explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2552: The Last Molecule

2021-12-09T17:38:20Z

172.70.134.23:

Unsuccessfully tried to search for a match to the image of the chemical compound. Did find this, which is difficult to use on a cellphone: OSRA: Optical Structure Recognition: https://cactus.nci.nih.gov/cgi-bin/osra/index.cgi [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.172|172.70.211.172]] 07:43, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
:I've tried to search for SMILES of the molecule, but also got nothing: https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/#query=C1(C2CC(CCC)C(CC)C2(CCCC))C%3DCC(C(%3DCCC(%3DC)CC)C(C)C)%3DC1 [[Special:Contributions/162.158.222.137|162.158.222.137]]

I truly don't understand the God part of the current explanation. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.110.121|172.68.110.121]] 07:55, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
:There is an article at [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/humans-make-110000th-earths-biomass-180969141/ Smithonian Magazine] that sums it up quite nicely: Of the 550 gigatons of biomass carbon on Earth, animals make up about 2 gigatons, with insects comprising half of that and fish taking up another 0.7 gigatons. Everything else, including mammals, birds, nematodes and mollusks are roughly 0.3 gigatons, with humans weighing in at 0.06 gigatons.
::About half of all known living species on earth are insects. Therefore if there was a god who created all life, it would be reasonable to assume he likes them. [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 08:26, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Chemistry. I love chemistry :-) There is a concept called "Chemical Space" that I learned about in school. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_space may help, in short: Chemical space is a huge but finite space of all possible atom arrangements in molecules. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.106|162.158.91.106]] 07:59, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

I've heard the claim, that we know less about our own ocean floor than we do about the surface of Mars several times before. Is there actually a credible source for this and how do we even quantify how much we know about either area? [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 08:26, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
:This essay might shed some light on the question. [[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/just-how-little-do-we-know-about-the-ocean-floor/ Just How Little Do We Know about the Ocean Floor?]] From a geographical perspective, our maps of the ocean floor are much less detailed than those covering Mars. (5km resolution for ocean floor, 100m resolution for Mars - radar doesn't work underwater). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.18|162.158.107.18]] 09:25, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

The current explanation says that there are an infinite number of chemicals. Is that true? Source? Explanation how that is possible?
Obviously the number of possible molecules is huge, but is it actually a literal, mathematical infinite? Given a finite observable universe, with presumably a finite number of atoms in it. There appear to be a finite number of elements which are stable for any appreciable amount of time and capable of forming molecules.
It seems like there might be practical limitations to the size of a molecule, so that you can't keep making bigger and bigger ones just by adding more atoms/subunits?
If you just keep adding carbon atoms to a diamond will you eventually reach a point where forces such as gravitation become a factor and the molecular bonds fail? I can imagine that long chain molecules light years long might reach point where other forces overwhelm the bond strength? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.76|108.162.246.76]] 09:10, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
:For obvious reasons, as long as you limit the number of atoms involved the number of possible "molecules" is - in a mathematical sense - finite. (As there is only a finite number of reasonable stable elements.) But already simple things like polymers can bind millions of atoms in a single molecule. Together with the possible variations intrinsic to such polymers a simple "material" like phenolic resin [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenol_formaldehyde_resin]] is a mixture of more different chemical compounds (in a strict sense) than mankind can ever describe. For all practical application this compexity is not relevant, so no one really cares about.
Additionally there is no clear boundary between typical molecules and other types of condensed matter, like crystals. Same applies to biochemistry. Does chemistry include bio-molecules? If yes, the chemistry guy have to include all the gene sequencing in their to-do list.

"how fast does light travel in one direction?" is not a good example for incompleteness in physics, because this question was settled by Michelson and Morley in the 19th century (answer: it travels with the speed of light)
: It's not clear to me either what was meant here - seems out of place.
:We know how fast light travels when it goes somewhere and comes back – that's ''c'' – but we don't know how fast it goes when only traveling in one direction. For example, light going at ''c''/2 in one direction and returning instantaneously in the other would still match our observations. We also can't reliably synchronize clocks over a distance because we'd either have to do it with a speed-of-light delay, or separate two clocks and find that relativity changed the timings. Of course, Occam's razor indicates that a consistent speed is more likely, but that's not proof. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.87|172.70.126.87]] 12:42, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
:Observing two points (nominal source and nominal destination) from a third point perpendicularly off the mid-point between thoss two points, at an arbitrary distance, you ought to see if there's slowness or instaneity involved (at least make a comparison between bidirectional traversal). This does not remove a response bias in the signal from either end as sent towards the recorder at the observation point, but as the stand-off is increased it makes both observation paths nearer and nearer to parallel and so significantly removes the quantifiable initial 'sideways bias' that may exist.
:I leave it as an excercise to the reader to produce the reasons why this might not practically work to quash all such 'inbuilt universal asymmetry', but it's a good start! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.141|172.70.90.141]] 13:21, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
:I genuinely don't understand the confusion being proposed here; in practice it's trivial to synchronize a single photon emitter with a single photon detector (such as a PMT) and confirm the speed of light across a single path, with no return trip involved. As far as I know there is know precidence in QM to suspect bidirectional travel could be a special case.
:I like Veritasium as much as the next guy, but I don't think that this one is a serious debate like the other examples. If you're going to consider something like this a great unsolved mystery in physics, I'm sure there are countless other questions just like this for almost every topic in physics and not everything can be a great unsolved mystery.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.134.23|172.70.134.23]] 17:37, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

To quote Randall Munroe in https://what-if.xkcd.com/114/, "The whole universe is matter, as far as we can tell. No one is sure why there is more matter than antimatter, since the laws of physics are pretty symmetrical, and there's no reason to expect there to be more of one than the other. Although when it comes down to it, there's no reason to expect anything at all." Antimatter aside, this shows that the laws of the universe are sometimes asymmetrical. I also like the point that "when it comes down to it, there's no reason to expect anything." Why should we expect the speed of light to be symmetrical? There's no real reason to. [[User:Beret|Beret]] ([[User talk:Beret|talk]]) 14:53, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
:On the contrary, without any such thing as the æther (the fundament through which we would be passing) there is no reason to expect the speed of light (in any given frame of reference) to be asymmetrical. Relativistic frame-dragging and other distortions due to (or resulting in!) accelerative forces will act accordingly, but not change ''c'' itself, in proper calculations, as a function to direction. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.12|172.70.86.12]] 16:02, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

::https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-way_speed_of_light In any case, the point is that there is no reason to expect light speed to be symmetrical, either. Asymmetry in this case is not due to frame dragging, it would be some fundamental feature of photons or the universe. There is currently no experimental way to test this. [[User:Beret|Beret]] ([[User talk:Beret|talk]]) 17:00, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Maybe we can cite one of some famous declarations of physicist saying the physics is almost done [https://nautil.us/blog/the-comforting-certainty-of-unanswered-questions (taken from this site)] :

:The British scientist William Cecil Dampier recalled his apprenticeship at Cambridge in the 1890s: “It seemed as though the main framework had been put together once for all, and that little remained to be done but to measure physical constants to the increased accuracy represented by another decimal place.” British physicist J. J. Thomson: “All that was left was to alter a decimal or two in some physical constant.” American physicist Albert A. Michelson: “Our future discoveries must be looked for in the sixth place of decimals.”
--[[User:Marceluda|Marceluda]] ([[User talk:Marceluda|talk]]) 15:32, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Talk:2552: The Last Molecule

2021-12-09T17:37:38Z

172.70.134.23:

Unsuccessfully tried to search for a match to the image of the chemical compound. Did find this, which is difficult to use on a cellphone: OSRA: Optical Structure Recognition: https://cactus.nci.nih.gov/cgi-bin/osra/index.cgi [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.172|172.70.211.172]] 07:43, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
:I've tried to search for SMILES of the molecule, but also got nothing: https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/#query=C1(C2CC(CCC)C(CC)C2(CCCC))C%3DCC(C(%3DCCC(%3DC)CC)C(C)C)%3DC1 [[Special:Contributions/162.158.222.137|162.158.222.137]]

I truly don't understand the God part of the current explanation. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.110.121|172.68.110.121]] 07:55, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
:There is an article at [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/humans-make-110000th-earths-biomass-180969141/ Smithonian Magazine] that sums it up quite nicely: Of the 550 gigatons of biomass carbon on Earth, animals make up about 2 gigatons, with insects comprising half of that and fish taking up another 0.7 gigatons. Everything else, including mammals, birds, nematodes and mollusks are roughly 0.3 gigatons, with humans weighing in at 0.06 gigatons.
::About half of all known living species on earth are insects. Therefore if there was a god who created all life, it would be reasonable to assume he likes them. [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 08:26, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Chemistry. I love chemistry :-) There is a concept called "Chemical Space" that I learned about in school. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_space may help, in short: Chemical space is a huge but finite space of all possible atom arrangements in molecules. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.106|162.158.91.106]] 07:59, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

I've heard the claim, that we know less about our own ocean floor than we do about the surface of Mars several times before. Is there actually a credible source for this and how do we even quantify how much we know about either area? [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 08:26, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
:This essay might shed some light on the question. [[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/just-how-little-do-we-know-about-the-ocean-floor/ Just How Little Do We Know about the Ocean Floor?]] From a geographical perspective, our maps of the ocean floor are much less detailed than those covering Mars. (5km resolution for ocean floor, 100m resolution for Mars - radar doesn't work underwater). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.18|162.158.107.18]] 09:25, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

The current explanation says that there are an infinite number of chemicals. Is that true? Source? Explanation how that is possible?
Obviously the number of possible molecules is huge, but is it actually a literal, mathematical infinite? Given a finite observable universe, with presumably a finite number of atoms in it. There appear to be a finite number of elements which are stable for any appreciable amount of time and capable of forming molecules.
It seems like there might be practical limitations to the size of a molecule, so that you can't keep making bigger and bigger ones just by adding more atoms/subunits?
If you just keep adding carbon atoms to a diamond will you eventually reach a point where forces such as gravitation become a factor and the molecular bonds fail? I can imagine that long chain molecules light years long might reach point where other forces overwhelm the bond strength? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.76|108.162.246.76]] 09:10, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
:For obvious reasons, as long as you limit the number of atoms involved the number of possible "molecules" is - in a mathematical sense - finite. (As there is only a finite number of reasonable stable elements.) But already simple things like polymers can bind millions of atoms in a single molecule. Together with the possible variations intrinsic to such polymers a simple "material" like phenolic resin [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenol_formaldehyde_resin]] is a mixture of more different chemical compounds (in a strict sense) than mankind can ever describe. For all practical application this compexity is not relevant, so no one really cares about.
Additionally there is no clear boundary between typical molecules and other types of condensed matter, like crystals. Same applies to biochemistry. Does chemistry include bio-molecules? If yes, the chemistry guy have to include all the gene sequencing in their to-do list.

"how fast does light travel in one direction?" is not a good example for incompleteness in physics, because this question was settled by Michelson and Morley in the 19th century (answer: it travels with the speed of light)
: It's not clear to me either what was meant here - seems out of place.
:We know how fast light travels when it goes somewhere and comes back – that's ''c'' – but we don't know how fast it goes when only traveling in one direction. For example, light going at ''c''/2 in one direction and returning instantaneously in the other would still match our observations. We also can't reliably synchronize clocks over a distance because we'd either have to do it with a speed-of-light delay, or separate two clocks and find that relativity changed the timings. Of course, Occam's razor indicates that a consistent speed is more likely, but that's not proof. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.87|172.70.126.87]] 12:42, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
:Observing two points (nominal source and nominal destination) from a third point perpendicularly off the mid-point between thoss two points, at an arbitrary distance, you ought to see if there's slowness or instaneity involved (at least make a comparison between bidirectional traversal). This does not remove a response bias in the signal from either end as sent towards the recorder at the observation point, but as the stand-off is increased it makes both observation paths nearer and nearer to parallel and so significantly removes the quantifiable initial 'sideways bias' that may exist.
:I leave it as an excercise to the reader to produce the reasons why this might not practically work to quash all such 'inbuilt universal asymmetry', but it's a good start! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.141|172.70.90.141]] 13:21, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
I genuinely don't understand the confusion being proposed here; in practice it's trivial to synchronize a single photon emitter with a single photon detector (such as a PMT) and confirm the speed of light across a single path, with no return trip involved. As far as I know there is know precidence in QM to suspect bidirectional travel could be a special case.
:I like Veritasium as much as the next guy, but I don't think that this one is a serious debate like the other examples. If you're going to consider something like this a great unsolved mystery in physics, I'm sure there are countless other questions just like this for almost every topic in physics and not everything can be a great unsolved mystery.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.134.23|172.70.134.23]] 17:37, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

To quote Randall Munroe in https://what-if.xkcd.com/114/, "The whole universe is matter, as far as we can tell. No one is sure why there is more matter than antimatter, since the laws of physics are pretty symmetrical, and there's no reason to expect there to be more of one than the other. Although when it comes down to it, there's no reason to expect anything at all." Antimatter aside, this shows that the laws of the universe are sometimes asymmetrical. I also like the point that "when it comes down to it, there's no reason to expect anything." Why should we expect the speed of light to be symmetrical? There's no real reason to. [[User:Beret|Beret]] ([[User talk:Beret|talk]]) 14:53, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
:On the contrary, without any such thing as the æther (the fundament through which we would be passing) there is no reason to expect the speed of light (in any given frame of reference) to be asymmetrical. Relativistic frame-dragging and other distortions due to (or resulting in!) accelerative forces will act accordingly, but not change ''c'' itself, in proper calculations, as a function to direction. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.12|172.70.86.12]] 16:02, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

::https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-way_speed_of_light In any case, the point is that there is no reason to expect light speed to be symmetrical, either. Asymmetry in this case is not due to frame dragging, it would be some fundamental feature of photons or the universe. There is currently no experimental way to test this. [[User:Beret|Beret]] ([[User talk:Beret|talk]]) 17:00, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Maybe we can cite one of some famous declarations of physicist saying the physics is almost done [https://nautil.us/blog/the-comforting-certainty-of-unanswered-questions (taken from this site)] :

:The British scientist William Cecil Dampier recalled his apprenticeship at Cambridge in the 1890s: “It seemed as though the main framework had been put together once for all, and that little remained to be done but to measure physical constants to the increased accuracy represented by another decimal place.” British physicist J. J. Thomson: “All that was left was to alter a decimal or two in some physical constant.” American physicist Albert A. Michelson: “Our future discoveries must be looked for in the sixth place of decimals.”
--[[User:Marceluda|Marceluda]] ([[User talk:Marceluda|talk]]) 15:32, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Talk:2550: Webb

2021-12-05T00:29:13Z

172.70.134.23:

Ah, without edit-conflict being indicated (probably because subsequent new paragraphs could be considered as not 'treading on the toes' of the first one posted), I seem to have added repetitious information. Also I can see that I misbalanced the paragraph sizes as I went into increasingly more detail as I got into the edit. Was going to go back to wikilink/fix/etc, but I should probably leave it to a new eye to better re-edit the whole think 'nicer', taking how much or little inspiration the current mess of text might provide. Have fun! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.41|172.70.85.41]] 04:49, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
: I tried to restructure it a bit (grouping related info, rebalancing paragraph sizes) and resolve the duplication without losing any important information. Hope it looks okay? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.133.99|172.68.133.99]] 05:46, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Could someone explain why the numbers are arranged the way they are?
: It looks like the mirror on the telescope. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.171|172.70.110.171]] 14:04, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
: If a magic hexagon was possible, he would have done it. However, the numbers add up to 243, and with 5 rows, this makes it impossible for each row to add up to the same number. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.173|172.70.110.173]] 16:29, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
: I know some advent calendars go in exact order, but a lot of them are actually ordered randomly. I've got one in my living room where the top row is "2, 17, 8, 10" [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.237|172.70.210.237]] 23:42, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Alternate explanation: all the astronomers are Moldovian Orthodox Catholics, and they timed the telescope to launch on Christmas Eve in their slightly out-of-sync calendar in which Christmas replaced days 2 & 3 of their week long Winter Solstice Party.[[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 17:28, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Why does it have the small hexagons oriented "pointy side up"? I know this is generally considered a good thing, as far as rocket launches are concerned, but in this case? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.88.91|162.158.88.91]] 20:28, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

The cells on the calendar go from 5 to 22, which I assumed was a reference that astronomers have been waiting since 2005 (when the current mission was replanned) until 2022 (the year the telescope will become active). Rather than counting down 25 days until Christmas, astronomers are counting down 18 years (inclusive) until they get their new toys to play with. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.134.23|172.70.134.23]] 00:29, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

2549: Edge Cake

2021-12-03T22:08:37Z

172.70.134.23: Incorrect name; the subject of the birthday confusion is Emily, not Megan.

{{comic
| number = 2549
| date = December 1, 2021
| title = Edge Cake
| image = edge_cake.png
| titletext = Every time IERS adds or removes a leap second, they send me a birthday cake out of superstition.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by FRINGE FRUITCAKE – Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

[[Megan]]—possibly an {{w|IERS}} (International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems) agent—wishes Emily, represented as [[Hairbun]], Happy Birthday. This prompts a confused [[Cueball]] to ask if her birthday was sometime last month. Emily explains that she was born over the North Pole in a plane, meaning that she was born in every timezone at once. Technically though this is false, as there are some timezones (such as {{w|Nepal Standard Time|UTC+5:45}}) that are not represented at the north pole. Except for the one hour before it's midnight at the International Date Line, the date in eastern time zones is one day ahead of western time zones, so Megan would have been born on two days at once. However, since the concept of time zones is thus irrelevant, researchers in the Arctic at or near the North Pole use {{w|Coordinated Universal Time}} as the [http://www.thoughtco.com/the-north-pole-1435098 local time standard] by convention. Thus it could have been said that [[Megan]] was born on the date that it was at that time in UTC.

Furthermore, it is extremely unlikely that she would have been born at the exact instant the plane was over the north pole, indeed, it is unlikely that the plane even traveled over the exact pole, as opposed to a few miles or even feet to either side of it. With modern positioning equipment such as GPS it should have been possible to determine which time zone the plane was in when she was born. Even in the impossibly unlikely event that she was directly above the pole at the instant of her birth, at jetliner speeds the plane was travelling about ten miles per minute, so a reasonable delay of even seconds in declaring "time of birth" would have placed the plane and her clearly in one time zone.

She also says that it was February 29th (presumably it was also February 28 or March 1 in some time zones). February 29th only happens at most once every four years in the Gregorian calendar, adding to the confusion - people born on February 29th often celebrate their non-leap-year birthdays on arbitrary days (or {{w|The_Pirates_of_Penzance#Synopsis|not at all}}). Normally {{w|Birth aboard aircraft and ships|one could simply use the time zone of the city the airplane took off from}}, but the airline company was changing ownership from one country to another at the time, so this option has apparently been ruled out. This is not terribly logical however, since contracts transferring ownership usually specify an exact time (commonly one minute before or after midnight in a specific time zone to avoid confusion on which day midnight is in) to come into effect. Regardless of which time zone(s) she was in when she was born this is an absolute time and if she was born before it she would have been born in an aircraft of the first country and if after it in an aircraft of the second country. Alternately, the time zone of the city the aircraft took off from doesn't change even if nationality of the plane changes in midair, so that should have still been an option.

The punchline is that rather than try to identify the correct birthday for Emily, the {{w|BIPM}} has decided to let her have birthdays whenever she wants. This doesn't make much sense, however. As noted above even if she was born in every time zone at once it could only have been on one of two days (February 29th, plus either February 28th or March 1st). Since it is common for people born on February 29th to celebrate on February 28th in non-leap years, it would have been trivial to pick the non-leap day present in some of the time zones (either February 28th or March 1st) and declare it Emily's birthday.

Both the comic title and Cueball's final line are puns on "{{w|edge case}}", an engineering term referring to situations or conditions that are unusual in a way likely to cause problems unless specifically accounted for. Edge pieces are generally only important with sheet goods (brownies sheet cakes, etc), which are typically cut into pieces creating a difference between pieces originating on the edge and pieces originating from the center. Since the sides of a cake are often frosted, an edge piece has two faces covered in frosting and a corner piece has three, while a center piece only has one. Depending upon your relative preferences between the surface (often icing over marzipan) and core body of the cake (which can be fruitcake, or some variety of spongecake, etc, but not actually obvious which until the cake is cut), it being an edge-faced slice can be considered a bonus. Cueball certainly seems to appreciate this.

The title text states that the {{w|IERS}} sends Emily a cake every time they add or remove a leap second, out of superstition (perhaps Megan is delivering that cake). The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service is in charge of global time standards. It occasionally adds one leap-second to {{w|Coordinated Universal Time}} to adjust for changes in the rotation speed of the Earth.

==Trivia==
Hairbun was last named "Emily" in [[788: The Carriage]]. More specifically, that version of Hairbun represented Emily Dickenson, a real, historical person who had no such issues regarding her birthday.{{Citation needed}}

==Transcript==
:[Megan is walking towards Cueball and Emily (who resembles Hairbun), holding a cake.]
:Megan: Happy birthday, Emily!
:Cueball: Wait, wasn't that last month? When's your birthday, anyways?
:Emily: It's complicated.

:[A diagram of a flight path over the North Pole, with meridian lines radiating out from the center. Emily's dialogue appears above the diagram, but she herself does not appear in this panel.]
:Emily: My mom went into labor on an arctic international flight that diverted directly over the North Pole.
:Emily: I was born in every time zone at once.

:[With Megan standing behind her, Emily holds out a plate of cake to Cueball.]
:Emily: It was also February 29th, and the airline was just changing ownership between countries.
:Emily: The International Bureau of Weights and Measures finally issued a declaration that it's my birthday whenever I want.
:Emily: Cake?
:Cueball: Nice, it's all edge pieces.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Time]]
[[Category:Engineering]]
[[Category:Science]]

Talk:2549: Edge Cake

2021-12-02T06:37:04Z

172.70.134.23:

The cake being all edges is a reference to everything about her birth being an edge case.
[[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.227|172.70.110.227]] 03:41, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
: It seems likely that the title of the comic is a related pun: her birthday is an edge case, and so she has an edge cake.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.221|162.158.106.221]] 04:22, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
So is Hairbun officially named Emily now, sort of like how all instances of Megan are Megan even though she's only called that once? I know all the names here are just placeholders of convenience, but even then I've never know what the rules for naming are. [[User:Captain Video|Captain Video]] ([[User talk:Captain Video|talk]]) 06:11, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Edge pieces on cake are often sought after because they hold more frosting, for cakes which are frosted while out of the pan. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.134.23|172.70.134.23]] 06:37, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

2548: Awful People

2021-11-30T02:26:14Z

172.70.134.23:

{{comic
| number = 2548
| date = November 29, 2021
| title = Awful People
| image = awful_people.png
| titletext = Hm, this burger place has a couple of good reviews, but LakeSlayer7 says he got food poisoning there and everyone should try this other place down by the lake instead.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a NORMAL PEER (DEFINITELY, TRUST ME, I PROMISE) - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT try that other place down by the lake.}}

Megan and Cueball are having a conversation about social media. Megan relates a negative comment she got from a stranger about her taste in movies. The twist is that it turns out the person criticizing her was a murderer. Although this does not inherently negate his taste in movies{{citation needed}}, it does free Megan from the burden of weighing his opinions equally to her own.

The title-text mentions the “Lake Slayer,” who is referenced in the comic. They mention that a burger joint in town is unsatisfactory, and that the reader should come to a place “by the lake” instead, which might be a plot to lure people in to be killed.

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

:[Cueball and Megan walking to the right]
:Cueball: The Internet makes it easy to be a jerk and forget the person we're talking to is a human.
:Megan: Yeah...
:Megan: But it also makes us see messages from awful people and assume they come from normal peers.

:[Closeup on Megan. Above Megan is a picture of a "reply" post from a man with sunglasses. The post has a title above it.]
:Megan: Recently I got a mean reply from a stranger. It was minor but it really got to me.
:Post title: Replies to "Favorite Movie"
:Post: Every group has one person who likes that movie, and it's the friend they all secretly hate.

:[Blondie as a news anchor behind a desk. There is a picture of the man with sunglasses with "Arrested" under his name. His picture is next to a picture of a house with "Breaking" above it.
:Megan: Then the next week I saw that guy on the news. He was an actual murderer!

:[Megan and Cueball standing next to each other]
:Megan: I can't believe I spent a week stressed out that my taste in movies wasn't shared by the East Valley Strangler.
:Cueball: Yeah, at ''least'' wait for a second opinion from the Lake Slayer.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Blondie]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Social networking]]