations that mostly (though not entirely!) seem to not be portrayed in many fictional depictions.

==Events==

{| class="wikitable"
! Event
! Expected frequency in adulthood
! Actual frequency in adulthood
! Notes
|-
| {{tvtropes|FormalFullArrayOfCutlery|Which fork you're supposed to use for what}}
| 0%
| 0%
| Different types of {{w|forks}} are used to eat different courses of a meal. Usually, cutlery is arranged in a way that makes it easier to understand which is needed. Learning which fork to use may be a lesson in an {{w|etiquette school}} class, but dining has generally become less formal in Western society since the mid-20th century; as a result, most people are used to only using a single fork, or at most two, for their meals, hence the confusion when faced with multiple forks (although the perceived judgment from other diners is mostly hyperimagined).
|-
| {{tvtropes|CartoonBomb|Lit fuses}}
| 40%
| 0%
| Explosives with visible lit fuses are commonly seen in movies and TV shows. In reality, explosives are more likely to be remotely detonated or have an {{w|time bomb|unlit}} or concealed fuse (e.g. {{w|grenade}}s). Also, most people don't generally have to deal with explosives anyway.
|-
| {{tvtropes|PalatePropping|Shoving a stick}} in a {{w|crocodile}}'s mouth to wedge it open
| 80%
| 0%
| Placing a vertical stick in a crocodile’s mouth is a popular TV trope to prevent the crocodile from {{w|Crocodile attack|biting down}} (usually on the stick placer).
|-
| {{w|Quicksand}}
| 100%
| 0%
| Quicksand is {{tvtropes|QuicksandSucks|common in adventure fiction}}, but it's quite rare in real life, and an average person is highly unlikely to encounter quicksand in day to day life.
|-
| {{w|Car chase}}s
| 35%
| 5%
| Car chases are frequently seen in movies and TV shows involving police, including real-life police shows, but unless you're a police officer or criminal trying to evade them, you'll probably never be involved in one. One actual car chase that attracted widespread attention was {{w|O.J.Simpson}}'s white Ford Bronco, which was shown on TV after he was identified as the prime suspect in his wife's murder.
|-
| {{w|Grappling hook}}s
| 100%
| 5%
| A grappling hook is a metal piece that is attached to a rope. If the person is going up a cliff, the “hook” would be thrown or shot at the top of the cliff and would either snag something, or more commonly, would wrap around something like a tree then hook onto itself, thus securing a way up the cliff.
|-
| People offering free drugs
| 30%
| 10%
| Typically refers to illicit drugs. The expectation is that a drug pusher will offer you free samples to get you addicted, then start charging high prices.
|-
| {{w|Parachute}}s
| 80%
| 10%
| A large piece of fabric that is tied to you in order to slow a {{w|Parachuting|very high fall}}.
|-
| {{w|Barrels}}
| 95%
| 10%
| Wooden or {{w|Drum (container)|metal}} storage implements, frequently used as concealment, improvised weapons and (sometimes explosive) obstacles in popular media.
|-
| {{w|Middle name}}s
| 15%
| 20%
| A second (or occasionally also third or more) {{w|given name}}, common in some traditions. Sometimes used specifically to honor someone (perhaps the same first name of a grandparent or loved one, occasionally such a person's surname). It can be used as further identification, if one has a common first and last name. In some families, the first name may be traditionally shared with the appropriate parent (and the grandparent, their parent) and reference by the middle name(s), alone, may be more useful to distinguish the person being addressed from within a family situation. In later life, a person may drop the use of middle names (or, conversely, adopt ''only'' them as the name they are known by) and the unwieldy complete set of names becomes less common. A common trope is that of the embarrassing middle name that the owner wants to keep hidden, while their acquaintances try various ruses to get them to reveal it.
Authors and politicians may most obviously buck this trend, as they have to develop an identity far beyond their immediate personal and professional circles, and perhaps need to be more unambiguously individual and free of confusion from others of similar named as "Firstname Surname", but this might also just reflect that the practice of more formally complete names is a tradition that is being dropped from those of [[Randall]] (Patrick) Munroe's generation, leaving only the generations before (most represented, in the public eye, by elder statesmen and well-read writers) still using them in the way they always did.
|-
| {{w|Food fight}}s
| 50%
| 20%
|
|-
| {{tvtropes|TwinSwitch|Twins switching places}}
| 90%
| 20%
|  Actual frequency of more than 0% might be a joke, or maybe due to having twins as friends, colleagues or relatives.
|-
| {{w|Flat tire}}s
| 10%
| 25%
|
|-
| {{w|Briefcase}}s
| 70%
| 25%
| Frequently used to carry documents and other small office equipment. Often portrayed as {{tvtropes|BriefcaseFullOfMoney|a means to carry a large amount of cash}} or {{tvtropes|BriefcaseBlaster|conceal a firearm}}. The popularity of briefcases has been declining after the 1980s so it's possible that Randall observed grown-ups using briefcases when he was a kid and assumed he would too, only for them to go out of fashion.
|-
| {{w|Martial arts}}
| 95%
| 25%
|
|-
| {{w|Water damage}}
| 0%
| 25%
|
|-
| {{w|Backpack}}s
|
|
| Backpacks of various sizes are a versatile means to carry items. They are almost as popular in real life as in fiction, though the contents may be somewhat different.
|-
| My {{w|Transcript (education)|academic record}}
| 95%
| 30%
| A child's life revolves around school: it's where they spend a large fraction of their waking hours, classmates make up most of their social circle, class schedules dictate when and how they spend their free time, and parental figures often punish/reward children based on their academic performance. The child may assume that school will continue to be an ever-present all-ecompassing feature of their future life, with their grades constituting a "permanent record" that will follow them into adulthood.
In reality, academic records aren't anywhere near that important. Some entry-level jobs may consider a candidate's past grades, but they're a tertiary concern after job interviews and professional references. By the time a person reaches their late 20s, academic records become irrelevant and are supplanted by the person's professional résumé.
|-
| {{w|Adhesive}}s
| 15%
| 50%
| Adhesives such as {{w|glue}}, {{w|adhesive tape|tape}} and {{w|epoxy resin}} are used to bond items together, typically for use in arts and crafts. They also have widespread industrial applications.
|-
| {{w|Board game}}s
|
|
| Board games of various kinds (such as {{w|chess}}, {{w|checkers}}, {{w|Monopoly (game)|Monopoly}}, {{w|Parcheesi}} / {{w|Ludo}}, {{w|Risk (game)|Risk}}, {{w|Snakes & Ladders}}, {{w|Cluedo}}, {{w|Trivial Pursuit}} or Lost Valley of the Dinosaurs) were often a staple for family home entertainment, in the past. Although they still may exist, possibly at the back of a cupboard, the ubiquitous nature of video games and other entertainments may have suppressed the opportunity for the adults and/or children to unbox them to while away the hours during a rainy afternoon or provide fireside entertainment for the family and its guests between the evening meal and supper.
Ironically, many classic boardgames have often been converted to video games, either as faithful reproductions (that may even enable online play and remote participation) or just as a thematic flavor as applied to a largely solo screenbound distraction.
|-
| Tying {{w|knot}}s
|
|
| There are many knots to tie, each with distinct purposes. May also refer to "tying the knot", an expression for {{w|marriage}}.
|-
| {{w|Cable management}}
| 0%
| 50%
| Cable management is an annoying but often required task for most adults. Cable management is the act of tidying up the cables in and around a computer or other device.
|-
| {{w|Laser}}s
| 90%
| 50%
|Lasers are common in sci-fi and spy stories, but are much less commonly interacted with in real life. However, in real life, they are a very interesting technology and equipment, and something Randall is interested in, so he is likely to interact with lasers much more than the average person. For a time, many people interacted with lasers on a regular basis (albeit without necessarily being aware of it), as they are used to read data from optical media such as DVDs and Blu-ray. As these media have fallen out of favour, the amount of these interactions will have reduced.
|-
| Dangerous driving situations
|
|
|
|-
| {{w|Pizza}}
|
|
| Often thought of as takeout or delivery food. A favorite of {{w|Spider-Man}} and the {{w|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles}}.
|-
| {{w|Star Wars}}
|
|
|
|-
| Cool toys
|
|
|
|-
| {{w|Weather forecast}}s
|
|
|
|-
| {{w|Batteries}}
|
|
|
|-
| {{w|Power tools}}
|
|
|
|-
| {{w|Video game}}s
|
|
| Generally thought of as a childish pastime in earlier times, it has become increasingly normalised for adults to play video games.
|-
| Figuring out what to have for dinner
|
|
| For many children, dinner is something that just 'arrives', having been decided by the relevant responsible carer. They may therefore not appreciate the thought that needs to go into that decision. Additionally, the range of foodstuffs available to affluent people in Western societies has significantly increased since Randall's childhood, which may induce choice paralysis when confronted with them.
|-
| {{w|Heating, ventilation and air conditioning|HVAC}} issues
| 20%
| 80%
| HVAC is an acronym that stands for 'heating, ventilation and air conditioning.' If one owns a home, problems with the heater or air conditioner can quickly make your home very uncomfortable (too cold in the winter or too hot in the summer) and becomes something you have to deal with right away. Thus HVAC issues become a much more frequent part of an adult's life than a child may assume.
|-
| {{w|Cooking}}
|
|
|
|-
| Secret {{w|password}}s
|
|
| Traditionally, in fiction, secret passwords have been portrayed as used for purposes such as espionage and admission to secret clubs. Nowadays many people do use secret passwords on a daily basis, but for more mundane purposes such as accessing websites and voicemail.
|-
| Laundry
|
|
|
|-
| {{w|Tax}}es
| 100%
| 85%
| One of two inevitable things in life, {{w|Death and taxes (idiom)|the other being death}}{{cn}}
|-
| Customer service
|
|
|
|-
| Shopping
| 100%
| 90%
|
|-
| Unexplained smells or noises
|
| 100%
|
|-
| Pocket radio communicators
|
| 100%
| Examples include {{w|cell phone}}s, {{w|pager}}s and {{w|walkie-talkie}}s.
|-
| Bills
| 90%
| 100%
| Most households have to contend with electricity, water and telecommunication service bills.
|-
| Digging {{w|pit trap}}s (title text)
|
|
| Inside the Star Destroyer in [[1608: Hoverboard]] we see [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/f/fd/1608_1055x1090y_Trap_covered_with_leaves_and_flying_Ponytail_at_bottom_of_hull.png Cueball cover a pit trap with leaves], so this is something Randall actually thinks about sometimes!
|}

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

:[Shown is a scatter plot, with arrowed labels on the axes:]
:Y axis label: How often it comes up in my adult life
:X axis label: How often I expected it to come up in my adult life

:[First row of items (comes up very often, from least to most expected):]
:Unexplained smells or noises; customer service; pocket radio communicators; bills; shopping
:[Items row by row from the second row onwards:]
:Figuring out what to have for dinner; HVAC issues; secret passwords; laundry; cooking; taxes
:Weather forecasts; batteries; video games; power tools
:Cable management; dangerous driving situations; pizza; Star Wars; lasers; cool toys
:Adhesives; board games; tying knots
:Water damage; backpacks; my academic record
:Flat tires; briefcases; martial arts
:Middle names; people offering free drugs; food fights; parachutes; twins switching places; barrels
:[Last row (comes up very rarely, from least to most expected):]
:Which fork you're supposed to use for what; car chases; lit fuses; shoving a stick in a crocodile's mouth to wedge it open; grappling hooks; quicksand

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Scatter plots]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Weather]]
[[Category:Star Wars]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Board games]]
[[Category:Animals]]

3034: Features of Adulthood

2025-01-08T16:06:22Z

172.69.194.139: /* Events */

{{comic
| number = 3034
| date = January 6, 2025
| title = Features of Adulthood
| image = features_of_adulthood_2x.png
| imagesize = 704x620px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = I don't dig pit traps and cover them with sticks and a thin layer of leaves nearly as much as I expected; I find a chance to do it barely once a month.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete| Unexpectedly created by an adult BOT digging pit traps - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic is a graph comparing the (mostly) common ideas of adulthood from a young person's perspective with the sad reality of it. The features that are most expected but don't actually come up (quicksand, grappling hooks, crocodiles, and twins switching places) are common tropes in fiction. At the opposite end, some very mundane activities are common but we don't expect them to be important when we're young: deciding what to eat, dealing with weird noises and smells.

It is clear that many of the things that were imagined more likely than they turned out to be are ''direct'' references to fictional scenarios on film or TV, especially with a number of action movie tropes, throughout the 'lower-right triangle'. In contrast, the complimentary 'upper-left triangle' has situations that mostly (though not entirely!) seem to not be portrayed in many fictional depictions.

==Events==

{| class="wikitable"
! Event
! Expected frequency in adulthood
! Actual frequency in adulthood
! Notes
|-
| {{tvtropes|FormalFullArrayOfCutlery|Which fork you're supposed to use for what}}
| 0%
| 0%
| Different types of {{w|forks}} are used to eat different courses of a meal. Usually, cutlery is arranged in a way that makes it easier to understand which is needed. Learning which fork to use may be a lesson in an {{w|etiquette school}} class, but dining has generally become less formal in Western society since the mid-20th century; as a result, most people are used to only using a single fork, or at most two, for their meals, hence the confusion when faced with multiple forks (although the perceived judgment from other diners is mostly hyperimagined).
|-
| {{tvtropes|CartoonBomb|Lit fuses}}
| 40%
| 0%
| Explosives with visible lit fuses are commonly seen in movies and TV shows. In reality, explosives are more likely to be remotely detonated or have an {{w|time bomb|unlit}} or concealed fuse (e.g. {{w|grenade}}s). Also, most people don't generally have to deal with explosives anyway.
|-
| {{tvtropes|PalatePropping|Shoving a stick}} in a {{w|crocodile}}'s mouth to wedge it open
| 80%
| 0%
| Placing a vertical stick in a crocodile’s mouth is a popular TV trope to prevent the crocodile from {{w|Crocodile attack|bitting down}} (usually on the stick placer).
|-
| {{w|Quicksand}}
| 100%
| 0%
| Quicksand is {{tvtropes|QuicksandSucks|common in adventure fiction}}, but it's quite rare in real life, and an average person is highly unlikely to encounter quicksand in day to day life.
|-
| {{w|Car chase}}s
| 35%
| 5%
| Car chases are frequently seen in movies and TV shows involving police, including real-life police shows, but unless you're a police officer or criminal trying to evade them, you'll probably never be involved in one. One actual car chase that attracted widespread attention was {{w|O.J.Simpson}}'s white Ford Bronco, which was shown on TV after he was identified as the prime suspect in his wife's murder.
|-
| {{w|Grappling hook}}s
| 100%
| 5%
| A grappling hook is a metal piece that is attached to a rope. If the person is going up a cliff, the “hook” would be thrown or shot at the top of the cliff and would either snag something, or more commonly, would wrap around something like a tree then hook onto itself, thus securing a way up the cliff.
|-
| People offering free drugs
| 30%
| 10%
| Typically refers to illicit drugs. The expectation is that a drug pusher will offer you free samples to get you addicted, then start charging high prices.
|-
| {{w|Parachute}}s
| 80%
| 10%
| A large piece of fabric that is tied to you in order to slow a {{w|Parachuting|very high fall}}.
|-
| {{w|Barrels}}
| 95%
| 10%
| Wooden or {{w|Drum (container)|metal}} storage implements, frequently used as concealment, improvised weapons and (sometimes explosive) obstacles in popular media.
|-
| {{w|Middle name}}s
| 15%
| 20%
| A second (or occasionally also third or more) {{w|given name}}, common in some traditions. Sometimes used specifically to honor someone (perhaps the same first name of a grandparent or loved one, occasionally such a person's surname). It can be used as further identification, if one has a common first and last name. In some families, the first name may be traditionally shared with the appropriate parent (and the grandparent, their parent) and reference by the middle name(s), alone, may be more useful to distinguish the person being addressed from within a family situation. In later life, a person may drop the use of middle names (or, conversely, adopt ''only'' them as the name they are known by) and the unwieldy complete set of names becomes less common.
Authors and politicians may most obviously buck this trend, as they have to develop an identity far beyond their immediate personal and professional circles, and perhaps need to be more unambiguously individual and free of confusion from others of similar named as "Firstname Surname", but this might also just reflect that the practice of more formally complete names is a tradition that is being dropped from those of [[Randall]] (Patrick) Munroe's generation, leaving only the generations before (most represented, in the public eye, by elder statesmen and well-read writers) still using them in the way they always did.
|-
| {{w|Food fight}}s
| 50%
| 20%
|
|-
| {{tvtropes|TwinSwitch|Twins switching places}}
| 90%
| 20%
|  Actual frequency of more than 0% might be a joke, or maybe due to having twins as friends, colleagues or relatives.
|-
| {{w|Flat tire}}s
| 10%
| 25%
|
|-
| {{w|Briefcase}}s
| 70%
| 25%
| Frequently used to carry documents and other small office equipment. Often portrayed as {{tvtropes|BriefcaseFullOfMoney|a means to carry a large amount of cash}} or {{tvtropes|BriefcaseBlaster|conceal a firearm}}. The popularity of briefcases has been declining after the 1980s so it's possible that Randall observed grown-ups using briefcases when he was a kid and assumed he would too, only for them to go out of fashion.
|-
| {{w|Martial arts}}
| 95%
| 25%
|
|-
| {{w|Water damage}}
| 0%
| 25%
|
|-
| {{w|Backpack}}s
|
|
| Backpacks of various sizes are a versatile means to carry items. They are almost as popular in real life as in fiction, though the contents may be somewhat different.
|-
| My {{w|Transcript (education)|academic record}}
| 95%
| 30%
| A child's life revolves around school: it's where they spend a large fraction of their waking hours, classmates make up most of their social circle, class schedules dictate when and how they spend their free time, and parental figures often punish/reward children based on their academic performance. The child may assume that school will continue to be an ever-present all-ecompassing feature of their future life, with their grades constituting a "permanent record" that will follow them into adulthood.
In reality, academic records aren't anywhere near that important. Some entry-level jobs may consider a candidate's past grades, but they're a tertiary concern after job interviews and professional references. By the time a person reaches their late 20s, academic records become irrelevant and are supplanted by the person's professional résumé.
|-
| {{w|Adhesive}}s
| 15%
| 50%
| Adhesives such as {{w|glue}}, {{w|adhesive tape|tape}} and {{w|epoxy resin}} are used to bond items together, typically for use in arts and crafts. They also have widespread industrial applications.
|-
| {{w|Board game}}s
|
|
| Board games of various kinds (such as {{w|chess}}, {{w|checkers}}, {{w|Monopoly (game)|Monopoly}}, {{w|Ludo}}, {{w|Risk (game)|Risk}}, {{w|Snakes & Ladders}}, {{w|Cluedo}}, {{w|Trivial Pursuit}} or Lost Valley of the Dinosaurs) were often a staple for family home entertainment, in the past. Although they still may exist, possibly at the back of a cupboard, the ubiquitous nature of video games and other entertainments may have suppressed the opportunity for the adults and/or children to unbox them to while away the hours during a rainy afternoon or provide fireside entertainment for the family and its guests between the evening meal and supper.
Ironically, many classic boardgames have often been converted to video games, either as faithful reproductions (that may even enable online play and remote participation) or just as a thematic flavor as applied to a largely solo screenbound distraction.
|-
| Tying {{w|knot}}s
|
|
| There are many knots to tie, each with distinct purposes. May also refer to "tying the knot", an expression for {{w|marriage}}.
|-
| {{w|Cable management}}
| 0%
| 50%
| Cable management is an annoying but often required task for most adults. Cable management is the act of tidying up the cables in and around a computer or other device.
|-
| {{w|Laser}}s
| 90%
| 50%
|Lasers are common in sci-fi and spy stories, but are much less commonly interacted with in real life. However, in real life, they are a very interesting technology and equipment, and something Randall is interested in, so he is likely to interact with lasers much more than the average person. For a time, many people interacted with lasers on a regular basis (albeit without necessarily being aware of it), as they are used to read data from optical media such as DVDs and Blu-ray. As these media have fallen out of favour, the amount of these interactions will have reduced.
|-
| Dangerous driving situations
|
|
|
|-
| {{w|Pizza}}
|
|
| Often thought of as takeout or delivery food. A favorite of {{w|Spider-Man}} and the {{w|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles}}.
|-
| {{w|Star Wars}}
|
|
|
|-
| Cool toys
|
|
|
|-
| {{w|Weather forecast}}s
|
|
|
|-
| {{w|Batteries}}
|
|
|
|-
| {{w|Power tools}}
|
|
|
|-
| {{w|Video game}}s
|
|
| Generally thought of as a childish pastime in earlier times, it has become increasingly normalised for adults to play video games.
|-
| Figuring out what to have for dinner
|
|
| For many children, dinner is something that just 'arrives', having been decided by the relevant responsible carer. They may therefore not appreciate the thought that needs to go into that decision. Additionally, the range of foodstuffs available to affluent people in Western societies has significantly increased since Randall's childhood, which may induce choice paralysis when confronted with them.
|-
| {{w|Heating, ventilation and air conditioning|HVAC}} issues
| 20%
| 80%
| HVAC is an acronym that stands for 'heating, ventilation and air conditioning.' If one owns a home, problems with the heater or air conditioner can quickly make your home very uncomfortable (too cold in the winter or too hot in the summer) and becomes something you have to deal with right away. Thus HVAC issues become a much more frequent part of an adult's life than a child may assume.
|-
| {{w|Cooking}}
|
|
|
|-
| Secret {{w|password}}s
|
|
| Traditionally, in fiction, secret passwords have been portrayed as used for purposes such as espionage and admission to secret clubs. Nowadays many people do use secret passwords on a daily basis, but for more mundane purposes such as accessing websites and voicemail.
|-
| Laundry
|
|
|
|-
| {{w|Tax}}es
| 100%
| 85%
| One of two inevitable things in life, {{w|Death and taxes (idiom)|the other being death}}{{cn}}
|-
| Customer service
|
|
|
|-
| Shopping
| 100%
| 90%
|
|-
| Unexplained smells or noises
|
| 100%
|
|-
| Pocket radio communicators
|
| 100%
| Examples include {{w|cell phone}}s, {{w|pager}}s and {{w|walkie-talkie}}s.
|-
| Bills
| 90%
| 100%
| Most households have to contend with electricity, water and telecommunication service bills.
|-
| Digging {{w|pit trap}}s (title text)
|
|
| Inside the Star Destroyer in [[1608: Hoverboard]] we see [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/f/fd/1608_1055x1090y_Trap_covered_with_leaves_and_flying_Ponytail_at_bottom_of_hull.png Cueball cover a pit trap with leaves], so this is something Randall actually thinks about sometimes!
|}

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

:[Shown is a scatter plot, with arrowed labels on the axes:]
:Y axis label: How often it comes up in my adult life
:X axis label: How often I expected it to come up in my adult life

:[First row of items (comes up very often, from least to most expected):]
:Unexplained smells or noises; customer service; pocket radio communicators; bills; shopping
:[Items row by row from the second row onwards:]
:Figuring out what to have for dinner; HVAC issues; secret passwords; laundry; cooking; taxes
:Weather forecasts; batteries; video games; power tools
:Cable management; dangerous driving situations; pizza; Star Wars; lasers; cool toys
:Adhesives; board games; tying knots
:Water damage; backpacks; my academic record
:Flat tires; briefcases; martial arts
:Middle names; people offering free drugs; food fights; parachutes; twins switching places; barrels
:[Last row (comes up very rarely, from least to most expected):]
:Which fork you're supposed to use for what; car chases; lit fuses; shoving a stick in a crocodile's mouth to wedge it open; grappling hooks; quicksand

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Scatter plots]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Weather]]
[[Category:Star Wars]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Board games]]
[[Category:Animals]]

3026: Linear Sort

2024-12-19T03:28:57Z

172.69.194.139: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 3026
| date = December 18, 2024
| title = Linear Sort
| image = linear_sort_2x.png
| imagesize = 385x181px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The best case is O(n), and the worst case is that someone checks why.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created in Θ(N) TIME by an iterative Insertion Sorter working on a multidimensional array - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
A common task in programming is to sort a list, a list being a collection of related elements of data that are stored in a linear fashion. There are dozens of algorithms that have been created for this through the years, from simple to complex, and each has its own merits with regards to how easy it is to understand / implement, how much space it uses, and how efficiently it operates on the data.

In computer science, the runtime of an algorithm can be described using {{w|Big O Notation}}, which categories the asymptotic, usually average, runtime (''O'') of a function of the number of elements (''n'') operated on (''f(n)'') as it grows larger and larger towards infinity; this creates the form O(''f''(''n'')) as the final description. Being asymptotic means that Big O Notation only considers parts of the function that scale with time and disregards fixed changes such as multipliers and additions to the scaling time. For instance, in an O(''n'') algorithm, ''f''(''n'') is simply ''n'', meaning it takes a constant amount of time per element operated on. A simple example would be examining pictures: if it takes one second to look at a picture, it would take ten seconds to look at ten pictures; if it took three seconds to look at a picture, it would take thirty seconds to look at ten pictures - both are described as O(''n'').

Generally, programmers seek to minimize the Big O Notation of their algorithms because it means they take less time. It can be proven that the best general-purpose sorting methods are O(''n'' log ''n''); since this is larger than ''n'' on its own, it means that algorithms will always begin to take longer per element as the number of elements increases.

Here are some examples of common runtimes expressed in Big O notation, from smallest to largest:
<ul><li>O(1) - Constant time, which means the execution time is independent of the size of the data</li>
<li>O(''n'') - Linear time, which means the execution time grows in direct proportion to the size of the data</li>
<li>O(''n'' log(''n'')) - The execution time grows proportionally to ''n'' * the {{w|logarithm}} of ''n'', with the added ''log(n)'' creating an increasingly larger multiplier on the runtime</li>
<li>O(''n''2) - Quadratic time, meaning the execution time grows proportionally to the ''square'' of the size of the data.</li></ul>

The code in the comic describes a 'linear' sort that first sorts the list using {{w|merge sort}}, which is known to take time O(''n'' log(''n'')), and then `sleep()`s (pauses with no activity) for a complimentary amount of time by subtracting the time taken for the sort from the number of elements multiplied by 1 million (1e6) seconds. This way, the total time always scales proportionately with the number of elements. This effectively converts the algorithm, through brute force, to fit the definition of linear time: it takes one million seconds — which is more than 11 days — per element, rather than a non-linear progression as the number of elements increases. Although this algorithm ''does'' run in O(''n''), it does not reflect that it is made to be significantly slower than the nominally 'worse' O(''n'' log(''n'')) performance that the embedded sort takes by itself.

It should be noted that for sufficiently large lists, the merge sort will take longer than the million seconds per element, which results in a negative value being passed to the sleep() function. This might halt the program with a runtime error, produce {{w|Integer overflow#Definition variations and ambiguity|unpredictably extra-long}} additional waits or skip any additional wait; all of these still leaving the issue of already having exceeded O(''n''). However, this issue will only arise for impossibly huge lists: if, for instance, a merge sort took ''n log(n)'' microseconds to complete (which would be considered slow, by today's typical processing times), then the comic's 'linear' sort target would be reached sooner only for lists longer than 21,000,000,000,000 ≈ 10300,000,000,000 elements — a number far larger than the number of atoms in the universe. The practical impossibility of this outcome might be why such a ridiculously high number of seconds was chosen.

The title text refers to the {{w|Best, worst and average case|best and worst case}} of a sort, which are additional measures of its runtime to describe the shortest and longest potential times. A more optimal sort may decide how much of a list needs to be passed over again after its first pass of shuffling elements around; scanning a pre-sorted list (and deducing that it has no more checking to do) could mean that no more effort is needed, resulting in a best case of O(''n''). Depending upon the algorithm, presenting a list that is in an ordering that happens to challenge it the most (such as exactly reversed) may mean even an 'average O(''n'' log ''n'')' process would have to exceed this, resulting in a worst-case number of operations that may be O(''n2''). It can be very useful to know that a given sorting method ''may'' take the average order of time, but have the possibility of a much shorter ''or'' longer runtime... especially when the method is expected to be [[1185: Ineffective Sorts|far, far worse than others]], where only particular and more idealistic input lets it approach the more satisfyingly fast average/best responses.

By forcing all practical searches to take O(''n'') time, regardless of how otherwise identical data is presorted, the best case (and worst case, for that matter) will also be O(''n''). The last part of the text then plays on another meaning of best case and worst case, as best- and {{w|worst-case scenario}}s for a situation, by saying that the worst outcome for the code's author is when someone decides to investigate the code (perhaps owing to its absurd runtime, or else just justifiably skeptical of the declared optimality), whereupon that investigator will discover the deception and ruin the author's reputation.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[The panel shows five lines of code:]
:function LinearSort(list):
::StartTime=Time()
::MergeSort(list)
::Sleep(1e6*length(list)-(Time()-StartTime))
::return

:[Caption below the panel:]
:How to sort a list in linear time

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Programming]]

Talk:2049: Unfulfilling Toys

2024-12-16T23:31:05Z

172.69.194.139:

The no string attached yo-yo exists and works rather well for those who know how to yo-yo {{unsigned ip|108.162.229.214}}
: Blinking heck, my Lord. I thought you meant one of those yo-yos with a loop at the end, but I've now seen people yo-ing into the air with detached strings and catching them again by whipping the spinning beast. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.158|162.158.155.158]] 16:55, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Pondy contributed a video for: "This also exists, is rather functional, and is the only way to make fun Rubik's cube shapes such as 1x5x5. See [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x6leUqKbqE this video] for a good example of this."

But this doesn't appear to be a good example at all. Those cubes are most definitely attached and you can see the presenter has to use quite a bit of force at some points to rotate. Can someone find a better example if it exists? [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 16:51, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
: The cubes are only attached magnetically. It takes a lot of force to break a lot of magnetic connections at once. Some of the cubes they actually take apart and you can see it’s just magnets. The video might be longer than ideal, but it does demonstrate the concept. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.141.94|172.68.141.94]] 11:17, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
: It is theoretically possible to build a cube with arbitrary dimensions without using magnets, though the mechanism required for certain shapes is much more complicated than a standard cube. [[User:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|Probably not Douglas Hofstadter]] ([[User talk:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|talk]]) 04:40, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Isn't a wingless sky dancer just an upside down beyblade? {{unsigned ip|172.69.55.166}}

I sometimes find myself smacking my wrist with a comb. I think it's stimming. There might be a market for rigid objects designed for the purpose.

'''Broken toys'''

Toys often don't have a long lifetime, in particular children tend to act not much carefully and sometimes they even destroy them deliberately as a part of their playing. Parents know what I'm talking about. It can be annoying how fast kids are able to destruct things. So literally Randall just sells toys in a state in which they always end up anyway. Worth for the explanation? --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 13:59, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
:I'm sure I still have working toys somewhere that have survived my childhood. :) I think Randall just aims to deprive of the satisfaction of playing with them for children, thus the comic name "Unfulfilling Toys". -[[User:Asdf|Asdf]] ([[User talk:Asdf|talk]]) 14:47, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
::"toys ... have survived my childhood" emphases exactly that what I'm saying. Most of them didn't survive... And try to remember your own annoyance about all those broken ones, there's probably not much in your memory, you just threw them away. But your parents were annoyed about all that waste. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 18:33, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
::: "Broken" != "Unfulfilling". Over this weekend, my son and I blitzed his dump, sorry, room. There were a large number of broken toys (especially those "Hero Mashers" action figures - lifetime measured in hours...) that I was not allowed to get rid of because he still plays with them. He has some perfectly intact items that are much more unfulfilling - racetracks where the track pieces don't quite match up leading to stuck cars (when new out of the box) being the one most guaranteed to create the disappointed face. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.65.6|172.68.65.6]] 14:01, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
Wanna nerd-snipe the next commenters? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.130|162.158.78.130]] 20:41, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Glass glow-sticks? Isn't that the principle behind Mike Thompson's blood lamp. His design, in my opinion, is less fun than the design suggested in the current explanation. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.22|162.158.75.22]] 23:41, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

I think you might be able to pull this off if you market it as a prank gifts, for people to buy for their friends as a joke. [[User:Solomon|Solomon]] ([[User talk:Solomon|talk]]) 05:37, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

A disappointing Rubik's Cube could just be a solid, non-twisting Cube with an unsolved cube painted onto it. [[User:Cheesesentience|Cheesesentience]] ([[User talk:Cheesesentience|talk]]) 16:29, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
:There is a (non-twisting, but pliable) Rubik's Cube-styled ''stress ball''. Or possibly more than one, from the various links (mostly commercial/advertorial, so not bothering to repost here) that a quick check via [[993: Brand Identity|an internet search engine]] reveals. It is(/they are) 'solved', which may not be disappointing in the same way... but it would probably frustrate me insofar as one ''couldn't'' mix it up (or do patterns, like "dot and ring" every face) and do anything more than scrunch it up and/or thrown it around the office without much more damage than knocking a few pencils off some desks. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.139|172.69.194.139]] 23:31, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

3018: Second Stage

2024-12-04T15:22:08Z

172.69.194.139: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 3018
| date = November 29, 2024
| title = Second Stage
| image = second_stage_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x272px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Hmm, they won't do in-flight delivery, so let's order a new first and second stage to our emergency landing site and then try to touch down on top of them to save time.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BLUE ORIGIN DELIVERY DRIVER - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

In this comic, two people have lifted off in a {{w|Multistage rocket|staged launch vehicle}} without their second stage installed. This is unlikely to happen in real life because rocket launches are thoroughly planned and checked. The lack of an entire stage would be glaringly obvious to anyone who is part of the project.{{Citation needed}} But it can be a problem in games such as {{w|Kerbal Space Program}}.

Staging in rocketry refers of the segmentation of a launch vehicle into distinct, separable modules, each one with an independent {{w|Rocket engine}} (or engines) and {{w|Rocket propellant|fuel}} supply. This is practiced for two critical reasons: firstly, different engine designs work better at different altitudes, so you'd want to use one engine type deep in the atmosphere and a different engine once you get to space; and secondly, since you only need one of those engines (or sets of engines) at once, it'd be better to simply expend the first engine(s) and its fuel tank once you no longer need it. By getting rid of that useless mass, you can {{w|Tsiolkovsky rocket equation|go farther using the same amount of fuel}}. A launch vehicle that does not employ staging is called an {{w|Single-stage-to-orbit}} (SSTO), but none of them have been successful due to the technical challenges. There's a tradeoff between the greater effectiveness of different engines under different conditions, and the mass penalty of having to have multiple engines as well as extra hardware that can be separated.

As Pilot 1 calls to fire the second stage, Pilot 2 is initially confused and asks if a second stage was needed. Pilot 1 confirms that there was supposed to be a second stage, and thought that it was the Pilot 2's responsibility to install and confirm there was a second stage. When both pilots realize there is no second stage, Pilot 2, naturally, thinks he can order one on {{w|Amazon (company)|Amazon}} with {{w|same-day delivery}} (though Amazon typically doesn't sell space ship stages — at least not with same-day delivery{{citation needed}}). He then has difficulty picking an address {{w|ZIP Code}} as they are likely traveling too high above the ground and too fast to be in a single postal area for long enough for the delivery to take place. The joke is likely poking fun at people who forget to pack certain items when going on road trips or vacation, and rely on Amazon to deliver replacements to them. There is also humor to be found in this rocket apparently being designed, built, and piloted by only a couple of people — in real life, the construction of a rocket, especially a manned one, generally involves thousands of people. Although {{w|test pilot}}s often have input in the development of many vehicles, and many were chosen for various space programs, generally they do not do the designing themselves. There are possibly some {{w|Wan Hu|notable}} {{w|Mike Hughes (daredevil)|exceptions}} to this — but with varying degrees of credibility, and almost certainly none that did any better than those voices in the comic.

The comic also alludes to a not-so-distant future when space travel is a much more mundane endeavor. If companies such as {{w|SpaceX}} succeed in their mass-production and launch cadence goals, one could imagine a scenario where rocket parts become standardized and easily replaceable — similarly to how it is easy today to replace a car's tire or fill its fuel tank if you get stranded on a highway.

In the title text, Pilot 2 concludes that in-flight delivery won't be possible but proposes to have a new first and second stage delivered to their emergency landing site, properly stacked, so they can simply land on top of them, attach, and immediately take off again. This is not too dissimilar to how SpaceX is proposing to rapidly turn around Starship launches atop its Booster stages; though not yet close to being proven possible and practical, a Starship would descend to be caught by a {{w|SpaceX Starbase#Launch site (Orbital Launch Pad A and B)|'Mechazilla'}} tower, ready to be relaunched from there atop an awaiting Booster stage that had also been recently 'delivered' (perhaps by itself having been recently caught, having returned from the same or another recent flight) with perhaps minimal additional preparation other than whatever refuelling is required.

This is not the first time Randall discusses the idea of a mid-flight delivery. A {{what if|149|What If? explanation}} attempts to answer if it possible to have pizza delivered to you, by a bird, while flying on a commercial airliner.

== Trivia ==
*The rocket, though apparently at least one segment short, appears to be substantially taller than the launch tower of the pad, which is a strangely incongruous detail. Unless the real rocket support is an angled back "hard spine" structure that has been rotated out of the way and down into the exhaust-flume/flame-trench quenching system. Since the voices are coming from what appears to be a separate module at the top of the rocket, it may be that the ''shell'' of the second stage is present, but not the engine and/or fuel.


==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[A multi-stage rocket, with a capsule on top, is lifting-off the ground from a launchpad, at least two rocket nozzles are visibly producing a flame, and the pad is surrounded with smoke and/or steam from the blast suppression system. A voice comes from the capsule at the top.]
:We have liftoff.

:[The first stage separates from the rest of the rocket, part way through the roll-program. There are no obvious engines standing out from the 'second stage' (or extended payload trunk) lower shroud.]
:Main engine cutoff.
:Stage separation confirmed.
:We are go for second stage burn.

:Second stage?

:Yes.
:...What?

:[The first stage and the rest of the rocket are drifting apart in apparent freefall. No rocket is firing and the background does not seem to indicate that this view is beyond the atmosphere.]
:We were supposed to have a second stage?

:...Yes!

:Did '''''you''''' set up a second stage?

:I thought '''''you''''' were handling staging!

:Oh no.

:[They continue to drift apart slowly.]
:Okay, don't panic.
:Lemme see if we can order a stage online for same-day delivery.

:''Sigh''.

:Hey, what zip code should I put? Ours keeps changing.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Rockets]]

3016: Cold Air

2024-11-26T09:45:13Z

172.69.194.139: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 3016
| date = November 25, 2024
| title = Cold Air
| image = cold_air_2x.png
| imagesize = 713x283px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = We also should really have checked that the old water tower was disconnected from the water system before we started filling it with compressed air.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a 204 atm COMPRESSED BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Tornadoes generally create winds of about 40-400 mph [https://www.weather.gov/ffc/fujita] (about 60-640 kph) which causes damage to buildings. Cueball proposes a method to essentially blow tornadoes away from cities by keeping enough "tornado repelling" air in a tank. It is not clear if the compressed air will be used to "blow away" the whole tornado, to try to exactly counteract the tornado itself (through applied counter-rotation) or to remove the conditions that cause the development of the tornado's system. The last of these is heavily implied, as replacing any troublesome hot and humid air will remove the conditions required to invoke a nascent tornado. Whether this would work is questionable, since it's precisely the mixing of warm and cold air that produces the swirling motion that creates tornadoes. Rather than dissipating the threat, the very act of displacement could create atmospheric mixing and tornado-generating turbulence in its own right.

In a compressed air system, peak pressure is considered about 40 bar [https://www.directindustry.com/prod/kaeser-kompressoren/product-4742-24559.html] (about 500 psi). Cueball proposes keeping the tank at 6 times that pressure to properly counteract the tornado. The title text confirms the tower is a repurposed water tower, which, if using 16 inch pipes as [https://www.waterworld.com/home/article/14071043/the-perfect-pipe is common], would produce much stronger winds than those of the tornado, because flow speed is inversely proportional to the diameter of the pipes and even a "wide" 16 inch pipe is very narrow for this purpose indeed.

The formula for the velocity of a fluid (air is considered a fluid in physics) is V=√(2*P/ρ) where V is the velocity, P is the pressure, and ρ is the density of the fluid. The density of the fluid is given by the formula ρ=P/(RT) for a given constant R and a Temperature T. In this case, ρ is [https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=3000psi%2F%280.287kj%2F%28kg+Kelvin%29*21C%29 0.245 g/cm^3] assuming room temperature, meaning the V=√(2*3000psi/ 0.245 g/cm^3)[https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=sqrt%282*%283000psi%29%2F%280.245+g%2Fcm%5E3%29%29 =410.9 m/s], which is just under 1500kph, almost three times faster than the max speeds of the tornados Cueball is trying to prevent.

Further, highly compressed tanks are prone to bursting,{{acn}} which is why they are only used for small volumes of air in highly controlled settings. Cueball's proposal would put it in the center of a dense city, creating the possibility for further damage. Especially if, as it appears, the tank is itself twice the height of the tallest surrounding buildings (drawn to resemble skyscrapers, so probably tens of stories tall) elevated high above them upon a base of a similar reach.

Finally, tornadoes tend to form in ''sparsely'' populated areas, where structures are few and wind can flow uninterrupted, making his invention's necessity questionable at best. Even if Cueball's air tanks produce winds no faster than a normal tornado, they are now being produced in the center of a heavily built-up area, significantly increasing the potential for damage.

The result is a quadrupling in damage caused by wind, since now, not only are the tornadoes causing heavy winds, but the tanks — when functioning properly and when malfunctioning — are causing heavy winds too.

Using technology to disrupt tornadoes before they form was a plot element in Liu Cixin's novel ''{{w|Ball Lightning (novel)|Ball Lightning}}'', and [https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Weather_Modification_Net other works].

In the title text, it is revealed that the water tower they were using to store the compressed air was still plumbed in to the water mains. Given the pressure required for the tower to work properly against tornadoes and the fact that water is nearly incompressible, the pressure from the tower would have been nearly instantly transmitted through any tap or valve that was opened (or forced open), and/or destroying the piping. The ''best'' case scenario would have been 'just' to have extremely highly pressurised water jetting into sinks, bathtubs and toilet cisterns whenever they were used, even if the pipes and fixtures somehow remained undamaged.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball is seen in front of a diagram of a tornado with a pointer in his hand. The diagram has arrows flowing from the bottom toward the tornado at the top and from the tornado toward the rain below it]
:Cueball: Tornado supercells are powered by the inflow of warm, moist surface air.

:[Cueball is now seen in front of a representation of his compressed air tank with a PSI of 3000 next to smaller buildings, appearing to be high-rise buildings or even skyscrapers in their own right, on either side of the tank]
:Cueball: Compressed air tanks could produce artificial pools of cold, dry air on demand, disrupting tornado inflow to protect cities.

:[Cueball, again with a pointer, is seen in front of a line graph labeled "Wind Damage over Time" (wind damage has increased after a point on the graph labeled "Giant experimental compressed air tanks installed in the middle of every major city"). In a frame in the top left corner, there is a label:]
:Several years later:
:Cueball: In retrospect, I can see how my plan went wrong.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Tornadoes]]
[[Category:Line graphs]]

Talk:3011: Europa Clipper

2024-11-15T09:38:52Z

172.69.194.139:

I'm not brave enough to actually add an explanation myself, quite yet, but ... I guess this is a reference to the fact(?) that Europa looks a bit like a creme brulee', when viewed from space? https://science.nasa.gov/jupiter/moons/europa/ It does look tasty ... :) [[User:ModelD|ModelD]] ([[User talk:ModelD|talk]]) 12:53, 13 November 2024 (UTC)
:I suspect it's more due to the need to drill through a couple miles of ice to get to the ocean; much like breaking through the sugar crust on a creme broule! [[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 13:16, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you to the people at 9AM Post things on another website to try and explain XKCD Comics. -Forgotten_Mail {{unsigned ip|172.69.33.177|13:30, 13 November 2024}}

The comically large spoon!!!!!!!!!! I love those. -[[User:Psychoticpotato|P?sych??otic?pot??at???o ]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 16:38, 13 November 2024 (UTC)
: Don't be sucked in! Protect yourself! https://rathergood.com/2017/02/10/spoonguard/ [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.105|141.101.99.105]] 10:57, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

I think the "Crème brûlée is from France, France is in Europe, the moon is called Europa" connection is a bit of a stretch...? [[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 18:36, 13 November 2024 (UTC)
: Eh, it's the same etymology. --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.230|172.69.134.230]] 11:04, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
:: The issue of the continent and the moon coming from the same classical source (for different reasons) rather stretches the link between the dish (from the country, from the country's region/continent, from the region of Greece, ''possibly'' from the pantheon) and the moon (directly from the pantheon). I agree with the 'stretch' assessment. You can probably find easier and more plausible (but wrong) links worth alluding to than that, which relies upon several steps and a ''possible'' polysemic pair of original links. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.58.45|172.70.58.45]] 12:12, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
:::From an American perspective, Europe might seem like a distant, mysterious place that you might want to send a probe to to gather interesting information, and also somewhere that crème brûlée comes from. It's also potentially confusable (by the easily confused) with Europa. That seems like a reasonable enough connection to make to me. The mention of France is essentially by the by.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.26.107|172.71.26.107]] 12:23, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
::It keeps getting said that "Europa is named after Europe", '''which is not correct''' (etymology, BTW, not entomology). I shall have to re-restore some other changes made to the same paragraph in rapid succession whilst I was trying to explain this. Bear with me. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.195|172.70.160.195]] 14:57, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
::...You don't care, do you. You just keep putting it back in. SMH. Have fun. Someone else will probably be along to correct you ''again'' later. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.68.92|141.101.68.92]] 15:35, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

"only a spoonful" moment 💔 [[User:CalibansCreations|'''Caliban''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 19:20, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Someone should add a reference to XKCD's previous mention of a Planetary Protection Officer: https://what-if.xkcd.com/117/ [[Special:Contributions/162.158.42.221|162.158.42.221]] 00:09, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

JUICE mentioned!!! cracker ham cheese cracker ham cheese cracker [[User:N-eh|N-eh]] ([[User talk:N-eh|talk]]) 07:31, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
: Edited out, alas. It's a fascinating, and entertaining, experience to set up a starter explanation and then watch it bubble and froth. As with the crème | France | Europe | Europa trajectory (in which I had no part after posting the starter). [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.113|108.162.245.113]] 18:46, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Here is a list from NASA about spacecraft instrument deployment failures, they are remarkably frequent: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20210020397/downloads/Alphonzo%20Stewart-%20Final%20Paper.pdf [[Special:Contributions/162.158.19.50|162.158.19.50]] 13:00, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

I think we need to have a conversation about how the insertion orbit plan is so chaotic that there is a significant chance that the probe might crash in to and pierce the crust of Europa. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.187.56|162.158.187.56]] 14:36, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
:...and if so, what's the likelihood of hitting just the right angle to scrape off a tasty bit with that spoon? [[User:Transgalactic|Transgalactic]] ([[User talk:Transgalactic|talk]]) 16:04, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
::What would you like it to be? I can't step on butterflies, but I can certainly act according to the purest form of free will by strapping a noise bridge diode to my corpus callosum. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.83|108.162.246.83]] 16:17, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
:Well we just need Elon to lock in the plan that if it crashes then it automatically becomes a sample return mission, and the first SolarCity sales rep to break out +150% of their quota gets to be the one to crash it. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.42.130|162.158.42.130]] 15:56, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
::What part of "Attempt No Landing There" is unclear to you? [[User:Liv2splain|Liv2splain]] ([[User talk:Liv2splain|talk]]) 18:36, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
::In all seriousness, the liquid water is a good reason to be extremely careful so you don't end up detecting {{w|tardigrade}}s, {{w|deinococcus radiodurans}}, or {{w|bacillus subtilis}}. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.166|172.70.214.166]] 19:16, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

I can ''not'' believe I got ChatGPT to make this for me:
{{cot|You have been warned}}

Europa was this smart, ambitious woman just trying to make it out there in the Mediterranean startup scene. She had her plans, her own thing going on, some solid friends, and a bright future. She wasn’t looking for anything too complicated; she just wanted to keep her options open and figure out her next big move.

Enter Zeus. Now, picture him as that intense CEO type—big, powerful, kind of legendary for his influence (and his *questionable* reputation). He’s been around the block a few times, always looking for the next exciting project or, well… person. Zeus saw Europa, and she was exactly his type: sharp, resourceful, had a lot of potential. He was like, "Yeah, I need *that* in my portfolio."

But Zeus was a little extra with his tactics. Instead of just, you know, scheduling a coffee chat or reaching out on LinkedIn like a normal person, he came up with this elaborate scheme. He disguised himself as this beautiful white bull (yeah, Zeus was *that* guy who would make things way more complicated than necessary). He wandered down to the shore near Europa and her friends, looking majestic and mysterious, and let her come to him.

Europa, understandably, was like, "This bull is kind of weirdly friendly and actually pretty cool." She got curious, went closer, and Zeus played it super smooth, staying calm and approachable. When she got comfortable enough, she even climbed onto his back for a ride—just for fun! I mean, who hasn’t hopped onto a crazy idea because it seemed cool at the time, right?

But then things got wild. Suddenly, Zeus took off, sprinting across the beach and straight into the sea. He didn’t just want to show her the local scene; he was taking her across the entire Mediterranean to Crete, like some super intense onboarding retreat she hadn’t signed up for. By the time they got there, she was probably exhausted, confused, and questioning her life choices.

And here’s the kicker: once they arrived, Zeus was like, “Oh hey, it’s me! Not just some chill bull—surprise, I’m Zeus.” At this point, Europa realized she was in way deeper than she’d ever expected. She ended up staying in Crete, becoming queen and building a legacy, which, sure, sounds great on paper. But you have to wonder if that’s what she really wanted in the first place, or if she was just swept up in the whirlwind of Zeus's charm and grand promises.

So, in the end, Europa's career ended up in a place she never saw coming. She became a name people would remember for centuries, but not necessarily on her own terms. It’s the classic millennial dilemma: she got a high-profile "role" with Zeus, but did she really get to build her own brand, or was she just another line in Zeus’s impressive (and very long) resume?

Maybe Europa would look back on this “opportunity” and think, “Did I even want this? Or did I just get pulled into someone else’s grand plan?” A classic case of getting lost in the allure of “networking,” and honestly, a pretty good reminder to always check out who’s really behind the bull.
{{cob}}
[[Special:Contributions/172.68.23.82|172.68.23.82]] "This bull is kind of weirdly friendly and actually pretty cool" 16:03, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
::"Europa was this smart, ambitious woman...." She was a {{w|nepo baby}}. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.231|172.70.206.231]] 18:55, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
:ChatGPT should have learned long ago that it's not cool to reproduce rape culture. But I guess AI just doesn't get better than its training material... [[User:Transgalactic|Transgalactic]] ([[User talk:Transgalactic|talk]]) 16:34, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
::It is apparently aware of the issue:
:::"The myth of Zeus and Europa is problematic from a modern perspective, especially concerning consent. Europa willingly approaches and even climbs onto Zeus, who is disguised as a bull, suggesting an initial level of curiosity and comfort. However, Zeus’s sudden abduction of Europa—taking her across the sea to Crete and revealing his true identity only after they arrive—shows a disregard for her autonomy, as she never consented to go with him under those terms. Her actions are based on Zeus’s deception, and without knowing his true intentions, her choice was not fully informed. In Greek mythology, such abductions were common symbols of divine intervention, reflecting a worldview where gods often overpowered human agency, a stark contrast to today’s emphasis on consent and personal autonomy."
::The issue with Zeus's behavior was tempered by the story that he gave Europa a kingdom to rule and all the riches and luxuries that came with it. Isn't that the way bad boyfriends are excused in our day and age? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.143|172.70.211.143]] 17:45, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
:::Like [https://krapopolis.fandom.com/wiki/Krapopolis#:~:text=Tyrannis%2C%20the%20mortal%20son%20of,self%2Ddestruction%20and%20questionable%20choices. King Tyrannis] in {{w|Krapopolis}}? All that glitters is not gold. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.22.93|172.68.22.93]] 18:02, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
::Given how it's likely not Zeus's momentary crush, that was the Europa concerned (naming the river, region then contintent), all that ChatGPT stuff is interesting but very likely going down totally the wrong trail of ideas. Of course, the phylomemetic development of legends is probably very mixed up, and trying to trace what figures certain phonemes originally refered to (before being cooked and remixed in countless oral 'history' retellings with few written standard versions to keep them static and consistant) is an art in itself. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.26.42|172.71.26.42]] 19:31, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
:::The Greek myths were handed down in writing and by the oral tradition. They are absolutely diverse but the common threads are a large part of what an entire middle age of clerical monks have bestowed upon Western culture. In that tradition, Europa kept her gift kingdom instead of returning home, which suggests some measure of consent after the fact. If you were given a huge island kingdom because some god-bull decided to take you for a surprise swim, would you refuse it? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.129|172.70.211.129]] 19:33, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
::::Since more 'modern' times (to speak of monks, you'd generally be talking about mediæval times onwards, though some priests and scholars of pre-christianity eras may have played some similar roles beforehand), they may have been 'well' documented, but we're talking about bronze-age-and-earlier (mostly) oral traditions that bumbled along for a long time with few persisting writings/engravings. Imagine what ancient records were lost in Alexandria/other destructions, or sat upon stone/clay that has since lain undiscovered for cdnturies but likely crumbled well beyond the ability of any lucky archaeologist to reconstruct.
::::And not all of the {{w|Europa (Greek myth)|various women/beings of that name}} could have been just retellings of the same 'original' (with deviations). Zeus's Europa likely, in fact, far post-dates the examples rooted in the pre-Olympian pantheon. Either in 'actual legend' or in the tales that developed to explain the current understanding of the soap-opera that was what gods/titans/whatever had performed to get from the creation of the world to 'now'. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.183|172.69.43.183]] 19:52, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
:::::I suggest that scholars of Christianity may not have as accurate of a take on the Greek myths as agnostic scholars of the Greek classical works and recorded traditions.[https://www.mdpi.com/2410-9789/3/3/20] [[Special:Contributions/162.158.186.253|162.158.186.253]] 20:09, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
::P.I.S.S.s are only as good as the information they scrape. -[[User:Psychoticpotato|P?sych??otic?pot??at???o ]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 21:32, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

My spoon is too big! https://youtu.be/PONvX6LmAPo?si=u4iIjQLEplVZf-Xq [[User:Foobarbecue|Foobarbecue]] ([[User talk:Foobarbecue|talk]]) 21:19, 14 November 2024 (UTC)