explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

nakedpictures

2025-04-09T08:16:24Z

172.70.162.161: /* Explanation */ Removing stub-paragraph (as and when anyone can answer the Incomplete Tag, they can write their own paragraph. Don't placeholder things!)

{{comic
| title = nakedpictures
| image = comply.png
| lappend = nakedpictures/
| extra = yes
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|There are many other xkcd pages like this and we're trying to decide how to add them to the wiki. Please see '''[[explain xkcd:Community portal/Proposals#Misc pages]]''' to discuss. Add explanation for webpage title.}}

While every other circle says "Comply", only one stands out by saying "No." This may represent one person rebelling against the masses. The meaning of the title is unclear.

This is presumably an older comic judging by the older handwriting style, as well as the sierpinski-type nesting which is also present in early comics such as [[95: The Sierpinski Penis Game]] and [[543: Sierpinski Valentine]].

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}
:[Many circles drawn within an irregular curved shape. All circles contain "COMPLY." in red text within, except for a smaller circle that says "NO."]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:No date]]
[[Category:No title text]]

2003: Presidential Succession

2025-03-23T19:15:03Z

172.70.162.161: /* List of specific individuals */ ...also looks like the Wikipage has lost its need for disambiguation. (Haven't checked its change/rename history.)

{{comic
| number = 2003
| date = June 6, 2018
| title = Presidential Succession
| image = presidential_succession.png
| titletext = Ties are broken by whoever was closest to the surface of Europa when they were born.
}}

==Explanation==
The {{w|United States presidential line of succession}} is the order of people who serve as president if the current incumbent president is incapacitated, dies, resigns, or is removed from office. The {{w|Presidential Succession Act#Presidential Succession Act of 1947|Presidential Succession Act of 1947}} revised the presidential order of succession to its current order. This Act, though never challenged in the courts, may not be constitutional for two reasons. First, the Act names two members of Congress as successors. There are fundamental questions as to whether this violates the principle of Separation of Powers. The second issue is that the Act allows for anyone skipped over for succession to later assume the office if circumstances change to allow them to hold it. This would mean that the person in question could effectively unseat a sitting President, which raises serious constitutional issues.

There are also practical concerns regarding the Act. The line of succession includes all members of the Cabinet in the order that their department was established, with the oldest departments first. No consideration is given to which departments would be most relevant to the Presidency, particularly considering that this type of succession would presumably involve a serious crisis, which the new president would need to be able to address immediately. The Department of Homeland Security is in charge of the security and protection of the United States and its citizens and would probably already be privy to sensitive intelligence and briefings related to national security, but because it is the latest of the Departments to have been established (in 2003), the Secretary of Homeland Security is last in the current Presidential line of succession, behind Secretaries in much less sensitive roles, such as those of Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, and Education. Another concern is that, by including members of Congress immediately after the Vice President, there is a serious risk that the simultaneous death of the President and Vice President could cause the Presidency to change to the opposing party, which could lead to serious political instability at the precise moment when the country is facing a national crisis. It even presents the possibility that simultaneous assassinations of the President and Vice President could function as an effective coup, shifting power to their opponents.

Finally, there is the issue that, usually, everyone in the line of succession lives and works in Washington D.C. Hence, a sufficiently destructive attack or natural disaster impacting the city could realistically incapacitate all of them, leaving the USA leaderless at a time of extreme crisis. It is already established practice in the USA that everyone in this line not gather together at once. In cases where most senior government officials gather (such as the {{w| State of the Union}}), at least one member of the line of succession (referred to as the "designated survivor") is secured off-site, and would assume the presidency in the unlikely event that a {{w| mass casualty event}} were to kill or incapacitate everyone else in the line. However, disasters impacting an entire city remain a possibility, and no provision is made for them in current law.

To correct these issues, a think tank known as the {{w| Continuity of Government Commission}} prepared a report recommending a new line of succession, which would not include members of Congress, would reorder the cabinet secretaries so that the most suitable roles would be the first successors, and would include people who do not live or work in Washington DC. The full text of their report can be found [https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/06_continuity_of_government.pdf here]. A short, readable summary, including the report's recommended new line of succession, is [https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-continuity-of-the-presidency-the-second-report-of-the-continuity-of-government-commission here].

The first six members of the commission's list are taken from the current line of succession, though the order is changed; they propose that after this, five new people should be appointed specifically for the purpose of assuming the presidency, if needed. Randall's list begins with these eleven people (combining the five new appointees into #7); afterwards, his list becomes increasingly comical and ridiculous.

Randall's list omits members of Congress, as well as other cabinet positions, in accordance with the report's concerns about constitutionality and qualifications. However, his other additions totally ignore these issues, including people with no apparent qualifications for the office (such as actors, athletes, and competitive eaters) and people who are constitutionally ineligible for the office. The US Constitution requires that the President of the United States must be a natural-born US citizen, at least 35 years of age, and have resided in the US for at least fourteen years. Randall's list includes many people who don't meet these requirements. Most notably, he includes the entire succession to the British crown, almost none of whom meet the requirement of being natural-born citizens of the United States.

It may be expected that many of the athletes, musicians and actors on this list are likely to be ineligible as well. Most professional athletes in the relevant sports are under 35 years old, particularly those at the peak of their careers (when they'd likely win MVP awards), the most popular musicians also tend to be younger than 35, and many who meet these requirements were not born US citizens (and some many not even reside in the US). However, the existing line of succession can also contain ineligible people, who would simply be skipped over for succession. For example, at the comic's publication, {{w|Elaine Chao}} was the Secretary of Transportation and would normally be 14th in line, but because she is a naturalized citizen of the US, rather than native-born (she was born in Taiwan) she would not qualify for the office if the line came to her. The presidential line of succession was first mentioned in [[1933: Santa Facts]].

The title text mentions that ties will be broken by whoever was closest to the surface of {{w|Europa}} when they were born. Europa is a moon of Jupiter and one of the most likely locations in the Solar System for {{w|Habitability of natural satellites|potential habitability}}. This is likely a parody of systems in which ties are broken by semi-arbitrary rules (such as the older candidate automatically winning a tie) or a randomized ones (such as ties being decided by a coin flip). The position of Europa with respect to Earth at the time of one's birth depends on enough factors that it acts as a pseudo-random tie breaker, albeit a needlessly complicated one.

==Order of succession==
{| class="wikitable sortable"
!#
!Randall's order
!Current order by the 1947 Act
!Notes
|-
|1
|{{w|POTUS|President}}
|President
|Not generally considered part of the line of succession, as incumbents cannot "succeed" to their own post. (This should really be item 0 on the list.)
|-
|2
|{{w|POTUS|Vice president}}
|Vice president
|This is the same as in the actual line of succession. Succeeding the President is one of the only two roles assigned to the Vice President by the Constitution, the other being presiding over the Senate (including breaking ties), but Vice Presidents are often given additional roles during office.
|-
|3
|{{w|United States Secretary of State|Secretary of State}}
|Speaker of the House of Representatives
|Moved up from 5th position. This is likely a serious suggestion. As mentioned above, the existing Succession Act includes the Speaker of the House and President Pro Tempore of the Senate, which presents serious practical and constitutional issues. The Secretary of State is the chief officer responsible for the country's international relations and diplomatic missions, and would be a logical successor, particularly in times of crisis.
|-
|4
|{{w|United States Secretary of Defense|Secretary of Defense}}
|{{w|President pro tempore of the United States Senate|President pro tempore of the Senate}}
|Moved up from 7th position. Also likely a serious suggestion. The existing succession places the Secretary of Defense behind the Secretary of the Treasury in succession. If the three preceding officials were simultaneously killed or incapacitated, there would be a high likelihood that the country was under attack, and other powers could easily try to take advantage of any power vacuum. Since the Secretary of Defense is most connected to the nation's military, and most in tune with information regarding potential threats and risks, this would be a logical succession.
|-
|5
|{{w|United States Secretary of Homeland Security|Secretary of Homeland Security}}
|Secretary of State
|Moved up from 19th position. Again likely a serious suggestion. As with the Secretary of Defense, this officer would likely be closely aligned with the national emergency response infrastructure (including overseeing the {{w|Federal Emergency Management Agency}}), and would be well equipped to deal with a major attack or natural disaster.
|-
|6
|{{w|United States Attorney General|Attorney General}}
|{{w|United States Secretary of the Treasury|Secretary of the Treasury}}
|Moved up from 8th position. Once again, likely a serious suggestion. The Attorney General oversees national law enforcement, and would be in a position to deal with internal chaos that could result from a disaster that impacted the federal government so deeply.
|-
|7
|Five people who do not live in {{w|Washington, D.C.}}, nominated at the start of the President's term and confirmed by the Senate
|Secretary of Defense
|Washington, D.C is the capital of the United States, and is where the {{w|White House}}, the President's residence, is located. Presumably this provision covers the case where much of the government, including positions 1–6 here, are killed by a natural disaster or attack in Washington, D.C.

This suggestion establishes no qualifications for these people, but the fact that they'd need to be confirmed by the Senate suggests that they would be chosen to be competent for the role. It is also unclear if an order is determined among these five or if they take up a joint presidency. This suggestion is taken from the Second Report of the Continuity of Government Commission to prevent the danger of the entire line of succession being removed in a single event.
|-
|8
|{{w|Tom Hanks}}
|Attorney General
|Academy Award-winning American actor. This is the first unambiguously unserious suggestion.{{Citation needed}} Tom Hanks is very popular and considered exceptionally likeable by many Americans, but has never served in public office or displayed any particular affinity for politics. The implication is that Mr. Hanks would be easily accepted as a leader, based solely on his personal charm. It should also be noticed that Tom Hanks played Jim Lovell, who served in the navy before becoming an astronaut (Many early astronauts were former military members.), in ''Apollo 13'', a military captain in ''Saving Private Ryan'', a prison officer in ''The Green Mile'', a naval intelligence officer in ''James B. Donovan'', and a member of the House of Representatives in ''Charlie Wilson's War''; if Tom Hanks's appearances in movies counted as real-life experience, then he would be adequately qualified.
|-
|9
|State Governors, in descending order of state population at last census
|{{w|United States Secretary of the Interior|Secretary of the Interior}}
|Also taken from Second Report of the Continuity of Government Commission. At the time of publication, the last {{w|United States Census}} was the 2010 Census. As California is the most populous state, its Governor ({{w|Jerry Brown}} at the time of publication) would have been first in line.

See also the {{w|2010_United_States_Census#State_rankings|state population rankings}} and the {{w|list of current United States governors}}. As worded, this criterion would exclude territorial governors (and the Mayor of Washington, D.C.).
|-
|10
|Anyone who won an Oscar for playing a governor
|{{w|United States Secretary of Agriculture|Secretary of Agriculture}}
|Oscars, or {{w|Academy Awards}}, are annual film awards awarded by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. At the time of publication, the only Oscar awarded for playing a governor was {{w|Broderick Crawford}}'s 1949 Best Actor award for the fictional Willie Stark in ''{{w|All the King's Men (1949 film)|All the King's Men}}'' (a character based on {{w|Huey Long}}). However, Crawford died in 1986, so would be unable to serve as President.

This may be a reference to the {{w|Political career of Arnold Schwarzenegger}}: a highly-lauded actor who became governor of California, but did not win an Oscar or play a governor before being elected. (As a naturalized citizen, he is also ineligible for the Presidency.)
There is also humor in suggesting that playing a governor delivers just as much experience as being a governor. (Something similar was mentioned in the section about Tom Hanks, who played, among other things, a member of the House of Representatives.)
|-
|11
|Anyone who won a Governor's award for playing someone named Oscar
|{{w|United States Secretary of Commerce|Secretary of Commerce}}
|The {{w|Governors Awards}} are an annual award ceremony hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to present lifetime achievement awards within the film industry. As this award is a lifetime achievement award, it does not seem possible that an actor could win this award for simply playing someone named Oscar. Notwithstanding the nature of the award, at the time of publication, no recipient of a Governors Award has played a character named Oscar.

Obviously, the joke is that changing the order of the words from the previous proposal produces something that could actually exist.
|-
|12
|{{w|Kate McKinnon}}, if available
|Secretary of Labor
|Comedic actress famous for being a cast member on {{w|Saturday Night Live}}. She is known for her character work and celebrity impressions. She has recently done impersonations of members of the Trump administration including Spokeswoman {{w|Kellyanne Conway}} and Attorney General {{w|Jeff Sessions}}. She also played {{w|Hillary Clinton}} during the 2016 campaign and presumably would have played her when she was President had she won; but since Clinton lost, McKinnon has not actually played a President. At the time the comic was released, she was 34 years 5 months old; thus she was not "available" until seven months later. Being available could also refer to not already having an acting commitment, in which case the comic would be humorously implying that fulfilling her acting roles is more important than the country having leadership.
|-
|13
|Billboard Year-End Hot 100 Singles artists #1 through #10 (for groups, whoever is credited first in name, liner notes, etc)
|Secretary of Health and Human Services
|The {{w|Billboard Hot 100}} is the music industry standard record chart in the United States for singles, published weekly by Billboard magazine. The weekly data is aggregated into a cumulative {{w|Billboard Year-End}} (based on a "year" that ends the third week of November, in order to meet December publication deadlines). At the time of publication, the most recent such list was the {{w|Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 2017}}.

Based on that list, the artists considered for the presidential succession would be: {{w|Ed Sheeran}}, {{w|Luis Fonsi}}, {{w|Bruno Mars}}, {{w|Kendrick Lamar}}, Alex Pall (of {{w|The Chainsmokers}}), {{w|Quavo|Quavoius Keyate Marshall}} (of {{w|Migos}}), {{w|Sam Hunt}}, {{w|Dan Reynolds}} (of {{w|Imagine Dragons}}), and {{w|Post Malone}}. There are only nine names instead of ten because The Chainsmokers had two of the top 10 singles in 2017. Of these, only Luis Fonsi (40 years old, born in Puerto Rico) was legally eligible for the office; all the others were too young, and Sheeran is additionally from the United Kingdom.
|-
|14
|The top 5 US astronauts in descending order of total spaceflight time
|Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
|Astronauts are highly respected and rigorously selected, but most have little involvement in politics. According to [https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-station-astronaut-record-holders NASA], the top 5 US astronauts by cumulative space time at the time of publication were: {{w|Peggy Whitson}}, {{w|Jeffrey Williams (astronaut)|Jeff Williams}}, {{W|Scott Kelly (astronaut)|Scott Kelly}} (whose brother {{w|Mark Kelley (astronaut)|Mark}} is a sitting US Senator), {{w|Mike Fincke}}, and {{w|Mike Foale}}. However, it is unclear whether Foale would qualify as a natural-born citizen, as he was born in the United Kingdom to a British father and American mother.
|-
|15
|{{w|Serena Williams}} (or, if she lost her most recent match, whoever beat her)
|Secretary of Transportation
|As of the time of publication, Serena Williams was a top female tennis player. She is arguably the greatest female tennis player of all-time, winning 39 {{w|Grand Slam (tennis)|Grand Slam}} titles, including 23 women's singles titles. At the time of publication Serena Williams did win her most recent match (2018 French Open, third round, on June 2nd), although she withdrew from her next match against Maria Sharapova (which perhaps should count as a loss, especially if she withdrew in order to preserve her place in the line of succession and killed everyone in place ahead of her).

If her most recent defeat was to a non-US player, presumably she would be skipped over in line although this is not explicitly stated (the current succession list skips over anyone who would not normally qualify for not being a natural-born US citizen).
|-
|16
|The most recent season NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL MVPs
|Secretary of Energy
|MVP stands for {{w|Most Valuable Player}}. The 4 listed leagues are the major sports leagues in the United States, the {{w|National Basketball Association}} (NBA), the {{w|National Football League}} (NFL), {{w|Major League Baseball}} (MLB), and the {{w|National Hockey League}} (NHL). We're assuming that Randall meant the regular season MVPs of each league, as each league also awards MVPs for their respective championships (or in the case of the NHL's {{w|Conn Smythe Trophy}}, their entire playoffs).

As of the time of publication, the most recent MVPs for the listed sports were {{w|Russell Westbrook}} (NBA), {{w|Tom Brady}} (NFL), {{w|José Altuve}} and {{w|Giancarlo Stanton}} (MLB has two, one for the American League and one for the National League), and {{w|Connor McDavid}} (NHL). Of these, only Brady would qualify for the list - Altuve and McDavid are Venezuelan and Canadian citizens respectively, and Westbrook (29) and Stanton (28) were too young.
|-
|17
|{{w|Bill Pullman}} and his descendants by absolute primogeniture
|Secretary of Education
|American actor, known for playing President Thomas J. Whitmore in the 1996 film ''{{w|Independence Day (1996 film)|Independence Day}}''.

Absolute primogeniture is a form of succession where the oldest direct descendant regardless of gender receives the title. This is contrasted to {{w|Male-preference primogeniture}}, in which males come before females in the order of the throne, whether the males were born first or not. This may be a reference to the British law {{w|Succession to the Crown Act 2013}}, which changed the order of the throne from male-preference primogeniture to absolute primogeniture. This act allows {{w|Princess Charlotte of Cambridge|Princess Charlotte}} to retain her place in line before {{w|Prince Louis of Cambridge|Prince Louis}}.

At the time of publication, Pullman's immediate descendants consisted of three children, with Maesa Pullman being the oldest at age 29. Thus all but Bill Pullman himself were too young for the presidency.
|-
|18
|The entire line of succession to the British throne
|Secretary of Veterans Affairs
|According to the Constitution, only a natural-born citizen of the United States can become President, which means that at least most of the line of succession to the British throne is ineligible. However, it is possible that someone in the line of succession to the British throne either is a dual citizen or is not British (a person from outside of Britain or Ireland can become King; for example, some, including George I, were from what is now Germany).

The first 59 names on the list are {{w|Succession_to_the_British_throne#Current_line_of_succession|here}}. [https://lineofsuccession.co.uk/?date=2018-06-06 British Line of Succession on 6 June 2018] shows the list as it was at the comic's publication. American citizens [http://articles.latimes.com/1988-02-11/news/vw-42233_1_royal-house have, at times] been on the list, but no natural-born Americans were on the list when the comic was published. However, after this comic was published {{w|Archie Mountbatten-Windsor}} was born on May 6, 2019; he is currently seventh in the line of succession to the British throne and has US citizenship through his mother {{w|Meghan, Duchess of Sussex}}. As with Mark Foale, though, whether that qualifies as natural-born has not be tested (leaving aside his age and the fact that many royals in his position have historically relinquished their birthright US citizenship voluntarily, which he may choose to do once he reaches age 16). In theory, the full British succession list includes [http://www.wargs.com/essays/succession/2011.html several thousand people] (living descendants of {{w|Sophia of Hanover}} who are not Roman Catholic or otherwise disqualified), and it is possible that one or more such people would also be eligible to be President of the United States beyond Master Archie. Archie's sister Lillibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor was born in Santa Barbara, California, USA, on June 4, 2021, making her definitively a natural born US citizen, and thus, theoretically eligible to become US president upon turning 35.

The humor here derives from the fact that the United States was established by declaring independence from the United Kingdom, with rejection of the British monarchy being a basic founding principle, and a core principle of US governance. To appoint the British monarchy to the American presidency would contradict the basic goals of American independence. Alternatively, it may reference the recent wedding of {{w|Prince Harry}} to {{w|Meghan Markle}}, although she is not in the order of succession. A similar sequence of events was the plotline of the comedy film ''{{w|King Ralph}}'', which saw an American become the British monarch after the death of the royal family.
|-
|19
|The current champion of the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating contest
|Secretary of Homeland Security
|The {{w|Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest}} is an annual American hot dog competitive eating competition sponsored by {{w|Nathan's Famous}} held on July 4th. As of the time of publication, the most recent men's winner was {{w|Joey Chestnut}} and the women's winner was {{w|Miki Sudo}}. At the time of publication, neither was old enough to assume the office.

The comic does not specify whether the men's or women's winner should take office, creating a tie that would be broken by distance from Europa at birth. Had they both been eligible, [https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/29132/was-earth-closer-to-europa-on-1983-11-25-or-1985-07-22 Sudo would have won] by between 0.125 and 2.2 {{w|Astronomical unit}}s.
|-
|20
|All other US citizens, chosen by a 29-round single-elimination Jousting tournament
|''None''
|Effective for a population up to 536,870,912 individuals (2^29) which would be enough to cover the entire US population (estimated at around 325 million at time of publication), although additional rounds can be added should the population grow further.

This is probably a reference to the {{w|Matter of Britain}} (e.g., {{w|The Sword in the Stone (film)|The Sword in the Stone}}), where, after the death of Uther Pendragon, with no known successor to the throne of Britain (some versions of the legend refer incorrectly to England) for years, it is decided that the winner of a jousting tournament shall be crowned. However, Arthur, the Wart, pulls the Sword from the Stone.
|}

===List of specific individuals===
Based on the comic's defined criteria for the order of succession, these are the specific individuals in that order, including only people who are otherwise eligible to be the President of United States (35 year old and natural born US citizens who lived in US for last 14 years) '''as of the date the comic was published'''.
#[[Donald Trump]] ({{w|President of the United States}})
#{{w|Mike Pence}} ({{w|Vice President of the United States}})
#{{w|Mike Pompeo}} ({{w|United States Secretary of State}})
#{{w|Jim Mattis}} ({{w|United States Secretary of Defense}})
#{{w|Kirstjen Nielsen}} ({{w|United States Secretary of Homeland Security}})
#{{w|Jeff Sessions}} ({{w|United States Attorney General}})
#*''As Donald Trump did not appoint anyone to fill position #7 on Randall's line of succession, Hanks immediately followed after Sessions.''
#{{w|Tom Hanks}} (Tom Hanks)
#{{w|Jerry Brown}} (Governor of California)
#{{w|Greg Abbott}} (Governor of Texas)
#{{w|Andrew Cuomo}} (Governor of New York)
#{{w|Rick Scott}} (Governor of Florida)
#{{w|Bruce Rauner}} (Governor of Illinois)
#{{w|Tom Wolf}} (Governor of Pennsylvania)
#{{w|John Kasich}} (Governor of Ohio)
#{{w|Rick Snyder}} (Governor of Michigan)
#{{w|Nathan Deal}} (Governor of Georgia)
#{{w|Roy Cooper}} (Governor of North Carolina)
#{{w|Phil Murphy}} (Governor of New Jersey)
#{{w|Ralph Northam}} (Governor of Virginia)
#{{w|Jay Inslee}} (Governor of Washington)
#{{w|Charlie Baker}} (Governor of Massachusetts)
#{{w|Eric Holcomb}} (Governor of Indiana)
#{{w|Doug Ducey}} (Governor of Arizona)
#{{w|Bill Haslam}} (Governor of Tennessee)
#{{w|Mike Parson}} (Governor of Missouri)
#{{w|Larry Hogan}} (Governor of Maryland)
#{{w|Scott Walker (politician)|Scott Walker}} (Governor of Wisconsin)
#{{w|Mark Dayton}} (Governor of Minnesota)
#{{w|John Hickenlooper}} (Governor of Colorado)
#{{w|Kay Ivey}} (Governor of Alabama)
#{{w|Henry McMaster}} (Governor of South Carolina)
#{{w|John Bel Edwards}} (Governor of Louisiana)
#{{w|Matt Bevin}} (Governor of Kentucky)
#{{w|Kate Brown}} (Governor of Oregon) ''Born in Spain to a member of the US Air Force, should be considered a natural-born citizen until proven otherwise.''
#{{w|Mary Fallin}} (Governor of Oklahoma)
#{{w|Dannel Malloy}} (Governor of Connecticut)
#{{w|Kim Reynolds}} (Governor of Iowa)
#{{w|Phil Bryant}} (Governor of Mississippi)
#{{w|Asa Hutchinson}} (Governor of Arkansas)
#{{w|Jeff Colyer}} (Governor of Kansas)
#{{w|Gary Herbert}} (Governor of Utah)
#{{w|Brian Sandoval}} (Governor of Nevada)
#{{w|Susana Martinez}} (Governor of New Mexico)
#{{w|Jim Justice}} (Governor of West Virginia)
#{{w|Pete Ricketts}} (Governor of Nebraska)
#{{w|Butch Otter}} (Governor of Idaho)
#{{w|David Ige}} (Governor of Hawaii)
#{{w|Paul LePage}} (Governor of Maine)
#{{w|Chris Sununu}} (Governor of New Hampshire)
#{{w|Gina Raimondo}} (Governor of Rhode Island)
#{{w|Steve Bullock (American politician)|Steve Bullock}} (Governor of Montana)
#{{w|John Carney (politician)|John Carney}} (Governor of Delaware)
#{{w|Dennis Daugaard}} (Governor of South Dakota)
#{{w|Bill Walker (U.S. politician)|Bill Walker}} (Governor of Alaska)
#{{w|Doug Burgum}} (Governor of North Dakota)
#{{w|Phil Scott (politician)|Phil Scott}} (Governor of Vermont)
#{{w|Matt Mead}} (Governor of Wyoming)
#*''Entries 10 and 11 on Randall's list had no eligible living members.''
#*''Kate McKinnon was only 34 years 5 months old at the time the comic was released, making her ineligible at that time.''
#{{w|Luis Fonsi}} (Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 2017, #2 artist) ''Fonsi was the only eligible individual under the Billboard criterion.''
#{{w|Peggy Whitson}} (Astronaut, 665 days in space)
#{{w|Jeffrey Williams (astronaut)|Jeff Williams}} (Astronaut, 534 days in space)
#{{w|Scott Kelly}} (Astronaut, 520 days in space)
#{{w|Mike Fincke}} (Astronaut, 382 days in space)
#{{w|Mike Foale}} (Astronaut, 374 days in space) ''Foale was born in the UK but his mother is an American, and he holds dual citizenship with both countries. It isn't clear legally whether this situation would qualify him as being a "natural-born" citizen as US courts have never definitively ruled on what the term means, so similar to Governor Kate Brown his name is included in the list as being not ruled out.''
#{{w|Serena Williams}} ''Serena's place on this list assumed that you do not count her withdrawal against Maria Sharapova as a ''loss''; if that counted as a loss, then subsequent entries moved up one position (as Sharapova was ineligible).''
#{{w|Tom Brady}} ({{w|National Football League Most Valuable Player Award|NFL MVP}}) ''The MVPs of all other listed sports leagues were ineligible for the office due to age or nationality.''
#{{w|Bill Pullman}} (Bill Pullman) ''None of his children were old enough to become President at that time.''
#Rowan Lascelles (was 64th in line to the throne at the time, born in Britain to an American mother)
#Sophie Lascelles (was 67th in line to the throne at the time, born in Britain to an American mother)
#Alexander Hohenzollern (was 111th in line to the throne at the time, born to an American mother abroad)
#{{w|Prince Peter of Yugoslavia|Prince Peter of Yugoslavia}} (was 113th in line to the throne at the time, born in the US)
#{{w|Philip, Hereditary Prince of Yugoslavia|Philip, Hereditary Prince of Yugoslavia}} (was 114th in line to the throne at the time, born in the US)
#{{w|Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia (born 1982)|Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia}} (was 116th in line to the throne at the time, born in the US)
#Christopher Habsburg (was 128th in line to the throne at the time, born in the US)
#Peter Habsburg (was 132nd in line to the throne at the time, born in the US)
#Anton Habsburg (was 133rd in line to the throne at the time, born in the US)
#Ileana Snyder (was 134th in line to the throne at the time, born in the US)
#Constanza Bain (was 140th in line to the throne at the time, born in the US)
#Count Sandor von Hohenzollern (was 143rd in line to the throne at the time, mother is American)
#Count Gregor von Hohenzollern (was 145th in line to the throne at the time, mother is American)
#Marc Saint (was 303rd in line to the throne at the time, born in US)
#Carla Saint (was 304th in line to the throne at the time, born in US) ''This only covers the first 345 people in line to the throne, including Catholics, who, if they did not convert, would be excluded, but not including illegitimate or adoptive issue. This list is based on people who could plausibly have been eligible - people 35 and older who were either born in the US or at least one of their parents was. They could still be excluded based on residence or current citizenship.''
#Everyone else (as would be further determined by jousting tournament)

Based on the comic's defined criteria for the order of succession, these are the specific individuals in that order, including only people who are otherwise eligible to be the President of United States (35 year old and natural born US citizens who lived in US for last 14 years) '''as of the current date'''. (Last updated on 5 January 2025)



#{{w|Donald Trump}} ({{w|President of the United States}})
#{{w|JD Vance}} ({{w|Vice President of the United States}})
#{{w|Marco Rubio}} ({{w|United States Secretary of State}})
#{{w|Pete Hegseth}} ({{w|United States Secretary of Defense}})
# {{w|Kristi Noem}} ({{w|United States Secretary of Homeland Security}})
#{{w|Pam Bondi}} ({{w|United States Attorney General}})
#*''Donald Trump has not appointed anyone in accordance with item #7 on Randall's line of succession.''
#{{w|Tom Hanks}} (Tom Hanks)
#{{w|Gavin Newsom}} (Governor of California)
#{{w|Greg Abbott}} (Governor of Texas)
#{{w|Ron DeSantis}} (Governor of Florida)
#{{w|Kathy Hochul}} (Governor of New York)
#{{w|Josh Shapiro}} (Governor of Pennsylvania)
#{{w|J. B. Pritzker}} (Governor of Illinois)
#{{w|Mike DeWine}} (Governor of Ohio)
#{{w|Brian Kemp}} (Governor of Georgia)
#{{w|Josh Stein}} (Governor of North Carolina)
#{{w|Gretchen Whitmer}} (Governor of Michigan)
#{{w|Phil Murphy}} (Governor of New Jersey)
#{{w|Glenn Youngkin}} (Governor of Virginia)
#{{w|Bob Ferguson (politician)|Bob Ferguson}} (Governor of Washington)
#{{w|Katie Hobbs}} (Governor of Arizona)
#{{w|Maura Healey}} (Governor of Massachusetts)
#{{w|Bill Lee (Tennessee politician)|Bill Lee}} (Governor of Tennessee)
#{{w|Mike Braun}} (Governor of Indiana)
#{{w|Wes Moore}} (Governor of Maryland)
#{{w|Mike Kehoe}} (Governor of Missouri)
#{{w|Tony Evers}} (Governor of Wisconsin)
#{{w|Jared Polis}} (Governor of Colorado)
#{{w|Tim Walz}} (Governor of Minnesota)
#{{w|Henry McMaster}} (Governor of South Carolina)
#{{w|Kay Ivey}} (Governor of Alabama)
#{{w|Jeff Landry}} (Governor of Louisiana)
#{{w|Andy Beshear}} (Governor of Kentucky)
#{{w|Tina Kotek}} (Governor of Oregon)
#{{w|Kevin Stitt}} (Governor of Oklahoma)
#{{w|Ned Lamont}} (Governor of Connecticut)
#{{w|Spencer Cox (politician)|Spencer Cox}} (Governor of Utah)
#{{w|Kim Reynolds}} (Governor of Iowa)
#{{w|Joe Lombardo}} (Governor of Nevada)
#{{w|Sarah Huckabee Sanders}} (Governor of Arkansas)
#{{w|Tate Reeves}} (Governor of Mississippi)
#{{w|Laura Kelly}} (Governor of Kansas)
#{{w|Michelle Lujan Grisham}} (Governor of New Mexico)
#{{w|Jim Pillen}} (Governor of Nebraska)
#{{w|Brad Little}} (Governor of Idaho)
#{{w|Patrick Morrisey}} (Governor of West Virginia)
#{{w|Josh Green}} (Governor of Hawaii)
#{{w|Kelly Ayotte}} (Governor of New Hampshire)
#{{w|Janet Mills}} (Governor of Maine)
#{{w|Dan McKee}} (Governor of Rhode Island)
#{{w|Greg Gianforte}} (Governor of Montana)
#{{w|Matt Meyer}} (Governor of Delaware)
#{{w|Larry Rhoden}} (Governor of South Dakota)
#{{w|Kelly Armstrong}} (Governor of North Dakota)
#{{w|Mike Dunleavy (politician)|Mike Dunleavy}} (Governor of Alaska)
#{{w|Phil Scott (politician)|Phil Scott}} (Governor of Vermont)
#{{w|Mark Gordon (politician)|Mark Gordon}} (Governor of Wyoming)
#*''No eligible living members for #10 on the list.''
#*''No eligible living members for #11 on the list.''
#{{w|Kate McKinnon}} (Kate McKinnon, subject to availability)
#{{w|Kendrick Lamar}} (Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 2024, #6 artist)
#{{w|Peggy Whitson}} (Astronaut, 675 days in space; upcoming mission planned)
#{{w|Sunita Williams}} (Astronaut, 608 days in space; active, no missions planned)
#{{w|Jeffrey Williams}} (Astronaut, 534 days in space; retired)
#{{w|Mark Vande Hei}} (Astronaut, 523 days in space; active, no missions planned)
#{{w|Scott Kelly}} (Astronaut, 520 days in space; retired)
#*''{{w|Serena Williams}} lost the final match of her career against {{w|Ajla Tomljanović}}, who is ineligible due to age and nationality.''
#*''The most recent MVPs of all listed sports leagues are ineligible for the office due to age and/or nationality.''
#{{w|Bill Pullman}} (Bill Pullman)
#Maesa Pullman (born 1988, first descendant of Bill Pullman via absolute primogeniture)
#Jack Pullman (born 1989, became eligible 2024)


#Rowan Lascelles (currently 74th in line to the throne, born in Britain to an American mother)
#Tewa Lascelles (currently 75th in line to the throne, born in America)
#Sophie Lascelles (currently 77th in line to the throne, born in Britain to an American mother)
#Alexander Hohenzollern (currently 129th in line to the throne, born to an American mother abroad)
#{{w|Prince Peter of Yugoslavia|Prince Peter of Yugoslavia}} (currently 131st in line to the throne, born in the US)
#{{w|Philip, Hereditary Prince of Yugoslavia|Philip, Hereditary Prince of Yugoslavia}} (currently 132nd in line to the throne, born in the US)
#{{w|Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia (born 1982)|Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia}} (currently 135th in line to the throne, born in the US)
#Christopher Habsburg (currently 149th in line to the throne, born in the US)
#Saygan Habsburg (currently 151st in line to the throne, born in the US)
#Peter Habsburg (currently 154th in line to the throne, born in the US)
#Anton Habsburg (currently 155th in line to the throne, born in the US)
#Ileana Snyder (currently 156th in line to the throne, born in the US)
#Nicholas Snyder (currently 157th in line to the throne, born in the US)
#Alexandra Snyder (currently 159th in line to the throne, born in the US)
#Constanza Bain (currently 164th in line to the throne, born in the US)
#Count Sandor von Hohenzollern (currently 166th in line to the throne, mother is American)
#Count Gregor von Hohenzollern (currently 168th in line to the throne, mother is American)
#Hereditary Prince Alexander von Hohenzollern (currently 216th in line to the throne, born in US)
#Philippa von Hohenzollern (currently 217th in line to the throne, born in the US)
#Marc Saint (currently 337th in line to the throne, born in US)
#Carla Saint (currently 338th in line to the throne, born in US)
#*''This only covers the first 345 people in line to the throne, including Catholics, who, if they did not convert, would be excluded, but not including illegitimate or adoptive issue. Also includes several who may be ineligible due to the Royal Marriages Act. This list is based on people who could plausibly be eligible - people 35 and older who were either born in the US or at least one of their parents was. They could still be excluded based on residence or current citizenship.''
#{{w|Miki Sudo}} (Women’s champion of the 2024 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest; listed first due to being closer to Europa at birth) 
#{{w|Patrick Bertoletti}} (Men's champion of the 2024 Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest)
#Everyone else (through jousting tournament elimination) ''Assumes that the number of eligible US citizens does not exceed 536,870,912.''

==Transcript==
: A proposal for a new presidential line of succession
: Current politics aside, most experts agree the existing process is flawed. The Presidential Succession Act of 1947 is probably unconstitutional on several counts, and there are many practical issues with the system as well.
: (For more, see the surprisingly gripping ''Second Report of the Continuity of Government Commission'', June 2009.)
: Proposed line of succession:
:# President
:# Vice president
:# Secretary of State
:# Secretary of Defense
:# Secretary of Homeland Security
:# Attorney General
:# Five people who do not live in Washington DC, nominated at the start of the president's term and confirmed by the Senate
:# Tom Hanks
:# State Governors, in descending order of state population at last census
:# Anyone who won an Oscar for playing a governor
:# Anyone who won a Governor's award for playing someone named Oscar
:# Kate McKinnon, if available
:# Billboard year-end Hot 100 singles artists #1 through #10 (for groups, whoever is credited first in name, liner notes, etc)
:# The top 5 US astronauts in descending order of total spaceflight time
:# Serena Williams (or, if she lost her most recent match, whoever beat her)
:# The most recent season NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL MVPs
:# Bull Pullman and his descendants by absolute primogeniture
:# The entire line of succession to the British throne
:# The current champion of the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating contest
:# All other US citizens, chosen by a 29-round single-elimination Jousting tournament

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Politics]]

3059: Water Damage

2025-03-10T09:00:04Z

172.70.162.161: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 3059
| date = March 5, 2025
| title = Water Damage
| image = water_damage_2x.png
| imagesize = 612x329px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Your homeowner's insurance might cover it, but be sure to check the subductible.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Need to clean up the article and explain the joke more.}}
This comic became the second in a series about absurd results of [[:Category:Home Inspections|home inspections]]. The first, [[3037: Radon]] came out less than two months before this one.

[[Cueball]] is once again getting his home inspected by [[Ponytail]], using the exact same device as in the first comic and also making the same introductory comment: "Oof. I was afraid of that." This time, she alerts Cueball about {{w|water damage}}, normally caused by leaky pipes or roofs. Water damage is hazardous to homes due to its ability to instigate mold and have negative impacts on structural stability of the home. Instead of "regular water damage", she claims that the crust under Cueball's home suffers from water damage. The Earth's crust typically {{w|groundwater|contains water}}; she could be referring to {{w|erosion}}, which is one cause of {{w|subsidence}} and even {{w|sinkhole}}s, a concern to homeowners, but it soon becomes clear that she has different effects in mind.

Upon further investigation, Ponytail discovers that Cueball's home is near a {{w|subduction|subduction zone}}, a place where two {{w|tectonic plate}}s meet and one pushes beneath the other and descends deep into the Earth. This leads to the formation of magma as the descending plate heats up. The subducted material includes water in the form of hydrated minerals as well as liquid water, originally from seawater and seabed sediments drawn into the subducting fault. This moisture is forced out of the medium it is transported in and [https://www.bgs.ac.uk/discovering-geology/earth-hazards/volcanoes/how-volcanoes-form-2/ acts to lower the melting point of the adjacent rock], relative to what it would otherwise be, and allows magma to form more easily above the subduction interface. The magma can then force its way to the surface to form volcanoes, as Ponytail alludes to. However, there is nothing that Cueball can actually do about this.{{Citation needed}} Notably, as Cueball simply says there is a subduction some "off the coast", how far away it is from the house is very vague - his house could be right next to the coast, or inland by a large margin. The solution given is similarly colossal in scale, and "lithospheric dehumidifiers" on the scale needed would probably make the HOA upset, and possibly local governments. This treats the Earth itself as if it is part of Cueball's property, similar to Ponytail's previous appearance as an inspector.

An example of an area with many volcanoes caused by subduction is the {{w|Ring of Fire}} along the coasts of the Pacific Ocean. In the contiguous 48 states, the {{w|Cascade Volcanoes}} of the Pacific Northwest are the result of this type of subduction.

Ponytail suggests "{{w|lithospheric}} {{w|dehumidifier}}s" as a solution, which would presumably dry out the Earth's crust, but this is not realistically possible. In waterlogged ground, {{w|continuous flight augering}} or the {{w|Pressure grouting|injection of grouting}} can assist in isolating the foundations from the surrounding {{w|water table}}, but this has little use below the {{w|pedosphere}} and near-surface rock, such as down to the base of the upper plate involved in the subduction (well below the {{w|Mohorovičić discontinuity}}, tens of kilometers down). In addition, by drying out the crust, they might {{w|Groundwater-related subsidence|cause further subsidence}} and present additional hazards to the home.

The title text is a pun making a portmanteau of ''subduction'', explained above, and the ''{{w|deductible}}'', the amount an insurance policy requires you to pay before it starts to contribute to the cost of the losses or expenses it covers. The title text may also be a critique of the [https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2791 homeowners insurance crisis] in the United States at the time of the comic's posting.

Subduction has been the topic of a few comics, see other examples in the explanation for the recent comic [[3021: Seismologists]] that mentions it in the title text.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Ponytail stands to the left of Cueball. She is looking down at a meter of some sort in one hand, and is holding a clipboard in the other hand.]
:Ponytail: The crust under your house shows signs of water damage. Is there a subduction zone nearby?
:Cueball: Uh, I think there's one off the coast.
:Ponytail: Oof. I was afraid of that.

:[Closeup on Ponytail who is pointing to a diagram of subducting faults.]
:Ponytail: Subducting hydrous minerals carry water down into the mantle, causing melting in the overlying crust. If you let this go, you'll have volcanoes everywhere.

:[Cueball, with his hand to his chin, looks at the diagram. Ponytail, holding her equipment, is standing behind him.]
:Cueball: Is there any solution?
:Ponytail: Giant lithospheric dehumidifiers. But the installation won't be cheap.
:Cueball: ''Oh no...''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Home Inspections]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Geology]]
[[Category:Volcanoes]]
[[Category:Subduction]]
[[Category:Portmanteau]]

3049: Incoming Asteroid

2025-02-12T21:51:12Z

172.70.162.161: /* List of sizes and consequences */

{{comic
| number = 3049
| date = February 10, 2025
| title = Incoming Asteroid
| image = incoming_asteroid_2x.png
| imagesize = 454x570px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The bottom ones are also potentially bad news for any other planets in our solar system that have been counting on Earth having a stable orbit.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an incoming bearer of bad news - List should probably be in a table, which should probably be done by someone with experience in creating tables. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic may be inspired by the recent discovery of asteroid {{w|2024 YR4|2024 YR4}}, which, on the date of the comic (February, 10, 2025), was estimated to have about 1-in-48 chance of striking Earth on December 22, 2032. Its size is estimated to be 40-90 meters. Currently, it is rated a 3 (out of a maximum of 10) on the {{w|Torino scale}}, a metric designed to evaluate the danger of a potential strike from a {{w|near-Earth object}}. On this comic's scale (see [[#List of sizes and consequences|details below]]) it would be placed on the fourth label, the first label with bad news, as it could wipe out a city with a direct hit.

The Torino scale specifically addresses the future chance of impact, however, as well as the resulting energy (rather than pure mass or size) brought by the prospective impactor, and the retroactive Torino 8 classification of the similarly-sized Tunguska meteor, given as an 'example' in the table, is not really in the intended scope of the rating system, with events that have already happened already having reached 100% possibility with nothing left to plan for. For all foreseeable events, it is expected that the odds of impact (and therefore the Torino number) will continue to change as further observations refine the expected path into the vicinity of Earth, one or more times; it is generally hoped that all objects of interest will eventually reduce to zero, but for anything to reach levels 8 to 10 indicates the near-certainty of three distinct ranges of significant impact, which ''would'' need to be prepared for in one or more ways.

This comic provides a log scale correlating the size of any incoming asteroid to whether its arrival is good or bad news. While asteroids on the smaller end of the scale are good news for sky watchers, as the upcoming objects get bigger, the potential for catastrophe grows. Many astronomy enthusiasts would be happy to see bigger meteors, as bigger generally means more exciting pictures. Of course, once the meteors grow past a certain size even the most enthusiast astronomer might grow concerned about their imminent extinction.{{cn}}

The title text adds an additional point about asteroids on the lower end of the scale, which have enough mass to change Earth's orbit. If it changed enough it might intersect the orbit of other planets (probably Venus or Mars, since those are the closest). This might lead to Earth colliding with that planet. Also, even without a collision, the changed orbit might perturb '''their''' orbits due to the Earth's gravitational force and cause negative consequences by either invoking or revoking {{w|Commensurability (astronomy)|orbital resonances}} between the various inner planets.

===List of sizes and consequences===
Sizes are approximate.
{|class="wikitable"
! scope="col" | Size
! scope="col" | Randall's news
! scope="col" | Explanation
|-
|'''1 cm'''
|Good news! Meteors are pretty!
|Burn up in the atmosphere, becoming nothing more than a streak in the sky.
|-
|'''30 cm'''
|Great news! You might see a fireball!
|Might descend far enough for the flames of its entry to be visible with the naked eye ({{w|bolide}}).
|-
|'''3 m'''
|Okay news, unless you have expensive windows or are very unlucky.
|Can descend far enough for the shockwave of its passing to shatter windows. The comic mockingly claims this is only a problem if your windows are expensive or happen to get directly hit by it. Of course, the shattering windows are also concerns for safety, as the {{w|Chelyabinsk meteorite}}, which sits near the upper bound of this category at approximately 18 m in diameter, damaged more than 7,000 buildings and injured around 1,500 people with its shockwave.
|-
|'''60 m'''
|Bad news, especially if you live near the city it's aimed at.
|The {{w|Tunguska event|Tunguska meteor}}, which flattened and burnt over 2,000 km2 of Siberian forest in 1908, was 50-60 m across. It would have been rated an 8 on the Torino scale as a certain collision with localized destruction, the very lowest level of active concern for any (near-)certain event.
|-
|'''600 m'''
|Bad news, especially if you live on the continent it's aimed at.
|Can easily cause localized extinction, and can be expected to have effects on the rest of the world as well.
|-
|'''9 km'''
|Bad news for your species.
|The {{w|Chicxulub crater|Chicxulub asteroid}} that wiped out non-avian dinosaurs was about 10 km in diameter.
|-
|'''50 km'''
|Bad news for your phylum.
|{{w|Chordate|Our phylum}} is primarily all the vertebrate animals. The implication is that an asteroid over five times as wide (thus 125 times as massive) as the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs would cause the extinction of every animal with a spinal cord, which includes all of the higher life forms on earth (fish, and mammals). Presumably other, less complex, forms of life would survive.
|-
|'''300 km'''
|Bad news for your biosphere.
|A global extinction event is pretty much guaranteed.
|-
|'''2,000 km'''
|Good news for any life that might someday evolve on Earth's new moon.
|Earth's moon is believed to have been formed when Earth, in its infancy, was hit by an object of roughly this size. The comic assumes that another moon would form from another such impact, hypothesizes that life might evolve on that moon, {{tvtropes|BadNewsInAGoodWay|and pretends that it's good news}}. Is is almost guaranteed that this would be so disruptive it would eliminate all life on earth either directly (via the heat and shock of the impact) or indirectly (via the loss of the oceans, much of the atmosphere, dust blocking the sun, or the entire surface of the earth being covered in magma) - however, there are {{w|Extremophile|extremophiles}} which could possibly survive the resulting conditions.
|-
|'''25,000 km'''
|Bad news for whatever planet is about to get hit by Earth.
|At this size, the "asteroid" is over twice as large as Earth itself (whose diameter is about 12,700 km) and would likely be classified as a planet. (Unofficially, at least. ''Officially,'' there would be quibbling about whether it had {{w|Clearing the neighbourhood|"cleared its neighborhood."}} Briefly, for two reasons: first, that anyone that discussed this is now dea; and second, that it now has cleared Earth from it's neighborhood. At that point, the comic points out, it would be more accurate to describe the Earth as crashing into the "asteroid"/planet, not the other way around. In this case you could not say that Earth is hit... But that Earth hits the other planet, as Randall also describes. Since the Earth would be totally destroyed in such an event, it would be the planet it hits that feels the aftermath of the impact, and thus for anyone living on that planet that would be very bad news. This was actually a plot point in the film {{w|Melancholia (2011 film)|Melancholia}} where it turns out that it is Earth that is colliding with the much bigger planet Melancholia not the other way around. To be positioned well beyond the bottom end of this diagram, the film {{w|When Worlds Collide (1951 film)|When Worlds Collide}} entails a collision between the Earth and a vastly larger star passing through the solar system, or vice-versa, with no noted ill-effects to that star, nor to a planet (in orbit around that star) to which the few survivors from Earth escape.
|}

==Transcript==
:[A log chart is shown with several labels. Above it there is header:]
:<big>An asteroid is headed straight for Earth! That's...</big>

:[A log scale of lengths is shown on the left with a label at the top with an arrow pointing to the first number from the top shown next to the scale.]
:Asteroid size

:[The log scale starts with only 7 smaller ticks before the first large tick, and then there are the regular 9 small ticks in log fashion between each of the ten larger ticks, and then only 8 small ticks beneath the last large tick. Each of the 10 larger tick is labeled with a length size. With the first at the top being the one with an arrow pointing at it:]
:1 cm
:10 cm
:1 meter
:10 meters
:100 meters
:1 km
:10 km
:100 km
:1,000 km
:10,000 km

:[Around but not preciously at each labeled size there are ten descriptions of what should follow the header given such a size asteroid was about to hit Earth:]
:[1 cm:] ...Good news! Meteors are pretty!
:[30 cm:] ...Great news! You might see a fireball!
:[3 m:] ...Ok news, unless you have expensive windows or are very unlucky.
:[60 m:] ...Bad news, especially if you live near the city it's aimed at.
:[600 m:]...Bad news, especially if you live on the continent it's aimed at.
:[9 km:] ...Bad news for your species.
:[50 km:] ...Bad news for your phylum.
:[300 km:] ...Bad news for your biosphere.
:[2,000 km:] ...Good news for any life that might someday evolve on Earth's new moon.
:[25,000 km:] ...Bad news for whatever planet is about to get hit by Earth.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Space]]

1998: GDPR

2025-02-11T12:46:09Z

172.70.162.161: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1998
| date = May 25, 2018
| title = GDPR
| image = gdpr.png
| titletext = By clicking anywhere, scrolling, or closing this notification, you agree to be legally bound by the witch Sycorax within a cloven pine.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic was released on the date on which the {{w|General Data Protection Regulation|General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)}} law went into effect. Most people will have already seen a large number of updated privacy policies in the week or two leading up to this law going active. And while [[xkcd]] would likely be outside of the jurisdiction that the law can enforce, it technically does fall within the scope of the law (as certainly EU citizens visit xkcd). This ''extra-territorial applicability'' is one of the major keys in this regulation and can be seen in more detail at the ''[https://www.eugdpr.org/key-changes.html EU GDPR Information Portal]''.

There are several references made to this law, but also several jokes are included about the way people treat privacy policies specifically, and user agreements in general.

The comic is a joke privacy policy, with terms that no one would agree to under normal circumstances. In most cases, website users will use websites without reading the policies, potentially "agreeing" to something unexpected.

{|class="wikitable"
!What Randall says !! Explanation
|-
!colspan="2"|Privacy policy
|-
|We've updated our privacy policy. This is purely out of the goodness of our hearts, and has nothing to do with any hypothetical unions on any particular continents.
|"purely out of the goodness of our hearts" is a phrase never expected to be found ever anywhere in any privacy policy. "and has nothing to do with ..." is a blatantly transparent lie - if this were a real privacy policy. Randall likely makes fun of companies announcing changes to their privacy policy without mentioning the GDPR being the reason, which tries to create the impression that the companies just wanted to improve it without being forced to do so.
|-
|Please read every part of this policy carefully, and don't just skip ahead looking for sex scenes.
|It's not unheard of for people watching {{w|B movie|B-movies}} to try to skip ahead to sex scenes. This is also likely a reference to how most users don't read a website's privacy policy and skip to the bottom looking to the button to close it.
|-
|This policy governs your interactions with this website, herein referred to as "The Service", "The Website", "The Internet", or "Facebook", and with all other websites and organizations of any kind.
|This starts out as a plausibly valid statement including "the service" and "the website". But then balloons outward to include the entire Internet and Facebook. As this presumably is a privacy policy only for xkcd, this policy should not attempt to claim that it also represents and governs Facebook or the entire Internet. The extension to Facebook may be a reference to reports that [https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/facebook-is-the-internet-for-many-people-in-south-east-asia-20180322-p4z5nu.html "for many people ... Facebook is the Internet."] This continues the long-held prior misunderstanding that "The Internet" is the same as "The Web" (or vice-versa), which is even less true now with the ubiquity of internet-connected apps that provide a bespoke portal on any given platform's contents without even browsing the actual web-facing "front end".
|-
|The enumeration in this policy, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the users. By using this service, you opt in to quartering troops in your home.
|The language that the privacy policy will not "deny or disparage" any preexisting rights mirrors that of the {{w|Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution}}, substituting "this policy" for "the Constitution" and "users" for "people." The agreement claims that it does not "deny or disparage" any of the user's other rights, but then immediately denies the user the right not to quarter troops in their home, which is a constitutional right described by the {{w|Third Amendment to the United States Constitution}}. Refusing to quarter troops in one's home was previously referenced in [[496: Secretary: Part 3]]. Note that the Third Amendment only applies to Americans. However, less specific written laws guaranteeing the privacy of one's home also exist in nearly all European countries.
|-
!colspan="2"|Your personal information
|-
|Please don't send us your personal information. We do not want your personal information. We have a hard enough time keeping track of our ''own'' personal information, let alone yours.
|"Please don't send us your personal information" is also a phrase never expected to be found ever in a privacy policy, though [https://www.improbableisland.com/privacy.php some come close]. A privacy policy, by default, is a contract users agree to BECAUSE personal information is being stored. This formulation [https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/44044/unsolicited-ideas-clause-in-terms-of-service-in-the-context-of-corporate-email-c "resembles the unsolicited ideas part of a terms of use contract"], where a company asks not to be sent suggestions or inspiration by its users and claims all IP rights on such unsolicited ideas. This can also be a reference to the previous comic [[1997: Business Update]] or perhaps [[1506: xkcloud]].
It also, in a seemingly unguarded moment, reveals that there may be problems with data security on the site. This may well be an issue commonly experienced by online systems (internal 'private' data being leaked, and/or being lost/altered, either at random or through malicious interference), but not usually so readily admitted to in advance.
|-
|If you tell us your name, or any identifying information, we will forget it immediately. The next time we see you, we'll struggle to remember who you are, and try desperately to get through the conversation so we can go online and hopefully figure it out.
|[[1089: Internal Monologue|Long, awkward conversations]] and [[302: Names|forgetting people's names]] are both themes featured in previous XKCD comics.
As well as building upon the last paragraph's basic trouble with "keeping track of our ''own'' personal information", it is the antithesis of the usual assurance that a provider 'only' retains such necessary information (or stores cookies at your end) that it claims is to help you out the next time you return. In this case, it is so bad at it that it can't (even if it would actually be useful) and, like someone at a physical venue who cannot remember names and faces, may have to greet you with general and non-specific responses while desperately trying to establish what context they should know you by.
|-
!colspan="2"|Tracking pixels, cookies, and beacons
|-
|This website places pixels on your screen in order to form text and images, some of which may remain in your memory after you close the page.
|"This website places pixels" is something websites are designed to do and has nothing to do with privacy policies. Websites are more often employing "{{w|Web_beacon|tracking pixels}}" from companies such as Facebook and Twitter, which is an image file that is hosted on an external server that allows cross-platform and cross-session tracking for targeted advertisements. This is a controversial topic, as many people are against this kind of usage tracking.
In the way this 'policy' words it, however, it would be ''expected'' to be provided with the basic means of conveying just the site contents themselves, even without any implicit transfer of usable information in the other direction. It is also common, legitimate and expected behaviour that website contents may be held in the browser cache for at least a limited amount of time (including for off-line use).
|-
|We use cookies to enhance your performance.
|Privacy policies normally deal with electronic cookies that track user activity and store personal information. This apparently says that Randall is giving out actual cookies that can be eaten. Depending on what "enhance your performance" means, these cookies may contain steroids, nootropics, or other compounds that alter the users' physiology. "Enhance your performance" is particularly the kind of promise seen in advertisements (especially unsolicited spams) for drugs intended to offset erectile disfunction. Depending on the particular compounds, their purpose, and the jurisdiction, this may be illegal. Another more innocuous possibility is that Randall is simply giving users a tasty treat as a reward, which may make users more motivated in their tasks, and therefore have their performance enhanced.
|-
|Our website may use local storage on your device if we run low on space on our end.
|"may use local storage" is threatening to turn the user's device into cloud storage should Randall run out of space on his drive.
While many of the established means of storing 'session data', or other related information, do so by storing it as it sees fit (on the server, within the browser or both), this is usually as necessarily configured in advance, and in a sufficiently resilient manner. It would not be normal to spontaneously offload key data (perhaps not even that relating to the user(s) randomly chosen for the purpose) from the server to end-users' machines. Local storage may even hit its own space issues, plus render it unavailable to other, non-local, website users.
|-
|We may use beacons to call Rohan for aid.
|Beacons in privacy policies usually refer to {{w|web beacons}}. This privacy policy refers to the [[wikia:w:c:lotr:Warning beacons of Gondor|Warning beacons of Gondor]], a system to call for aid used by {{w|Gondor}} in ''{{w|The Lord of the Rings}}''. They were used before the [[wikia:w:c:lotr:Siege of Gondor|Battle of the Pelennor Fields]] to request the aid of the Rohirrim, the inhabitants of {{w|Rohan (Middle-earth)|Rohan}}. The use of the Beacons has previously been mentioned in [[921: Delivery Notification]].
|-
!colspan="2"|3rd party extension
|-
|This service may utilize 3rd party extensions in order to play the song '''''Can U Feel It''''' from their debut album '''''Alive'''''.
|{{w|3rd Party}} was a three-member dance-pop group that released one album in 1997, "Alive". In software, "third-party extensions" are small programs that plug into a larger program to modify its behavior, and are created neither by the maker of the larger program nor the user.
There may be some inspiration for this from one or other instances of {{w|Songs of Innocence (U2 album)#Effectiveness, controversy and reaction|songs automatically downloaded}}, without request, by some services, or websites that infamously play unsolicited music upon visiting.
|-
!colspan="2"|Permission
|-
|For users who are citizens of the European Union, we will now be requesting permission before initiating organ harvesting.
|This part can be construed in several frightening ways. 1. We will ask you after you die if you are willing to donate your organs. 2. We were not asking permission before, but now we have to ask. 3. We will ask you, but your answer doesn't actually matter. 4. We've switched from an organ donation program (legal) to an organ harvesting program (wildly illegal).{{Citation needed}} 5. Anyone ''not'' in the EU will have (or, possibly, ''continue'' to have) their organs harvested without permission. Besides these frightening scenarios, there is also the question of how a website (and not a doctor) is going to perform the harvesting.
|-
!colspan="2"|Scope and limitations
|-
|This policy supersedes any applicable federal, state, and local laws, regulations and ordinances, international treaties, and legal agreements that would otherwise apply.
|This is an apparently valid statement. Its inclusiveness is quite extreme, but appears to be a technically valid statement. However, many laws and constitutional rights cannot be superseded by an ordinary privacy policy and contractual statements more often are required to acknowledgs that existing/future legal limitations may ''override'' some conditions stated within the contract.
|-
|If any provision of this policy is found by a court to be unenforceable, it nevertheless remains in force.
|This part claims to have higher jurisdiction than any court and can somehow maintain legality even if a court disagrees. A typical policy would read that an unenforceable provision would not invalidate the rest of the policy.
|-
|This organization is not liable and this agreement shall not be construed.
|"not liable" and "shall not be construed" are blanket statements that are supposed to have limiters. For example, a restaurant could have a policy stating "not liable for burns received from our hot coffee." A statement made to a court could say "The defendant's statement of giving the prostitute money shall not be construed as an admission of committing a crime." This makes little sense when claiming the website “is not liable” for anything, and “shall not be construed” to have any meaning whatsoever.
|-
|These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This website is intended to treat, cure and prevent any disease.
|The {{w|Food and Drug Administration}} has nothing to do with privacy policies, but anything that promotes itself as being intended to prevent, cure or treat disease requires FDA approval. To circumvent the need for FDA approval (which requires very expensive statistically significant double blind clinical trials), the labels on unapproved herbal remedies state they are “not intended to prevent, cure or treat any disease.” In some cases, this statement appears to be false, especially in conjunction with (less legally interpretable) ''implications'' that this is the main purpose of the product, although not as patently absurd as the claim that xkcd will treat, cure and prevent any disease, which, if taken literally and not as a joke, would require the site to be FDA approved.
|-
|If you know anyone in Europe, please tell them we're cool.
|Randall implies that the data protection regulation would have a major impact on European citizens while the U.S. isn't involved. Both aren't true, because many of the regulation already existed before in other national or European wide laws which the GDPR just states more precisely and all U.S. websites with an audience in Europe had to adopt their policies because they fall within the scope of the law. Nonetheless, most European citizens stayed cool as well. Cool may mean trendy, as in the website does not seem backwards and old-fashioned, okay/safe, as in the website is trying to ensure Europeans that it will not harvest their organs, or, knowing xkcd, physically cool, as in the website's headquarters sets the thermostat low.
|}

The title text is a reference to Shakespeare's "{{w|The Tempest}}", in which the witch {{w|Sycorax}} imprisoned the sprite Ariel in a cloven pine prior to Ariel's rescue by Prospero. As this clause cannot be escaped by anything short of restarting your computer, it may also reflect on how hard it often proves to be to opt out of privacy policy agreements and other forms to be filled on website, for all that they may appear optional. The fact that it appears as a title-text akin to a footnote, which a careless reader of the Privacy Policy may not notice at first glance, may also continue the joke of small but unexpected clauses hidden amidst a long-winded block of legalese, agreed to by users who haven't read them.

A [[501: Faust 2.0|prior contractual agreement]] involved such a diabolical agreement being twisted in the opposite direction.

==Transcript==
:[The picture shows a long text:]
:'''Privacy policy'''
:We've updated our privacy policy. This is purely out of the goodness of our hearts, and has nothing to do with any hypothetical unions on any particular continents. Please read every part of this policy carefully, and don't just skip ahead looking for sex scenes.
:This policy governs your interactions with this website, herein referred to as "The Service", "The Website", "The Internet", or "Facebook", and with all other websites and organizations of any kind. The enumeration in this policy, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the users. By using this service, you opt in to quartering troops in your home.

:'''Your personal information'''
:Please don't send us your personal information. We do not want your personal information. We have a hard enough time keeping track of our ''own'' personal information, let alone yours.
:If you tell us your name, or any identifying information, we will forget it immediately. The next time we see you, we'll struggle to remember who you are, and try desperately to get through the conversation so we can go online and hopefully figure it out.

:'''Tracking pixels, cookies, and beacons'''
:This website places pixels on your screen in order to form text and images, some of which may remain in your memory after you close the page. We use cookies to enhance your performance. Our website may use local storage on your device if we run low on space on our end. We may use beacons to call Rohan for aid.

:'''3rd party extension'''
:This service may utilize 3rd party extensions in order to play the song '''''Can U Feel It''''' from their debut album '''''Alive'''''.

:'''Permission'''
:For users who are citizens of the European Union, we will now be requesting permission before initiating organ harvesting.

:'''Scope and limitations'''
:This policy supersedes any applicable federal, state, and local laws, regulations and ordinances, international treaties, and legal agreements that would otherwise apply. If any provision of this policy is found by a court to be unenforceable, it nevertheless remains in force.
:This organization is not liable and this agreement shall not be construed. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This website is intended to treat, cure and prevent any disease.
:If you know anyone in Europe, please tell them we're cool.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:LOTR]]

Talk:3008: Proterozoic Rocks

2024-11-08T09:54:38Z

172.70.162.161:

So the last panel refers to the unseen birth of a rock? How are rocks even born? {{unsigned ip|172.71.148.124|06:44, 7 November 2024 (UTC)}}
:Farther - does is mean father back, or further ahead in time? If ahead it could mean Randall do not think there will be any eyes left to see in 500 million years time. Which is not unlikely. Earth will not stay inhabitable much longer than that (probably 800 million years, then the seas will have evaporated). --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:30, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
:A few ways. Fusion likely formed many elements, and neutron star death possibly the rest of the naturally occurring ones. When those started sticking together they would form rocks. The type likely being referred to here is probably sediment being compressed and former a cohesive stone, magma crystalizing, or compression of the latter two types of rocks into different types of rocks. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.124.222|172.71.124.222]] 06:52, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
:I think in this context it was by up welling magma and they are only rare because plate tectonics and erosion has recycled 99.9X% of them. [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 07:58, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
:First the mommy rock and the daddy rock fall in love... [[Special:Contributions/172.71.175.16|172.71.175.16]] 15:19, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
::A stork with a very strong neck is involved.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.161|172.70.162.161]] 09:54, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Makes me think of the manga ''Houseki No Kuni'' (''Land of the Lustrous'') and how effortlessly it depicts thousands and millions of years passing in a blink. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.228|162.158.159.228]] 08:00, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Guess Randall didn't want to acknowledge the results. Can't say I blame him. [[User:CalibansCreations|'''Caliban''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 08:16, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
:Well it did end in an all black panel... Like his mood. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:30, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
:Maybe he thinks she can still win? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.31.39|172.71.31.39]] 13:05, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
:Oh, I think everything in this comic speaks that Randall is acutely aware of the results. Meditating on eon-old stones is a mental health exercise. I feel him. - and gave the explanation a try. [[User:Transgalactic|Transgalactic]] ([[User talk:Transgalactic|talk]]) 13:49, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Oh, I ''like'' that title text. It has a poetic quality. (It refers to when various part of animal anatomy first evolved, but does so in a really nice way.) --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.24|162.158.74.24]] 08:47, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

I'd suggest that the explanation should at least include the other interpretation of "farther", namely "farther back in time". I think that's the more obvious one, personally: he's saying these rocks are a billion years old, eyes evolved 500 million years ago and that vast abyss of time "stretches back as far as the eye can see ... and then 500 million years farther" [back]. As in, these rocks existed for 500 million years in a world where there were no eyes. Right? I don't know how the future got involved, it seems to be pretty clearly about the past.[[User:ModelD|ModelD]] ([[User talk:ModelD|talk]]) 14:25, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
:Yeah, that description of 'farther back in time' really seems to make more sense here, since the comic talks about how the rocks were there for roughly that long before eyes existed, and it keeps with the poetic, reflective nature of the rest of the comic, while the future interpretation feels like a bit of a jump from one theme to another. [[User:UnbiasedBrigade|UnbiasedBrigade]] ([[User talk:UnbiasedBrigade|talk]]) 15:03, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
: I concur. This is the interpretation I had before coming to explainxkcd. I think that efforts to make the cartoon be about current events impose a meaning on it that the cartoonist is not yet ready to express. The cartoon appeared very late, and (speaking of imposing a meaning on a cartoon) I imagine Randall struggled mightily to come up with an idea that was not some variation on a fireball of wrath consuming the USA and everything in it. I would also remove the climate-change reference as an overreaching interpretation. For what it's worth, Randall's living depends on computer use by his audience, and computer use is a massive contributor to anthropogenic climate change. I have read repeatedly that, in order to persuade someone to adopt a desired behavior, the proponent has to model it. In this case, by massive reductions in personal energy usage ... which will simultaneously make your life miserable and put you out of the public eye, where no one can see the correct behavior you're modeling. How I learned to stop worrying and love carbon dioxide. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.42.96|162.158.42.96]] 15:13, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
::Possibly that was my own doomsday mindset. I see it's been edited to correct this. :-D (N.B.: Fwiw, Randall depending on computers does not mean he can't be worried about and active against climate change.) [[User:Transgalactic|Transgalactic]] ([[User talk:Transgalactic|talk]]) 17:21, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
::: Many (most? all?) of us (profess to) worry about topics such as climate change, and sell actions we (think we) have taken to promote "correct" policy and behavior. My point is that, if the actions we sell do not conform to our daily practices, we present ourselves as clueless at best, and deliberately, and self-servingly, hypocritical at worst. Speaking of last Tuesday ... A Doonesbury cartoon, some (egad) decades ago, which I wish I could find, forcefully made the point, by having a Black man respond to Michael D's pontifications about climate change, "You've [deleted] the world with your energy use, so now we don't get to have any?" Ultimately, we will say and do anything that makes us look good to our homies ... until it means me. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.150.179|172.71.150.179]] 18:31, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
::::Most of those ideas to promote "correct" policy are stupid. The POINT of prevent climate change is to ensure our civilization can continue. If we stop living, figuratively OR literally, who will we be preserving the climate for? I don't really care what shape we leave the Earth in for cockroaches, besides, they won't mind either, they can adapt. Therefore, we need to find a way how to make climate better (or not as bad as currently predicted) WITHOUT destroying ourselves. Most likely it means new technology, because new technology solved MUCH more problems in history than appeal to people's altruism and better self. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 20:19, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
: There's really no good reason for imaginging the "further" is "further forward" if you've just been talking of looking back. Imagine being given directions to go back towards where you noted a prior landmark and then go further, that wouldn't mean return to here and then go onward again. As such, I've reworded the "future extinction" bit entirely in the other direction (it might mean a different treatment of the "mood explanation" now in the Trivia, but meshes with the comic itself). I pondered adding that, even before 'eyes', there were different phases of light/illumination (and/or shadow) sensitivity that would have meant that day/night (or at least hot vs. cold rocks) and things such as looming predators or overhanging shelter would still have been 'sensed', so being "dark-blind" would have been not necessarily a thing, but instead I just alluded to the Sun still shining (or glowing lava still illuminating, as with the Moon and its pre-fragments whenever they were up above) to aid an actual visit to that era by a time-tourist, and that it's just a selective regression (or a limited degree of retro-posession of any contemporary entity) that leads to "having nothing to see with/by". But to properly expand these extended philosophies in the Explanation would probably clutter up the existing text too much. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.219|172.70.160.219]] 16:53, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Um. Pretty sure this comic has nothing to do with the 2024 election. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.174.23|162.158.174.23]] 15:14, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
: It seems at least mildly relevant. It's a huge, recent event; of a sort that Randall is known to care a lot about; and the meditative mood being evoked seems appropriate. I wouldn't call it an "election comic" or anything, but the trivial is certainly relevant. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.58.132|172.69.58.132]] 16:18, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
: I would not be surprised to see this sort of thing unrelated to the current events (it shares a viewpoint given in such as [[1198: Geologist]], which is <s>almost</s> worth an in-article back reference), but I also think that it's not unlikely that the "mood" of the piece (looking back into "the black", perhaps) is prompted by what we can assume Randall is feeling about current events. Not quite the old "Sad Comics" category, but reflective, and different from what we might have seen under more jubilant (for Randall, at least, but also for many others) times down the different trouser-leg of time. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.219|172.70.160.219]] 16:53, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Oops, I read the 16:14 version https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3008:_Proterozoic_Rocks&oldid=356138 , decided to edit the article and didn't notice that it had already been changed. I don't know if I should remove my edit or merge the 2 edits? [[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 16:40, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
:If this was my edit (regarding the "Further back"), I might remerge (to my satisfaction) if you haven't already.
:I've noticed, recently, that there's ''occasionally'' an inadvertent way past Edit Conflicts without a warning (though I got one just here and just now, because of your edit just above!), which I'm sure used to be better handled. But could just be one of those things. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.219|172.70.160.219]] 16:53, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

I removed the climate change stuff from the Trivia section, since it seems so far removed from this comic. Tying the meditative mood of the comic to the presidential elections was a stretch, in my opinion, but I left that portion there, as I could see someone making that connection, especially given Randall's political opinions. {{unsigned ip|172.71.154.141|18:48, 7 November 2024 (UTC)}}

3008: Proterozoic Rocks

2024-11-08T09:52:53Z

172.70.162.161: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 3008
| date = November 6, 2024
| title = Proterozoic Rocks
| image = proterozoic_rocks_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x272px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = These rocks are from a time before eyes, brains, and bones, pieces of a land warmed by an unseen sun.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BLIND PROTEROZOIC BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{w|Proterozoic eon}} rocks such as the 1.1 billion-year-old rocks in the comic were formed 2500 to 538.8 million years ago, some of them surviving {{w|plate tectonics|tectonic movements}} until today. Proterozoic rocks which were formed from sediment at the bottom of an inland sea such as the former {{w|Western Interior Seaway}} would be in North America today.

The first animal eyes are believed to have [https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1716824114 developed on trilobites] half a billion years ago, around the transition between the proterozoic and {{w|phanerozoic eon}}s at the start of the {{w|Cambrian}} period. This transition began a great proliferation of biological diversity known as the {{w|Cambrian Explosion}}.

In the next panel Cueball talks about feeling a connection to the rock, which spans "a vast abyss of time that stretches back as far as the eye can see." This could be interpreted as expressing the need to connect to something that exists vastly beyond the current turbulent era, to put it into perspective and to find strength in knowing that nature transcends human troubles. The title text extends this theme.

The distant past, before the emergence of complex eye-bearing life, is illustrated by the final panel in black. This is purely figurative, as light existed and would have made the Earth's surface visible, had there been eyes to see it. The dark far past may also be an analogy for the darkened far future, as there may be [https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/09/26/triple-whammy-of-extreme-heat-scientists-pinpoint-when-earth-could-become-uninhabitable no life on Earth with eyes in around 250 million years]. This timeline is far beyond the immediate cares of the current world, applying perspective to any and all present worldviews.

The sketch might also serve the purpose of comforting some after the 2024 election results.

[[2013: Rock]] also compares the age of rocks to milestones in the development of life.

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

:[Cueball is seen at a distance, walking amid a rocky landscape.]
:I love being near Proterozoic rocks.
:These ones are 1.1 billion years old.
:That's so, '''''so''''' old.

:[Cueball standing next to a rock.]
:Eyes evolved half a billion years ago. The first time a rock was ever looked at, these rocks were already 500 million years old.

:[Cueball sitting atop a large rock.]
:People say geologic time makes them feel small. But when I touch this rock, it's like I'm a part of it, spanning a vast abyss of time that stretches back as far as the eye can see.

:[A completely black panel except for text in white lettering.]
:And then 500 million years farther.

== Trivia ==

This comic was published on the day when {{w|Donald Trump}}'s re-election as president of the USA was announced. Randall was vocal in his support for oppositional candidate {{w|Kamala Harris}}; the xkcd homepage featured [https://web.archive.org/web/20241106175959im_/https://imgs.xkcd.com/news/harris_news@2x.png a drawing with a "Vote for Harris" sign] [https://web.archive.org/web/20241106215812/https://xkcd.com/ during the run-up to the election].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:All Comics]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Geology]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Comics with inverted brightness]]

2794: Alphabet Notes

2023-07-03T09:00:54Z

172.70.162.161: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2794
| date = June 26, 2023
| title = Alphabet Notes
| image = alphabet notes.png
| titletext = Listen, you're very cute, but if you rearrange the alphabet to put U and I together it will RUIN the spacing!
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Needs more on '''MN''', '''U''', and '''VWXYZ''! Do NOT remove this notice too soon.}}
This comic is Randall's "design notes" for the {{w|English alphabet}}. The comic lists the A-to-Z alphabet, in black block letters, from left to right. Forming these supposed design notes are many red annotations:

At the top, Randall lists the vowels and appreciates how they are spaced. At the end of the list, he uses a question mark to indicate the ambiguous nature of '''Y''', which can function both as a vowel and a consonant depending on the context.

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|+
!Letter
!Randall's note
!Explanation
|-
!A
|"Strong start!"
|'''A''' is described favorably as the start.
|-
!B
| rowspan="5" |"Decent consonants but no real heavy hitters here in the first third ("D" is solid, at least)"
| rowspan="5" |Randall considers the five early consonants '''B''', '''C''', '''D''', '''F''', and '''G''' to be acceptable but nothing special, with the exception of '''D''' which he considers solid. It's not clear whether he specifically is referring to their appearance or what sound they represent. In English phonology, '''D''' is the {{w|voiced alveolar plosive}}.
|-
!C
|-
!D
|-
!F
|-
!G
|-
!H
| rowspan="2" |"Hi!"
| rowspan="2" |The word "Hi" appears uninterrupted when the letters of the English alphabet are listed A-to-Z.
|-
! rowspan="2" |I
|-
| rowspan="2" |"The dotted letters are friends!"
| rowspan="2" |Randall notes and appreciates the shared dot in the lowercase letters '''i''' and '''j''', calling them "friends". The separate dots and main strokes could also be interpreted as the heads and torsos of two reductionist character drawings. The two letters are the respective mathematical and electrical-engineering notations of the {{w|Imaginary unit|square root of -1}}, and so may be considered both professionally and personally in a close relationship, as well as neighbours. In the Netherlands, a {{w|digraph}}, or two letters representing one sound (such as "CH" and "SH" in English) is formed from '''I''' and '''J''', creating '''IJ'''; it is considered distinct from either '''I''' or '''J'''. It should be noted that '''J''' {{w|J#History|appeared sometime around the Middle Ages}} as a variant of '''I''', explaining why they look similar and are located together in the alphabet.
|-
! rowspan="2" |J
|-
| rowspan="2" |"Jk (lol)"
| rowspan="2" |Like "Hi", the letters '''J''' and '''K''' are next to each other in the English alphabet. "Jk" is an initialism for "just kidding", similar to "LOL" for "laughing out loud".
|-
!K
|-
!L to P
|"Part that's fun to sing"
|In the standard "{{w|Alphabet song|alphabet song}}" in the US (sung to the tune of the nursery rhyme "{{w|Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star}}"), most letters occur upon the beat of an easy and sedate tempo. However, to make it both scan ''and'' rhyme, the letters '''L''' to '''P''' are run through at double the tempo. This provides a welcome departure from the rhythm that has been slow and uniform up to that point, and the rapidity of the letters almost makes them feel like a strange word ("elemenopee") rather than a sequence of alphabetic letters. The letter sounds also require the involvement of several different parts of the mouth, including a rapid tongue movement, which may feel more fun to do than the preceding parts.
|-
!M
| rowspan="2" |"Weird how the line between "M" and "N" is the halfway mark.
They're similar, but "MN" only shows up in fancy words like "mnemonic", "column", "amnesty", and "hymn". Significance??"
| rowspan="2" |Randall finds it weird that the dividing line between the two halves of the alphabet would go between '''M''' and '''N'''. Indeed, it is a bit odd that the two letters, which look similar and represent similar sounds, are placed in such a way that they would be split apart when the alphabet is written out on two lines. He also lists several words that contain '''MN''' in sequence and speculates on the significance of this rare digram seemingly only being used for "fancy" words.
|-
! rowspan="2" |N
|-
| rowspan="2" |"No"
| rowspan="2" |Like "Hi", the word "No" appears uninterrupted in the English alphabet.
|-
!O
|-
!P
|
|
|-
!Q
|"Why is this ''here''?"
|Randall considers '''Q''' strange, likely because the sound it denotes in English could be replaced with the sequence "KW". The modern English alphabet evolved from the {{w|Phoenician alphabet}}. In the Phoenician alphabet, the letter '''Q''' represented a sound similar to '''K''' but with the tongue pushed back. Even though the Greeks, Latins, French, and eventually the English didn't have this sound in their languages, they kept the letter '''Q''' because Arabic numerals hadn't been adopted yet, and '''Q''' was needed to represent the number 90. Other letters can be replaced by a similar combination of letters, but they aren't mentioned by Randall. For example, '''C''' can be replaced with '''K''' or '''S''', and '''X''' can be spelt as "KS".
|-
!R
| rowspan="3" |"Strong cluster!"
| rowspan="3" |Randall considers '''RST''' a strong cluster of consonants, though again it is unclear whether he refers to their visual design or in the sounds they represent. The use of an {{w|R-S-T system|RST code}} is a traditional way of describing the reception quality of radio communications. Also, '''RST''' are part of the widely recognized five most common consonants in the English language, RSTLN. Three out of the five are listed together in the alphabet.
|-
!S
|-
! rowspan="2" |T
|-
|"...Listen.
Maybe we should've stopped at "T"."
|The comment that the alphabet may have been better if it had stopped at '''T''' is potential a reference to the fact that the original Phoenician script, which is the ancestor of many modern scripts including English, had as its last letter {{w|Taw}}, which the modern letter '''T''' is derived from. It is still the last letter of the modern Hebrew alphabet, although the Greek alphabet added several letters after it, some of which persist into modern English. Randall seems to believe that the Phoenician script was fine as-is and that the letters U-Z are unnecessary or "haunted".
|-
!U
|"Weirdest of the main 5 vowels by far"
|Randall is not a fan of the letter '''U''' and thinks it is the weirdest of the five vowels.
|-
!V to Z
|"Haunted letters (keep out!!)"
|The letters '''V''', '''W''', '''X''', '''Y''', and '''Z''' are "haunted".
|-
!V
| rowspan="2" |"??"
| rowspan="2" |Randall seems to be confused about '''VW'''. Possible confusion stems from the fact that that '''W''' is called "double '''U'''" rather than "double '''V'''". Both '''{{w|W#History|W}}''' and '''{{w|U#History|U}}''' are derived from '''V''', which might explain a lot. He may also be confused as to why {{w|Volkswagen|a make of car}} is appearing in the alphabet.
|-
!W
|-
!X
|"Not sure this is even a letter. Did you include a number by mistake?"
|Randall questions whether '''X''' is even a letter. As Randall is a physicist, it is likely he is referring to how the letter is likely encountered more often as a variable representing a number in mathematics and algebra than as a letter for scientists. Alternatively, he could simply be talking about the appearance.
|-
!Y
|"?"
|At the end of the vowel list at the top, Randall uses a question mark to indicate the ambiguous nature of '''Y''', which can function both as a vowel and a consonant depending on the context.
|-
!Z
|
|
|}

The title text jokes about the pick-up line "If I could rearrange the alphabet, I'd put '''U''' and '''I''' together.", where the letters '''U''' and '''I''' are pronounced like the pronouns "you" and "I". It is such a corny act of flirtation that any recipient of it could easily have a rejection (or a flirty acceptance if they so wish) ready to respond with in an appropriate vein. As well as reflecting the diagram's noted preference for well-spaced vowels, it might be presumed that anyone (unironically) using the "'''U''' and '''I'''" line might be left dumbfounded at the rather technical nature of the riposte. This pickup line was also the subject of [[1069: Alphabet]]. The word "ruin" also contains the two letters next to each other.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}
:[A list of the letters of the alphabet, from A to Z, in black]
:ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

:[A red line above the letters, with tick marks and their associated vowels at A, E, I, O, and U. Y has a question mark instead of a tick.]
:Love the spacing between the vowels!

:[Red annotations near various letters.]

:A: Strong start!
:BCD, FG: Decent consonants but no real heavy hitters here in the first third ("D" is solid, at least)
:HI: Hi!
::IJ: [additional lowercase "ij" given, in red]: The dotted letters are friends!
:JK: Jk (lol)
:LMNOP: Part that's fun to sing
::Weird how the line between "M" and "N" is the halfway mark.
::They're similar, but "MN" only shows up in fancy words like "mnemonic", "column", "amnesty", and "hymn". Significance??
:NO: No
:Q: Why is this ''here''?
:RST: Strong cluster!
:U: Weirdest of the main 5 vowels by far
:VWXYZ: Haunted letters (keep out!!)
:VW: ??
:X: Not sure this is even a letter. Did you include a number by mistake?
::...Listen.
::Maybe we should've stopped at "T".

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Design notes on the alphabet

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics with red annotations]]
[[Category:Comics with lowercase text]]

2794: Alphabet Notes

2023-06-27T16:35:49Z

172.70.162.161: /* Explanation */ Not evenly spaced. Not even consistently kerned, but perhaps more that than the other.

2353: Hurricane Hunters

2023-05-21T18:38:30Z

172.70.162.161: /* Explanation */ Correcting really bad link (sight-unseen, but presume it actually works now), plus rephrase/reorder/repunctuate a bit.

{{comic
| number = 2353
| date = August 31, 2020
| title = Hurricane Hunters
| image = hurricane_hunters.png
| titletext = Our flight gathered valuable data on whether a commercial airliner in the eye of a hurricane can do a loop.
}}

==Explanation==

The comic strip opens with [[Black Hat]] explaining to [[Cueball]] (who is presumed to be some government official) that flying into hurricanes, while risky, provides valuable scientific data. Although the {{w|Eye (cyclone)|eye}} itself is relatively calm, it is surrounded by the '''eyewall''', a region of extremely intense thunderstorms. Thus, the danger of flying through such storms must be carefully weighed against the scientific knowledge being gained. In the real world, such missions are conducted by highly-trained pilots with specialized aircraft, such as the {{w|NOAA Hurricane Hunters}} and the US Air Force's {{w|53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron}} (also nicknamed "Hurricane Hunters").

However, Cueball's comment in the third panel shows that Black Hat is not discussing the activity of hurricane hunting in general, but rather is attempting to justify his decision to fly a passenger jet through the eye of a hurricane. Passenger airliners are not meant to fly into hurricanes, and can easily crash there, although it [https://simpleflying.com/how-airlines-deal-with-hurricanes/ ''is'' possible] to go through one without significant damage. It's not clear if Black Hat is (somehow) a jet pilot himself, has come into ownership of an airline and was merely directing a flight, or, probably [[72|most likely]], simply hijacked the flight he happened to be on, but the commercial jet passengers were not expecting to "participate" in a hurricane hunting mission. Black Hat replies that, instead of being upset, the passengers should be proud of their contributions to meteorology, but their contribution is probably negligible, as they were not actively collecting useful scientific data.

This comic is likely referencing both {{w|Hurricane Laura}}, which was active during the week prior to this comic strip's publication, and {{w|Microsoft_Flight_Simulator_(2020_video_game)|Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020}}, which players have been utilising the software's ability to simulate real-time weather to fly into and explore the (virtual) aforementioned hurricane. At the time the comic was released, the simulator only had passenger aircraft available to pilot, echoing Black Hat's flying of a commercial jet into a hurricane. A similar situation where historical/well-documented experimental techniques are used in inappropriate situations occurs in [[1594: Human Subjects]], albeit by test subjects rather than “researchers”, if Black Hat can be called that.

In the title text, Black Hat says that their flight gathered data on "whether a commercial airliner... can do a loop. This could imply that he did not, as he "gathered data" not "Demonstrated" (E.g. "I gathered data on ''whether'' a rocket could hit the sun"). Alternatively, this could imply that he did do it, and that his gathering data was attempting it (E.g. "I gathered data on whether I could jump 50cm").

The {{w|Boeing 707}} ''was'' made to successfully execute a {{w|barrel roll}} and fly inverted [https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/60-years-ago-the-famous-boeing-707-barrel-roll-over-lake-washington/ during a 1955 test flight]. If no flight envelope protections are active, barrel rolls are possible with any aircraft and any helicopter, because the aircraft and its fuel systems only experience mild and positive g loads, never negative ones. Likewise, the air flow stays the same as in level flight. Problematic is ending the barrel roll, as there is a possibility of exceeding the safe speed limits.

Another passenger jet that was barrel-rolled is the {{w|Concorde}}. Pilots {{w|Brian Walpole}} and Jean Franchi did on a test flight - not once, but several times.

Loops are a lot more problematic because of the speeds reached when ending the maneuver, and the speed needed to begin it. But like the barrel roll, a loop ''can'' be flown while only experiencing mild and positive g loads. In fact, {{w|Harold E. Thompson}} flew several loopings in a {{w|Sikorsky S-52}}, a helicopter first flown in 1947. Prolonged inverted flights, though, cause negative g forces, an altered air flow, and cause havoc with the fuel systems, parts of which are gravity-driven. Aircraft that can fly inverted for longer than a few seconds are specifically designed, for example aerobatic aircraft and fighter jets.

It is possible that this is his justification of why the flight contributed to meteorology. However, passenger airliners' abilities to do loops has nothing to do with that field of science. Moreover, the same data could be gathered by flying the same airliner without passengers, or with willing ones.

==Transcript==

:[Black hat facing left]
:Black Hat: Yes, flying into the eye of a hurricane is dangerous.

:[Cueball on left at a desk being addressed by Black Hat on the right]
:Black Hat: But it provides us with crucial data that helps us understand and predict these storms.

:[Same as previous cell, with Black Hat raising his hand]
:Cueball: But your passengers had bought tickets to St. Louis.
:Black Hat: They should be ''proud'' of our contributions to meteorology!

==Trivia==
:Everything on Cueball's desk has gone missing in panel 3.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Hurricanes]]
[[Category:Aviation]]

2693: Wirecutter Recommendation

2023-05-21T18:32:02Z

172.70.162.161: Lazy/bad punctuation interaction.

{{comic
| number = 2693
| date = November 2, 2022
| title = Wirecutter Recommendation
| image = wirecutter_recommendation_2x.png
| imagesize = 430x333px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Their 'best philosophy of epistemology' picks are great, but you can tell they're struggling a little in the 'why you should trust us' section.
}}

==Explanation==
''[https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter Wirecutter]'' is a product review website, owned by ''The New York Times''. As such, ''Wirecutter'' is best used for comparing brands and models of consumer products. The comic, however, lists things that ''Wirecutter'' should ''not'' recommend, or that one should not choose based on ''Wirecutter'' reviews.

The first panel shows [[Cueball]] telling [[Ponytail]] that he decided to go with ''Wirecutter'''s recommendation when buying something unspecified. The second panel shows a list of different contexts for this conversation, ranking them from "Fine" to "Very Bad".

{| class="wikitable sortable"
!Thing Being Chosen!!Judgment!!Explanation
|-
|Vacuum cleaner||Fine||Vacuum cleaners are an everyday household item. Many brands and models are available offering a range of functionality at different prices. This is exactly the kind of thing where ''Wirecutter'''s reviews are helpful when deciding which kind to buy.
|-
|Headphones||Fine|||Headphones are also fairly ubiquitous, and ''Wirecutter'' would likewise be useful in such a scenario.
|-
|Electric scooter||Fine||While less common than the two above, electric scooters are still a popular electrical product, so ''Wirecutter'' is a decent choice for advice.
|-
|Favorite movie||Weird||Most people would say that your choice of favorite movie should be based on your own experiences, rather than someone else's opinions. Reviewing movies is a very different endeavor to reviewing products, and one would not expect ''Wirecutter'' to be particularly proficient with it. While a movie review website may be a reasonable source of recommendations on whether to see a particular movie at all, it would seem strange to choose one's own favorite movie based on a website's recommendation. In fact, though, precisely this kind of thing does happen, through mechanisms such as social proof and norm internalization.
|-
|Personal style||Weird||Not only does the term "personal style" encompass a vast range of topics, it is also (predictably) a deeply personal thing. These two factors mean that not only will ''Wirecutter'''s recommended likely not fully discuss every factor of your personal style, it also isn't the kind of service you'd use to choose something as nebulous and personal as your "personal style."
|-
|Neighborhood||Weird||It can be assumed this means "the neighborhood one lives in." In this case, it is odd to rely on ''Wirecutter'' for recommendations on where to live, as it is a product review website and since a respectable portion of that decision is up to personal circumstances, preferences, and local conditions that a national newspaper (even one with the resources of the ''New York Times'') will not be able to see. In a best case scenario, ''Wirecutter'' is recommending neighborhoods based on empirical data, such as local economic growth. There are [https://www.businessinsider.com/us-news-best-places-to-live-in-america-2016-3 publications] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2022/07/28/the-best-and-most-affordable-places-to-live-in-america-in-2022/?sh=566a26ca6bbf that] [https://money.com/best-places-to-live/ rank] the "best cities to live in", which could relate to this topic.
|-
|Pet||Weird||While the ''type'' of pet may be more easy to rank on a website (especially with a pro/con system), picking an ''individual pet'' is an extremely personal decision that probably can't be considered covered by a product review website like ''Wirecutter''.
|-
|College major||Bad||The major someone chooses in college typically has a significant impact on the rest of their career, and choosing one is no trivial task that should depend on personal experience and preference. Like with some of the other topics, this is far too personal and important to be chosen by a product review site. As with "Neighborhood", any recommendations can only be based on empirical data like employment availability, tuition cost vs. expected salary, etc. [https://www.princetonreview.com/college-advice/top-ten-college-majors Rankings] [https://www.mydegreeguide.com/best-college-majors/ like] [https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/save-money/best-college-majors/ this] do exist, however, and are often used by prospective students to weigh the pros and cons of prospective majors.
|-
|Career||Bad||One's optimal career choice is subject to a wide range of highly personal factors, including your talents, ambitions, and capabilities. It is highly unlikely that a hardware review site like ''Wirecutter'' would be capable of accounting for every one of these factors for every conceivable viewer. Could be related to [https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/rankings/the-100-best-jobs rankings] [https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/the-best-jobs-in-america-in-2022-ranked/ like] [https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/12/these-are-10-best-us-jobs-of-2022-according-to-new-research.html this].
|-
|Religion||Bad||Do ''not'' base your religious worldview on the electronic device equivalent to Yelp. The idea of ''Wirecutter'' reviewing religion has appeared in a previous comic, [[2536: Wirecutter]].
|-
|Spouse||Very Bad|| In general, people pair off when choosing spouses. This would mean that ''Wirecutter'' would be required to either find one potential spouse for every reader (cumbersome, to say the least) or would recommend ''one'' spouse for multiple (possibly millions of) partners. Even assuming an accelerated divorce rate, it would be impossible for the choice spouse to actually accomplish the role.
Perhaps [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/24/wirecutter-recommends-the-best-partner this parody] by ''The New Yorker'' inspired this comic.
|-
|Dreams||Very Bad|| There are two possible definitions of "dream" that may be referred to here.
* When it comes to "the series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person's mind during sleep," most people cannot consciously control what they dream about, so recommending this sort of dream is somewhat pointless. Further, as this information is largely inaccessible outside of the mind of the dreamer, ''Wirecutter'' has limited ability to make meaningful suggestions.
* On the other hand, if Cueball is relying upon ''Wirecutter'' to recommend "a cherished aspiration, ambition, or ideal," he is allowing one of the most personal and individual aspects of his life — something which may give life itself a sense of meaning — to be dictated by a consumer product review site. As with many entries here, this is something that most people have to come up with or discover for themselves; relying on a third party to recommend one FOR him is deeply unlikely to bring about long-term satisfaction.
|-
|Favorite child||Very Bad|| Assuming this is a reference to the reader's own children, it can be difficult and furthermore bad practice for a parent to choose their "favorite" child, and using ''Wirecutter'' to do this analysis is near impossible. And a website that purports to know more about how to judge the relative merits of your own family than you would be... interesting.
The alternative interpretation of assuming that this is from "all children, everywhere" is more difficult. There are approximately 1.3 billion persons under the age of 18, most of whom have at least one good quality,{{citation needed}} and defining a useful ranking in such a situation is functionally impossible.
|-
|Site for product recommendations||Very Bad|| This is a topic of which the authors, editors, and publishers of ''Wirecutter'' have a vested interest and clear bias. This implies that the people at ''Wirecutter'' would be self-serving when it comes to recommending recommendations, specifically.

Alternatively, they could be recommending ''another'' review site, which could call into question their judgment and make you wonder why you should trust them at all.
|-
|}

The title text references {{w|epistemology}}, a branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of knowledge and truth, for which [[Randall]] says ''Wirecutter'''s recommendations are great. Broadly speaking, epistemology attempts to answer the question "how do I know that what I know is true?", a very similar question to 'why you should trust us', which ironically the Wirecutter staff struggles to answer despite (or perhaps {{w|I know that I know nothing|because of}}) ostensibly having picked the best philosophies of epistemology.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Ponytail standing next to each other. Cueball has his palm raised.]
:Cueball: I just went with the one Wirecutter recommended.

:[A panel of four categories with topics next to them]

:[Fine category]
:Vacuum cleaner
:Headphones
:Electric scooter

:[Weird category]
:Favorite movie
:Personal style
:Neighborhood
:Pet

:[Bad category]
:College major
:Career
:Religion

:[Very bad category]
:Spouse
:Dreams
:Favorite child
:Site for product recommendations

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]

2417: 1/1,000th Scale World

2023-05-19T18:14:12Z

172.70.162.161: Undo revision 313458 by GetPunnedOn (talk) Either the mathematics or the terminology used is definitely wrong, now.

{{comic
| number = 2417
| date = January 27, 2021
| title = 1/1,000th Scale World
| image = 1_1000th_scale_world.png
| titletext = We're worried that a regular whale will get into a 30-foot-deep ocean trench section and filter-feed on all the tiny whales.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is the third in the [[:Category:Scale World|Scale World]] series.

Yet again, [[Randall]] has a seemingly complete {{w|scale model}} of {{w|Earth}}, this time at a larger {{w|Scale (ratio)|scale}} of 1:1000 – that is, 1 meter in this scale world represents 1000 meters in the real world. (This is ten times the size of Randall's [[2411|original scale world]].) Again, real-world features and phenomena (such as several underground {{w|neutrino detector}}s) are depicted at scale and labeled with warnings. Several of the warnings point out humorous consequences of the scale, such as non-scaled goldfish eating scaled-down blue whales. Other than the usual homo sapiens, the introduction of non-scaled animals into the scaled world (with consistently humorous consequences) is an addition to the earlier comics of the series.

===Table===
{| class="wikitable"
!Rule
!Reason
!Notes
|-
| Keep hot objects off the ice sheet over the south pole neutrino observatory
| Hot objects may melt the ice that shields the detectors from particles other than neutrinos.
| The fact that people are not supposed to create false positives implies that the neutrino detector is functional.
|-
| Be patient: Niagara falls will take a few minutes to fill your water glass
| The flow rate is scaled down with the size. According to the [[what if]] ''{{what if|147|Niagara Straw}}'', the Niagara Falls flow is regulated to 100,000 cubic feet per second on the tourist season and to 50,000 cubic feet per second offseason and at night. Once scaled to 1/1000, that flow would be 2.83 or 1.41ml per second. If a standard glass of water is 250ml, it would take about 90–180 seconds for the waterfall to fill it.

However, a 1/1000th replica of scale Niagara falls would be over a meter wide, so without some kind of system to divert the whole flow into one spot, it would not be possible to fill a glass this quickly. Also, the height of the scaled-down Niagara falls would be 5cm, with another 5cm between the water level and the riverbed, so it might be difficult to fill a glass depending on its height.
| This item may be a reference to the famous Arthur C. Clarke quote: "Getting information from the internet is like getting a glass of water from the Niagara Falls."
|-
| Watch for small planes
| Taking the popular Cessna 172 as an example, 1/1000th scale small planes would be about 8mm in length, and cruise at speeds of about 6cm/s, much slower than comparable flying insects. A Cessna of that size travelling at that speed would probably cause much more damage to itself than a person if it crashed into one, so the warning is probably there to protect the models rather than the guests. The planes are flying along 1-foot {{w|Flight level|flight levels}} according to the direction they are flying in, following the {{w|Flight level#Semicircular/hemispheric rule|semicircular rule}} of aviation.
|
|-
| Warning! Choking hazard! Keep small children away from ascending/descending airliners
| Airplanes are apparently small enough for children to fit into their mouths but large enough to potentially make them choke.
| In the US, small parts are defined by [https://www.cpsc.gov/Business--Manufacturing/Business-Education/Business-Guidance/Small-Parts-for-Toys-and-Childrens-Products 16 C.F.R. Part 1501.2] as fitting in a cylindrical test fixture of 1.25 inches diameter that approximates the size of the fully expanded throat of a child under three years old. Once scaled, any object smaller than 31.75 meters would fit in that cylinder. A lot of medium-sized and small airplanes would qualify. Furthermore, since pieces that break off during testing that simulates use or abuse by children could also pose a choking hazard, even large airliners are also a choking hazard because stripped wings and parts of the fuselage would fit in the required size.
|-
| Do not remove safety caps
| This is similar to the warning, "Be careful not to step on cities with especially pointy towers, like Toronto, Seattle, and Dubai" from [[2411: 1/10,000th Scale World]]. It's possible that many visitors to that scaled world did not heed the warnings and complained to the scaled world's creators, causing them to cover pointy towers with safety caps for this scaled world.
The buildings pictured are the {{w|CN Tower}} of Toronto, the {{w|Burj Khalifa}} of Dubai and the {{w|Eiffel Tower}} of Paris.
| It is not clear whether the {{w|Egyptian pyramids}} are included in the warning. In this model they are located adjacent to the other structures and appear to also have safety caps, but unlike the other structures there is no arrow pointing to them from the warning.
Seattle's {{w|Space Needle}} is notably absent from this model.
|-
| No open flames in Zeppelin area
| The iconic Zeppelins, as with many other early airships, were filled with hydrogen to give them the buoyancy required to fly. However, hydrogen is very flammable and prone to explosions. The most famous of these disasters was when the {{w|Hindenburg disaster|Hindenburg}} caught fire in 1937.
In more modern times, almost all airships, blimps and balloons use either helium or hot air (sometimes both). This includes the six operational 'Zeppelin NT' craft, a modern semi-rigid design produced by the spiritual and economic successor to the original Zeppelin company.
| The inclusion of Zeppelins in an otherwise modern model is an amusing anachronism.
Normal-sized flames would likely be a serious danger to many elements in the scale model.
|-
| Do not bother the meteor crater ducks
| It is unclear whether the 'meteor crater' represents specifically {{w|Meteor Crater}} in Arizona, or some other unspecified or abstract meteor crater. The former is over a kilometer wide, so at 1/1000 scale it could be a small duck pond of 1.186m in diameter, and 17cm deep at its lowest point. This is (barely) enough space for a duck to swim in if filled to the brim with water. Meteor craters often leave behind lakes as they become filled with water, with examples being {{w|Lake Siljan}} in Europe. The ducks appear to be regular-sized as opposed to scaled-down, so they have probably added afterwards as an attraction as opposed to them coming with the landscape.
| Even though a lot of craters are filled with lakes, Meteor Crater is not filled with water, or ducks, in real life. {{Citation needed}}
|-
| Trip hazard: The Gateway Arch
| The {{w|Gateway Arch}} is a monument in Saint Louis, Missouri. Being a 192 m high arch once scaled it would be 19.2 cm high, ideal for tripping.
|
|-
| Drone altitude limit
| The FAA drone altitude limit is 400ft above the ground, which would be about 12cm on a 1/1000th scale. This appears to be the number Randall is using, as the limit in the comic is about the same height as the pyramids, which are also around 400ft tall in the real world.
|
|-
| Do not mix up the USS Enterprises
|
The ship is presumably a model of the USS ''Enterprise'' (CVN-65), until recently the longest naval vessel ever built, which would be 34cm long on a 1/1000th scale.
The spaceship is the USS ''Enterprise'' (NCC-1701) from the Star Trek franchise.
It's unclear whether mixing up the models is prohibited because it would damage them, or simply because that's not where they are supposed to be.
The Starship ''Enterprise'' might be corroded by seawater, or unable to handle external pressure (spacecraft are designed for the exact opposite pressures in a vacuum). If lifted into the air, the Aircraft Carrier ''Enterprise'' would probably fall back down because it can't fly {{Citation needed}}.
| The Enterprise from the Kelvin timeline in the JJ Abrams films has been seen to hide underwater and take off again without significant problems, however the Original Series version has not been seen to fly lower than Earth's outer atmosphere. Based on the depiction of the ''Enterprise'', it is hard to tell exactly which version of the ''Enterprise'' it is, and thus its exact capabilities.

|-
| No connecting the Dead Sea to the ocean
| The surface of the Dead Sea is 430.5 metres (1,412 ft) below sea level, so connecting it to the ocean could cause catastrophic flooding of the area.
| This has actually been proposed: {{w|Mediterranean–Dead Sea Canal|Dead Sea Canal}}
|-
| Do not let ants into the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory
| The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory was a neutrino observatory located at the 2100-meter depth level of the Creighton Mine in Ontario, Canada. It has since been upgraded to the SNOLAB facility. At 1/1000th scale, its meters-scale tunnels would be millimeters across, and its 3,000-meter maximum depth would reach three meters underground. This would make it ideal for habitation by ants, but as the mine is in rock, and not soil, extracting the ants after they get in would be much more difficult than most pest control operations. Also, some types of ants would eat the insulation around the wires, causing electrical short-circuits and other problems, which would be bad because, as noted above, the model's neutrino detectors are apparently functional.
|
|-
| Only one person on the Golden Gate Tightrope at a time
| The {{w|Golden Gate Bridge}} is a suspension bridge in San Francisco, 2.7 km long and 27 m wide. Scaled-down, it would be 2.7 m long and 2.7 cm wide, and it would be tempting to use it as a tightrope.
| The bridge's live load capacity is officially [https://www.goldengate.org/bridge/history-research/statistics-data/design-construction-stats/#deflection 4000 lbs per lineal foot]. Because mass is proportional to volume, which is distance cubed, this suggests that the model bridge would be rated for 0.000004 lbs per scale lineal foot, or 0.004 lbs per 'real-life' lineal foot. If it is able to hold even one person at a time, this model bridge must be several orders of magnitude stronger than its real-life counterpart.
|-
| Do not remove Statue of Liberty LEGO minifig
| Whoever has made this model has decided to use a small LEGO Minifigure rather than a more accurately sculpted replica of the Statue of Liberty. The person would likely not want it to be removed because it would then have to be replaced.
| LEGO has released a [https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/magnet-statue-of-liberty-2016-853600 Statue of Liberty minifigure] which is 5.3cm tall. The real Statue of Liberty, from head to toe, is 46 meters tall. At a 1/1000 scale, this would be a 4.6cm figurine, so the LEGO Minifigure would indeed be an appropriate representation at that scale.
|-
| Please stop releasing goldfish in the ocean. They keep eating the blue whales.
| Blue whales are the largest animal species in the world. They usually grow to about 20m long in real life, meaning that at 1/1000th scale they would be only 2cm long, meaning that they could be consumed by a goldfish. Goldfish are omnivores, so they would eat tiny blue whales. Goldfish are freshwater fish, but there is [https://mashable.com/2017/09/20/saltwater-bearing-goldfish-australia/ evidence] that they can tolerate some amount of saltwater.

| This might also be a reference to the video game ''Tasty Blue,'' in which a goldfish eats animals of increasing size and eventually becomes large enough to eat blue whales.
|-
|(title text) We're worried that a regular whale will get into a 30-foot-deep ocean trench section and filter-feed on all the tiny whales.
| The ~10 deepest ocean trenches are in the vicinity of 30,000 ft, so they would be 30 ft deep in the model. A blue whale is about 15 ft tall, and there are several smaller species of whale, so a full-sized whale would fit into the scaled-down trench.
Blue whales usually eat {{w|krill}}; the tiny whales would be about the same size, though nowhere near the same density, so any feeding whale would soon go hungry. However, a 15-foot (ca. 5 meters) diameter whale in a trench only 30 feet (ca. 9 m) deep (ignoring displacement, for the moment) might have difficulty feeding anyway.
| Following on to the full-size goldfish:scaled-down blue whale comparison, the title text compares a full-sized whale to the depth of the scaled-down ocean.
|}

==Transcript==
:[At the top of the image, inside the panel, a large title is floating in the air.]
:RULES

:For visitors to my 1/1,000th scale world

:1 meter = 1 km 1 ft = 1,000 ft

:[Each of the following rules is written near a character or point of interest on the map.]

[Keep hot objects off the ice sheet over the south pole neutrino observatory]

[Do not bother the meteor crater ducks]

[No connecting the dead sea to the ocean]

[Be patient: Niagara falls will take a few minutes to fill your water glass]

[Trip hazard: the Gateway arch]

[Do not let ants into the Sudbury neutrino observatory]

[Megan balances on the Golden Gate bridge,her legs wobbling.]

[Only one person on the Golden Gate tightrope at a time]

[Watch for small planes]

[Drone altitude limit]

[Do not remove statue of liberty LEGO minifig]

[Do not remove safety caps]

[Caution: sharp]

[Do not mix up the USS enterprises:]

[Two zeppelins float in the sky.]

[No open flames in zeppelin area]

[A fish at a size relevant to the characters in the strip faces towards two small two small horizontal lines, presumably whales.]

[Please stop releasing goldfish in the ocean. They keep eating all the blue whales.]

[An arrow points to a small line in the sky resembling an airplane.]

[Warning! Choking hazard! Keep small children away from ascending/ descending airliners]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Illustrations of scale]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Science Girl]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Scale World]]
[[Category:Comics sharing name|1/10]]
[[Category:Ants]]

Talk:1063: Kill Hitler

2023-05-16T12:34:33Z

172.70.162.161: Undo revision 313228 by Ban Artemisinin (talk) Hmmm... How about "No"?

Actually, I think the joke here is that Black Hat actually did end Hitler's atrocities, but that history is not actually changeable. Hitler's "suicide" was actually Black Hat killing him. This is then layers with the impossibility of changing history. This would imply that anyone that wants to stop Hitler before he rose to power will be circumvented.

[[User:UnaSalusVictis|UnaSalusVictis]] ([[User talk:UnaSalusVictis|talk]]) 01:26, 25 November 2012 (UTC)UnaSalusVictis

:According to all reasonable time travel theories, this makes sense. You cannot go into the past to change things, because the future that exists is a future where you were in the past - you just didn't know it yet because it was in your future. This also applies to the future. Your knowledge of the future cannot possibly change it because your foreknowledge exists in this future. If your foreknowledge made that future not happen, then there would be no need to change it. But the future and the past account for the fact that you were there to change things, even before you ever knew you would be. Ergo, any attempt to ''change'' the past will merely result in ''causing'' the past to result exactly as it did before. The catch-22 of time travel stories. You can have a fatal flaw, or a fatally uncompelling story. But, all that said, this is a cartoon and not necessarily reliant on reasonable time travel theory.[[Special:Contributions/76.29.225.28|76.29.225.28]] 07:07, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

:That's exactly my opinion on this topic! Look at this video (Mercedes vs Hitler in the past): [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytVdBLMmRno]] ~~Muessigb
::But say you could predict what the future would look like if you did nothing (or did not yet have that knowledge). Then by obtaining that knowledge you could then do something you would not have done otherwise and thus change the potential future. With a powerful enough simulator, you might get a good idea of what would happen if no one knew about it, and then decide if something should be changed based on this information. This is what happens in the book {{w|Lightning (novel)|Lightning}}. I do not believe this can be done, but as the future has not happened yet, I do not see the same problems as with traveling back in time. Of course having a good guess of the future is not the same as traveling to it... If you did that, then changing it after you had been there would be troublesome. See for instance {{w|Back to the Future 2}} and the book mentioned above. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:44, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

True, killing Hitler before he rose to power and committed all his atrocities would cause a Grandfather paradox... Cueball invented the time machine and send Black Hat back because he wanted Hitler dead, but if Hitler died before that, there would be no reason to invent the time machine and send Black Hat back which ergo cause the initial trip to kill Hitler not possible and ergo Hitler couldn't die before he rises to power and committed his atrocities. [[Special:Contributions/175.137.100.81|175.137.100.81]] 01:40, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
:Just for the record, it was Black Hat who invented this time machine! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:51, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Maybe in the original timeline, Hitler's atrocities extended beyond 1945. When Black Hat went back in time and assassinated Hitler in 1945, a new time-line was created. When Black Hat returned to the current date, he returned to a different timeline than the one he left. In this timeline (ours), Hitler died in 1945, and because this timeline is based on that fact, Cueball thinks that Black Hat has not changed anything, when in fact, Black Hat's actions created the new timeline. -- mwburden [[Special:Contributions/70.91.188.49|70.91.188.49]] 15:00, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
:Except that Hitler would have already been killed in 1945 by Black Hat, only it would have been thought beforehand to be Hitler killing himself as, until the time machine is invented, you wouldn't think that people from the future would be coming from the future to assassinate the opponent. People would assume that Hitler killed himself as that is more plausible than an assassin killing him and then vanishing without a trace. {{unsigned|Mulan15262}}
::Also Cueball would not know that anything had happened if anything had been changed, as his an everyone else life would have changed, and most people born say a few years after the start of the way, would probably not have been born, because everyone else would have done something different if World War II had never happened, and many more people would have lived back then, to make the chance that your parents meet and fall in love much less. And even if they still did, they might have had their children at a different time in their lives! And just a few seconds can matter in which cell will enter the egg...--[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:51, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

:The only flaw in that logic is that there's really no way Hitler would have survived the Russian invasion. He was in a bunker, killing himself, because his whole nation and army were crushed. He would have been put on trial and no doubt executed, if not shot by the first soldier who saw him. -HavokTheorem [[Special:Contributions/121.73.107.90|121.73.107.90]] 04:30, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
::Thank you for this answer. My faith in explainxkcd contributors was declining rapidly until I reached your comment. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.58|108.162.219.58]] 20:20, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
::Actually you only think that because Black Hat prevented [http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/wolfenstein/images/d/d7/Hitler2forms.gif/revision/latest?cb=20090918003616 Mecha Hitler]. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.80|162.158.255.80]] 17:54, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Was the explanation always as bad as it appears now?? It's awful. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.58|108.162.219.58]] 01:34, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

First off, in a previous time line he could have escaped to a Moon Base to rebuild his army and destroy the world and Cueball just does not remember that history, just the one where Hitler dies in the bunker. Second, there are many forms of logical time travel. You could jump to a different Now 70 years ago and kill Hitler (assuming he exists) and then come back. Your timeline would not have changed, but the other Now would have a future without Hitler. The good or bad that is achieved is the same, but you get no benefit other then the joy of killing Hitler. And you really should seek professional help for that.--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.18|108.162.219.18]] 18:52, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
:In many stories where this idea is used, you actually go to this alternative time yourself, so when you return the world you return to would be the one where Hitler died. Maybe you were never born in this world, but as you are from another dimension where you did get born, then you can exist in this world instead. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:51, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Did Randall at least partly choose Hitler because of the old rumour that he wasn't actually dead (Because hearing the news of his death may have seemed incredulous, and because his body was removed by the Soviets, who never openly revealed information to the West). Sorry about the wordiness of this comment, I hope you'll be able to comprehend it. {{unsigned ip|108.162.250.223}}

:I recommend this short story on time travel: [http://www.abyssapexzine.com/wikihistory/ Wikihistory]. My favourite quote: "everybody kills Hitler on their first trip". Brilliant, short and nerdy.
:--[[User:Lou Crazy|Lou Crazy]] ([[User talk:Lou Crazy|talk]]) 16:37, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

You are all assuming that the time machine actually works. Why? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.202.160|162.158.202.160]] 21:50, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

If time travel were possible, you could go back in time, seduce the woman who was to become your mother — you would become your own father! Robert Heinlein wrote a story with that theme, “‘—All You Zombies—’”. Heinlein goes further, introducing a sex-change operation, so mother, father, and child are all the same person.

If I had a time machine I would go back only twenty years and kill Bush and Blair. Think of the millions of lives that would be saved! [[User:The Cat Lady|-- The Cat Lady]] ([[User talk:The Cat Lady|talk]]) 16:39, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

==Total Classical Games Death==

Kill Classical Games. Behead Classical Games. Roundhouse kick Classical Games into the concrete. Slam dunk baby Classical Games into the trashcan. Crucify filthy Classical Games. Defecate in Classical Games's food. Launch Classical Games into the sun. Stir fry Classical Games in a wok. Toss Classical Games into an active volcano. Urinate into a Classical Games's gas tank. Judo throw Classical Games into a wood chipper. Twist Classical Games's head off. Report Classical Games to the IRS. Karate chop Classical Games in half. Curb stomp Classical Games's pregnant mother. Trap Classical Games in quicksand. Crush Classical Games in the trash compactor. Liquefy Classical Games in a vat of acid. Eat Classical Games. Dissect Classical Games. Exterminate Classical Games in the gas chamber. Stomp Classical Games's skull with steel toed boots. Cremate Classical Games in the oven. Lobotomize Classical Games. Mandatory abortions for Classical Games's mother. Grind fetal Classical Games in the garbage disposal. Drown Classical Games in fried chicken grease. Vaporize Classical Games with a ray gun. Kick old Classical Games down the stairs. Feed Classical Games to alligators. Slice Classical Games with a katana. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.151.97|172.71.151.97]] 20:27, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

:I agree, I hate Classical Games. He always spams. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.23.58|172.69.23.58]] 23:53, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

817: Mutual

2023-05-13T13:16:05Z

172.70.162.161: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 817
| date = November 10, 2010
| title = Mutual
| image = mutual.png
| titletext = A universe that needed someone to observe it in order to collapse it into existence would be a pretty sorry universe indeed.
}}

==Explanation==
The comic depicts [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] simultaneously thinking about each other thinking about each other thinking about each other etc etc. this is one of the many comics that feature [[meta]]. It may be a deliberate prelude to [[818|the next comic]].

The title text refers to the aspect of {{w|Quantum Mechanics}} where a system can exist in more than one state until it is observed. An observation is required in order to "collapse" the system into a particular state; the {{w|thought experiment}} of {{w|Schrödinger's cat}} is a popular way of explaining this concept. The title text proposes that, if a universe needed to be observed to exist, as with a quantum state, it would be a pretty sorry universe indeed, as who would exist to observe it if it needed to be observed in the first place?

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan are inside each others' thought bubbles.]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Romance]]

Talk:2775: Siphon

2023-05-12T16:23:02Z

172.70.162.161: Note to self: Always consider a Preview, before posting...

My understanding was that siphoning can essentially be explained by the Bernoulli equation? There is a difference in potential energy between the upper and lower container so it flows. The weight of water in the downhill part of the tube pulls water up the uphill section of the tube (think like a vacuum), and so on until there's either no difference in head or no more water. Siphoning will work with any diameter tube. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.151|172.70.91.151]] 15:43, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
:That's right. The only mention of capillary action in the siphon wikipedia article is when talking about phenomenon that *isn't* a siphon. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 16:15, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

Agree, capillary action does not seem to be referenced or implied in the comic, presenting only the (not "functioning") siphon phenomenon.
:Seconded/thirded. Capillary action isn't even what they were expecting. The small amount of water in the lowe receptical indicates they correctly ''filled'' the tube, but then as the longer length drained it did not then induce further flow up and over through the shorter length. e.g. nature no longer abhored the resulting vacuum (or there was increased negative-pressure vapourisation, beyond that previously expected, or other method of seepage 'airlock'-breaking) and thus the short-end also drained straight back out again instead of becoming a potentially self-sustaining inflow to the whole siphoning setup.
:While the capilliary action element ''could'' induce the start of a rather limited 'empty' siphon setup to start (maybe, I'd have doubts about the 'fluid friction' actually acting against the gravity-feed part, once the surface-tension bit has "climbed the mountain" and started to merely seep out of the other end, almost incidentally, for a sufficiently thin tubing where CA is a significant factor), this suddenly failing for whatever reason (surface-tension effects being nullified) wouldn't then send a token amount of water into the low bucket, nor particularly stop unrelated siphon-flow from continuing properly (in fact, suddenly 'interaction-free' liquid and tubing might siphon ''faster'', with effectively zero fluid boundary effects dragging on the induced flow).
:But perhaps someone with more QFD experience could explain where my assessment is wrong. So not going to personally rewrite the current Explanation intro just now. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.161|172.70.162.161]] 16:21, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2775: Siphon

2023-05-12T16:21:53Z

172.70.162.161:

My understanding was that siphoning can essentially be explained by the Bernoulli equation? There is a difference in potential energy between the upper and lower container so it flows. The weight of water in the downhill part of the tube pulls water up the uphill section of the tube (think like a vacuum), and so on until there's either no difference in head or no more water. Siphoning will work with any diameter tube. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.151|172.70.91.151]] 15:43, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
:That's right. The only mention of capillary action in the siphon wikipedia article is when talking about phenomenon that *isn't* a siphon. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 16:15, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

Agree, capillary action does not seem to be referenced or implied in the comic, presenting only the (not "functioning") siphon phenomenon.
:Seconded/thirded. Capillary action isn't even what they were expecting. The small amount of water in the lowe receptical indicates they correctly 'filled'' the tube, but then as the longer length drained it did not then induce further flow up and over through the shorter length. e.g. nature no longer abhored the resulting vacuum (or there was increased negative-pressure vapourisation, beyond that previously expected, or other method of seepage 'airlock'-breaking) and thus the short-end also drained straight back out again instead of becoming a potentially self-sustaining inflow to the whole siphoning setup.
:While the capilliary action element ''could'' induce the start of a rather limited 'empty' siphon setup to start (maybe, I'd have doubts about the 'fluid friction' actually acting against the gravity-feed part, once the surface-tension bit has "climbed the mountain" and started to merely seep out of the other end, almost incidentally, for a sufficiently thin tubing where CA is a significant factor), this suddenly failing for whatever reason (surface-tension effects being nullified) wouldn't then send a token amount of water into the low bucket, nor particularly stop unrelated siphon-flow from continuing properly (in fact, suddenly 'interaction-free' liquid and tubing might siphon ''faster'', with effectively zero fluid boundary effects dragging on the induced flow).
:But perhaps someone with more QFD experience could explain where my assessment is wrong. So not going to personally rewrite the current Explanation intro just now. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.161|172.70.162.161]] 16:21, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

User talk:ClassicalGames

2023-05-12T01:29:15Z

172.70.162.161: That clearly wasn't a typo. But you know that.

You can create pages.

I've changed my password for you. [[User:ChristmasGospel|ChristmasGospel]] ([[User talk:ChristmasGospel|talk]]) 23:00, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

:Thank you. You can change your password back and continue to use your own computer. [[User:ClassicalGames|ClassicalGames]] ([[User talk:ClassicalGames|talk]]) 07:28, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

::As a computer security professional, can I just internally scream at this whole premise of a scenario? If it's even a real premise. I'm not convinced. But bad practice, regardless. And even more bad to publicly announce such things when you would clearly have had another more private back-channel (or even in-person chat) that you used to coordinate the initial request through, without then 'going public' with such inanities. You're liable to being modded out of existence, in some places, for even suggesting that you're sharing accounts.
::Look, kids, whatever you want to do in the privacy of your own server-rooms (whether with a 'friend' or even on your own) is all well and good, but the message should be to ''always'' practice Safe Hex. And "oral hex" doesn't mean that you have to indiscretely talk about it afterwards! [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.172|172.71.242.172]] 12:34, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

:: Done! [[User:ChristmasGospel|ChristmasGospel]] ([[User talk:ChristmasGospel|talk]]) 22:54, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

1507: Metaball

2023-05-10T11:56:25Z

172.70.162.161:

{{comic
| number = 1507
| date = April 3, 2015
| title = Metaball
| image = metaball.png
| titletext = Shoot, it landed in the golf course. Gonna be hard to get it down the--oh, never mind, it rolled onto the ice hazard. Face-off!
}}

==Explanation==
In the first two panels of this game [[Megan]] kicks a {{w|Ball (association football)|football}} (also known as a {{w|association football|soccer}} ball in some regions), but the surprise comes in the next panel when it turns out she tried to kick it into a {{w|basketball}} hoop where Cueball is either trying to catch, stop or dunk the ball. [[Hairbun]] is also reaching an arm up after the ball. But then [[Ponytail]] yells "'''''Out!'''''". When Megan{{citation needed}} asks Ponytail why the ball is out, Ponytail explains it is due to the ''{{w|infield fly rule}}'' that was invoked when the ball crossed into the {{w|baseball}} zone - a very complicated rule to understand for baseball outsiders.

They are playing a {{w|ball game}} that incorporates the rules of many {{w|List of ball games|games that use a ball}}. The rules seem to be based on the location of the {{w|ball}}. Ponytail is holding a map which divides the area into zones. Each time the ball enters a new zone, the rules change to become the rules of the ball game represented in that zone.

The name "Metaball" is the combination of the prefix "{{w|meta}}" and the word "{{w|ball}}". Not long before this comic there was another comic with "meta" in the title: [[1447: Meta-Analysis]]. The entire joke ''is meta'' in [[917: Hofstadter]].

Megan is out according to the rules of baseball, because the football that she initially kicked in the football zone in an attempt to score in the basketball hoop (in the basketball zone), clipped the corner of the baseball zone. And suddenly her high kick turned into a {{w|Batted ball|pop fly}} and Ponytail (presumably the referee (and creator/ruler) of this game) invoked the infield fly rule which forces the batter out. In this case that would be the kicker Megan as she is the last to have touched the ball.

In baseball the infield fly rule can be invoked by the {{w|umpire}} (i.e. the referee in baseball, Ponytail in this case), to prevent an {{w|infielder}} from intentionally dropping a fair ball when runners are on multiple bases, forcing the runners on base to advance and allowing the infielder's team to quickly perform a double or triple play by throwing the ball to where the runners are trying to get and performing force out on their base. The infield fly rule, once called out by the umpire, forces the batter to be out whether or not the infielder tries to get the batter out. While complicated, and difficult for outsider to understand, the rule has been in baseball for a long time and makes sense in context.

The title text continues the comic. After Megan is ruled out, even though Cueball misses the catch, the ball now enters the {{w|golf}} section of the field, meaning that the players would have to hit the ball into a golf hole to score. Given that the ball is much larger than a standard golf ball, this would prove difficult. However, before they get this far, the situation changes as the ball rolls into a separate section of the field called the ice hazard.

On a golf course a {{w|Hazard (golf)|hazard}} is either a {{w|Hazard_(golf)#Bunker|bunker}} (with sand) or a {{w|/Hazard_(golf)#Water_hazard|water hazard}}. If the latter type freezes over it could be called an ice hazard. However, in this Metaball game this section of the course is apparently used to play some form of {{w|ice hockey}}. And since the game has been held up when Megan was called out, they will now have to restart the game with a {{w|face-off}} (a skirmish between two players of opposing teams to restart the game). It can be argued that an ice hockey {{w|Hockey puck|puck}} can be considered a ball, since ice hockey has evolved from, and is a variation of, older stick-and-ball games. And since they play both baseball, basketball and golf with the association football, they could also continue playing ice hockey with this ball instead of a puck.

For the record there are several other versions of {{w|hockey}} that are played with a ball ({{w|ball hockey}} for instance) and at least one of these is played on ice (see {{w|broomball}}). In these games face-offs are also used. It seems likely that [[Randall]] has chosen some of the most popular sports of the US - and then used a soccer/football instead of an {{w|Football_(ball)#American_and_Canadian_football|American football}}.

Given the timing of this comic with {{w|NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship|the US collegiate basketball tournament}}, we may assume Randall is writing as a response to that. He has previously given an opinion on sports (see for instance [[904: Sports]], [[1107: Sports Cheat Sheet]] and [[1480: Super Bowl]]).

This concept is very similar to [http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1990/05/27 Calvinball] from the comic strip ''{{w|Calvin and Hobbes}}'' by American cartoonist {{w|Bill Watterson}}.

==Transcript==
:[Megan runs towards a bouncing soccer football.]

:[Megan kicks the soccer football upwards.]

:[Cueball leaps towards the ball as it falls towards a basketball hoop. Hairbun also stretches her arm up.]
:Ponytail (offscreen):'''''Out!'''''

:[Ponytail walks toward them consulting a piece of paper divided in sections:]
:[Megan (offscreen):] What do you ''mean'', out?!
:Ponytail: The ball clipped the corner of the baseball zone. Infield fly rule.
:[Megan (offscreen):] Aw, ''maaan''...

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Soccer]]
[[Category:Basketball]]
[[Category:Baseball]]
[[Category:Sport]]

Talk:2768: Definition of e

2023-05-04T12:35:59Z

172.70.162.161:

This is of course one way of arriving at the value of e: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_(mathematical_constant)#Compound_interest [[User:Trimeta|Trimeta]] ([[User talk:Trimeta|talk]]) 03:55, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

I do not know who said that Miss Lenhard is after a dollar - but that is so not her![[User:Tier666|Tier666]] ([[User talk:Tier666|talk]]) 09:15, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

One explanation may be that Miss Lenhart is in a Ponzi scheme. Ponzi schemes claim to offer unbelievably high returns that are actually paid by later investors, it will invariably crash, but by the time, the scammers will have vanished with the money. Here, Miss Lenhart effectively offers +172% annual returns, which is way above what a honest bank can offer, and she seems to push the student into investing, which is aligned with the Ponzi scheme goal of getting as many people to invest as possible. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.22.234|162.158.22.234]] 11:25, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

==e^iπ + 1==
'''e''' is an inherent feature of mathematics. The equation e^iπ + 1 = 0 is made of the 5 most important numbers. - [[User:Frankie|Frankie]] ([[User talk:Frankie|talk]]) 13:10, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
:i is not a number, it is the imaginary ''unit''. [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 16:00, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
::i is a number. 1 is also sometimes called ''the unit'' by mathematicians. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.22.105|172.71.22.105]] 21:01, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
:Every number is an inherent feature of mathematics, but I don't think the number e is as special as formulas like this make it appear. What's really significant is the exponential function exp, and the number e is just exp 1. It is therefore similar in significance to √2 or ln 2. Similarly, in the identity you provide, the general form is exp iθ = cos θ + i sin θ, and plugging in θ = π is just one special case. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 02:33, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
:e^ipi is genuinely quite boring. I would prefer e^i2pi = e^0 = 1 because its more immediately apparent that e^ix forms a circle/periodic function[[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.225|172.69.33.225]] 06:29, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Does anyone else see the buttons at the top as being weird? The first comic arrow is split into two buttons separated by a new line. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.38.17|172.70.38.17]] 12:24, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
: Agree. It does not appear on the main comic, just here. [[User:Iggynelix|Iggynelix]] ([[User talk:Iggynelix|talk]])

Maybe the bank was originally owned by Beret Guy? That would explain why it continues to stay in business despite effectively giving away money. It's not suggested anywhere in the comic, but the idea is very much in line with his powers. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.137|162.158.158.137]] 13:40, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

The current explanation is vague regarding the identity of the speaker in the title text, but it seems clear to me that the title text is being said by Miss Lenhart - she's explaining how she came into possession of the bank account in question. Her high school teacher set it up, and then she engineered the takeover so she could continue to use the account after passing the class. [[User:Snuffysam|Snuffysam]] ([[User talk:Snuffysam|talk]]) 16:12, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
:Why would she need to pass the class to use the bank? [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 16:35, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

==r = n * (2^(1/n) - 1)==
This demonstrates a misunderstanding of the way banks, and other financial institutions, quote interest rates. A bank that pays 100% interest rate annually, will pay $1 on 1$: at the end of the first year the balance will be $2.00. That is not (1+100%/n)**n, and is not $2.71, because the interval compounding rate is not 100%/n for n <>1. The interval compounding rate for 100% per annum is r = n * (2^(1/n) - 1). I leave working out the limit as n approaches infinity as an exercise for the reader :) I don't know if math teachers in the USA actually use this example as a math teaching method: if so, they should certainly have a discussion with a 'business studies teacher' or 'business math teacher' about the meaning of the words they are using, because they are doing a disservice to students by misleading them about the meaning of common savings and loan terms of business.
:This would mean there is no difference between interest “compounded annually” vs. “compounded daily”? Also, deleted the last paragraph of the exp. Seems clear to me that the title text speaker is the student in the strip, later relating the very incident illustrated. (And no need for comment on characters’ future business endeavors.) [[User:Miamiclay|Miamiclay]] ([[User talk:Miamiclay|talk]]) 10:58, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
::Unremoved the last para. The teacher deecribed is male, '''Miss''' L is not.{{Citation needed}} But if the suggestion is that the narrating person is Miss L (after the year has passed?), then we have other problems to explain (how she thinks she got it to work, hypercompetent as she is but as impossible the setup is).
::I read it as someone else, off-panel (traditionall Randall's voice, but not in this case?), who is describing a different time and who clearly didn't/doesn't grasp reality (did not get taught/listen that well, at school, seems convinced they did something clever), or can actually ignore the problems (like Beret Guy). But it could do with streamlining. ''Or'' various brief arguments for and against who is saying it, split up. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.161|172.70.162.161]] 12:35, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

2452: Aviation Firsts

2023-04-25T12:17:44Z

172.70.162.161: I included the possibility of a location on mars being named after the Hudson River.

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

==Explanation==
This comic reflects the [https://twitter.com/NASAPersevere/status/1384209173924089863 ''Ingenuity'' probe's first flight on Mars]. Now that ''Ingenuity'' has completed its first flight, Mars can be counted among planets with controlled powered flight. The preceding milestones in this list were completed by the first space probes to reach and then land on Mars. Flight, landing and controlled landing were variously achieved by some or all of the prior landers, depending upon your definition of flight, but certainly by the {{w|Mars_Science_Laboratory#Sky_crane_landing|Skycrane}} element used in landing both ''Curiosity'' and ''Perseverance'' rovers. These may not have qualified as controlled powered flight as they only used their power to control the landing, before flying off again under power without any more precise control than that needed to intentionally crash elsewhere.

The remaining milestones have only been completed on Earth, if at all, and also grow more bizarre and more specific further down the comic and extending into the title text.

{| class="wikitable"
! Milestone summary
! Achieved on Earth?
! Achieved on Mars?
! Explanation
|-
| Flight
| style="background-color: #88FF88; color: #000000; text-align: center;" | Yes
| style="background-color: #88FF88; color: #000000; text-align: center;" | Yes
| rowspan=3 | All of these milestones were generally necessary for the success of previous exploratory missions on the surface of Mars.
|-
| Landing
| style="background-color: #88FF88; color: #000000; text-align: center;" | Yes
| style="background-color: #88FF88; color: #000000; text-align: center;" | Yes
|-
| Controlled landing
| style="background-color: #88FF88; color: #000000; text-align: center;" | Yes
| style="background-color: #88FF88; color: #000000; text-align: center;" | Yes
|-
| Controlled powered flight
| style="background-color: #88FF88; color: #000000; text-align: center;" | Yes
| style="background-color: #88FF88; color: #000000; text-align: center;" | Yes
| This comic was released within hours of ''Ingenuity'' becoming the first aircraft in human history to take off, fly under its own power, and land, all on a planet other than Earth.
|-
| Loop
| style="background-color: #88FF88; color: #000000; text-align: center;" | Yes
| style="background-color: #FF8888; color: #000000; text-align: center;" | No
| Although {{w|Aerobatic_maneuver|loops}} are often performed in Earth's atmosphere by planes designed for high-speed aerobatics (such as stunt planes and fighter jets), such aircraft have yet to be deployed on any spacecraft leaving Earth. A loop does not yet seem to be practical or necessary to attempt over Mars.
|-
| In-flight meal
| style="background-color: #88FF88; color: #000000; text-align: center;" | Yes
| style="background-color: #FF8888; color: #000000; text-align: center;" | No
| Naturally, it would only make sense to serve food on a ''manned'' mission to Mars, which has not yet happened.
|-
| Planetary circumnavigation
| style="background-color: #88FF88; color: #000000; text-align: center;" | Yes
| style="background-color: #FF8888; color: #000000; text-align: center;" | No
| While planetary circumnavigation has been achieved outside of Mars's atmosphere by {{w|List_of_Mars_orbiters|many Mars orbiters}}, this is a list of ''aviation'' firsts, which would require controlled flight within an atmosphere.
|-
| Enormous wooden aircraft built by a reclusive billionaire that flies exactly once
| style="background-color: #88FF88; color: #000000; text-align: center;" | Yes
| style="background-color: #FF8888; color: #000000; text-align: center;" | No
| The {{w|Hughes H-4 Hercules}} (the "Spruce Goose") was a prototype wooden airplane, known for being the largest flying boat ever constructed. The Hercules was designed by aviation pioneer (and, latterly, famed recluse) Howard Hughes. The design was intended as a lightweight transoceanic transport for the military, but the prototype, built out of wood because of aluminum shortages during World War II, was not completed until well after the end of the war and flew only a single time in 1947. Since 1991, it has been on permanent display at the {{w|Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum}} in McMinnville, Oregon, USA.
|-
| Hijacking by someone dubbed "D.B. Cooper" who demands money and then jumps out mid-flight to an unknown fate
| style="background-color: #88FF88; color: #000000; text-align: center;" | Yes
| style="background-color: #FF8888; color: #000000; text-align: center;" | No
| In 1971, {{w|Northwest Orient Airlines}} Flight 305 was famously hijacked by an enigmatic man who is best known by the pseudonym "{{w|D. B. Cooper}}" (although "Dan Cooper" was the name he actually used to buy his ticket). After being given a $200,000 ransom by the plane's crew, Cooper proceeded to parachute jump out of the plane using the rear {{w|airstair}} and was never confirmed to have been heard from again; many experts agree that the parachute jump was very risky and it's unlikely that Cooper survived. (Cooper was previously mentioned in [[1400: D.B. Cooper]] and [[1501: Mysteries]].)
|-
| Mile High Club membership
| style="background-color: #88FF88; color: #000000; text-align: center;" | Yes
| style="background-color: #FF8888; color: #000000; text-align: center;" | No
| The "{{w|mile high club}}" is a slang term for people who have had sexual intercourse while onboard an airplane in flight. Although the notion of {{w|sex in space}} is understood to be severely hampered by the limited life support and the complete lack of natural gravity,{{Citation needed}} it's not certain whether Mars's low gravity (compared to Earth) would make it similarly challenging to have intercourse within the planet's atmosphere.
|-
| Discovery of parts of Amelia Earhart's skeleton
| style="background-color: #FF8888; color: #000000; text-align: center;" | No
| style="background-color: #FF8888; color: #000000; text-align: center;" | No
| {{w|Amelia Earhart}} was a famous aviator who, along with her navigator {{w|Fred Noonan}}, went missing over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 while attempting a global circumnavigation flight and has never been found. It was previously believed the skeleton of one of them had been found on Nikumaroro island (then called Gardner Island), but this theory is contentious and most scholars reject it today. While there's still a remote possibility that the remains of Earhart and Noonan will eventually be discovered somewhere in the Pacific, the notion of them somehow ending up on the surface of Mars is practically impossible outside the remit of certain conspiracy theories. (Earhart was previously mentioned in [[1501: Mysteries]], [[950: Mystery Solved]], and [[2197: Game Show]].)
|-
| Mid-flight incident that results in safe landing on the Hudson River
| style="background-color: #88FF88; color: #000000; text-align: center;" | Yes
| style="background-color: #FF8888; color: #000000; text-align: center;" | No
| The {{w|US Airways Flight 1549|Miracle on the Hudson}} was a 2009 aviation incident in which a US Airways airliner struck a flock of geese shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport in New York City. Despite the plane losing all its engine power as a result of the bird strike, Captain Chesley Sullenberger successfully crash-landed in the nearby Hudson River with minimal injuries to the passengers onboard. Of course, it would be highly impractical for a powered flight that encounters a problem in the sky above Mars to then fly all the way to Earth just for an emergency landing in the New York area. It is much more likely that a location on mars would, at some point in the future, be named "The Hudson River" and an aircraft landing there safely.{{Citation needed}}
|-
! Milestone summary
! Achieved on Earth?
! Achieved on Mars?
! Explanation
|}

==Transcript==
:[A chart is shown with nine items. To the right of each item there are two check boxes. Above the top row of check boxes are two underlined labels for the two columns. The first four rows have both boxes checked, and the last five have only the first box checked. The last two items are so long that they take up three and four rows of text. The first seven items are written on one line each.]

Earth Mars
Flight <big>[✓]</big> <big>[✓]</big>

Landing <big>[✓]</big> <big>[✓]</big>

Controlled landing <big>[✓]</big> <big>[✓]</big>

Controlled powered flight <big>[✓]</big> <big>[✓]</big>

Loop <big>[✓]</big> <big>[ ]</big>

In-flight meal <big>[✓]</big> <big>[ ]</big>

Planetary circumnavigation <big>[✓]</big> <big>[ ]</big>

Enormous wooden aircraft
built by a reclusive billionaire <big>[✓]</big> <big>[ ]</big>
that flies exactly once

Hijacking by someone dubbed
"D.B. Cooper" who demands <big>[✓]</big> <big>[ ]</big>
money and then jumps out
mid-flight to an unknown fate

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Aviation]]
[[Category:Mars rovers]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Amelia Earhart]]
[[Category:Comics featuring D. B. Cooper]]
[[Category:Sex]]

User talk:Unreliable Connection

2023-04-18T07:51:56Z

172.70.162.161:

Do you want me to create your sandbox? [[User:ColorfulGalaxy|ColorfulGalaxy]] ([[User talk:ColorfulGalaxy|talk]]) 20:11, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

:Please create my user page and sandbox, and don't forget [[User:Memo Spike Connector]]. [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 23:43, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

::I've created them both. Anyway, thanks for your kind reminder. [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 09:42, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

:The page that you're in charge of got spam edits again. [[User:ColorfulGalaxy|ColorfulGalaxy]] ([[User talk:ColorfulGalaxy|talk]]) 21:12, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

:Uh, They seem to know when I'm usually active, and spammed when I'm inactive, maybe just to annoy others. I always worked late. [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 23:54, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
::Look guy(s), the spammers have been spamming long before you "took charge". Your work-hours matter not one jot, even if we knew your timezone, and the community handles it as it always tries to. I will deal with anything I see 'spammed', if not dealt with by others before I get there, and you can deal with anything that you see before anyone else gets there. Whether UC, CG, OMG or any other 'normal'. (Though OMG is clearly the same person as CG. If, by some remote chance, they are not, one of them is also UC; but very probably both are.) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.86|172.71.242.86]] 11:37, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
:::And Look ''guy(s)''. You Have Already Been Tricked. Did you know about the email with CG's name on it? Y'no, I'm jealous of him, so I was gonna do a trick. [[User:Omg Oriental Music Group|Omg Oriental Music Group]] ([[User talk:Omg Oriental Music Group|talk]]) 23:03, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

'''DELETED COMMENT''' [[User:ColorfulGalaxy|ColorfulGalaxy]] ([[User talk:ColorfulGalaxy|talk]]) 21:26, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

:Thanks for encouraging. I will do better. [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 23:52, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Could you create my user page? [[User:Omg Oriental Music Group|Omg Oriental Music Group]] ([[User talk:Omg Oriental Music Group|talk]]) 09:34, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

:What are you going to do? [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 09:35, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

I want to put the lyrics in the sandbox into my user page sandbox. By the way, could you contact the author for the minor fix to the lyrics? [[User:Omg Oriental Music Group|Omg Oriental Music Group]] ([[User talk:Omg Oriental Music Group|talk]]) 09:36, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

:There is a lot of discussion about the lyrics going on in the portal. That's the place where I posted a math problem (sadly they removed it). Some people said that the lyrics were lousy. There are a lot of obscure words. I'm no linguist, really. I hope that the debate won't continue here. [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 09:42, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

::See what the "author" said: http://puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/120234/a-message-of-encouragement --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.158.231|172.71.158.231]] 09:44, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

:::So this means that the only one left would be "Donald ATG Trump", which isn't active at all. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.228|172.71.154.228]] 09:47, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

== Predict the next comic ==

Let's try to predict what will come next on the xkcd comics. [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 23:53, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

:What about music staff?

==Lyrics==

You're not going to create a sandbox for me, so I'll temporarily put it here.

? — [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 03:43, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

You made the page almost take forever to load. [[User:ClassicalGames|ClassicalGames]] ([[User talk:ClassicalGames|talk]]) 08:51, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Please stop talking about the lyrics. Several other people has gotten angry. I can't trust you, because you kept doing something suspicious and you sound like a scammer. [[User:Memo Spike Connector|2503: Memo Spike Connector]] ([[User talk:Memo Spike Connector|talk]]) 00:51, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

== When the bot failed ==

Please read [[User:DgbrtBOT|this page]] before creating a new comic page. Your edit had puzzled the bot too much. [[User:ClassicalGames|ClassicalGames]] ([[User talk:ClassicalGames|talk]]) 08:51, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Thank you very much. [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 09:00, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

== Birthday ==
It happened that my birthday is the day immediately after yours. And our last names are almost spelled the same. [[User:Memo Spike Connector|2503: Memo Spike Connector]] ([[User talk:Memo Spike Connector|talk]]) 06:12, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

It seems that we have a lot in common. [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 09:06, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

:Our birthdays all fall in the same month. [[User:Missed Connections|935: Missed Connections]] ([[User talk:Missed Connections|talk]]) 23:43, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
::You're not fooling anyone and, with messagesnlike the above, it seems you don't care. Do what you do, and if it's not contrary to the site ethos/good practice then it's tolerable (whether or not it's annoying). But there's really no need to 'fake' different personæ. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.161|172.70.162.161]]

Talk:2763: Linguistics Gossip

2023-04-14T21:25:33Z

172.70.162.161:

Added initial explanation [[User:Bamboo|Bamboo]] ([[User talk:Bamboo|talk]]) 14:08, 14 April 2023 (UTC)Bamboo

Added possible explanation of title text [[User:Bamboo|Bamboo]] ([[User talk:Bamboo|talk]]) 14:14, 14 April 2023 (UTC)Bamboo

Has anyone asked O what they think of all this?[[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.152|172.70.91.152]] 14:32, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

NOTE: I'm assuming the IE/VE ligature is IE, where the I is tilted
Could this also be a reference to the historical Latin pronunciation of Æ, and its separation into "AA" (which could be represented by "ar" in English ("r" is silent), hence the ligature "AR") and "IE" (which would be pronounced "ee" as in "relieve") [[User:1844161|1844161]] ([[User talk:1844161|talk]]) 15:21, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
: I disagree. The title text strongly points towards VE as the logical interpretation [[User:Boatster|Boatster]] ([[User talk:Boatster|talk]]) 15:52, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

I think it might be helpful to readers to provide a parenthetical describing the pronunciation of the 'ash' glyph, so that people who aren't old language aficionados aren't left in the lurch if they're the sort who read aloud in their head. I'm going to add it, but if someone removes it I won't be miffed. Also, there's no way the new E ligature is meant to be IE. The title text only makes sense if it's VE.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.67.136|172.69.67.136]] 15:56, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

I hope AR wedding hat a pirate theme. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 16:05, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

The AR ligature is used in aeronautical engineering for the aspect ratio of a wing. This mainly applies to handwritten work, since there isn't an easy way to insert that glyph when typing. [[User:D5xtgr|D5xtgr]] ([[User talk:D5xtgr|talk]]) 17:18, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

2763 -MathHacked

I suppose the Æsop is that it's not necessary to maintain a chimæric quæstionability just for primævally æsthetic reasons, or have sæcularly dæmonic adhærence to adhæsively mæandering through an anæsthetic tædium of hæritage fæcality. Unless that's all just hæretical hyperbolæ, casting pædagogical umbræ on the matter. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.160|172.70.162.160]] 21:22, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2761: 1-to-1 Scale

2023-04-11T10:10:27Z

172.70.162.161:

Really want an explanation for this one. [[User:JobbieJimmies|Melomaniac]] ([[User talk:JobbieJimmies|talk]]) 03:23, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

My comment got deleted by a bot!!! [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 03:23, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:RIP... [[User:JobbieJimmies|Melomaniac]] ([[User talk:JobbieJimmies|talk]]) 03:25, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:No, UC, it just got overwritten by the 'bot, when it did its job and (re)created the whole initial state of the various pages to depict the new comic coming out. (Noting that you'd not set them all up fully/correctly.)
:That you had spotted it already and had ''just'' gotten in ahead of the 'bot clearly isn't something it was prepared to handle. But as someone spotting it can usually wait a short while for the 'bot to catch up, I don't think it's a problem. In fact, you could have just copied your old contributions into the now receptive page(s), with nary any comment. Too late now. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.101|172.70.90.101]] 03:44, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

:: This may have broken the next link on the previous page. --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.160.36|172.71.160.36]] 06:41, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

The lines represent the surfaces of the planets I think, so it's basically all the planets overlaid on top of each other. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.142.35|172.71.142.35]] 03:28, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

:Yup, I think it's what he meant - but I find it unlikely that the gas giants would have this clear cutoff of a "surface". [[Special:Contributions/162.158.189.241|162.158.189.241]] 03:34, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
::If there is a gas - liquid phase transition (and I think at least the gas giants have them): Why not? OK, you could see "rain" as blurring a clear cutoff, but wouldn't that also apply to Earth, then?[[User:Tier666|Tier666]] ([[User talk:Tier666|talk]]) 08:04, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

I’d think the same citation as stands for ridiculously large would also cover larger than currently exists on earth, and his that citation is not in fact needed? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.174.186|162.158.174.186]] 06:53, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

:It seems like the gas-covered worlds are explicitly those with clearly cutoff "surfaces," so maybe in those cases the cutoff is some specific gas density -- which occurs at a consistent radius throughout the planet, thus creating a flat surface. While for rocky worlds (except Venus, which is treated like a gas planet here), a density cutoff can lead to bumpiness due to terrain. [[User:Trimeta|Trimeta]] ([[User talk:Trimeta|talk]]) 03:57, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

On Twitter there seems to be concern that all planets are depicted flat. This may make this a contribution/mockery of the ongoing [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth Flat Earth] discussions in some corners of the internet. --[[Special:Contributions/198.41.242.132|198.41.242.132]] 06:49, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

The display for an uncropped version of the image would not only be larger than any display on earth. It would be larger than earth. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.86.243|162.158.86.243]] 06:59, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:By necessity, at least as large as Jupiter. Maybe slightly above two Jupiters (max dimension squared compared to display height*width of any common aspect ratio) if you wanted to not overlay any of the others at all. And make the lower limit a packing-problem, then add a buffer so there isn't the actual need for any to touch. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.253|172.70.90.253]] 10:02, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

2754: Relative Terms

2023-03-31T09:16:26Z

172.70.162.161: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2754
| date = March 24, 2023
| title = Relative Terms
| image = relative_terms_2x.png
| imagesize = 425x442px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Small sewing machines are sewing machines that are smaller than a sewing machine. A sewing machine is larger than a small sewing machine, but quieter than a loud sewing machine.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT THAT IS LARGER THAN A BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
The terms "small" and "big" are used to refer to size; the terms "loud" and "quiet" are used to refer to (audial) volume.

While these terms are relative, they are often used even when there is nothing obvious being compared against (e.g. "A windmill is a big thing" or "An ant is a small thing"). This comic humorously suggests that the item defined to be in the middle of all four terms ("neither small nor big; neither quiet nor loud") is a sewing machine, as a sewing machine seems (at least in comparison to the other items on the graph) to be neither particularly big nor particularly small, neither particularly quiet nor particularly loud.

An alternative argument may be that the in the center would be the average adult human (as this is the perspective from which most people use language), though this observation would lose some of the comic's comedic value.

The center of the chart is a sewing machine, and the comic is claiming that the scales of "loud and quiet" and "big and small" are measured in comparison to a standard size sewing machine. A standard sewing machine is roughly 60dB in volume and approximately 42” X 21”, although this is for industrial machines, and those in the home would be both smaller and quieter.

Many of the items appear to have been placed in the wrong quadrant for their actual attributes; locations seem to reflect more how people generally think of these things, as opposed to their real-life relationship to a sewing machine.

The title text is humorously tautological because it compares the standard against those things that are themselves defined against the standard.

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Small and quiet (upper left)
|-
! Item !! Description
|-
| Ant || Randall has used ants as a small comparator in [[2733:_Size_Comparisons|a previous comic]] on the topic of comparisons.
|-
| Balloon || A party balloon is quite loud when it pops, or if someone 'squeaks' it by rubbing; a hot-air balloon is big enough to carry a few humans, and the burner can be surprisingly loud.
|-
| Book ||
|-
| Bun (rabbit or pastry) || "Bun" is an informal term for a rabbit and a loaf of bread, this comparison was made in [[1871: Bun Alert]]
|-
| Butterfly || Butterflies are used as an exemplar of something small, unnoticeable and seemingly insignificant in the metaphor of the Butterfly Effect.
|-
| Hat ||
|-
| Mouse || A mouse is a very small, quiet animal. This might also be a reference to the expression "quiet as a mouse", meaning very quietly.
|-
| Newt ||
|-
| Pin drop || The expression "hear a pin drop" is used to indicate that an area is exceptionally quiet; the idea is that the space is so silent that even something as insubstantial and tiny as a pin can be heard hitting the ground.
|-
| Snow globe || A {{w|snow globe}} is much smaller than a sewing machine. Some snow globes have a small music box that can be wound up to play a melody. Snow globes without a music box are silent.
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Small and loud (upper right)
|-
! Item !! Description
|-
| Baby || Babies are usually considered small, and can be quite loud when they cry.
|-
| Blender || Blenders make a lot of noise when in use. Most household blenders are smaller than a sewing machine.
|-
| Cricket || Given that it is in the small/loud quadrant, this would refer to the insect, which is pretty small and can be quite loud; the sport of cricket or a cricket game would be much larger (though potentially much louder).
|-
| Fire alarm || The primary purpose of a fire alarm is to notify people of fire, so fire alarms are usually very loud, but ideally take up little space.
|-
| Firecracker || A {{w|Firecracker}} is a small explosive firework that makes a very loud bang when lit.
|-
| Flute || An example of a small musical instrument that can nevertheless be audibly quite dominant.
|-
| Harmonica || See Flute.
|-
| Popcorn || A snack that is known for being annoyingly loud in a cinema setting. However, this is largely due to the otherwise low volume environment, and arguably a sewing machine might be equally or more annoying. Also, some helpings of popcorn in some cinemas may actually be larger than a sewing machine.
|-
| Songbird ||
|-
| Whistle || This is of course the device known as a whistle, as it is small. The act by humans to whistle has no size (other than that of the whistler). A whistle is used functionally in place of a human that whistles. The loudest human whistle ever recorded was 8372 Hz and roughly 110 DB, which is a C9 in the standard musical scale and is roughly as loud as a jackhammer[https://www.vnews.com/West-Lebanon-man-sets-a-world-record-for-whistling-24480844#:~:text=Guinness'%20website%20says%20Stanford%20reached,in%20the%20standard%20musical%20notation.]. Since a whistle should be able to beat this it must be seen as loud.
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Big and quiet (lower left)
|-
|-
! Item !! Description
|-
| Anaconda ||
|-
| Giraffe || Giraffes can be quite loud, but they usually vocalise using frequencies well below the range of human hearing. So, to a human, giraffes are quiet.
|-
| Northern lights || "In 2016, a Finnish study confirmed that the Aurora Borealis does produce a sound that can be heard" [https://www.techexplorist.com/listen-sound-aurora-borealis/47421/]
|-
| Shark ||
|-
| Statue || Most statues are larger than a sewing machine. Most statues are silent, but some have fountains or other devices that make sound.
|-
| The Moon || Lower left corner; the Moon is very, very big{{fact}}, but it is also completely silent{{fact}} as sound cannot travel through the vacuum of space.
|-
| Tree ||
|-
| Windmill ||
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Big and loud (lower right)
|-
! Item !! Description
|-
| Airplane ||
|-
| Cannon ||
|-
| Riding mower ||
|-
| [[wikipedia:Calliope_(music)|Steam calliope]] || A large musical device which functions by sending steam (or more recently compressed air) through attached whistles.
|-
| Train ||
|-
| Tuba ||
|-
| Volcano || Lower right corner. Volcanic eruptions can be extremely loud. The {{w|1883 eruption of Krakatoa}} made a pressure wave of 180 dB, the loudest sound ever recorded.
|-
| Waterfall ||
|-
| Whale ||
|}

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

:[A chart, with "Quiet" to "Loud" on the X-axis, and "Small" to "Big" on the Y-axis. It is split into four quarters, with "Sewing machine" in the center.]

:[Upper left quadrant (Small & Quiet items):] Butterfly, Pin drop, Mouse, Ant, Bun (rabbit or pastry), Snow globe, Newt, Balloon, Book, Hat

:[Upper right quadrant (Small & Loud items):] Popcorn, Cricket, Songbird, Whistle, Baby, Harmonica, Flute, Fire alarm, Blender, Firecracker

:[Lower left quadrant (Big & Quiet items):] Shark, Tree, Anaconda, Giraffe, Statue, Windmill, Northern lights, The Moon

:[Lower right quadrant (Big & Loud items):] Tuba, Riding mower, Cannon, Airplane, Train, Waterfall, Steam calliope, Whale, Volcano

:[Caption below the panel:]
:''Big'', ''Small'', ''Loud'', and ''Quiet'' are relative terms. The thing they're relative to is a sewing machine.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Aviation]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Buns]]
[[Category:Sharks]]
[[Category:Music]]
[[Category:Volcanoes]]
[[Category:Food]]