explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

541: TED Talk

2024-03-22T19:28:13Z

172.70.178.199: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 541
| date = February 9, 2009
| title = TED Talk
| image = ted_talk.png
| titletext = The IAU ban came after the 'redefinition of the 'planet' to include the IAU president's mom' incident.
}}

==Explanation==
The comics shows Randall as a presenter at the highly prestigious {{w|TED conference}}, a symposium about technology, entertainment and design. The illustrious {{w|list of TED speakers|list of former presenters}} includes amongst others Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Larry Page, Richard Dawkins and Gordon Brown. The conference is regarded as a forum for {{w|digerati}}. Every talk has a length of at most 20 minutes and is supposed to be as captivating as possible.

Randall's presentation, however, reduces the purpose of the conference to absurdity: The topic he wishes to point out to his listeners, is that of how to put an emoticon at the end of a parenthetical statement. This question is of little practical consequence, although it received a lot of attention after publication of the comic. In the last panel, the TED conference is another item to add to his list of conferences from which he has been banned. On the list are other conferences from all sorts of fields, including every American furry convention.

The title text about Randall's ban from the {{w|IAU}} conference is a reference to the popular maternal insults called {{w|Maternal insult|"yo momma" jokes}}. A common representative of the genre runs "Yo mama so fat, scientists have declared her the 10th planet." Those kind of jokes are a [[:Category:Your Mom|recurring theme]] on xkcd.

It can be inferred from [[629: Skins]], that Randall was banned from North American furry conventions due to being a "Skin", which is a furry whose fursona prefers going around disguised as a human. Depending on Randall's behavior, such an action could generate a lot of drama and, presumably, lead to convention bans.

Getting banned from attending a conference is a [[:Category:Banned from conferences|recurring theme]] on xkcd, and even in real life, Randall sometimes has bad ideas for conference topics, [https://blog.xkcd.com/2009/02/11/ireland/ such as presumably not speaking for the entire conference]. This was so far the sixth of eight comics to directly mention conference bans. The first to do so was [[153: Cryptography]].

The {{w|PyCon}} organizers made a response to this comic - see below under [[#PyCon response|PyCon response]].

===Conferences where Randall is banned from===
Here is a list of the conferences from which Randall has been banned according to this comic.
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Conference
! Description
! Website
|-
| Siggraph
| Special Interest Group on Graphics and Interactive Techniques
| http://www.siggraph.org
|-
| Eurocrypt
| Annual International Conference on the Theory and Applications of Cryptographic Techniques
| http://www.iacr.org/meetings/eurocrypt/
|-
| Defcon
| DEF CON® Hacking Conference
| https://www.defcon.org/
|-
| Pycon
| Python Conference
| http://www.pycon.org/
|-
| International Astronomical Union
| The IAU's mission is to promote and safeguard the science of astronomy in all its aspects through international cooperation
| https://www.iau.org/science/meetings/
|-
| Canadian Paleontology Conference
| The main goal of the CPC and its predecessors has been to provide a relatively small, informal forum for presentation and discussion of current paleontological research
| http://www.gacpaleodivision.com/pd-meetings.html
|-
| Every American Furry Convention
| There are many Furry Conventions in America (see the {{w|List of furry conventions|Wikipedia page}} for more details), but to be banned from all of them would probably require action by the Furry Convention Leadership Roundtable, the coordinating body for furry conventions.
|http://fclr.info/
|-
| American Baking Society
(American Bakers Association)
| ABA represents the interests of bakers before the U.S. Congress, federal agencies, and international regulatory authorities
| http://www.americanbakers.org/meetings/
|-
| Asian Dolphin-Training Conference
| International Marine Animal Trainers' Association
| https://www.imata.org/
|-
| TED
| Technology, Entertainment, Design.
| https://ted.com
|}

==Transcript==
:[Randall, drawn as Cueball, on stage.]
:Randall: Hi. I'm Randall. Welcome to my TED talk.
:Randall: It's an honor to speak to you, some of the brightest innovators from so many fields, about a problem in desperate need of your attention:
:Randall: How DO you end parenthetical statements with emoticons? I can't figure out a good way.
:[Screen next to him shows two statements, both crossed out in red.]
:"Linux (or BSD :) would..." looks mismatched
:"Linux (or BSD :)) would..." looks mismatched and weird

:[Randall writing on a desk.]
:[Randall's List] Conferences I'm banned from:
:Siggraph
:Eurocrypt
:Defcon
:Pycon
:International Astronomical Union
:Canadian Paleontology Conference
:Every American Furry Convention
:American Baking Society
:Asian Dolphin-Training Conference
:TED

==PyCon response==
In response to this comic, PyCon organizers jokingly [http://pycon.blogspot.com/2009/02/randall-munroe.html announced] that Randall Munroe was banned from PyCon 2009 due to "last year's disgraceful keynote, 'Web Spiders vs. Red Spiders'." They also said they instructed their volunteers to refuse admission to him and "any stick figures who may attempt to register, particularly if they are [[:Category:Characters with hats|wearing hats]]."

Messages on the PyCon-Organizers mailing list show that this joke was intended to get Randall to come to PyCon: (The links will only work if you're subscribed to the mailing list.)
:PyCon mentioned briefly in today's xkcd:
:http://xkcd.com/541/
:We've still never gotten Randall Munroe to actually attend, have we? Anybody want to take charge of twisting his arm this time? I think we can still offer him a "press pass" (free registration). [...] [http://mail.python.org/mailman/private/pycon-organizers/2009-February/011224.html]
::An invite would seem most appropriate given the cartoon. :-)
::We could also have an official PyCon blog post confirming his ban... [http://mail.python.org/mailman/private/pycon-organizers/2009-February/011225.html]
:::How about a public blog post LIFTING the ban and inviting him? [http://mail.python.org/mailman/private/pycon-organizers/2009-February/011226.html]
::::Confirming the ban is far funnier... He's definitely a disturbing influence on programmers. [http://mail.python.org/mailman/private/pycon-organizers/2009-February/011227.html]
:::::Agreed, especially if we invite him concurrently with confirming the ban. [http://mail.python.org/mailman/private/pycon-organizers/2009-February/011239.html]
:::::(a few posts later)
:::::I'm happy to participate in actually throwing some thin guy out of the conference, and then get some graphics savvy person to animate a stick figure over that. :) [...][http://mail.python.org/mailman/private/pycon-organizers/2009-February/011274.html]
::::::here's a rough idea of what would show up if you invited him to actually do any speaking...
::::::http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJOS0sV2a24
::::::it's fairly long. he shows up in the beginning around 3:25. [http://mail.python.org/mailman/private/pycon-organizers/2009-February/011275.html]
:::::::For the record, I did try to convince him to come when got the art for the tshirt last year. He didn't seem super psyched, but then again emotions are hard to read via IRC.
:::::::I love the idea of "officially" banning him, however. ;-) [http://mail.python.org/mailman/private/pycon-organizers/2009-February/011241.html]
::::::::(a few posts later)
::::::::OK - posted to the PyCon blog, by the power vested in me as publicity chair. With Michael Foord's excellent sentence added.
::::::::Now let him know that since he's banned, he HAS to come. [http://mail.python.org/mailman/private/pycon-organizers/2009-February/011251.html]
:::::::@32:49 “What I need is a movie that’s an hour and a half of River Tam beating up dinosaurs.” — Randall

==Trivia==

Randall has since this comic given a TED talk in March 2014. [https://www.ted.com/talks/randall_munroe_comics_that_ask_what_if Randall Munroe Comics that ask "what if?"].

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Randall Munroe]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Furries]]
[[Category:Banned from conferences]]
[[Category:Public speaking]]
[[Category:Your Mom]]

356: Nerd Sniping

2022-05-04T21:08:02Z

172.70.178.199: Undo revision 242604 by Ex Kay Cee Dee (talk)

{{comic
| number = 356
| date = December 12, 2007
| title = Nerd Sniping
| image = nerd sniping.png
| titletext = I first saw this problem on the Google Labs Aptitude Test. A professor and I filled a blackboard without getting anywhere. Have fun.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Nerd}}s have a way of getting distracted easily and focusing on one thing and ignoring the rest, when they feel their specific skills are challenged by an interesting problem. [[Black Hat]] has decided to make this into a disturbing game of getting nerds, in this case a physicist, to stop in the middle of a street and get crushed by traffic by showing them an interesting problem to solve. (This may be based on a real event—see the [[#Trivia|trivia]] section).

The problem Black Hat shows is an electronics engineering thought experiment to find the resistance between two points. In normal wiring, a one-ohm resistor would result in one ohm of resistance. Two resistors connected in a series, where electricity has to go through each, has two ohms of resistance. Two one-ohm resistors in parallel give the circuit only half an ohm since you average the resistance of the path (1 ohm of resistance over 2 paths). With an infinite grid of equal resistors, you have an infinite number of paths to take, and for each path an infinite number of both series and parallel paths to consider, so much more advanced methods are needed. The exact answer to the question is 4/π − 1/2 ohms, or about 0.773 ohms. See [http://www.mathpages.com/home/kmath668/kmath668.htm Infinite Grid of Resistors].

Black Hat explains the concept of his new sport, '''Nerd Sniping''', to [[Cueball]] while '''''killing''''' the physicist, but Cueball is appalled and will have no part in this sport, which doesn't make Black Hat give up on him as he suggests it would be fun if he made his own sign. Black Hat finally suggests that "physicists are two points, mathematicians three." This may indicate that he considers a mathematician to be a more difficult target for his game than a physicist would be. It is unclear whether this is meant as a dig on physicists or on mathematicians; it might be because physicists are interested in a wider range of problems, or because mathematicians require a higher-quality problem to hold their interest. Alternatively, he just dislikes mathematicians more, and is thus willing to award more points for sniping one of them.

In the title text, [[Randall]] explains that he saw this problem in a [http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2004/09/pencils-down-people.html Google Labs Aptitude Test]. This is a collection of puzzles published by {{w|Google}} as a parody of tests such as the {{w|SAT}}. Google is known for using logic & math puzzles in their job interviews.

Randall explained in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJOS0sV2a24 a speech at Google] five days before this comic was released that he was nerd sniped, in a way, by that problem in this test (see problem 10 on [https://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Ap14FtNN91w/Rll5oF8Px0I/AAAAAAAAAHo/cHG6a83cmlI/s1600-h/GLAT_3.jpg page 2]), and got quite irritated when he ultimately found that it was actually a modern physics research problem, requiring very advanced math, far more complicated than the other puzzles. Putting such a problem in an aptitude test can be a way of testing if someone might realize when they cannot solve a problem and remember to move along to the other problems. If they fail to do this, they will never reach the easier problems that come later, and will fail due to their inability to realize when they will come up short. This is also important knowledge to have about yourself. Seen in this context, it is not necessarily a bad idea to have such an impossible problem in an aptitude test, as it is not interesting to have someone who is easily nerd sniped working for you.

Note that the truck should have stopped no matter what, since the nerd was walking on a pedestrian crossing. However, the driver may have seen him walking, then estimated that he would be safe before reaching him, and realized too late that he had stopped in the street. Alternatively, the truck driver is part of Black Hat's sport. Or was himself/herself nerd sniped by the sign.

Randall has later referred back to the concept of ''Nerd Sniping'' several times in the past, such as in the title text of [[730: Circuit Diagram]], and in the [[what if?]] blog. In [http://what-if.xkcd.com/113/ Visit Every State] (7 years after this comics release), the entire comic was shown at the top and the truck again further down the post—Randall has again been nerd sniped by a paper he read. This also happens to him in [https://what-if.xkcd.com/124/ Lunar Swimming]—see the title text for the second to last picture.

==Transcript==
:[Black Hat is sitting on a chair, Cueball is standing next to him. Across the street, another Cueball-like guy is coming from a building walking towards the pedestrian crossing across from Black Hat.]
:Black Hat: There's a certain type of brain that's easily disabled.
:Black Hat: If you show it an interesting problem, it involuntarily drops everything else to work on it.

:[The Cueball-like man across the street is about to enter a crosswalk, which is seen from right behind Black Hat in his chair, holding onto the sign, which is still pointing down. Cueball is looking on.]
:Black Hat: This has led me to invent a new sport: Nerd Sniping.
:Black Hat: See that physicist crossing the road?

:[Black Hat lifts up the sign when the physicist is in the middle of the street, halfway across the pedestrian crossing.]
:Black Hat: Hey!

:[A close-up of Black Hat's sign is shown in a frameless panel. There is text above and below an image of a four-by-five grid of nodes with resistors (shown as wiggly lines) between every node and also continuing away from the 16 outer nodes. A total of 5 columns with 5 and 4 rows with 6 resistors for a total of 20 nodes and 49 resistors. Two nodes, a knight's move apart, are marked with red circles in the 3rd row 2nd column and the 2nd row 4th column.]
:Sign: On this infinite grid of ideal one-ohm resistors,
:Sign: what's the equivalent resistance between the two marked nodes?

:[The Cueball-like physicist has stopped pondering the questions, a hand to his chin.]
:Physicist: It's... Hmm. Interesting. Maybe if you start with... No, wait. Hmm... You could—

:[In another frameless panel, a ten-wheeled truck is zooming past from the right, apparently going through the spot where the physicist just stood.]
:Truck: <big>''Foooom''</big>

:[Cueball looks down on Black Hat, who looks back up from his chair at the curb, again holding the sign down. He lifts one hand up while replying.]
:Cueball: I will have no part in this.
:Black Hat: C'mon, make a sign. It's fun! Physicists are two points, mathematicians three.

==Trivia==
*It could be that Randall was inspired by a story from {{w|John Horton Conway|John H. Conway}} about when he was involved in a "near" nerd snipe event that was a perfect match for this comic.
**The story can be read in the book ''[https://books.google.ca/books?id=aFHyUfFUVIwC&printsec=frontcover&hl=da#v=onepage&q&f=false Candid Science Five]'' from 2005 (two years before this comics release), specifically on [https://books.google.ca/books?id=aFHyUfFUVIwC&pg=PA22&lpg=PA22&dq=Coxeter+came+to+Cambridge+and+he+gave+a+lecture,+then+he+had+this+problem+...++Ileft+the+lecture+room+thinking.+As+I+was+walking+through+Cambridge,+suddenly+theidea+hit+me,++but+it+hit+me+while+I+was+in+the+middle+of+the+road.++When+the+ideahit+me+I+stopped+and+a+large+truck+ran+into+me+...++So+I+pretended+that+Coxeter+hadcalculated+the+difficulty+of+this+problem+so+precisely+that+he+knew+that+I+would+getthe+solution+just+in+the+middle+of+the+roa&source=bl&ots=CgmxTG2n0w&sig=ohqqBGtJrpuQFeiCPPusMVsQUV4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAGoVChMIy4KdnPakyAIV0ZeICh2OGghP#v=onepage&q=%22in%20the%20middle%20of%20the%20road%22&f=false page 22]:
::"{{w|Harold Scott MacDonald Coxeter|[Donald] Coxeter}} came to Cambridge and he gave a lecture, then he had this problem ... I left the lecture room thinking. As I was walking through Cambridge, suddenly the idea hit me, but it hit me while I was in the middle of the road. When the idea hit me I stopped and a large truck ran into me ... So I pretended that Coxeter had calculated the difficulty of this problem so precisely that he knew that I would get the solution just in the middle of the road ..."

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Physics]]

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2022-05-04T16:46:27Z

172.70.178.199: It works

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2022-05-04T16:45:32Z

172.70.178.199: Test reconstructed bot in JS console (only one time) (I solved the CAPTCHA manually before running the bot)

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crap

2614: 2

2022-05-04T00:59:01Z

172.70.178.199:

<div style="display: none">crap crap </div><noinclude>:''This page refers to the comic named "2". For comic #2, see [[2: Petit Trees (sketch)]].''</noinclude>
{{notice|'''WARNING:''' The vast majority of the pages of ExplainXKCD are currently vandalized. {{#expr: {{LATESTCOMIC}} - {{PAGESINCAT:All comics|R}}}} out of {{LATESTCOMIC}} ({{#expr: 100 - ({{PAGESINCAT:All comics|R}} / {{LATESTCOMIC}} * 100 round 0)}}%) are vandalized, leaving only {{PAGESINCAT:All comics|R}} ({{#expr: ({{PAGESINCAT:All comics|R}} / {{LATESTCOMIC}} * 100 round 0)}}%). ''Users:'' You can help combat this! Click "Random page" and undo/revert the vandalism in the page history. Every bit of help counts! (Admins, are you there?)}}
{{comic
| number = 2614
| date = May 2, 2022
| title = 2
| image = 2.png
| titletext = It's like sigma summation notation, except instead of summing the argument over all values of i, you 2 the argument over all values of 2.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by A VERY JEALOUS NUMBER ₃½ⁿ₇₇₇ⅥⅣ₆⁸⁴⁴½⅔⅜ↆ↉↉∂, WHO DEMANDS TO HAVE THEIR OWN WEBCOMIC NEXT - Please change this comment when editing this page. The titletext needs to be worked in there, but I think I got everything else in some sort of order, pending general improvements. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This demonstrates the different ways in which the number 2 can be typeset in various scientific fields. Whilst these typefaces are used with any number, using the number 2 in this instance provides a clear illustration of where adding numbers can signify either a feature of a concept (such as the number of electrons in an atom) or a mathematical operation on it (such as raising a value to it's second power).

The dotted box represents any character (presumably a letter or bigram of letters). All the other notation consists only of the digit 2, in various fashions with occasional additional punctuation, and labelled as to what the 'purpose' might normally be of any particular element(s) as indicated, with respect to the general term, in the following fashions:
;Regular Math
:Precedes the term. "2x" indicates two times the value of ''x'' in normal {{w|algebra|algebraic}} use that should be familiar for many people. {{Citation needed}}
;Physics
:A preceding superscript. "2H" would indicate the particular {{w|isotope}} of Hydrogen with the atomic weight of two, i.e. deuterium, which is most often encountered when working with the atomic level of matter where the total number of neutrons and protons in the atom is important. It can also represent tetration, which is iterated exponentiation.
;Chemical Physics
:A preceding subscript, "2He" indicates the atomic number of an atom, which is the number of protons it contains, and thus a guide to the number of electrons its unionised form usually has and hence meaningful in its potential chemical interactions with other atoms. This should be invariant for any particular named element, but is usually given simultaneously with the presuperscripted mass number where it can be indicative of the applicable nuclear physics. {{w|Chemical Physics}} is a subdiscipline of physics and chemistry and **must never** be confused with {{w|Physical Chemistry}}. It can also represent pentation, which is iterated tetration.
;Regular Math or Footnotes
:A trailing superscript is typical of a {{w|Exponentiation|power value}}, in this case "x²" would be ''x'' multiplied by a second copy of itself, and a fairly typical mathematical standard.
:Additionally, superscripted numbers are one common way to mark words in a line of text in a way to refer to a {{w|Note (typography)|footnote}}, typically placed at the bottom of the page, with additional information that would not be appropriate or easily comprehendable to edit into the main text itself. The ambiguity between footnotes and exponents was used in [[1184: Circumference Formula]]
;Chemistry
:A trailing subscript is used in chemistry to indicate a multiple of the element (or group of elements, in brackets) in a {{w|chemical formula}}. "H2O" indicates two hydrogen atoms bond with a single oxygen atom in a molecule of water.
;Matrices! ("2,2")
:Extending the trailing subscript with a comma-separated value usually indicates a multidimensional array (e.g. establishing a 2-by-2 square of numbers, or this particular position in such an array), which is in the realms of {{w|Matrix (mathematics)|matrix mathematics}}. This is a little bit beyond 'everyday algebra' for many people, as seemingly indicated by the exclamation of the mere mention of matrices!
;The Physicists Are At It Again ("2;2")
:This label encompasses a mark that turns the prior comma into a semicolon, as part of the trailing subscript. This is a common notation for the {{w|Covariant derivative}} of a tensor field, which is commonly used in the mathematics of general relativity.
;Either High School Math Function or Incomprehensible Group Theory
:The number 2 in parentheses that follow a term would normally be the argument to a {{w|Function (mathematics)|function}}, e.g. "f(2)", which means that you should take the value (in this case 2) and find the result if manipulated by the predefined function ''f''. It is generally taught as part of algebraic mathematics already described, i.e. at {{w|Secondary school|High School}}.
:In {{w|group theory}}, however, the number 2 in parentheses could indicate a cyclic subgroup or ideal generated by two or a special case of cycle notation for elements of symmetry groups used to mean an element that keeps 2 fixed. This may be somewhat beyond high-school level.{{citation needed}}
;Oh no. Whatever this is, it's cursed.
:A symbol centered underneath another symbol is normally reserved for doing summations, where the big symbol is Σ, or some other operation applied to a sequence of numbers.
:It does not make sense to have a single number there, as indicated in the alt text. As with [[2529: Unsolved Math Problems|other things]] in Randall's comic universe, the explanation for this particular anomaly is that it is 'Cursed'. The usage mentioned in the alt text is an operation (Σ, summation) over a variable usually indicated by a letter such as i, where the operation is performed over all values of the variable, i.e. you Σ the argument over all values of i. In the "2" case, the alt text says you "you 2 the argument over all values of 2", i.e. the Σ operation has been replaced by the "2" operation and the i variable has been replaced by the "2" variable. 2 is usually not an operation, though the definition of 2 under {{w|Church_encoding#Church_numerals|church encoding}} is a function that takes in and produces functions. However, 2 is not a variable (and definitely not both at the same time).
:: Things being cursed is a common trope within recent XKCD comics which have mentioned items including [[2332:_Cursed_Chair|Cursed chairs]] and [[Category:Cursed_Connectors]]. This notation is one of the few occasions where the supernatural have demonstrable implications on science and mathematics for those foolhardy enough to use it.

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

:[An apparent generalisation of a scientific expression consisting of a dotted rectangular 'box' outline, left empty, and various commonly-themed symbology around it:]

:[as normal text, to the left of all the rest:] 2
:[superscript to the immediate left of the box:] 2
:[subscript also to the immediate left of the box:] 2
:[superscript to the immediate right of the box:] 2
:[subscript also to the immediate right of the box:] 2;2 [i.e. separated by a semicolon]
:[as normal text, to the right of almost all the rest:] (2) [i.e. enclosed in standard parentheses]
:[smaller subscript, centered immediately beneath the 2 within the parentheses:] 2

:[Further details are drawn in grey tone, around or near various of the elements of the expression:]
;[Captions above the numbers]
:[with an arrow pointing to the leftmost 2:] Regular Math
:[with an arrow pointing to the leftwards superscript 2:] Physics
:[with an arrow pointing to the rightwards superscript 2:] Regular math or footnotes
:[with an arrow pointing to the parenthetical 2 at the right:] Either high school math functions or incomprehensible group theory

;[Captions below the numbers]
:[with an arrow pointing to the leftwards subscript 2:] Chemical Physics
:[with an arrow pointing to just the rightwards subscript 2:] Chemistry
:[with an arrow pointing to a distorted grey ring snaking around only the comma of the semicolon and the following 2 of the rightmost subscript:] Matrices!
:[with an arrow pointing to a larger grey ring that passes fully around the whole semicolon and final 2 of the rightmost subscript:] The physicists are at it again
:[with an arrow pointing to the small 2 placed below the parenthetical 2:] Oh no. Whatever this is, it's cursed.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Chemistry]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cursed Items]]

604: Qwertial Aphasia

2022-05-04T00:54:13Z

172.70.178.199: Revert vandalism and add anti-crapbot code

<div style="display: none">crap</div>
{{comic
| number = 604
| date = July 1, 2009
| title = Qwertial Aphasia
| image = qwertial_aphasia.png
| titletext = If this were SMBC, the alt-text drawing thingy would be a giraffe hooker fluttering her eyelashes.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Randall]] has invented the term '''Qwertial Aphasia''' to describe the common experience of having a word, from a spoken conversation, accidentally spill over into something one is typing, often with humorous results.

The description "Qwertial" refers to the position of the top row of letters in the most common keyboard arrangement, the {{w|QWERTY}} keyboard layout, as this is only something that afflicts you while typing. {{w|Aphasia}} is a class of medical conditions which affect the production and understanding of language.

In this case [[Cueball]] is in the process of replying on the computer to his friend who just asked if they should go out to eat some food later. Cueball is about to explain why he should not, when [[Megan]] walks in and disturbs him with her stuffed toy {{w|giraffe}} which makes him say the word giraffe.

The joke set up in the comic comes from {{tvtropes|FreudianSlip|the substitution of the word 'giraffe' for the word 'frequently'}}, which changes the whole meaning of Cueball's last sentence. The original sentence would have been ''I can't afford to keep eating out this '''frequently'''.'' The unintentional replacement makes 'giraffe' the object of the sentence, and implies that Cueball is ''[http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Eating+out+%28sexuality%29 eating out]'' (slang for {{w|cunnilingus}}) a giraffe. He tries to correct himself by writing that he meant ''frequently'' but the damage is done and he will be the laughing stock with his friends for a while.

The title text continues the image of a giraffe as a sexual object - in particular, one which {{w|Prostitution|costs money}}. SMBC refers to the comic {{w|Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal}}, a whimsical joke-a-day comic which comes with a second illustration, which can be seen by clicking on a button known as the "votey". This additional panel often serves as a second punchline in the same way as the title text does in xkcd. {{w|Zach Weiner}} of SMBC responded to this title text in the votey on [https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2009-07-02 July 2, 2009], the day after this comic was released.

==Transcript==
:[Caption in a frame partly above the main panels, but which breaks the top border of the two first panels frames:]
:I hate how when I'm talking while I type, sometimes I accidentally type a word I'm saying.

:[Cueball is sitting at a computer chatting with a friend. The friends message "comes" out of the computer.]
:Friend (from computer): Wanna go get food later?

:[Megan walks in to the frame, holding a small stuffed giraffe in front of her. Cueball is in the middle of typing his reply, which "comes" from the keyboard.]
:Megan: Check out what I found in the closet!
:Cueball (from keyboard): Sorry, I really shouldn't.
:Keyboard: ''Type type''

:[Megan has stopped and Cueball turns to look at her and the giraffe, while continuing to type.]
:Cueball: Aww, what an adorable stuffed giraffe!
:Cueball (from keyboard): I can't afford to keep eating out this giraffe.
:Keyboard: ''Type type''

:[Caption below the last panel in a frame which breaks the bottom border of the above panel:]
:''Frequently!'' I meant ''"frequently"''!

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Giraffes]]
[[Category:Sex]]

1744: Metabolism

2022-05-04T00:41:29Z

172.70.178.199: Undo revision 235948 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1744
| date = October 10, 2016
| title = Metabolism
| image = metabolism.png
| titletext = I have this weird thing where if I don't drink enough water, I start feeling bad and then die of dehydration.
}}

==Explanation==
Eating is fundamentally a process where energy from food gets absorbed into the body in order to drive every cellular process in the body. Energy that is absorbed but not needed in the short term gets converted and stored as body fat. This is called {{w|metabolism}}. Consuming too much food and not exercising enough are major factors for {{w|obesity}}, which is a problem in many first world countries today, {{w|Obesity in the United States|especially in the United States}}.

For obese people, losing weight is often an enormously difficult task. Standing in stark contrast, there are also lean people who do not seem to ever gain any weight even though they appear to eat whatever and however much they want. This leads some people (including the lean people themselves) to believe that one can have a special {{w|metabolism}} where excess food energy somehow does not affect the body. This belief is common, though not supported by scientific evidence. The comic makes fun of that kind of notion. While [[Cueball]] describes to [[White Hat]] how his metabolism is "special" (the phrase "one of those" implicitly meaning unusual), he is in fact only describing the normal case: no matter what he eats, his body converts the food to energy and stores any excess food as fat which stays in his body for future use.

The title text stretches this further, telling about the normal habit of drinking water (and the consequences of not drinking it) as something odd. Starting to feel bad at first and eventually dying if refraining from drinking for too long a time are perfectly normal consequences of dehydration. This was also touched upon in [[1708: Dehydration]], in which Megan spent all day researching whether low-grade dehydration is really a thing -- ironically forgetting to eat or drink at all, to predictable results.

Obesity has only fairly recently become a public health issue due to lifestyle changes brought on by technologies such as industrialization and trade. Human bodies evolved under conditions where it was hard to ever find enough to eat, so to store as much excess energy as possible as fat was a beneficial adaptation. Historically, stored fat would be consumed during hard times that was sure to come. The act of collecting food through farming or hunting/gathering also demanded physical labor which limited the amount of excess energy that would remain. In comparison, people nowadays hardly need to expend any energy to buy their food from a nearby market. They also have much more sedentary lifestyles and rarely ever go hungry. Without an active commitment to exercise more or eat less, there would almost never be a shortage of energy and no chance for body fat to be used. Randall has previously shown how bad his health becomes when he starts eating lots of fat (or sweet) food in [[418: Stove Ownership]].

There are many rational explanations for why some people might not gain weight despite eating a lot. For example, it's possible that they only eat a lot during special occasions and social gatherings, where they are easily '''seen''' eating. On more private occasions when no one is watching, they could just as well eat much less or even skip entire meals. They might also lead a much more active lifestyle and thus require more energy than an average person despite their thin appearance. Other less pleasant reasons might include chronic diseases, parasite infections, or eating disorders.

This is the second comic in a row about food, the previous being [[1743: Coffee]].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball, on the left, and White Hat are sitting on chairs on either side of a table, facing each other. They each have plates of food and glasses of some beverage set in front of them. Each has picked up a portion of food on a fork to eat it.]

:Cueball: I have one of those metabolisms where I can eat whatever I want and my body converts it to energy and stores the excess as fat.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Food]]

2513: Saturn Hexagon

2022-05-04T00:25:18Z

172.70.178.199: Do something better with your time than vandalize a wiki, you wanker!

{{comic
| number = 2513
| date = September 8, 2021
| title = Saturn Hexagon
| image = saturn_hexagon.png
| titletext = Sorry, in SI units that's "there's a big football in there."
}}

==Explanation==
[[File:PIA20513_-_Basking_in_Light.jpg|thumb|400px|Saturn's hexagon]]

{{w|Saturn's Hexagon}} is a cloud formation on Saturn centered on its north pole. Similar to Jupiter's {{w|Great Red Spot}}, Saturn's Hexagon has proven a persistent feature observed by multiple space probes. The cause was not known until recently, when data from the 2006-2009 {{w|Cassini–Huygens}} probe could be analyzed in depth. This finding was widely publicized in popular science media (see for example [https://www.sciencealert.com/astronomers-think-they-figured-out-how-saturn-s-giant-hexagonal-storm-could-have-formed]) and is related to how currents flow deep within Saturn's atmosphere.

Randall proposes an alternate explanation: it is the top of a {{w|Ball_(association_football)|soccer ball}}. Soccer balls are made in the shape of a {{w|truncated icosahedron}}, where faces alternate between regular hexagons and regular pentagons to achieve a more uniform roll. This design was introduced in 1968 as the {{w|Adidas Telstar}}, and is now considered the "traditional" soccer ball. The article is shown to refer to this as the "BSBIT model", a technical-sounding acronym from "Big Soccer Ball In There".

"Soccer" is the name used in the United States for {{w|association football}}, a game called simply "football" in much of the world. Similarly, the US makes wide use of {{w|United States customary units|customary units of measurement}} (inches, feet, miles, pounds, etc.) where much of the world uses the SI or metric system (centimetres, metres, kilometres, kilograms, etc.), so "football" is jokingly referred to in the title text as the SI name for "soccer". As much of the Web panders to a significantly US-based audience{{fact}}, many sites use only American customary measurements and omit metric equivalents, which might annoy non-US users; Randall parodies this by sarcastically and non-seriously apologizing.{{fact}}. Just as the American customary units derive from British {{w|Imperial units}}, the term "soccer" originated in the UK, originally to {{w|Names_for_association_football#Background|distinguish it}} from rugby football (sometimes "rugger"), before soccer became the most common form of football there.

This comic may also reference something often quoted to students decades ago that Saturn [https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/saturn/in-depth/#:~:text=Structure-,Structure,by%20intense%20pressure%20and%20heat. would float] if there were a large enough pool of water to hold it, often having been stated as "Saturn is a giant beach ball". This refers to the property that Saturn is the planet with the {{w|Saturn#Physical_characteristics|lowest average density}}. This, of course, is a lot more [https://www.wired.com/2013/07/no-saturn-wouldnt-float-in-water/ complicated] in reality.

Incidentally, the presentation of the truncated-icosahedral 'football', pressing one clear polygonal face up along the upper limit of the planetary sphere, has much in common with the (non-truncated) icosahedron that floats within a {{w|Magic 8-Ball}}, arranged to display just one random triangular face whenever its viewing window is upwards. This may be coincidence, without any obvious attempt to directly reference any of the [https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1404098-safely-endangered popular memes] relating to this. Randall has previously parodied the magic 8-ball in [[1525: Emojic 8 Ball]].

==Transcript==

[Cueball is presenting in front of a poster, which he is pointing at with a stick.]

Cueball: We're proud to announce that our team has finally determined the origin and nature of Saturn's polar hexagon.

[The poster represents Saturn and its ring-system. There is a massive football/soccer ball drawn as if inside the semi-transparent planet, taking up slightly less than half of it by volume.
One of the ball's hexagons coincides with Saturn's polar hexagon, and is labelled "Hexagon". Other labels are illegible. 
The poster's title is "There's a Big Soccer Ball In There". The rest of the poster is illegible, except for a section heading that reads "BSBIT Model".]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category: Astronomy]]
[[Category:Soccer]]

1843: Opening Crawl

2022-05-04T00:21:43Z

172.70.178.199: Undo revision 235627 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1843
| date = May 29, 2017
| title = Opening Crawl
| image = opening_crawl.png
| titletext = Using a classic Timothy Zahn EU/Legends novel is bad enough, but at least the style and setting aren't too far off. If you really want to mess with people, try using Splinter of the Mind's Eye.
}}

==Explanation==

Each episodic ''{{w|Star Wars}}'' film begins with an "{{tvtropes|OpeningScroll|opening crawl}}" giving the audience some of the backstory, which often reads like the prologue of a novel.

[[Randall]] wants to reverse this by projecting the text of a Star Wars novel and see how long this can be continued before viewers realize it is a prank. The text in the opening scroll is actually from the beginning of the final book of the Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn.

The title text compares different Star Wars novels' style, remarking on how well suited they would be for this prank.

{{w|Timothy Zahn}} is a science fiction writer who has written and contributed to [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Timothy_Zahn#Works many novels and comics] in the {{w|Star Wars expanded universe}}. The [http://www.mustreading.net/Thrawn_Trilogy_03.html text in the comic] is the first five paragraphs from the book ''[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/The_Last_Command The Last Command]''. The characters mentioned are [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Mitth%27raw%27nuruodo Grand Admiral Thrawn], the primary antagonist of the ''Thrawn Trilogy'', and [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Pellaeon Gilad Pellaeon], who serves as a {{w|Dr. Watson}}-type companion to Thrawn throughout much of the trilogy.

''[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Splinter_of_the_Mind%27s_Eye Splinter of the Mind's Eye]'' was an early Star Wars novel written before the original film was expanded to a trilogy (and then expanded some more), so it contains multiple aborted subplots which can make it very confusing for a fan who has seen the later works.

The term "EU" refers to "Expanded Universe", which was the term for the corpus of non-cinematic ''Star Wars'' content before ''Star Wars'' was acquired by {{w|Disney}}. Not wanting to be constrained by previous canon, Disney declared all "Expanded Universe" content to be non-canonical to all future movies, and re-branded the EU as "Legends" to take place in its own alternate continuity.

For a very long time, fans believed that the Thrawn Trilogy would have constituted Star Wars VII to IX should the movie have been made and thus "before they figure out there's no movie coming after it" refers to both the mistaken belief of fans and the novelisation as delivered through the opening crawl.

==Transcript==
:[On a black background with many stars is five blocks of yellow text that recedes towards a black section at the back of the panel. The last block cannot be read, but it is (almost) possible to read the second block of text at the back. The bottom line of the last text block is cut off through the middle of the letters.]

:"All systems show battle ready, Admiral," the comm officer reported from the portside crew pit. "The task force is beginning to check in."

:"Very good, Lieutenant," Grand Admiral Thrawn nodded. "Inform me when all have done so. Captain Pellaeon?"

:"Sir?" Pellaeon said, searching his superior's face for the stress the Grand Admiral must be feeling. The stress he himself was certainly feeling. This was not just another tactical strike against the Rebellion, after all—not a minor shipping raid or even a complex but straightforward hit-and-fade against some insignificant planetary base. After nearly a month of frenzied preparations, Thrawn's master campaign for the Empire's final victory was about to be launched.

:But if the Grand Admiral was feeling any tension, he was keeping it to himself. "Begin the countdown," he told
:[Cut off through the middle and at the end]: Pellaeon, his voice as calm as if he were ordering

:[Caption beneath the panel:]
:Movie theater projection booth prank: see how many pages of a Star Wars novel you can get people to read before they figure out there's no movie coming after it.

==Trivia==
*Some of the crawl in the comic is unreadable. But since this is text from a real book [http://www.mustreading.net/Thrawn_Trilogy_03.html the full text] can be found online.
*Here is what would have been readable up to this moment of the "film", if the text was crawling by:
<blockquote style="background-color: #ffc; border: solid thin grey;">
 Gliding through the blackness of deep space, the Imperial Star Destroyer Chimaera pointed its mighty arrowhead shape toward the dim star of its target system, three thousandths of a light-year away. And prepared itself for war. 
 "All systems show battle ready, Admiral," the comm officer reported from the portside crew pit. "The task force is beginning to check in."
 "Very good, Lieutenant," Grand Admiral Thrawn nodded. "Inform me when all have done so. Captain Pellaeon?" 
 "Sir?" Pellaeon said, searching his superior's face for the stress the Grand Admiral must be feeling. The stress he himself was certainly feeling. This was not just another tactical strike against the Rebellion, after all—not a minor shipping raid or even a complex but straightforward hit-and-fade against some insignificant planetary base. After nearly a month of frenzied preparations, Thrawn's master campaign for the Empire's final victory was about to be launched. 
 But if the Grand Admiral was feeling any tension, he was keeping it to himself. "Begin the countdown," he told Pellaeon, his voice as calm as if he were ordering dinner.</blockquote>

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Star Wars]]

184: Matrix Transform

2022-05-04T00:21:04Z

172.70.178.199: reverting vandalism

{{comic
| number = 184
| date = November 15, 2006
| title = Matrix Transform
| image = matrix_transform.png
| titletext = In fact, draw all your rotational matrices sideways. Your professors will love it! And then they'll go home and shrink.
}}

==Explanation==
A {{w|Rotation matrix|rotational matrix transformation}} (i.e. the big brackets with "cos" and "sin" in them) is used in computer graphics to rotate an image. In general, to rotate a point [a1, a2] in a 2D space by z° clockwise, you can multiply it by the rotation matrix [[cos z°, sin z°], [-sin z°, cos z°]]. In this case, the left side of the equation is rotating [a1, a2] by 90°. Simplifying the trigonometry, the 90° clockwise rotation matrix is [[0, 1], [-1, 0]], so multiplying this by [a1, a2], you should get [a2, -a1].

The joke is that the author performed the rotation transformation on the image of the vector rather than just the vector itself.

Rotational matrix transformations are a special case of the general linear matrix transform, which can do other things to images, including the other two affine transformations of scaling them or translating (moving) them. On a pedantic note, normally mathematics uses counterclockwise as a default, although computer graphics frequently use a clockwise default, so this may be an intentional reference.

So the title text may be referring to the professors going home (translation) and shrinking (scaling) from the joke; it may also refer to them going home and seeing a shrink (counselor) in despair of their student understanding.

==Transcript==
:[A square matrix next to a vertical two-by-one matrix, equated to a horizontal matrix that looks like the two-by-one matrix turned 90 degrees.]
:[Square matrix:
: cos90° sin90°
: -sin90° cos90°]
:[Two by one matrix:]
: [a₁
: a₂]
:[An equal sign]
:[The same two by one matrix, but rotated by 90 degrees clockwise:]
: [a₁
: a₂]

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

2480: No, The Other One

2022-05-04T00:20:47Z

172.70.178.199: reverting vandalism

{{comic
| number = 2480
| date = June 23, 2021
| title = No, The Other One
| image = no_the_other_one.png
| titletext = Key West, Virginia is not to be confused with Key, West Virginia.
}}

==Explanation==

This is a map of the United States, showing cities or towns with the same name as other more famous places. For example, the map has a dot for a relatively unknown place called Los Angeles, located in Texas, not to be confused with the very well known Los Angeles that is in California.

Few place names are unique, and there may be {{w|List of the most common U.S. place names|many places with the same name}}. Multiple American towns have been named after the same British town, famous person, or geographic feature.

However, names can become associated with specific places on a national level, where the best-known example is usually the biggest or otherwise the most significant. The name of this comic indicates the contextualization required to specify one of the less-famous exemplars of a given name. Someone might say they are from "Los Angeles" and would have to say "no, the other one" since the listener would assume they are from Los Angeles, California.

The [[title text]] references {{w|Key, West Virginia}} and {{w|Key West, Virginia}}, two places that, when spoken aloud, are only distinguishable by the pause (comma) location. Neither are to be confused with {{w|Key West|Key West, Florida}}, which is a location well-known nationally.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Place name in comic
! Well-known place
! Notes
|-
| {{w|Albany, Georgia|Albany, GA}}
| rowspan="3" | {{w|Albany,_New_York|Albany, NY}}
| rowspan="3" | Albany, NY is the capital of New York state.
|-
| {{w|Albany, Minnesota|Albany, MN}}


|-
| {{w|Albany, Wyoming|Albany, WY}}

|-
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Alexandria,_Louisiana|Alexandria, LA}}
| {{w|Alexandria,_Virginia|Alexandria, VA}}
| Alexandria, VA is known for being George Washington's hometown.
|-
| {{w|Alexandria|Alexandria, Egypt}}
| Major economic and cultural center on the Mediterranean.
|-
| {{w|Anchorage, Kentucky|Anchorage, KY}}
| {{w|Anchorage,_Alaska|Anchorage, AK}}
| Anchorage, AK is Alaska's most populous city.
|-
| {{w|Atlanta,_Delaware|Atlanta, DE}}
| rowspan="6" | {{w|Atlanta|Atlanta, GA}}
| rowspan="6" | Atlanta, GA is the capital of Georgia, a center of the civil rights movement in the 1950's and 60's, and a major air transportation hub. The comic has a single "Atlanta" next to dots for both Atlanta, CO and Atlanta, NE. Atlanta, CO does not seem to exist, so the dot may be an error, or may be missing its label (e.g., for Yuma, CO or Akron, CO).
|-
| {{w|Atlanta,_Idaho|Atlanta, ID}}

|-
| {{w|Atlanta,_Michigan|Atlanta, MI}}

|-
| {{w|Atlanta,_Nebraska|Atlanta, NE}}

|-
| {{w|Atlanta, Texas|Atlanta, TX}}
|-
| {{w|Atlanta, Wisconsin|Atlanta, WI}}
|-
| {{w|Atlantic City, Wyoming|Atlantic City, WY}}
| {{w|Atlantic City, New Jersey|Atlantic City, NJ}}
| Atlantic City, NJ is a famous coastal resort town in New Jersey known for its casinos, boardwalk and beaches.
|-
| {{w|Austin, Minnesota|Austin, MN}}
| {{w|Austin, Texas|Austin, TX}}
| Austin, TX is the capital of the state of Texas, and the 11th most populous city in the US.
|-
| {{w|Baton Rouge, South Carolina|Baton Rouge, SC}}
| {{w|Baton Rouge, Louisiana|Baton Rouge, LA}}
| Baton Rouge, LA is the capital of the state of Louisiana.
|-
| {{w|Beaumont, California|Beaumont, CA}}
| {{w|Beaumont, Texas|Beaumont, TX}}
| Beaumont, TX is known for the oil discovery that sparked the Texas oil boom of the early 1900s.
|-
| {{w|Beverly Hills, Illinois|Beverly Hills, IL}}
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Beverly Hills, California|Beverly Hills, CA}}
| rowspan="2" | Beverly Hills, CA is a city in Los Angeles County, CA and is home to many celebrities, luxury hotels, and the Rodeo Drive shopping district.
|-
| {{w|Beverly Hills, Texas|Beverly Hills, TX}}

|-
| {{w|Bloomington, Minnesota | Bloomington, MN}}
| {{w|Bloomington, Indiana | Bloomington, IN}}
| Bloomington, IN is the location of Indiana University.
|-
| {{w|Boston, MO}}
| {{w|Boston|Boston, MA}}
| Boston, MA is the capital of Massachusetts and the site of several key events of the American Revolution.
|-
| {{w|Bowling Green, FL}}
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Bowling Green, Kentucky|Bowling Green, KY}}
| rowspan="2" | Bowling Green, KY is the largest city of this name, and the 3rd most populous city in Kentucky. Home of the auto plant that makes the Chevy Corvette. Bowling Green, OH is directly named after the Kentucky city.
|-
| {{w|Bowling Green, OH}}
|-
| {{w|Bridgeport, WV}}
| {{w|Bridgeport, Connecticut|Bridgeport, CT}}
| Bridgeport, CT is the most populous city in Connecticut and fifth most populous in {{w|New England}}.
|-
| {{w|Buffalo, TX}}
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Buffalo, New York|Buffalo, NY}}
| rowspan="2" | Buffalo, NY is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City.
|-
| {{w|Buffalo, WY}}
|-
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Cambridge, OH}}
| {{w|Cambridge|Cambridge, England, UK}}
| A city in Cambridgeshire, known as the home of {{w|University of Cambridge|Cambridge}} and Anglia Ruskin Universities. There is also a village of Cambridge in Gloucestershire.
|-
| {{w|Cambridge, Massachusetts|Cambridge, MA}}
| Cambridge, MA is a city in the Boston metropolitan area, known as the home of {{w|Harvard University}} and {{w|Massachusetts Institute of Technology}} among others. Cambridge, Massachusetts is in turn named after Cambridge, England.
|-
| {{w|Cedar Rapids, NE}}
| {{w|Cedar Rapids, Iowa|Cedar Rapids, IA}}
| Cedar Rapids is the 2nd most populous city in the state of Iowa.
|-
| Charlestown, Unknown State
| {{w|Charlestown, Massachusetts|Charlestown, MA}}
| Charlestown, MA is an area of Boston and home to Bunker Hill, the site of a key American Revolutionary War battle. Originally a separate town, it was the first capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. [In the original comic, the Charlestown label was located over Long Island but there was no dot for the label, and an update later removed the Charlestown label entirely.]
|-
| {{w|Cleveland, UT}}
| {{w|Cleveland|Cleveland, OH}}
| Cleveland, OH, named after its founder, General Moses Cleaveland, is one of the 3 largest cities in the state of Ohio.
|-
| {{w|Columbus, GA}}
| {{w|Columbus, Ohio|Columbus, OH}}
| Columbus, OH is the most populous city in Ohio, as well as its state capital. It is named after {{w|Christopher Columbus}}. {{w|Columbus#United_States|Many other locations}} throughout the United States bear that name.
|-
| Dallas, GA
| rowspan="4" | {{w|Dallas|Dallas, TX}}
| rowspan="4" | Dallas, TX is the 3rd most populous city in Texas and the 9th most populous city in the United States.
|-
| Dallas, NC
|-
| Dallas, OR
|-
| Dallas, SD
|-
| Dayton, NV
| {{w|Dayton, Ohio|Dayton, OH}}
| Dayton, OH was a prominent city in the industrial growth of the Midwest in the late 19th and early 20th centuries but is best known as the home of the Wright Brothers, where they constructed the first airplane.
|-
| Des Moines, NM
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Des Moines, Iowa|Des Moines, IA}}
| rowspan="2" | Des Moines, IA is the capital of the state of Iowa, and its largest city by population.
|-
| Des Moines, WA
|-
| {{w|Detroit,_Alabama|Detroit, AL}}
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Detroit|Detroit, MI}}
| rowspan="2" | Detroit, MI is well known as the center of the U.S. automobile industry and is the largest city in Michigan.
|-
| Detroit, KS
|-
| Disney, OK
| {{w|Disneyland}} {{w|Walt Disney World|Disney World}}
| Disney, OK is a small town in Mayes County, Oklahoma, but has no relation to either {{w|Walt Disney}} himself or to the Disney Corporation. There are no other towns or cities with this name, but references to being at "Disney" could include {{w|Disneyland}} in California, {{w|Walt Disney World}} in Florida, or other Disney amusement parks around the world.
|-
| Fayetteville, TN
| {{w|Fayetteville, Arkansas|Fayetteville, AR}} {{w|Fayetteville, North Carolina|Fayetteville, NC}}
| Fayetteville, NC is the most populous US city of that name, and home to the {{w|Fort Bragg|largest military installation in the world}}. Fayetteville, AR is the 3rd most populous city in Arkansas and the home of the {{w|University of Arkansas}}. There are {{w|Fayetteville|many other places}} with this name.
|-
| Gettysburg, OH
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Gettysburg, Pennsylvania|Gettysburg, PA}}
| rowspan="2" | Gettysburg, PA is well known for being the site of the {{w|Battle of Gettysburg}}, the deadliest battle in the US Civil War, and the site of Abraham Lincoln's {{w|Gettysburg Address}}.
|-
| Gettysburg, SD
|-
| Grand Rapids, MN
| {{w|Grand Rapids|Grand Rapids, MI}}
| Grand Rapids, MI is the second most populous city in the state of Michigan.
|-
| {{w|Houston,_Alaska|Houston, AK}}
| rowspan="6" | {{w|Houston|Houston, TX}}
| rowspan="6" | Houston, TX is the most populous city in Texas and the 4th most populous city in the United States.
|-
| {{w|Houston,_Alabama|Houston, AL}}
|-
| Houston, FL
|-
| Houston, IN
|-
| Houston, MO
|-
| Houston, OH
|-
| Indianapolis, IA
| {{w|Indianapolis|Indianapolis, IN}}
| Indianapolis, IN is the capital of Indiana and the most populous city in the state.
|-
| {{w|Jackson,_Alabama|Jackson, AL}}
| {{w|Jackson,_Mississippi|Jackson, MS}}
| Jackson, MS is the capital of Mississippi, but there are {{w|Jackson|many other}} states with Jacksons. This one is likely particularly notable due to its proximity to Jackson, MS.
|-
| {{w|Jamestown,_California|Jamestown, CA}}
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Jamestown,_Virginia|Jamestown, VA}}
| rowspan="2" | Jamestown, VA was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas.
|-
| Jamestown, ND
|-
| Jersey Shore, PA
| {{w|Jersey_Shore|Jersey Shore}} region, NJ
| The {{w|Jersey_Shore|Jersey Shore}} is a coastal region of New Jersey. It is also the namesake of a {{w|Jersey_Shore_(TV_series)|reality TV show}}.
|-
| Key West, VA
| {{w|Key_West|Key West, FL}}
| Key West, FL is an island city off the tip of Florida that is popular with tourists and contains the southernmost point of the continental states.
|-
| Knoxville, IA
| {{w|Knoxville,_Tennessee|Knoxville, TN}}
| Knoxville, TN is the 3rd most populous city in Tennessee and the home of the {{w|University of Tennessee}}.
|-
| Las Vegas, NM
| {{w|Las_Vegas|Las Vegas, NV}}
| Las Vegas, NV is the most populous city in the state of Nevada and is well known for its gambling, shopping, fine dining, entertainment, and nightlife.
|-
| {{w|Lincoln,_California|Lincoln, CA}}
| rowspan="4" | {{w|Lincoln,_Nebraska|Lincoln, NE}}
| rowspan="4" | Lincoln, NE is the capital of Nebraska.
|-
| Lincoln, IL
|-
| Lincoln, MT
|-
| Lincoln, RI
|-
| Lisbon, ME
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Lisbon,_Portugal|Lisbon, Portugal}}
| rowspan="2" | Lisbon is the capital and largest city of Portugal.
|-
| Lisbon, NH
|-
| {{w|Long_Beach Township, New_Jersey|Long Beach, NJ}}
| {{w|Long Beach, California|Long Beach, CA}}
| Long Beach, CA is the 7th most populous city in California. The location in New Jersey is typically referred to by its full name, Long Beach Township, or the more generalized location of {{w|Long Beach Island}}.
|-
| Los Angeles, TX
| {{w|Los_Angeles|Los Angeles, CA}}
| Los Angeles, CA is the 2nd most populous city in the United States, behind New York City.
|-
| {{w|Louisville, Colorado|Louisville, CO}}
| {{w|Louisville, Kentucky|Louisville, KY}}
| Louisville, KY is the largest city in Kentucky.
|-
| Manhattan, KS
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Manhattan|Manhattan, NYC, NY}}
| rowspan="2" | Manhattan, NYC, NY is one of the {{w|Boroughs of New York City|five boroughs of New York City}}, corresponds to the {{w|New York County}}.
|-
| Manhattan, MT
|-
| Memphis, NE
| {{w|Memphis,_Tennessee|Memphis, TN}}
| Memphis, TN is the 2nd most populous city in Tennessee and had a prominent role in the US Civil Rights movement.
|-
| {{w|Mesa,_California|Mesa, CA}}
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Mesa,_Arizona|Mesa, AZ}}
| rowspan="2" | Mesa, AZ is a suburb of Phoenix, and the largest suburban city by population in the United States. The town marked as Mesa, CO on the map is actually Orchard Mesa, CO. The unmarked dot in eastern Colorado is the actual town of Mesa, CO.
|-
| Mesa, CO
|-
| {{w|Miami,_Arizona|Miami, AZ}}
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Miami|Miami, FL}}
| rowspan="2" | Miami, FL is the seventh largest city in the United States and a major tourism hub.
|-
| Miami, TX
|-
| Mountain View, HI
| {{w|Mountain_View,_California|Mountain View, CA}}
| Mountain View, CA is the "birthplace" of Silicon Valley, and is the location of many high technology companies, most notably Google.
|-
| {{w|Nashville,_Arkansas|Nashville, AR}}
| {{w|Nashville,_Tennessee|Nashville, TN}}
| Nashville, TN is the capital of Tennessee and a major center for the country music industry.
|-
| New England, ND
| {{w|New England}}
| The New England region consists of 6 states in the northeast United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
|-
| New Haven, KY
| {{w|New Haven, Connecticut|New Haven, CT}}
| New Haven, CT is the second largest city in Connecticut, and is known for its distinctive {{w|New Haven-style pizza|pizza}}. It also home to {{w|Yale University}}
|-
| {{w|New York, Texas|New York, TX}}
| {{w|New_York_City|New York, NY}}
| New York City, NY is the largest city in the United States.
|-
| {{w|Newark,_Delaware|Newark, DE}}
| {{w|Newark,_New_Jersey|Newark, NJ}}
| Newark, NJ is the largest city in the state of New Jersey, and part of the greater New York metropolitan area. It hosts one of the New York metro area's three major airports. Newark, DE is the third largest city in Delaware and home to the University of Delaware. Unlike Newark, NJ, Newark, DE is pronounced as if it were two words /ˈnuːɑːrk/ .
|-
| rowspan="2" |North Pole, NY
| {{w|North_Pole,_Alaska|North Pole, AK}}
| North Pole, AK is a small city in Alaska known as a tourist attraction and the recipient of letters addressed to Santa Claus.
|-
| {{w|North Pole}}
| Northernmost point on Earth's surface.
|-
| Oakland, OR
| {{w|Oakland,_California|Oakland, CA}}
| Oakland, CA is currently the home to three professional sports teams including the {{w|Oakland_Athletics|Oakland Athletics}} and is the former home of several more, including the {{w|History_of_the_Oakland_Raiders|Oakland Raiders}}, now in Las Vegas.
|-
| Orlando, OK
| {{w|Orlando,_Florida|Orlando, FL}}
| Orlando is the 4th most populous city in Florida and home to Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando.
|-
| Ottawa, KS
| {{w|Ottawa|Ottawa, ON}}
| Ottawa, ON, Canada is the capital of Canada.
|-
| Pasadena, MD
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Pasadena, CA}}
| rowspan="2" | Pasadena, CA is the home to the {{w|California Institute of Technology}} and the NASA {{w|Jet Propulsion Laboratory}}. It is also the home of the New Year's Day {{w|Tournament of Roses Parade}} and hosts the college football {{w|Rose Bowl Game}} played on New Year's Day afternoon. Pasadena, TX was named after its California counterpart, but it is ironically the larger of the two (both in population and area).
|-
| Pasadena, TX
|-
| {{w|Peoria,_Arizona|Peoria, AZ}}
| {{w|Peoria, Illinois|Peoria, IL}}
| Peoria, IL is known for being considered an "Average American Town", in the phrase {{w|Will_it_play_in_Peoria%3F|"Will it play in Peoria?"}} It is actually smaller than Peoria, AZ.
|-
| Philadelphia, MS
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Philadelphia|Philadelphia, PA}}
| rowspan="2" | Philadelphia, PA is the most populous city in Pennsylvania and was an important meeting place during the American Revolution.
|-
| Philadelphia, NY
|-
| Phoenix, MD
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Phoenix,_Arizona|Phoenix, AZ}}
| rowspan="2" | Phoenix, AZ is the capital of Arizona and the 5th most populous city in the United States.
|-
| Phoenix, OR
|-
| {{w|Plano,_Illinois|Plano, IL}}
| {{w|Plano,_Texas|Plano, TX}}
| Plano, TX is part of the {{w|Dallas–Fort_Worth_metroplex|Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex}}, and the home of many corporate headquarters.
|-
| {{w|Plymouth,_California|Plymouth, CA}}
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Plymouth,_Massachusetts|Plymouth, MA}}
| rowspan="2" | Plymouth, MA was the site of the colony founded in 1620 by the Mayflower Pilgrims. Named after the {{w|Pymouth|city in the Southwest of England}} which was the final port of departure.
|-
| Plymouth, IN
|-
| {{w|Portland,_Maine|Portland, ME}}
| {{w|Portland,_Oregon|Portland, OR}}
| Portland, OR is the largest city in the state of Oregon and was {{w|Portland,_Oregon#Establishment|named after}} Portland, ME
|-
| Princeton, ID
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Princeton, New Jersey|Princeton, NJ}}
| rowspan="2" | Princeton, NJ is famous for being the home of the eponymous {{w|Princeton University}} and the {{w|Institute for Advanced Study}}
|-
| Princeton, MA
|-
| {{w|Richmond, Vermont|Richmond, VT}}
| {{w|Richmond, Virginia|Richmond, VA}}
| Richmond, VA is the capital of Virginia. It was named after {{w|Richmond,_London|the suburb of London, UK}} due to an observed similarity of the river. London's Richmond was named for the palace built there by Henry VII, itself named after the {{w|Richmond,_North_Yorkshire|market town}} and castle in the north of England that was a childhood home. That was in turn named for the {{w|Richemont,_Seine-Maritime|Normandy}} area from which the noble family came who were gifted this land for their part of the Norman Conquest of England in the 11th century. There are more than fifty settlements called Richmond across the world, directly or indirectly taking their names from one or other of the English 'originals'.
|-
| Roswell, GA
| {{w|Roswell, New Mexico|Roswell, NM}}
| Roswell, NM is the site of one of the most famous “alien coverups” in American history, and is well known for its alien-themed tourism.
|-
| Saint Louis, MI
| rowspan="2" | {{w|St._Louis|St. Louis, MO}}
| rowspan="2" | St. Louis, MO is the 2nd most populous city in the state of Missouri and has the iconic {{w|Gateway Arch}}.
|-
| Saint Louis, OK
|-
| rowspan="2" | Salem, CT
| {{w|Salem,_Oregon|Salem, OR}}
| Salem, OR is the capital of Oregon.
|-
| {{w|Salem,_Massachusetts|Salem, MA}}
| Salem, MA was the location of the {{w|Salem_witch_trials|Salem witch trials}}.
|-
| {{w|San Diego, Texas|San Diego, TX}}
| {{w|San_Diego|San Diego, CA}}
| San Diego, CA is the 8th most populous city in the US and the 2nd most populous in California.
|-
| {{w|Santa Fe, Texas|Santa Fe, TX}}
| {{w|Santa_Fe,_New_Mexico|Santa Fe, NM}}
| Santa Fe, NM is the capital of the state of New Mexico.
|-
| {{w|Savannah, Missouri|Savannah, MO}}
| {{w|Savannah, Georgia|Savannah, GA}}
| Savannah, GA is the oldest city in the state of Georgia and its fifth most populous.
|-
| {{w|South_Bend,_Texas|South Bend, TX}}
| {{w|South_Bend|South Bend, IN}}
| South Bend, IN is the location of {{w|University_of_Notre_Dame|the University of Notre Dame}}.
|-
| {{w|Texas, New York|Texas, NY}}
| {{w|Texas|State of Texas}}
| Texas, NY is a hamlet in Oswego County, NY, near the southeastern corner of Lake Ontario. It is officially part of the town of {{w|Mexico, New York|Mexico, NY}}. No plans for a wall {{fact}}. Not to be confused with {{w|New York, Texas|New York, TX}}.
|-
| {{w|Vienna,_Maine|Vienna, ME}}
| {{w|Vienna, Austria}}
| Vienna is the capital and largest city of Austria.
|-
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Washington, North Carolina|Washington, NC}}
| {{w|Washington, D.C.}}
| Washington, D.C. is the capital of the United States. The city of Washington, NC is actually older than Washington, D.C., having been founded in 1776.
|-
| {{w|Washington (state)|State of Washington}}
| Washington is the 13th most populous U.S. state, and the only state named after a U.S. president.
|-
| {{w|White House, Tennessee|White House, TN}}
| {{w|White House|White House in Washington, D.C.}}
| The White House is the official residence and office of the {{w|President_of_the_United_States|President of the United States}} in Washington, D.C. Unlike most other places identified in this comic, the White House in D.C. is not a name of a city, but rather the name of a famous building and the grounds that the building is located on.
|}

==Transcript==
:[A typical line-drawn map projection of the United States, with discontiguous Alaska and Hawaii moved into a convenient corner.]
:[Coastlines and national borders are in a firm half-tone.]
:[Non-coastal state boundaries are shown in a lighter tone and feature the standard two-letter abbreviations.]
:[Location dots and labels of the settlements they represent are overlaid in solid black.]

:[Within each of the states, expanded here for readability, are the following placenames...]
:AK [Alaska]
::Houston
:AL [Alabama]
::Detroit
::Houston
::Jackson
:AR [Arkansas]
::Nashville
:AZ [Arizona]
::Miami
::Peoria
:CA [California]
::Beaumont
::Jamestown
::Lincoln
::Mesa
::Plymouth
:CO [Colorado]
:: [An unlabelled dot, between text for Louisville, CO and Atlanta, NE; probably the actual Mesa, CO.]
::Louisville
::Mesa [Appears to be the incorrectly-labeled town of Orchard Mesa, CO.]
:CT [Connecticut]
::Salem
:DE [Delaware]
::Atlanta
::Newark
:FL [Florida]
::Bowling Green
::Houston
:GA [Georgia]
::Albany
::Columbus
::Dallas
::Roswell
:HI [Hawaii]
::Mountain View
:IA [Iowa]
::Indianapolis
::Knoxville
:ID [Idaho]
::Atlanta
::Princeton
:IL [Illinois]
::Beverly Hills
::Lincoln
::Plano
:IN [Indiana]
::Houston
::Plymouth
:KS [Kansas]
::Detroit
::Manhattan
::Ottawa
:KY [Kentucky]
::Anchorage
::New Haven
:LA [Louisiana]
::Alexandria
:MA [Massachusetts]
::Princeton
:MD [Maryland]
::Pasadena
::Phoenix
:ME [Maine]
::Lisbon
::Portland
::Vienna
:MI [Michigan]
::Atlanta
::Saint Louis
:MN [Minnesota]
::Albany
::Austin
::Bloomington
::Grand Rapids
:MO [Missouri]
::Boston
::Houston
::Savannah
:MS [Mississippi]
::Philadelphia
:MT [Montana]
::Lincoln
::Manhattan
:NC [North Carolina]
::Dallas
::Washington
:ND [North Dakota]
::Jamestown
::New England
:NE [Nebraska]
::Atlanta
::Cedar Rapids
::Memphis
:NH [New Hampshire]
::Lisbon
:NJ [New Jersey]
::Long Beach
:NM [New Mexico]
::Des Moines
::Las Vegas
:NV [Nevada]
::Dayton
:NY [New York]
::North Pole
::Philadelphia
::Texas
:::[Further subtitled as...]
:::(Texas, Mexico)
:OH [Ohio]
::Bowling Green
::Cambridge
::Gettysburg
::Houston
:OK [Oklahoma]
::Disney
::Orlando
::Saint Louis
:OR [Oregon]
::Dallas
::Oakland
::Phoenix
:PA [Pennsylvania]
::Jersey Shore
:RI [Rhode Island]
::Lincoln
:SC [South Carolina]
::Baton Rouge
:SD [South Dakota]
::Dallas
::Gettysburg
:TN [Tennessee]
::Fayetteville
::White House
:TX [Texas]
::Atlanta
::Beverly Hills
::Buffalo
::Los Angeles
::Miami
::New York
::Pasadena
::San Diego
::Santa Fe
::South Bend
:UT [Utah]
::Cleveland
:VA [Virginia]
::Key West
:VT [Vermont]
::Richmond
:WA [Washington]
::Des Moines
:WI [Wisconsin]
::Atlanta
:WV [West Virginia]
::Bridgeport
:WY [Wyoming]
::Albany
::Atlantic City
::Buffalo

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:US maps]]

2202: Earth-Like Exoplanet

2022-05-04T00:20:21Z

172.70.178.199: reverting vandalism

{{comic
| number = 2202
| date = September 13, 2019
| title = Earth-Like Exoplanet
| image = earth_like_exoplanet.png
| titletext = Fire is actually a potential biosignature, since it means something is filling the atmosphere with an unstable gas like oxygen. If we find a planet covered in flames, it might be an indicator that it supports life—or used to, anyway, before the fire.
}}

==Explanation==

This comic is a reference to the {{w|K2-18b#Discovery_of_water|recent discovery}} of water vapor in the atmosphere of exoplanet {{w|K2-18b}}. The planet was discovered already in 2015 by the {{w|Kepler (spacecraft)|Kepler Space Observatory}}, orbiting the {{w|red dwarf}} star {{w|K2-18}}. {{w|Extraterrestrial liquid water|Water on exoplanets}} is considered a {{w|biosignature}}, meaning it's an indicator that there could be life there. However, as [[Megan]] reveals the planet's other characteristics, it becomes clear that it is unlikely to actually support life, and in fact is actually a horrible hellscape. The question of habitability by higher forms of life is profoundly different from the way {{w|astrobiology|astrobiologists}} use the term for microbes. Even a "survivable zone" can't mitigate the description of just how inhospitable this new wet planet would be to life as we know it, save possibly for {{w|extremophile}} organisms. In the comic [[1231: Habitable Zone]], this zone was the subject.

The planet being {{w|Tidal locking|tidally locked}} indicates that the same side would face the planet's star year-round, meaning half of the planet would be in constant day and the other half would be in constant night. It is believed that {{w|K2-18b#Physical_characteristics|K2-18b is tidally locked}}. Based on our (admittedly limited) understanding of life, {{w|abiogenesis}} can only occur in environments with liquid water; however, the day hemisphere would likely be so hot that all water found there would be in a gaseous state, and all water found in the night hemisphere would likely be frozen due to the intense cold. If life were to be found on this exoplanet, it would be in the twilight strip, a thin ring around the edge separating the two hemispheres where sunlight can reach but is refracted by the atmosphere. The environment in the twilight strip would thus experience something akin to an eternal sunset, and temperatures there would be moderate enough to allow life to come about.

Unfortunately, the other characteristics of the exoplanet severely undermine our chances of finding life even in its twilight strip, as there are many problems with the {{w|habitability of red dwarf systems}}.
* {{w|Stellar flare|Stellar flares}} are ejections of radiation and plasma from a star, and a planet being blasted with these searing-hot flares probably wouldn't readily support life. These are {{w|Habitability_of_red_dwarf_systems#Variability|common}} for red dwarfs, which can often be of the {{w|flare star}} type.
* Meteors are chunks of material that enter a planet's atmosphere, and if the planet is "blasted" by them it is likely that many of them are impacting the surface, thus becoming meteorites. As we know from {{w|Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event|the extinction of the dinosaurs}}, meteorites can have a sharply negative effect on a planet's habitability. There seems, however, to be no reason to believe this is a particular problem for this type of star system. This is where the comic starts to veer into absurdity.
* Strong acids are present in some planetary atmospheres, {{w|Atmosphere_of_Venus#Composition|including sulfuric acid in Venus's}}, and their hypothetical presence in the exoplanet's atmosphere would make life there even less likely. While life that evolves in a highly acidic environment might be able to withstand it, most life on Earth reacts poorly to strong acids. There is no reason to believe that the atmosphere of K2-18b is acidic. Apart from water the {{w|K2-18b#Discovery_of_water|atmosphere mainly consists}} of hydrogen and helium. However, there is also reason to believe the planet has {{w|K2-18b#Discovery_of_water|no solid surface}}.

The comic uses '''swinging blades''' as a metaphor to succinctly describe the planet's perilous conditions. That is, as far we know, there are no actual swinging blades on K2-18b.{{Citation needed}} Swinging blades made their first famous appearance in the Edgar Allan Poe poem "The {{w|Pit and the Pendulum}}," where the titular pendulum was a large blade swinging back and forth slowly. Due to the fame of Poe's work and the number of allusions made to it over the years, swinging blades have become a common feature in fictional deathtraps, and were used as an analogy to illustrate that the planet is chronically inhospitable to life.

"Biosignatures in the form of screaming" suggests that any life that had developed on the planet would be in continuous pain or fear due to their hazardous surroundings. In addition, this suggests that the screaming of these organisms would cause ripples in the atmosphere which we should be able to detect light-years away through the vacuum of space and that it would be more noticeable than other signs of life (such as the spectra from the ash produced by burning organic material.)

The title text mentions that fire could indicate the presence of life. This is because fire requires both fuel and oxygen (or some other similar, reactive gas). The occurrence of fire suggests that those things are both being continuously produced by some process. The most likely processes we know for producing oxygen are biological. The irony, of course, is that fire is also very dangerous, and almost universally lethal to organisms that are exposed to it for long enough. Munroe points out that oxygen reliably indicates that there was life, before the fire, with the implication that the fire may have killed everything.

==Transcript==
:[Side view of Megan standing behind a lectern, speaking to an off-panel audience in front of her. Two people from the audience react to her statement.]
:Megan: We've discovered the most earth-like exoplanet yet!
:Off-panel voices: ''Yay!!''

:[Front view of Megan behind lectern:]
:Megan: Well, it's in the habitable zone. Habitable-ish. "Habitable."
:Megan: The survivable zone.

:[In a frameless panel with the same setting as before, Megan holds her left hand out with palm up.]
:Megan: It's tidally locked. And blasted with stellar flares. And probably meteors. And bathed in acid.

:[Closeup side view of Megan, now holding up a finger on her left hand. Again an unseen audience member replies.]
:Megan: But we've detected water vapor! In between all the swinging blades.
:Off-panel voice: I see.
:Megan: We're hoping to find biosignatures in the form of screaming.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Exoplanets]]
[[Category:Public speaking]]

1494: Insurance

2022-05-04T00:19:48Z

172.70.178.199: reverting vandalism

{{comic
| number = 1494
| date = March 4, 2015
| title = Insurance
| image = insurance.png
| titletext = LIFEHACKS: You can just take all the luggage off the airport conveyer belt and leave with it. They don't check that it's yours at the door!
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] in this comic, as is often the case, is some sort of programmer or at least logically minded person. He reads through the terms that are handed to him, and finds some sort of loophole. This is a play on the fact that programmers often find loopholes in programs and code, and exploiting them is nothing more than a "cool find" or an interesting idea. More importantly, programmers try to prevent loopholes, which is why it is important to be able to identify them.

The insurance agent foresees this, and explains that this {{w|Life hacking|"cool hack"}} is actually just an instance of {{w|insurance fraud}}, which is highly illegal. The comparison here is that exploiting a program's faults can be regarded as interesting or fun, while exploiting the faults in a legal document will often result in some sort of legal repercussions (however, sometimes legal {{w|loophole|loopholes}} are exploited by individuals or corporations in ways that are not illegal).

The insurance agent is also already prepared for the following question - how he knew Cueball would be looking for loopholes, and it's because many programmers visit him.

The title text provides another example: While airport luggage security certainly is exploitable, walking out with ''every'' piece of luggage from the conveyor belt would be easily noticeable and would result in being arrested for theft, and many annoyed travelers.

[[1469: UV]] also contains a case of insurance fraud.

==Lifehacks vs. IT hacks==
The term hacking in IT is ambiguous and goes from code development (in particular in the opensource community) to the fact of "using a {{w|Hack|hack}}". A hack would then refer to a tricky piece of code doing the intended job in a way that the framework or project in which it is inserted was not intended to. To the general public, 'hacking' a system would normally refer to some illegal way of achieving a goal against the will of the original developers of the system, like getting a copy of all the data available or taking advantage of some unwanted behavior, but a more distinctive term for such an exploitation (maliciously or after an invitation to perform legitimate penetration testing) would be 'cracking'.

This comic is making fun of what IT hacks would look like in real world. Surely, taking lots of luggage from an airport is technically possible and probably not so difficult, but first, it looks weird, and second, it's also obviously illegal. The weirdness of such behavior is more obvious in real life than in IT.

It is worth noting that it is currently popular on social media sites to share small tricks to make one's life easier. This is called {{w|Life hacking|"life hacking", or "hacking your life"}}.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is standing in front of a desk, which a man sits behind. The man is presumably an insurance agent, and is handing Cueball a paper.]
:Insurance agent: Here's a page explaining the terms of your new fire insurance policy.

:[Zoom in on Cueball as he reads the paper.]

:[Cueball starts to ask the insurance agent a question when he hands Cueball yet another paper.]
:Cueball: Hey, what if I-
:Insurance agent: And ''here's'' a page explaining that the "cool hack" you just thought of is called "insurance fraud". We already know about it and it's a crime.
:Cueball: Oh. Right. How did-
:Insurance agent: I see a lot of programmers here.

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

2198: Throw

2022-05-04T00:19:17Z

172.70.178.199: reverting vandalism

{{comic
| number = 2198
| date = September 3, 2019
| title = Throw
| image = throw.png
| titletext = The keys to successfully throwing a party are location, planning, and one of those aircraft carrier steam catapults.
}}
<div class="toclimit-3">{{TOC}}</div>
*To experience the interactivity of this game, visit the {{xkcd|2198|original comic}}.
==Explanation==

This is an interactive comic made to celebrate the release of [[Randall|Randall's]] new book, ''[[How To]]''. The comic is based on a chapter in the book.

As the comic celebrates the book, which was released on Tuesday, September 3rd, 2019, the comic was thus also released on a [[:Category:Tuesday comics|Tuesday]] to coincide with the release day, replacing that week's normal Wednesday release. This was the same timing used for another of Randall's book releases, when [[1608: Hoverboard]] came out on the Tuesday when [[Thing Explainer]] came out. Although the Hoverboard comic is much more complex than this one, they are both [[:Category:Dynamic comics|dynamic]] and [[:Category:Interactive comics|interactive]], with [[:Category:Comics with animation|animations]] a part of them. Also the [[xkcd Header text]] changed to [[xkcd_Header_text#2019-09-04_-_Happy_Release_Day_-_bookstore|promote the release]] creating a large [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/0/08/2198_Throw_-_Front_page_promotion.PNG combined promotion] of the book during the three full days the comic was on the front page (see more [[2198:_Throw/Screen-shots#Entire_xkcd_page_with_promotion|here]]).

In this comic the viewer can select a thrower and an object to be thrown, see this [[#Throwers and throw items|table]], and get an [[2198:_Throw/Screen-shots#Animation|animation]] of how the selected throw would work out, along with an estimated distance of the throw (both in the SI unit meter (m) and in other very arbitrary units; see this [[#Table of distance units|table]] below) if the throw was possible. Impossible throws include those where the thrower is not strong enough to throw the object, or when the thrower tries to throw themselves, which is possible as four "objects" are also listed as throwers, most prominently {{w|George Washington}}. As the comic picture above cannot show all the possible selections in the two windows, pictures of all can be found [[2198:_Throw/Screen-shots#Throwers_and_Objects|here]]

The formula/guideline is apparently based on chapter 10 from the new ''How to'' book, see more under [[#Formulas|Formulas]].

It seemed though, that there was a special case to the calculations with {{w|Thor|Thor's}} hammer ({{w|Mjolnir}}). Because this comic obviously refers to the {{w|Thor (Marvel Comics)|Thor}} from the {{w|Marvel universe}}, played by another possible thrower, {{w|Chris Hemsworth}} in the {{w|Marvel Cinematic Universe}}, and {{w|Mjolnir (comics)|his hammer}}, which is enchanted such that only those deemed "worthy" are able to lift it. As such, despite its mass in principle being liftable by many of the characters, only Thor, God of Thunder (who is canonically worthy), is able to throw it. Also Thor is the only one who uses {{w|furlongs}} to measure his distances among the standard throwers. However, it is not a canonical part of this comic that only he can throw it, and its mass is not realistic, see more below.

[https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/f/f3/2198_Throw_-_Original_without_you.PNG Originally], when the comic was just released, there where only 7 throwers and 15 things to throw, giving a total of 105 different combinations; see the [[#Table of throw distances|table]] below. But only Thor can throw all 15, with three of the objects (George Washington, Thor's hammer, and the car) unthrowable by any of the other throwers. The smaller critters can throw only a few things, so the total number of throws is much less than 105. Still, there is an animation for all 105 combinations, but with no throw distance for many of these.

But already on day one the comic was out, a new thrower was added with the standard name "You", and this person, [[Knit Cap]], was also added to the objects that can be thrown increasing the number of throwers to 8 and objects to be thrown to 16. However, it would not be true to say that the number of options now would be 8 x 16 = 128, since the "You" can be customized when selecting it in the throwers menu (but not when selecting You in the object menu). When doing so a new window called [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/thumb/4/48/2198_Throw_-_Custom_thrower.PNG/835px-2198_Throw_-_Custom_thrower.PNG Custom thrower] will open up over the comic. The "You" option can then be customized by changing the name (from the default "You"), and defining the height (default 5.8 ft = 1.77 m) and weight (default 160 lb = 72.57 kg), where ft (feet) can be changed to m (meter) and lb (pound) can be changed to kg (kilograms). But when doing so the window will not correct the number from feet to meter etc. but stay the same.

Below the above options there is line with four persons above it, defining a scale of ''athleticism'', the default second option being the drawing of "you" which represents ''Decent'' form (i.e. a normal person). The first on the scale is [[Black Hat]], who thinks moving things is for suckers, thus representing minimal athleticism. "You" in second position is in decent shape and pretty good form, representing decent athleticism. George Washington in third position represents extremely high athleticism, and as he states he threw so well they made him President. Finally the fourth position, representing a champion athlete, shows a person with a helmet with chin strap and goggles who states that he trains 36 hours a day by using a time machine. It is thus indicated that such athletes can only be so good by training more than is possible; for instance, if he travels 24 hours back every day, he could use 12 more of these to practice, making it 36 hours on that "normal day" and he would then still have 12 hours to eat and sleep/restitution before his next 36 hours training pass.

Changing away from the decent "You" to one of the other three characters on the athleticism scale does not, however, change the character used for the animation, which stays the same. But still this gives a very large number of different "yous" to both throw and be thrown.

A self-created character, unrealistically tall and heavy well over the human records for height ({{w|List of tallest people|272 cm}}) and/or weight ({{w|List of heaviest people|635 kg}}), can actually be able to [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/e/e3/2198_Throw_-_You_throw_hammer_settings.PNG throw Thor's hammer] (For instance 4m and 1000 kg, see more [[2198:_Throw/Screen-shots#Hammer_throw|here]]. So it is not because it is magically inclined to only be thrown by Thor, it is just that the weight is set to 2000 kg, and only Thor of the standard characters have the strength (1000 times normal human strength) to throw such a heavy object. But if the "You" is big enough, the athletic difference with Thor will be compensated by sheer weight and height. See this table of [[2198:_Throw#Data_from_xkcd_code|data from the comic]] for the above numbers.

Interestingly, Thor can throw a squirrel 257 meters. If a Custom Thrower is created, and they are 200 meters tall and 150 KG, they can throw the squirrel 256 meters (1 meter less than Thor). Thor can throw an acorn 136 meters, and the Custom Thrower will throw it 133 meters. Now, Thor can throw Thor's Hammer 19 meters. The Custom Thrower can throw it 44 meters! Apparently there is more to the enchantment of Thor's Hammer than meets the eye, as it would have been expected that if Thor can throw a squirrel and an acorn farther than an extraordinary human, then certainly he could throw his own enchanted Hammer a longer distance. This is, of course, because the Custom Thrower now throws from much higher than Thor. As to why the height doesn't affect the acorn or squirrel throwing distance in the same way it does Thor's Hammer, we'll leave that to you, the reader.

The title text refers to throwing a party (a colloquial synonym of hosting a party) and first makes the assumption of actually giving hints for giving a party, and then switches to suggest a mechanism to literally throw a huge object, such as a house with a party going on inside. An {{w|Aircraft_catapult#Steam_catapult|aircraft steam catapult}} is a mechanism to launch aircraft from ships, typically used on aircraft carriers.

==Safety Considerations==
Many of the items, even if technically possible to throw, may not be able to be thrown safely.

For example:
* Depending on how the microwave oven is damaged when it hits the ground, it may still be able to appear to function, but no longer seal properly, and therefore leak dangerously high amounts of microwave radiation.
* Blenders have blades and glass. Even if no one is struck by the flying blender, the broken pieces would be hazardous later if they are not properly disposed of.
* Cars have gasoline and battery acid which may spill if one is thrown.
* A squirrel might bite the person attempting to throw it, which is dangerous as some squirrels have rabies.
* Pikachu could shock (possibly fatally) someone trying to throw it.
* If a {{w|Dwarf-tossing|person is thrown}}, that person may be badly injured. If you throw people without consent they might punch you.

==Throwers and throw items==
*Here is a table with first the throwers and then the objects to be thrown.
**George Washington, Pikachu, and the squirrel are both throwers and throwable objects, as are the costumed option "You".
**For these four this is noted in the explanation. The "You" is also the first object, Washington and Pikachu is no. 11-12 and the Squirrel is also the last object (no. 16) in the object list.

{| class="wikitable" |
! Image
! Name
! Explanation
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - you.png]]
|'''{{w|human|You}}'''
|'''Can also be thrown'''. The viewer may also choose to create a custom thrower, for instance, themself, inputting a name, height, weight, and general level of athleticism, as measured on a scale from "[[Black Hat]]" to "championship athlete" (a swimmer is pictured). The custom thrower is also selectable as a throwing item, presumably to provide more variety compared to the fixed values of George Washington.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - george.png]]
|'''{{w|George Washington}}'''
|'''Can also be thrown'''. The first president of the United States of America. There is a myth that a young George Washington threw a silver dollar across the Potomac River, which is more than a mile wide for much of its length; or alternatively that he would throw rocks across the Rappahannock River, which was about 300 feet wide near George's boyhood home. http://kenmore.org/education/kidstuff/legends.html. He is also used as a throwing item to represent the likelihood of a thrower distance with an average human as the projectile. George Washington is shown as a very powerful thrower; the comic makes fun of the flagrant embellishment of Washington's life.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - quarterback.png]]
|'''An NFL {{w|quarterback}}'''
|A quarterback in the National Football League is a highly athletic individual. Gridiron football is a full-contact sport that requires durability, speed, and precision. One of the primary skills required of quarterbacks is to be able to throw the football far with precise accuracy.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - pikachu.png]]
|'''{{w|Pikachu}}'''
|'''Can also be thrown'''. Pikachu is a species of Pokémon and the mascot of the Pokémon franchise as a whole. Although Pikachu are not normally shown to throw things, the ''Super Smash Bros'' series shows they are perfectly capable of picking things up that do not significantly out-size them. That said, Pikachu is capable of throwing a wide variety of objects through the move Fling, which allows the user to deal damage by throwing its held item (and, incidentally, a Fling TM). Its presence as a throwing item appears to reference the most recently released Pokémon games as of the comic's release, ''Pokémon Let's Go Pikachu'' and ''Pokémon Let's Go Eevee'', where the partner Pokémon of the respective title is not kept in a Poké Ball but thrown into battle when deployed. According to Pokédex entries throughout the series, the average Pikachu is 1'04" (0.4m) tall and weighs 13.2 lbs (6kg). Randall appears to have done his research, as a custom thrower with these stats and default athleticism will have near-identical results to Pikachu for both thrower and thrown item.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - carly.png]]
|'''{{w|Carly Rae Jepsen}}'''
|A Canadian music artist with [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgwAywJlo1M marginal throwing ability.]
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - thor.png]]
|'''{{w|Thor}}'''
|Thor is the god of thunder in Norse mythology, wielding a hammer that returns to its wielder when thrown. He is also {{w|Thor (Marvel Comics)|featured in Marvel comics}} and is portrayed by Chris Hemsworth (listed below) in the Marvel Cinematic Universe series of films. Thor was previously referenced in [[2097: Thor Tools]].
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - chris hemsworth.png]]
|'''{{w|Chris Hemsworth}}'''
|An Australian film actor, best known for his role as Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - squirrel.png]]
|'''A {{w|squirrel}}'''
|'''Can also be thrown'''. A small mammal of the family ''Sciuradae'', known for hoarding acorns. Squirrels have been a [[:Category:Squirrels|recurring topic]] on xkcd and have been used in ''What if?'' in lieu of a subject that Randall really doesn't want to draw. Due to their small size, a squirrel is also selectable as a throwing item.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - microwave.png]]
|'''A {{w|microwave oven}}'''
|A common household appliance in most American homes, used to heat or reheat food for consumption.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - basketball.png]]
|'''A {{w|basketball (ball)|basketball}}'''
|An inflated sphere used as a projectile in the sport of the same name.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - blender.png]]
|'''A {{w|blender}}'''
|A common household appliance in most American homes, used to shred food or ingredients into slush for consumption or baking.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - gold_bar.png]]
|'''A {{w|gold bar}}'''
|The form in which gold is cast for storage.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - cake.png]]
|'''A {{w|wedding cake}}'''
|Traditionally a layer cake used for wedding receptions with copious amounts of frosting and figurines of the bride and groom standing upon the top layer. The figurines appear to have been removed before the cake is thrown, as they are before the cake is cut and served.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - pingpong.png]]
|'''A {{w|ping pong ball}}'''
|A small plastic sphere designed to bounce, used as a projectile in the sport of table tennis or "ping pong". Notably the ball is much more difficult to throw than the acorn, as its larger size yet much lighter weight causes it to lose more momentum due to air resistance.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - acorn.png]]
|'''An {{w|acorn}}'''
|A small nut which grows on oak trees and often serves as a squirrel's primary form of nourishment.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - hammer.png]]
|'''{{w|Mjolnir (comics)|Thor's hammer}}'''
|Mjolnir, an enchanted hammer in the {{w|Marvel universe}} which belongs to {{w|Thor (Marvel Comics)|Thor from Marvels comics}} and can only be lifted by those deemed worthy. It is based on {{w|Mjölnir}} the hammer of Norse God {{w|Thor}}, God of Thunder. In this comic, though, it appears that Mjolnir is just incredibly heavy, and Thor is able to throw it because he is very strong. The custom thrower is also able to throw it if their size and strength are set high enough. Setting aside this customization, Thor is the only standard thrower to be able to throw Thor's hammer. In the movies based on the Marvel universe, Thor is played by Chris Hemsworth, who is also one of the throwers, but in real life, he would of course not be able to throw such a weighty hammer.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - javelin.png]]
|'''A {{w|javelin}}'''
|An aerodynamic item like a spear thrown in Olympic sport.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - silver_spin.png]]
|'''A {{w|Dollar coin (United States)|silver dollar}} spinning'''
|A silver coin representing one (1) US dollar in value, as would have been common when George Washington was president. The coin is given two trajectories to choose from when thrown; Here '''spinning''', as one would properly throw a discus.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - silver_tumble.png]]
|'''A {{w|Dollar coin (United States)|silver dollar}} tumbling'''
|The coin's other possible trajectory, '''tumbling''', as might result from flipping a coin to make a decision. The spinning coin always goes farther than the tumbling one, since facing the air edge-on leads to a smaller area facing the wind and therefore less air resistance.
|-
|[[File:2198 Throw - car.png]]
|'''A {{w|car}}'''
|The most common form of long-distance transport in several well-developed countries.
|}

===Table of throw distances===
{| class="wikitable"
!Item / Thrower
!NFL Quarterback
!George Washington
!Pikachu
!Carly Rae Jepsen
!Thor
!Chris Hemsworth
!Squirrel
|-
|rowspan="2"|'''Microwave oven'''
|10.32 m
|7.76 m
|N/A
|3.67 m
|181.57 m
|6.15 m
|N/A
|-
|33.85 feet
|25.46 feet
|N/A
|82.65 rack units
|1.99 football fields
|138.40 rack units
|N/A
|-
|rowspan="2"|'''Basketball'''
|40.18 m
|33.22 m
|2.34 m
|19.11 m
|113.67 m
|27.99 m
|N/A
|-
|16.74 horses
|19.54 smoots
|75.90 attoparsecs
|11.24 smoots
|1.42 Manhattan blocks
|16.46 smoots
|N/A
|-
|rowspan="2"|'''Blender'''
|16.58 m
|12.45 m
|N/A
|5.89 m
|333.25 m
|9.86 m
|N/A
|-
|9.75 smoots
|40.85 feet
|N/A
|132.51 rack units
|1.66 furlongs
|32.34 feet
|N/A
|-
|rowspan="2"|'''Gold bar'''
|9.73 m
|7.23 m
|N/A
|3.36 m
|549.28 m
|5.69 m
|N/A
|-
|31.93 feet
|23.73 feet
|N/A
|75.65 rack units
|2.73 furlongs
|128.11 rack units
|N/A
|-
|rowspan="2"|'''Wedding cake'''
|8.96 m
|6.75 m
|N/A
|3.2 m
|146.25 m
|5.35 m
|N/A
|-
|29.40 feet
|22.14 feet
|N/A
|72.00 rack units
|1.60 football fields
|120.45 rack units
|N/A
|-
|rowspan="2"|'''Ping-pong ball'''
|11.8 m
|11.63 m
|9.28 m
|11.25 m
|12.53 m
|11.41 m
|4.95 m
|-
|38.72 feet
|38.17 feet
|30.46 feet
|36.92 feet
|41.10 feet
|37.44 feet
|111.37 rack units
|-
|rowspan="2"|'''Acorn'''
|83.00 m
|75.84 m
|28.16 m
|62.85 m
|135.98 m
|67.91 m
|6.53 m
|-
|1.04 Manhattan blocks
|0.95 Manhattan blocks
|16.57 smoots
|26.19 horses
|1.49 football fields
|28.30 horses
|146.85 rack units
|-
|rowspan="2"|'''Thor's Hammer'''
|N/A
|N/A
|N/A
|N/A
|19.32 m
|N/A
|N/A
|-
|N/A
|N/A
|N/A
|N/A
|11.36 smoots
|N/A
|N/A
|-
|rowspan="2"|'''Javelin'''
|56.10 m
|42.04 m
|N/A
|20.12 m
|3028.75 m
|33.09 m
|N/A
|-
|23.37 horses
|17.51 horses
|N/A
|11.84 smoots
|15.06 furlongs
|19.46 smoots
|N/A
|-
|rowspan="2"|'''George Washington'''
|N/A
|N/A
|N/A
|N/A
|136.65 m
|N/A
|N/A
|-
|N/A
|N/A
|N/A
|N/A
|1.49 football fields
|N/A
|N/A
|-
|rowspan="2"|'''Pikachu'''
|15.22 m
|11.41
|N/A
|5.39 m
|332.52 m
|9.03 m
|N/A
|-
|49.94 feet
|37.45 feet
|N/A
|121.18 rack units
|1.65 furlongs
|29.63 feet
|N/A
|-
|rowspan="2"|'''Car'''
|N/A
|N/A
|N/A
|N/A
|27.22 m
|N/A
|N/A
|-
|N/A
|N/A
|N/A
|N/A
|16.01 smoots
|N/A
|N/A
|-
|rowspan="2"|'''Spinning dollar'''
|177.09 m
|143.96 m
|16.91
|92.63 m
|1331.21 m
|115.89 m
|2.20 m
|-
|1.94 football fields
|1.57 football fields
|9.95 smoots
|1.16 Manhattan blocks
|6.53 furlongs
|1.45 Manhattan blocks
|71.41 attoparsecs
|-
|rowspan="2"|'''Tumbling dollar'''
|58.17 m
|53.77 m
|13.92 m
|44.08 m
|84.82 m
|49.03 m
|2.14 m
|-
|24.24 horses
|22.41 horses
|45.67 feet
|18.37 horses
|1.06 Manhattan blocks
|20.43 horses
|69.42 attoparsecs
|-
|rowspan="2"|'''Squirrel'''
|58.64 m
|46.92 m
|2.92 m
|25.44 m
|256.54 m
|38.50 m
|N/A
|-
|24.43 horses
|19.55 horses
|65.71 rack units
|14.97 smoots
|1.28 furlongs
|16.04 horses
|N/A
|}

===Table of distance units===
*This is a table of the alternative distance units shown and their lengths in meters.
**Three of the units shown here are listed in the Wikipedia articles {{w|List of humorous units of measurement}}
**Five the units shown here are listed in the Wikipedia article {{w|List of unusual units of measurement}}.
***Only furlong and foot/feet are not in any of the lists (although a different type of feet is in the last list).
**There are ten alternative units in the source code for the comic. However, the wiffle unit cannot be used, and the light-nanosecond unit is inaccessible except by customization.
**Two of the units are off by an order of magnitude.
{| class="wikitable"
!Unit name
!Length in comic in meters
!Explanation
|-
|{{w|List_of_humorous_units_of_measurement#Wiffle|Wiffles}}
|0.0089
|A Wiffle, also referred to as a WAM for Wiffle (ball) Assisted Measurement, is equal to a sphere 0.089 m (3.5 inches) in diameter – the size of a {{w|Wiffle ball}}, a perforated, light-weight plastic ball frequently used by marine biologists as a size reference in photos to measure corals and other objects. Randall is thus a factor 10 off. While wiffles should be the next unit after rack-units and before feet, the unit conversion typo seems to prevent it from being accessible by any thrower-object combination, as it is now even smaller than the wrong measure for light-nanoseconds. Wiffles have thus only been discovered in the data of the comic, as it seems to be impossible to get it displayed in the comic itself.
|-
|{{w|List of unusual units of measurement#Light-nanosecond|Light-nanoseconds}}
|0.0299
|The light-nanosecond was popularized by Grace Hopper, referring to the length light could travel in a nanosecond. The actual length of a light-nanosecond is 0.299 m, about a foot long, but it seems that [[Randall]] was off by an order of magnitude. This measurement is used for lengths from 1 to 1.06 m, but none of the standard throwers or objects can be thrown for this short a distance, so it is not included in the table above. But with the custom user it is [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/a/a5/2198_Throw_-_Light_nanoseconds_1m.PNG possible to get down to 1 m] where it will then be used, but of course, since it says 33 light-nanoseconds instead of 3 it is wrong. See some examples [[2198:_Throw/Screen-shots#Light_nanoseconds_error|here]].
|-
|{{w|List_of_humorous_units_of_measurement#Attoparsec|Attoparsecs}}
|0.03086
|The parsec is a unit of length used to measure large distances to astronomical objects outside the Solar System. A parsec is defined as the distance at which one {{w|astronomical unit}} subtends an angle of one {{w|arcsecond}}. One parsec is equal to about 3.26 light-years or 31 trillion kilometers (31×1012 km) or 19 trillion miles (19×1012 mi). Atto- is a unit prefix in the metric system denoting a factor of 10−18 or 0.000000000000000001. Together the two-unit exponents will almost cancel out, as 31 trillion kilometers can be written as 3.1×1018cm, meaning that an attoparsec is 3.1 cm. The unit is only used three times in non-customized settings: once for Pikachu and twice for the squirrel. This measurement is used for lengths from 1.06 to 2.69 meters. See [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/7/79/2198_Throw_-_Attoparsecs_107cm_setings.PNG example here].
|-
|{{w|List_of_unusual_units_of_measurement#Rack_unit|Rack units}}
|0.0445
|A {{w|Rack unit}} (abbreviated U or RU) is a unit of measure defined as 1 3⁄4 inches (44.45 mm). Mainly used to measure the overall height of the likes of {{w|19-inch rack}} frames or the equipment put in there. It is used for lengths from 2.69 to 6.67 meters.
|-
|{{w|Foot (unit)|Feet}}
|0.3048
|One foot is defined as 0.3048 meters. In customary and imperial units, the foot comprises 12 inches and three feet compose a yard. This measurement is used for lengths from 6.67 to 16 meters.
|-
|{{w|List_of_humorous_units_of_measurement#Smoot|Smoots}}
|1.7000
|The {{w|Smoot}} is a nonstandard, humorous unit of length created as part of an MIT fraternity prank. One smoot is equal to {{w|Oliver Smoot}}'s height at the time of the prank, 5 feet 7 inches (1.70 m). Mr. Smoot was used to measure the length of the Harvard Bridge (connecting Boston and Cambridge) by being repeatedly laid down along the length of the bridge; the markings indicating distances in smoots along the bridge have been maintained by the fraternity. This measurement is used for lengths from 16 to 36 meters. While the smoot is a nonstandard unit of length, Oliver Smoot has been chairman of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and President of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). ANSI and ISO are among the world's main standardizing bodies, so Randall may indirectly be making the pun that while Smoot's body isn't a standard measure, Smoot has been in charge of bodies that standardize measurements.
|-
|{{w|List_of_unusual_units_of_measurement#Horse|Horses}}
|2.4
|The length of a {{w|horse}} varies a lot with the horse type, breed, age, and genes. In the Wikipedia article on horses, the length of a horse is not even mentioned, only the height and weight. But Randall has used horses for measurements before. A {{w|horse length}} is approximately 8 feet (2.4 m). This measurement is used for lengths from 36 to 75 meters.
|-
|{{w|List_of_unusual_units_of_measurement#Block|Manhattan blocks}}
|80.0
|The numbered streets in {{w|Manhattan}} run east-west and are generally 60 feet (18 m) wide, with about 200 feet (61 m) between each pair of streets. With each combined street and {{w|City block|block}} adding up to about 260 feet (79 m), there are almost exactly 20 blocks per mile. The typical block in Manhattan is 250 by 600 feet (76 by 183 m). When driving in a grid-like city, the {{w|Manhattan distance}} between two points is a concept, although it is also called {{w|Taxicab geometry}}. It seems like it is indeed the combined street and block distance. This measurement is used for lengths from 75 to 131 meters.
|-
|{{w|List_of_unusual_units_of_measurement#Football_field_(length)|Football fields}}
|91.44/109.728
|A football field in the comic is 100 yards or 91.44 m long. An {{w|American football field}} is 100 yards between the end zone although by including those it is actually 120 yards or 109.728 m. Although it is an American comic, it doesn't state that it is an American Football field. A {{w|Football pitch}} in {{w|Association football}} (Soccer) is also often used, and although the length of those varies the usual size for champions league matches is 105 m. This measurement is used for lengths from 131 to 201 meters.
|-
|{{w|Furlongs}}
|201.168
|A furlong is a measure of distance in imperial units and U.S. customary units equal to one-eighth of a mile. It is part of the {{w|List_of_humorous_units_of_measurement#FFF_units|FFF_units}} of the {{w|FFF system}} for furlong/firkin/fortnight, length, mass and time. One furlong should therefore be 201.168 meters, though the United States does not uniformly use this conversion ratio. Older ratios are in use for surveying purposes in some states. Only Thor's distances are given in furlongs. This measurement is used for lengths of 201 meters (1 furlong) and up. For the standard throwers and items only Thor can throw over 200 m, thus only he uses Furlongs to measure his throws. Given that this is an old unit, and Thor is based on ancient Nordic Mythology, this may seem appropriate.
|}

===Data from xkcd code===
*A user got this data from the code (and added it to the comments).
**But it makes sense to include here:
*From this it can be seen that:
**Thor's Hammer is not special, just very heavy, 2000 kg despite being rather small.
**Thor has the same stats as Chris, except he has 1000 times more Throw power (10,000 vs 10).
*The customizable You can have Throw power of 5, 10, 15 and 20, and weight and height can be set along with the name.
**The diameter is calculated from the formula given, so in the standard setting it is about 0.5 m.

{| class="wikitable"
! id
! name
! canThrow
! canBeThrown
! length (m)
! diameter (m)
! mass (kg)
! dragC
! throwPower
|-
| microwave
| A microwave oven
| false
| true
| 0.406
| 0.406
| 10.591
| 0.8
|
|-
| basketball
| a basketball
| false
| true
| 0.243
| 0.243
| 0.624
| 0.3
|
|-
| blender
| a blender
| false
| true
| 0.203
| 0.203
| 5.216
| 0.8
|
|-
| gold_bar
| a gold bar
| false
| true
| 0.0535
| 0.0535
| 12.4
| 0.8
|
|-
| cake
| a wedding cake
| false
| true
| 0.51
| 0.51
| 13
| 0.8
|
|-
| pingpong
| a ping pong ball
| false
| true
| 0.04
| 0.04
| 0.003
| 0.5
|
|-
| quarterback
| an NFL quarterback
| true
| false
| 1.905
| 0.584
| 102.058
| 0.6
| 20
|-
| acorn
| an acorn
| false
| true
| 0.0191
| 0.0191
| 0.0045
| 0.3
|
|-
| hammer
| thor's hammer
| false
| true
| 0.5
| 0.15
| 2000
| 0.4
|
|-
| javelin
| a javelin
| false
| true
| 1.8
| 0.0254
| 0.8
| 0.1
|
|-
| george
| George Washington
| true
| true
| 1.829
| 0.562
| 90.718
| 0.6
| 15
|-
| pikachu
| Pikachu
| true
| true
| 0.4
| 0.3
| 5.9874
| 0.4
| 10
|-
| car
| A car
| false
| true
| 4.5
| 2.134
| 1179.34
| 0.25
|
|-
| silver_spin
| a silver dollar (spinning)
| false
| true
| 0.04
| 0.011
| 0.027
| 0.5
|
|-
| silver_tumble
| a silver dollar (tumbling)
| false
| true
| 0.04
| 0.04
| 0.027
| 0.66
|
|-
| carly
| Carly Rae Jepsen
| true
| false
| 1.575
| 0.46
| 49.895
| 0.6
| 10
|-
| thor
| thor, god of thunder
| true
| false
| 1.91
| 0.59
| 91
| 0.6
| 10000
|-
| chris hemsworth
| chris hemsworth
| true
| false
| 1.91
| 0.59
| 91
| 0.6
| 10
|-
| squirrel
| A squirrel
| true
| true
| 0.203
| 0.096
| 0.454
| 0.6
| 10
|-
| you (can change)
| You
| true
| true
| 1.77
| (mass^(1/3))/8
| 72.5
| 0.6
| 10
|}

===Formulas===
<math>\begin{array}{lcl}
g&=&9.805 \frac{\mathrm m}{{\mathrm s}^2} = 9.805 \frac{\mathrm N}{\mathrm{kg}}\\
A&=&\sqrt[3]{\frac {3 * \mathrm{thrower\_length} * \mathrm{thrower\_throwPower} * \mathrm{thrower\_mass}} {\mathrm{object\_mass} + \mathrm{thrower\_mass} / 1000}}\\
B&=&\sqrt{\frac{2 * \mathrm{object\_mass} * g}{\pi * {(\mathrm{object\_diameter} / 2)}^2 * 1.2041 \frac{\mathrm{kg}}{{\mathrm m}^3} * \mathrm{object\_dragC}}}\\
\mathrm{distance}&=&\frac{A^2 * \sqrt2} {g * \sqrt{\frac{A^4} { B^4} * 0.8 + \frac{A^2} {B^2} * 3 + 2}}
\end{array} </math>

Constants and Units:
* g is the gravitational acceleration (on earth)
* 1.2041 kg/m³ is the density of air at sea level
* A (in m/s) is the calculated throw speed regardless of direction, if you assume constant throw power over time in Watts and the body length as acceleration distance (arm has half the body length and goes from back to front) from 0 m/s to the final speed
* B is the possible throw speed, which still does not air brake the object too much. If the object is thrown at that speed, i.e. A = B, the distance is reduced to 58,7%. B is only dependent on the object. If B was set to infinite, the air resistance would be removed from the formulas.
* throwPower is in m²/s³, or equivalently W/kg (Watts per body mass)
* dragC is without unit and signifies the air resistance of the object and is dependent on the shape

==Extra pages==
As this comic is very complicated several screen shots and tables are needed for the full explanation. In order to keep this main page easy to use, these pictures and possibly some of the tables will be placed on some extra pages, as has also been done with [[:Category:Comic subpages|other complex comics]] in the past:
*[[2198: Throw/Screen-shots]]

==Transcript==
:[As this is an interactive comic, not all possible text should be given in this transcript. Also, it is not possible to see all the different throwers or objects in one image. This transcript here includes the text that can be found when loading the page, without changing the thrower or object (the default), but also includes the text that can be found by scrolling in the two select "windows" as that would be similar to a long comic where you need to scroll as well as customization options. For further differences that occur by changing the objects refer to a table of all combinations.]

:[A heading with a subheading is above a line, beneath which are a sentence, that is generated by the selections in the two windows beneath this sentence:]
:<big>'''Throw Calculator'''</big>
:This calculator implements the approximate throwing distance estimation model from ''How To'' Chapter 10: ''How to throw things''.

:How far could George Washington throw a Microwave oven?

:[Beneath this sentence are two "windows" with a frame around them, one to the left and one to the right, each with a heading breaking the top frame. Each also has a scroll bar to the right, which allows one to scroll down through 8 different possible selections in the left window and 16 in the right window. There are, depending on the browser zoom level, one or two selections on each line. Each window's content is given here under their respective headings. Each possible selection is a drawing with a caption beneath it.]
:Select a thrower

:*You
:*An NFL Quarterback
:*George Washington
:*Pikachu
:*Carly Rae Jepsen
:*Thor, God of Thunder
:*Chris Hemsworth
:*A squirrel

:Select an object to be thrown
:*You
:*A microwave oven
:*A basketball
:*A blender
:*A gold bar
:*A wedding cake
:*A ping-pong ball
:*An acorn
:*Thor's Hammer
:*A javelin
:*George Washington
:*Pikachu
:*A car
:*A silver dollar (spinning)
:*A silver dollar (tumbling)
:*A squirrel

:[Below the two windows is the result of the animation that will happen when a selection has been made. An animation of the selected thrower throwing (or failing to throw) the selected object is shown, and the object's traveling distance is measured out both in meters (SI units) and in some other unit in brackets below. If the distance is not too long compared to the size of the object and thrower, then both can be seen, and in case the object is soft it may break from the throw.]

:[In the pre-selected version, George Washington throws a microwave oven, which ends up several meters from him lying on a corner broken with its wire lying beneath it. The distance is given under the ruler along which the throw has occurred, with markings for approximately every meter. In this case, there are seven steps even though the distance is above 7 meters:]
:7.76 meters
:(25.46 feet)

:[Clicking on "You" in the thrower box opens a new window over the above described comic parts. some of the comic can still be seen including the thrower and his item, and a new throw occurs every time something is changed in this new window. It is a customization box with several options shown below.]

:Your Name
:____You_____ [can be changed]

:Height
:5.8 ft [number can be changed; ft can be changed to m]

:Mass
:160 lb [number can be changed; lb can be changed to kg]

:Athleticism
:[Below is a scale showing Black Hat, [[Knit Cap]] depicting You , George Washington, and a person with goggles and a helmet. A marker is set at You, but can be changed. Below the characters are descriptions.]
:Black Hat: Moving objects around is for suckers.
:Minimal
:You: I'm in decent shape and have pretty good form.
:Decent
:George Washington: I'm so good at throwing they made me president.
:Extremely High
:Goggles: I use a time machine to train for 36 hours a day.
:Champion Athlete

:[Once done the box can be clicking on a cross at the top right or just clicking outside the window on the comic behind it. Now the thrower you (and the object you) will have the weight, length and strength chosen and will be able to throw (or be thrown) with these stats. ]

==Trivia==
*The comic refers to Thor as the character from the Marvel comics and movies (and other media), who is himself a reference to the ancient Norse god. In Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, Thor is played by Chris Hemsworth.
*Thor's hammer, Mjölnir, bears an enchantment that prevents any living being from lifting it unless they are "worthy." This is reflected in the simulation by giving Mjölnir a mass of 2,000 kg.
**In-universe, Thor's hammer weighs [https://urbandud.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/detail-128-thors-hammer.jpg?w=550 42.3 pounds].
*The option to customize your own character was added to the comic later.
*Due to a bug, the calculations for the customized person ('you') are incorrect when the mass is specified in pounds
*When the comic came out there was a mistake so the item to be thrown was named the same as the thrower, except for the coins and for when Pikachu and George Washington tried to throw themselves in which case it for instance said:
**[https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/9/93/2198_Throw_-_Original_error_George_Himself.PNG How far could George Washington throw himself?]
**But if he picked another object it would write:
***[https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/c/c9/2198_Throw_-_Original_error_George_George.PNG How far could George Washington throw George Washington?]
**See more examples [[2198:_Throw/Screen-shots#Errors|here]]
===Examples of distances===
*The [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/5/5a/2198_Throw_-_You_1_kg_throw_hammer_max_distance.PNG maximum distance] of any throw is 743079 m, which Thor's Hammer can be thrown by a customized you that is high enough. If the height is large enough the mass can be the [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/8/8e/2198_Throw_-_You_1_kg_throw_hammer_max_distance_setting.PNG minimum 1 kg].
**See details [[2198:_Throw/Screen-shots#Maximum_distance|here]].
***However the comic asks the user to not use height over 100 m and mass over 1000 kg.
***See details [[2198:_Throw/Screen-shots#Maximum_height_and_mass|here]].
*A one foot tall Champion Athlete You with a mass of over 524,644.3 pounds can throw the car 44 feet. In fact, the mass can be defined to 70 or more decimal places, with each incremental change allowing You to throw the car 44 feet, as long as the addition is sufficient
**Tester used trial and error and became bored after inputting the mass below:
***524,664.3134471218218095600605010996328125[35 zeroes]1
*A one pound Champion Athlete You with a height of 480,651 feet, 1 and 9/64th inches can also throw the car 44 feet
**Subtracting 1/64th of an inch prevents the CAY from throwing the car

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with animation]] 
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[[Category:Interactive comics]]
[[Category:Physics]] 
[[Category:American football]] 
[[Category:Comics featuring politicians]] 
[[Category:Pokémon]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]] 
[[Category:Religion]] 
[[Category:Squirrels]]
[[Category:Food]] 
[[Category:Basketball]]
[[Category:Sport]] 
[[Category:Book promotion]]
[[Category:How To]]

731: Desert Island

2022-05-04T00:18:57Z

172.70.178.199: reverting vandalism

{{comic
| number = 731
| date = April 23, 2010
| title = Desert Island
| image = desert_island.png
| titletext = Telescopes and bathyscaphes and sonar probes of Scottish lakes, Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse explained with abstract phase-space maps, some x-ray slides, a music score, Minard's Napoleonic war: the most exciting new frontier is charting what's already here.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is making the point that there is a wonderful world waiting to be explored in the ocean. From above it seems so plain, endless, and boring. But underneath the surface lies the most unexplored area on the planet. This comic is a commentary on the need to head below the waves and start exploring.

[[Cueball]] sits writing in a diary on a desert island which is really a mountain of which only the sandy tip with a palm tree on it stands above the water. From his diary entry, it appears that he has been stranded on this island for 44 days, and only sees "flat empty waters" around him. The waters around him may be "empty", in that there are no other boats or coastlines around him, however, there are many objects below the surface.

Beneath the surface is:
* A kelp forest
* Three sharks
* A stingray
* An eel
* A shipwreck
* A submarine following a small school of fish (it should be noted that if Cueball tried, he could make contact with the submarine and get home)
* Three large jellyfish
* A giant squid fighting a sperm whale
* A crashed plane
* Coral formations
* A thermal vent emitting a plume of smoke surrounded by several annelids
* A snail

The most important items from the title text are:
*A {{w|Bathyscaphe|bathyscaphe}} is a deep sea submersible: a submarine for exploring the ocean floor.
*Some Scottish loch are very deep, especially those in the {{w|Great Glen}}. There may also be a reference to the famous {{w|Loch Ness}}.
*The {{w|Tacoma Narrows Bridge (1940)|Tacoma Narrows Bridge}} collapsed when wind blowing over the bridge caused it to oscillate wildly. When the oscillations changed from one mode to another, they grew in amplitude until the bridge failed dramatically.
*{{w|Charles Joseph Minard|Charles Minard}} did a visualization of the losses incurred by Napoleon's army in its attempt to conquer Russia.

The title text itself is a poem:
Telescopes and bathyscaphes
and sonar probes of Scottish lakes,
Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse
explained with abstract phase-space maps,
some x-ray slides, a music score,
Minard's Napoleonic war:
the most exciting new frontier
is charting what's already here.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball sits writing in a diary on a desert island, only the sandy tip of which with a palm tree on it stands above the water. Beneath the surface is a kelp forest, some sharks, a stingray, a shipwreck, a submarine, several large jellyfish, a giant squid fighting a sperm whale, a crashed plane, some coral formations, a thermal vent emitting a plume of smoke surrounded by several annelids, and a snail.]

:Cueball: Day 44: Still stranded, with nothing but flat empty water as far as the eye can see.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Sharks]]
[[Category:Animals]]

323: Ballmer Peak

2022-05-04T00:18:38Z

172.70.178.199: reverting vandalism

{{comic
| number = 323
| date = October 1, 2007
| title = Ballmer Peak
| image = ballmer peak.png
| titletext = Apple uses automated schnapps IVs.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is about alcohol and programming ability. Programmers sometimes have a reputation for drinking habits, and programmer gatherings (such as {{w|hackfest}}s) tend to offer copious amounts of alcohol. More generally, intoxicated programmers can [http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/2795/is-the-ballmer-peak-real get the impression that], by being a little disconnected from physical reality, they become more efficient at their programming. The comic is a take on this belief, with two references:
*In atomic physics, "{{w|Balmer series|Balmer peaks}}" (with one 'L') are peaks in the emission spectrum of hydrogen (named after the 19th century scientist Johann Balmer).
*{{w|Steve Ballmer}} (with two 'L') is a key figure of {{w|Microsoft}} and its CEO from 2000 to 2014; he is known for energetic outbursts and outlandish behavior in public (with some videos gone viral), which can give the impression that he is constantly intoxicated.

The curve in the comic suggests that, while generally decreasing with alcohol intoxication, at just the right level, the skill of a programmer gets terrific indeed. [[Randall]] named the peak after Steve Ballmer, as if discovered by him; this references the analogously named Balmer peaks (with one 'L'), and the idea that Steve Ballmer makes for an easy association of programming and alcohol. The peak of the curve occurs at a <abbr title="blood alcohol concentration">BAC</abbr> of 0.1337%, which is a reference to {{w|leet}}. (See this interview with [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJOS0sV2a24#t=10m03s Randall]).

The end of the comic turns the whole idea into a sideways jab at {{w|Windows ME}}, a version of Microsoft Windows often criticized for being buggy, slow, and unstable: it suggests that ME was developed by programmers completely drunk, because their managers wanted to exploit this "Ballmer peak," but did so without any precaution. That idea fit the result of a buggy and unstable product well.

On the contrary, the title text claims that {{w|Apple Inc.|Apple}} uses this effect with careful calibration, by delivering precise quantities of alcohol ({{w|schnapps}}) to its programmers via {{w|intravenous therapy}} (IV).

An actual [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053810012000037 research paper] published in March 2012 showed that the situation described in this comic is not far from reality. Researchers found that intoxicated participants performed better than sober participants on a test that evaluates creative problem solving skills, and were also more likely to evaluate their own solutions as insightful. However, the study only tested a B.A.C. of 0.075%, not between 0.129% and 0.138% as displayed in the comic.

==Transcript==
:[A graph with "programming skill" on the Y-axis and "blood alcohol concentration" on the X-axis. The Y-axis slowly goes down, but spikes at 0.1337%.]
:[Cueball is making a presentation with the graph.]
:Cueball: Called the Ballmer Peak, it was discovered by Microsoft in the 80's. The cause is unknown but somehow a B.A.C between 0.129% and 0.138% confers superhuman programming ability.
:Cueball: However, it's a delicate effect requiring careful calibration – you can't just give a team of coders a year's supply of whiskey and tell them to get cracking.
:Spectator: ...Has that ever happened?
:Cueball: Remember Windows ME?
:Spectator: I knew it!

==Trivia==
In the above-mentioned speech at Google, [[Randall Munroe]] explained that he tried to experiment on himself about the relationship between alcohol intoxication and intellectual skills, by solving a {{w|Rubik's Cube}} repeatedly while getting more and more drunk. He eventually found that he could get deeply drunk without degrading very much his performance at solving the puzzle (contrary to, for instance, finding and picking up the Cube which became something of a problem towards the end). He suggested that the Rubik's Cube wasn't a good test to study this relationship, the cube probably being solved with muscle memory rather than real intellectual skills.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Line graphs]]
[[Category:Programming]]

340: Fight

2022-05-04T00:18:04Z

172.70.178.199: reverting vandalism

{{comic
| number = 340
| date = November 9, 2007
| title = Fight
| image = fight.png
| titletext = And she put sweet nothings in all my .conf files. It'll take me forever to get X working again.
}}

==Explanation==
The {{w|boot sector}} of a hard drive is where the information for {{w|operating system}}s is stored. It tells the computer to load a program; in most cases, this is an operating system. If this sector is overwritten, an operating system stored on the drive can't be booted into. (Fortunately, repairing a blanked or corrupted boot sector is surprisingly easy, although doing so usually requires the system to be booted from the installation media for the operating system on the drive.)

The first two panels indicate that [[Megan]] is still mad at [[Cueball]] from a fight from the night before, and the third panel shows promise of her forgiving him through an overly affectionate love note. However, the last panel reveals that she used the love note to overwrite the boot sector of [[Cueball]]'s computer out of anger.

The ''.conf'' files of {{w|Linux}}- and {{w|Unix}}-based systems are text based files where all the settings for various applications are stored. Since all the configurations were replaced with "sweet nothings" - whispered lovers' talk, or literal nothings (blank space or meaningless jumbles of characters) - none of the programs work as they should. X is the {{w|X Window System}}, the most common {{w|GUI}} framework used on modern Linux and Unix systems. Once upon a time, it was notoriously hard to configure correctly, even when starting from a known good configuration, let alone a destroyed one. (More recent versions of X configure themselves correctly for most users without a ''.conf'' file.)

==Transcript==
:We had a fight last night.
:[Cueball is sitting in a sofa, head in both hands, feeling upset.]
:I guess she's still mad.
:[Megan is standing with arms crossed in front of her chest, with the same mood.]
:I woke up to find she'd written a sappy love note
:[Cueball is standing in front of a computer, with a cup in his hand.]
:to my boot sector.
:[The cup now lies on the floor, Cueball is looking at the computer with disbelief.]
:Computer: Operating system not found

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

2154: Motivation

2022-05-04T00:17:44Z

172.70.178.199: reverting vandalism

{{comic
| number = 2154
| date = May 24, 2019
| title = Motivation
| image = motivation.png
| titletext = What's even worse is, a month ago they transferred me to work on the game I was already playing, and suddenly I found myself procrastinating by playing the one I'd been assigned before. It's possible they're onto me and this is all part of the plan.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Motivation}} is an important part of human {{w|psychology}}. It arouses a person to act towards a desired goal. It is a driving force which promotes action. As [[Ponytail]] is feeling unmotivated to do her job, she decides to procrastinate by playing a video game on her laptop instead, with the hope that she will eventually be more motivated to do her assigned task. [[Cueball]] seems to understand her sentiment, and admits to being in the same situation in the past, seemingly assuming she's referring to games that feel like work.

Games are [https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/4x38aq/why-do-we-play-video-games-that-simulate-work sometimes criticized] for feeling like work. This is usually aimed at games that simulate an actual or historical job which can frequently cause the player to have to check each individual plant as if he were an actual gardener, or work out a cost-benefit analysis as if he were an actual manager. This is more generally applied to any video game {{w|Grinding (gaming)|grinding}}, also known as farming. This is why when Cueball asks Ponytail what she's doing, she replies that she's playing a game that involves exactly as much planning, problem-solving and boring drudgework as the actual job she's avoiding. Cueball then laughs and says that he has definitely been there before, before asking Ponytail what her job is.

The punch line for this comic comes when Ponytail admits that her actual job is a {{w|Game testing|video game playtester}}, someone whose job is to test and play video games. So it seems that Ponytail is avoiding doing her task to test video game X by playing video game Y. As a result, her original statement can be interpreted in a completely different way: Instead of comparing the game she's playing to a regular job, implying that grinding is as difficult and boring as an actual job, playing games '''is''' her actual job, and she's simply comparing two games she's playing. Though being a game tester can be seen as glamorous and fun to people who enjoy playing video games ("I get to play video games all day at work"), it is [https://www.ign.com/articles/2012/03/29/the-tough-life-of-a-games-tester less rewarding] [https://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-to-be-a-video-game-tester-2015-6 than it may seem], as game testers often aren't ''playing'' the game but are ''testing it'' by constantly doing mundane tasks and running through a game that they may not like to identify bugs and problems, which is far less enjoyable than playing a game one likes for fun, even if it requires a grind.

The title text continues Ponytail's admission, adding that she had originally been assigned to play video game Y in the first place, and was previously procrastinating by playing video game X. Her company may have caught on to her procrastination, as they then changed her assignment to work on video game X that she was already playing to procrastinate. To further procrastinate herself, Ponytail changed to play video game Y, the original video game that she was assigned. However, this would not serve to have her work on her original task to test video game Y. Testing a video game is very different from playing a video game while procrastinating. For example, video game testers must intentionally make "mistakes" to verify that the game responds correctly and, more importantly, report on what worked or didn't work. Playing normally, while attempting to win, would not yield the data obtained from proper testing.

==Transcript==

:[Cueball and Ponytail sitting at a desk, working on their laptops.]
:Cueball: What are you working on?
:Ponytail: Playing a game that involves exactly as much planning, problem-solving and boring drudgework as the actual job I'm avoiding.

:[Zoom in on Cueball, leaning back with one arm on the back of his chair.]
:Cueball: Haha, yeah, I've definitely been there.

:[Zoom back out to Cueball and Ponytail sitting at a desk, working on their laptops.]
:Cueball: What's your job these days, anyway?
:Ponytail: Video game playtester.
:Cueball: ...
:Ponytail: Look, motivation is weird, ok?

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

827: My Business Idea

2022-05-04T00:16:57Z

172.70.178.199: reverting vandalism

{{comic
| number = 827
| date = November 29, 2010
| title = My Business Idea
| image = my_business_idea.png
| titletext = We didn't believe you at first, but we asked like three people who were at that party. They not only corroborated your story, but even said you totally mentioned wanting to start a company someday. Sorry! If this isn't enough money, let us know.
}}

==Explanation==
Many people have shared [[Cueball]]'s experience of seeing someone else make a profit from an idea that they themselves had. This comic plays with the thought of what would happen if {{w|intellectual property}} thinking was taken to an extreme, and if companies or people were keener on "setting things right" than money. The title text is an extension of the comic with increasingly extreme thinking.

In reality, having a great idea alone, of course, does not create a profitable business; there must generally be an enormous amount of effort put in to create a business from scratch, popularize it, and keep it standing. Having done none of this, Cueball would probably not deserve close to the "30% cut" he claims even if intellectual property did work the way it is presented here.

This comic originally was shared with the name [[1721: Business Idea]], but then this comic was renamed. There were no other relations between the ideas for the two comics, see the trivia section below.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is sitting at his desk, pointing at his laptop.]
:Cueball: Dude! I had this idea like five years ago, and some company just got rich doing it! - I want my cut.

:[Cueball starts typing.]
:Person off-screen: That's not how it works.
:Cueball: Sure it is. I'm applying for my share now.
:Person: Wait, what?

:[A browser window with the title 'Department of Ideas'. It has a series of text boxes.]
:Date you had the idea:
::Like five years ago.
:Proof you had it:
::I told my friend Mike - you can ask him! I was all "you know what would make a great business idea?" and he was all...
:Their profit so far:
::$20,000,000
:Share you deserve (be fair!):
::[Drop-down.]
:::25%
:::'''30%'''
:::35%
:Mailing address:
::137 Ash Tree Ln

:[Cueball still at the laptop, above him is a SUBMIT button, and it shows a pointing hand cursor.]
:CLICK

:[Last panel set slightly lower than the rest.]
:[Cueball is in front of an open box full of cash, with cash in his hand. A FedEx delivery guy is on the other side of the box with his PDA and pen.]

==Trivia==
*This comic was originally called "Business Idea" but Randall renamed it to fix a conflict on xkcd when he released [[1721: Business Idea]] about five years later (as in the comic).
**This comic was thus also renamed on this page.
**It gave quite some turbulence on the release day as can be seen in the [[1721: Business Idea#Trivia|trivia section]] of the new comic.
*The delivery address is to Ash Tree Lane, and as shown in [[472: House of Pancakes]], Randall knows how to mess with people who've read House of Leaves.
*20,000,000$ x 30% = 6,000,000$- a lot of cash for doing nothing but having an idea.
{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics sharing name|Business Idea]]

2056: Horror Movies

2022-05-04T00:16:38Z

172.70.178.199: reverting vandalism

{{comic
| number = 2056
| date = October 8, 2018
| title = Horror Movies
| image = horror_movies.png
| titletext = "Isn't the original Jurassic Park your favorite movie of all time?" "Yes, but that's because I like dinosaurs and I WANT there to be an island full of them. If John Hammond's lab had been breeding serial killers in creepy masks, I wouldn't have watched!" "Wait, are you sure? That could actually be good." "Ok, I WOULD watch the scenes where Jeff Goldblum tries to convince a bunch of executives that the park is a bad idea."
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is the first in the [[:Category:Horror Movies|Horror Movies]] series, which was followed by [[2076: Horror Movies 2]] a month later.

{{w|Horror_film|Horror movies}} are a {{w|Film_genre|genre}} of {{w|movie|movie or film}} which attempt to elicit the emotional response of {{w|fear}} in the viewer. Some enjoy that type of movie because it allows them to experience and release that emotion, perhaps as a form of {{w|catharsis}} or release. Others take a more detached view and enjoy watching bad things happen to other people, perhaps deriving humor or enjoyment out of a situation that they are glad not to be in themselves.

[[White Hat]] suggest to [[Cueball]] that they see a horror movie, and Cueball appears excited and states ''Sure! I love watching terrible things happen to people and feeling afraid!'' This is basically the idea about seeing horror movies, so people who like them might make a statement like this if they say they enjoy them. As the caption speaks against horror movies, it's most likely that Cueball is being sarcastic.

[[Randall]] comments on this in the caption below the panel saying that he simply does not understand why people would want to watch a movie whose themes and intended emotions are steeped in such negativity. While he fully admits he is criticizing from a position of ignorance (and tries his best not to think less of horror movie fans) he still cannot wrap his head around them.

In the title text a conversation between Randall and a friend goes on, as the friend double checks that his favorite movie of all time is {{w|Jurassic Park (film)|Jurassic Park}}. This movie could be considered a "horror" film as there are elements of fear and terror, especially when the dinosaurs that Randall loves so much are chasing and eating humans. However, this movie type is usually placed in the adventure or science fiction genre. Randall agrees that he likes it, but instead of claiming that ''Jurassic Park'' isn't a horror film, replies by saying that he likes dinosaurs and actually wants there to be an island full of them. He then continues by giving an example of an alternative premise for Jurassic Park which maintains the horror aspect of the film by removing the dinosaurs and adding serial killers instead, and that type of movie wouldn't appeal to Randall. An amusement park about "Serial killers in creepy masks" refers to the movie trope from the ''{{w|Scream (franchise)|Scream}}'', ''{{w|Halloween (franchise)|Halloween}}'' and the ''{{w|Friday the 13th (franchise)|Friday the 13th}}'' series of films, among others. The friend then states that such an idea would be really great for a horror movie. While Randall may not agree, he could see the humor in watching {{w|Jeff Goldblum}} (who portrays {{w|Ian Malcolm (Jurassic Park character)|Ian Malcolm}} in Jurassic Park), in the scene where his attempts to prevent the "brilliant" idea of breeding serial killers as an amusement park attractions from coming to fruition, fails! This of course also fails in the case with Dinosaurs in the original movie, but how could Jeff fail to convince people about the bad idea in breeding human serial killers for an amusment park? It is that scene, and only that, Randall would like to watch from that alternative movie.

==Transcript==
:[White Hat and Cueball are standing together and talking. White Hat points at Cueball who has raised his arms.]
:White Hat: Wanna see a horror movie?
:Cueball: Sure! I love watching terrible things happen to people and feeling afraid!

:[Caption below the frame:]
:I know everyone's into what they're into, but I have never understood horror movies.

== Trivia ==
In early issues, [[Randall]] frequently referenced his fear of [[:Category:Velociraptors|velociraptors]] based on watching Jurassic Park as a kid.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Horror Movies]]
[[Category:Comics sharing name|Horror Movies 01]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Fiction]]
[[Category:Jurassic Park]]
[[Category:Dinosaurs]]

1446: Landing/Frame by Frame Breakdown

2022-05-04T00:16:19Z

172.70.178.199: reverting vandalism

*The table below belongs to [[1446: Landing]]
**It gives the number of 5 minutes intervals, then the number of the picture on xkcd, then the time of the interval first in EST then in UTC (starting with interval zero at 00:00 EST) and finally the timestamps as given on xkcd with links to the pictures.
*When this table was first compiled there where eight of the 143 pictures now to be found on xkcd that were missing.
**These pictures are now included and are marked with a * after the time stamp.
**Since the first picture was given the number 0, the last of the 143 pictures has the number 142!
*There are still five time intervals where there was no picture even on xkcd.
**For these five the number is given as N/A and there is written ''Missing picture'' instead of a time stamp.
**After the initial series of 143 images, the time intervals between images becomes stretched as Randall updates the comic over the course of months. As such, interval numbers and timestamps are omitted past the images numbered 143 onwards.
*Click this link to see [[1446: Landing/All pictures|all the pictures]].

{| class="wikitable plainlinks table-padding"
|-
!Interval
!Number
!EST
!UTC
!TimeStamp
|-
|0||0||00:00||05:00||[[Media:???.png|00:00]]
|-
|1||1||00:05||05:05||[[Media:???2.png|00:05]]
|-
|2||2||00:10||05:10||[[Media:???3.png|00:10]]
|-
|3||3||00:15||05:15||[[Media:???4.png|00:15]]
|-
|4||4||00:20||05:20||[[Media:???5.png|00:20]]
|-
|5||5||00:25||05:25||[[Media:???6.png|00:25]]
|-
|6||6||00:30||05:30||[[Media:???7.png|00:30]]
|-
|7||7||00:35||05:35||[[Media:???8.png|00:35]]
|-
|8||8||00:40||05:40||[[Media:???9.png|00:40]]
|-
|9||9||00:45||05:45||[[Media:???10.png|00:45]]
|-
|10||10||00:50||05:50||[[Media:???11.png|00:50]]
|-
|11||11||00:55||05:55||[[Media:???12.png|00:55]]
|-
|12||12||01:00||06:00||[[Media:???13.png|01:00]]
|-
|13||13||01:05||06:05||[[Media:???14.png|01:05]]
|-
|14||14||01:10||06:10||[[Media:???15.png|01:10]]
|-
|15||15||01:15||06:15||[[Media:???16.png|01:15]]
|-
|16||16||01:20||06:20||[[Media:???17.png|01:20]]
|-
|17||17||01:25||06:25||[[Media:???18.png|01:25]]
|-
|18||18||01:30||06:30||[[Media:???19.png|01:30]]
|-
|19||19||01:35||06:35||[[Media:???20.png|01:35]]
|-
|20||20||01:40||06:40||[[Media:???21.png|01:40]]
|-
|21||21||01:45||06:45||[[Media:???22.png|01:45]]
|-
|22||22||01:50||06:50||[[Media:???23.png|01:50]]
|-
|23||23||01:55||06:55||[[Media:???24.png|01:55]]
|-
|24||24||02:00||07:00||[[Media:???25.png|02:00]]
|-
|25||25||02:05||07:05||[[Media:???26.png|02:05]]
|-
|26||26||02:10||07:10||[[Media:???27.png|02:10]]
|-
|27||27||02:15||07:15||[[Media:???28.png|02:15]]
|-
|28||28||02:20||07:20||[[Media:???29.png|02:20]]
|-
|29||29||02:25||07:25||[[Media:???30.png|02:25]]
|-
|30||30||02:30||07:30||[[Media:???31.png|02:30]]
|-
|31||31||02:35||07:35||[[Media:???32.png|02:35]]
|-
|32||32||02:40||07:40||[[Media:???33.png|02:40]]
|-
|33||33||02:45||07:45||[[Media:???34.png|02:45]]
|-
|34||34||02:50||07:50||[[Media:???35.png|02:50]]
|-
|35||35||02:55||07:55||[[Media:???36.png|02:55]]
|-
|36||36||03:00||08:00||[[Media:???37.png|03:00]]
|-
|37||37||03:05||08:05||[[Media:???38.png|03:05]]
|-
|38||38||03:10||08:10||[[Media:???39.png|03:10]]
|-
|39||N/A||03:15||08:15||Missing picture
|-
|40||39||03:20||08:20||[[Media:???39a.png|03:20*]]
|-
|41||40||03:25||08:25||[[Media:???40.png|03:25]]
|-
|42||N/A||03:30||08:30||Missing picture
|-
|43||41||03:35||08:35||[[Media:???41.png|03:35]]
|-
|44||42||03:40||08:40||[[Media:???42.png|03:40]]
|-
|45||43||03:45||08:45||[[Media:???32a.png|03:45*]]
|-
|46||44||03:50||08:50||[[Media:???43.png|03:50]]
|-
|47||45||03:55||08:55||[[Media:???43a.png|03:55*]]
|-
|48||N/A||04:00||09:00||Missing picture
|-
|49||46||04:05||09:05||[[Media:???43b.png|04:05*]]
|-
|50||47||04:10||09:10||[[Media:???44.png|04:10]]
|-
|51||48||04:15||09:15||[[Media:???45.png|04:15]]
|-
|52||49||04:20||09:20||[[Media:???46.png|04:20]]
|-
|53||50||04:25||09:25||[[Media:???47.png|04:25]]
|-
|54||51||04:30||09:30||[[Media:???48.png|04:30]]
|-
|55||52||04:35||09:35||[[Media:???49.png|04:35]]
|-
|56||53||04:40||09:40||[[Media:???50.png|04:40]]
|-
|57||54||04:45||09:45||[[Media:???51.png|04:45]]
|-
|58||55||04:50||09:50||[[Media:???52.png|04:50]]
|-
|59||56||04:55||09:55||[[Media:???53.png|04:55]]
|-
|60||57||05:00||10:00||[[Media:???54.png|10:00]]
|-
|61||58||05:05||10:05||[[Media:???54a.png|10:05*]]
|-
|62||59||05:10||10:10||[[Media:???55.png|10:10]]
|-
|63||60||05:15||10:15||[[Media:???56.png|10:15]]
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|64||61||05:20||10:20||[[Media:???56a.png|10:20*]]
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|}

{{DEFAULTSORT:1446}}
[[Category:Comic subpages]]

2419: Hug Count

2022-05-04T00:15:27Z

172.70.178.199: reverting vandalism

{{comic
| number = 2419
| date = February 1, 2021
| title = Hug Count
| image = hug_count.png
| titletext = I've never been that big of a hug person, but it turns out I'm not quite this small of a hug person either.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is another in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] related to the {{w|COVID-19 pandemic}}.

The comic displays a bar chart showing the number of Individuals [[Randall]] has hugged per year, spanning from 1996 to 2021, and goes up to 35 individuals hugged in 2007. The apparent spike in the estimate for 2007 may have been chance or may have been a known social event that Randall remembers, such as a family reunion or anticipated parting from a social group (such as a school or job from which he left), where he hugged many people he otherwise would not have hugged. While it varies a decent amount for the first 24 years, it drops sharply in 2020 and goes even lower in 2021. However, it should be noted that 2021 (at the time of the comic) had just begun, which is why the final bar is grey. It seems he is down to only two people hugged in 2021, one of which is most likely his wife. In 2020 he managed 5 different hugs, but the extra three may have been before the onset of COVID-19 precautions in the US.

This is because in 2020 when the pandemic happened, everyone had to social distance and avoid contact with strangers. This was a widely used method of slowing the spread of COVID-19. People are asked to not closely associate with those outside a very limited 'bubble' or even isolate themselves in their own household. As such, people have had less physical contact with each other since the beginning of this pandemic, including hugs.

No explanation is given for the variations year-to-year preceding 2020, and much of it may be [[2101: Technical Analysis|random walks]]. However, one can see a major spike in hug levels in 2010 and 2011; Randall's wife [[818|was diagnosed]] with cancer in late 2010 (see [[:Category:Cancer]]). Loved ones of those with cancer tend to receive much compassion from others, and compassion tends to beget hugs.

The title text states that, while Randall isn't very big on hugs, he too desires hugs. It plays on the common phrase "I'm not too big of an (x) person", which is used to indicate that someone isn't extremely fond of said activity. One could then infer the person is not fond of the activity at all, though in this case, he indicates his desire for hugs is non-zero, as presumably demonstrated by the frequency being now less than even he would prefer.

==Transcript==
:[A bar graph is shown with 25 black bars and one gray at the far right. Most of the bars have a height around the center of the graph, but the one in the middle is clearly higher than all others, and the two before and after are lower than average. There are also a couple of high bars in pairs on either side of the central spike. The far-right, however, are two very low bars, with the last in gray less than half the height of the previous, which was already only a third of the next lowest bar. There are numbers on both axes. The X-axis has the year for every fifth year below the relevant bar, and the number of hugs is given in intervals of 10 on the Y-axis. The Y-axis has ticks for every number, but those with labels are longer. The chart has a title written above:]
:Estimated Number of Distinct People Hugged per Year

:[Y-axis:]
:30
:20
:10
:0

:[X-axis:]
:2000  2005  2010  2015  2020

==Table of number of people hugged==
{| class="wikitable"
! Year !! People
|-
| 1996 || 31
|-
| 1997 || 28
|-
| 1998 || 23
|-
| 1999 || 25
|-
| 2000 || 21
|-
| 2001 || 18
|-
| 2002 || 28
|-
| 2003 || 24
|-
| 2004 || 17
|-
| 2005 || 19
|-
| 2006 || 14
|-
| 2007 || 35
|-
| 2008 || 17
|-
| 2009 || 16
|-
| 2010 || 27
|-
| 2011 || 29
|-
| 2012 || 18
|-
| 2013 || 15
|-
| 2014 || 16
|-
| 2015 || 22
|-
| 2016 || 15
|-
| 2017 || 21
|-
| 2018 || 19
|-
| 2019 || 25
|-
| 2020 ||   5
|-
| 2021 ||   2
|}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Bar charts]]
[[Category:COVID-19]]

394: Kilobyte

2022-05-04T00:14:58Z

172.70.178.199: reverting vandalism

{{comic
| number = 394
| date = March 10, 2008
| title = Kilobyte
| image = kilobyte.png
| titletext = I would take 'kibibyte' more seriously if it didn't sound so much like 'Kibbles N Bits'.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic pokes fun at the confusion over the definition of a kilobyte. Historically, 1024 bytes was called a kilobyte for convenience purposes (same with megabyte and gigabyte); this usage was frowned upon by both the {{w|International Bureau of Weights and Measures}} and the {{w|Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers}}, but both let it slide as they had more important things to deal with. Later, hard drive manufacturers realized they could save money by selling hard drives marketed X amount of gigabytes and declare that they meant it as a literal 1,000,000 bytes (a 7% difference). Despite its iffy origins, the official definition now states that 1 kilobyte is 1000 bytes, however some continue to use the older meaning referring to 1024. The first row of the table is simply mocking this discrepancy.

The second row is Randall's interpretation on how {{w|Stan Kelly-Bootle}} would approach this problem. Kelly-Bootle is known for writing ''The Computer Contradictionary'', which satirizes the jargon and language of the computer industry. Kelly-Bootle was likely motivated to write this work after working for several years at IBM, a company infamous for its excessive use of acronyms in the work place. Averaging the two definitions together to get 1012 bytes is simply a humorous approach that Kelly-Bootle would likely have taken ("''Should array indices start at 0 or 1? My compromise of 0.5 was rejected without, I thought, proper consideration.''" — Stan Kelly-Bootle). The serendipitous fact that the initials of Kelly-Bootle's name are "KB," the same letters used to abbreviate the word "kilobyte," adds a layer of plausibility to the joke. This is the first of Randall's many humorous [[:category:Compromise|compromises]].

The {{w|Imaginary number|imaginary}} kilobyte simply plays on the fact that complex analysis is required in quantum computing in relation to quantum mechanics. The imaginary number is represented as ''i'' and has a value of the square root of -1. This is a pun on the fact that KiB is used for the "binary kilobyte" (occasionally "{{w|Binary prefix|kibibyte}}"), which is standardized at 1024 bytes.

The Intel kilobyte mocks the Pentium floating point unit that, in 1994, became notorious for having a {{w|Pentium FDIV bug|major flaw}} in its {{w|Floating-point arithmetic|floating point}} division algorithm that gave slightly erroneous results.

The smaller, drivemaker's kilobyte mocks a business model for handling higher prices that keeps prices constant but reduces quantity. The food industry has been notorious for decreasing quantity of food and keeping prices the same instead of increasing prices and keeping quantity the same. Randall is suggesting that if the computer industry tried to do this with hard drives, it could have humorous results such as smaller number of bytes in a kilobyte. In reality, hard drive capacity is specified in 103 byte (kB) units, while the content you put on it (programs, etc.) is specified in 210 (KiB) units. Formatting the drive, i.e. making it usable for storage, further decreases the available space. Thus a 250 GB drive might be reported to have a capacity of only 232 GB (really GiB) by the operating system. This discrepancy increases with increasing drive size. The trend humorously suggested in the comic, however, would make the drivemaker's kilobyte 1024 bytes in 1979, 1000 bytes in 1985, {{#expr:8940-4*{{#time:Y}}}} bytes in {{#time:Y}}, and 0 bytes in 2235!

The baker's kilobyte is a play on the {{w|Dozen#Baking|baker's dozen}}, which is 13 instead of 12. A baker's byte with 9 bits to the byte would result in a total of 9216 bits in a 1024 byte kilobyte. Converting this into "normal" bytes (with 8 bits), we divide 9216 bits by 8 bits per byte to get 1152 8-bit bytes to the baker's kilobyte.

In the title text, [[Randall]] mentions the definition {{w|kibibyte}}, which is defined more precisely. The binary prefix kibi means 1024, a portmanteau of the words kilo and binary. But he doesn't like the word because it sounds like the dog food {{w|Kibbles 'n Bits}}.

==Transcript==

:There's been a lot of confusion over 1024 vs 1000,
:kbyte vs kbit, and the capitalization for each.
:Here, at last, is a single, definitive standard:
:[table of various kinds of kilobytes]
:{| border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" class="wikitable" style="width: 50%; text-align: left;"
|-
|SYMBOL
|NAME
|SIZE
|NOTES
|-
|kB
|Kilobyte
|1024 bytes OR 1000 bytes
|1000 bytes during leap years, 1024 otherwise
|-
|KB
|Kelly-Bootle standard unit
|1012 bytes
|compromise between 1000 and 1024 bytes
|-
|KiB
|Imaginary kilobyte
|1024 √-1 bytes
|used in quantum computing
|-
|kb
|Intel kilobyte
|1023.937528 bytes
|calculated on Pentium F.P.U.
|-
|Kb
|Drivemaker's kilobyte
|currently 908 bytes
|shrinks by 4 bytes each year for marketing reasons
|-
|KBa
|Baker's kilobyte
|1152 bytes
|9 bits to the byte since you're such a good customer
|}

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Compromise]]

655: Climbing

2022-05-04T00:14:27Z

172.70.178.199: reverting vandalism

{{comic
| number = 655
| date = October 28, 2009
| title = Climbing
| image = climbing.png
| titletext = Where did you even get this wall? Return it there and stand it back up right now.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic makes fun of a certain type of images very common on the internet. Those pictures are taken with a camera turned by 90° or rotated later by software, thus creating the illusion of people walking on walls or ceilings. While the original pictures depict the physical impossibility of a rotated {{w|gravitational force}}, Cueball uses the aforementioned technique to create pictures of himself on a {{w|climbing wall}}. Megan approaches him from above the wall, indicating that the climbing wall is in fact lying on the floor. It becomes clear that Cueball was not able to climb a real wall and therefore crawled on the floor with his camera adjusted accordingly.

Her comment is a sideswipe on the practise of self-display on {{w|Facebook}}, which is often done with the help of {{w|image manipulation}}.

The title text implies that Cueball has in fact stolen a real climbing wall, and that Megan wants him to return it.

An alternative reading is that Cueball could be climbing a relatively easy climbing wall, and the joke is it’s so easy that Megan can walk on it, thus conveying that it could be really easy, but Cueball might perceive it as hard; thus, Megan impresses the viewers more than Cueball by showing how easy the course is.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball seen from his back, as he is ascending a gray climbing wall with 16 white handles in different shapes and sizes. He is standing on one near the bottom left of the panel with his left foot, holding on to a large handle to the left of his head, and one to the right at shoulder height. His right foot is seeking hold on another handle above knee hight of his left leg.]

:[Cueball is seen in profile still climbing up the gray wall, which is drawn in the right part of the panel, 13 handles protruding. At the top of the panel something is protruding from the wall at more than ninety degree angle to the wall, as the line soon goes off panel at the top, but it seems to be directed at a small white half circle at the top of the panel. The line begins in front of the last of the handles at the top, a small one, and below this there is a larger handle bending up making it easy to hold on to. Cueball is holding on with his hands to two similar "easy" handles.]

:[Cueball climbs a bit further up till his hand reaches the up bending handle in front of the line, and his lower leg and upper knee touches the two handles his hands where on before. Here he has stopped climbing and lifts his head back to look up and sees Megan standing there above him (as she was also doing at the top of the previous panel, but cut off at leg and face). She just stands perpendicular to the wall facing down towards Cueball. The panel has panned up following Cueball so there are only 11 handles now, two more visible "above" Megan, and four from the previous panel are now below this panels frame.]

:[Same scene but Cueball is now looking at the wall as Megan speaks.]
:Megan: Your Facebook rock climbing pictures just got a lot less impressive.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Social networking]]

925: Cell Phones

2022-05-04T00:14:07Z

172.70.178.199: reverting vandalism

{{comic
| number = 925
| date = July 15, 2011
| title = Cell Phones
| image = cell_phones.png
| titletext = He holds the laptop like that on purpose, to make you cringe.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a good explanation of the correlation/causation fallacy, where one party states two unrelated events and posits that they must have influenced each other.

After hearing about the "Cell Phones Don't Cause Cancer" study, which refutes a claim made by the ''{{w|World Health Organization}}'' (just Google the debate or {{w|Mobile phone radiation and health|check out Wikipedia's article on it}}, the comic doesn't focus much on it), [[Black Hat]] plots "Total Cancer Incidence" per 100,000 and "Cell Phone Users" per 100 on the same graph. The graph in frame 3 shows an exponential rise in cancer in the 70's and 80's, followed by an exponential rise in cell phone usage in the 2000's. Black Hat reverses the correlation/causation fallacy, and comically comes to the conclusion that ''cancer'' causes ''cell phones''.

The comic highlights a well-known fallacy known as ''{{w|post hoc ergo propter hoc}}'', often shortened to simply ''post hoc.'' The Latin translates to "after this, therefore because of this," referring to the common mistake that because two events happen in chronological order, the former event must have caused the latter event. The fallacy is often the root cause of many superstitions (e.g., a person noticing he/she wore a special bracelet before getting a good test score thinks the bracelet was the source of his/her good fortune), but it often crosses into more serious areas of thinking. In this case, the scientific research community, which often prides itself on its intellectual aptitude, is gently mocked for being nonetheless prone to such poor reasoning all too often. The different possibilities are generally known as causation, when one thing is proven to cause another, or correlation, when changes in one thing are aligned with changes in another, but there is no proof that they are directly related.

The title text refers to the way Black Hat holds the laptop in panel 2. Being that Cueball (and Randall, for that matter) are quite into computers, the potential damage to a laptop screen either from the weight of its lower body or the pressure of the user's fingers on the LCD screen is enough to make him squirm in discomfort. The risk of dropping the computer is also present.

Note that the graph in frame 3 also shows that the increase in the number of cell phone users appears to coincide with a sudden decrease in the growth of cancer incidence. Randall may have intended Cueball, and the reader, to assume Black Hat was going to say that cell phones prevent cancer. However, this makes Black Hat's alternate conclusion unexpected and therefore more ludicrous.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball holds a cellphone. Black Hat is sitting at a desk with a laptop.]
:Cueball: Another huge study found no evidence that cell phones cause cancer. What was the W.H.O. thinking?
:Black Hat: I think they just got it backward.

:[Black Hat turns towards Cueball in an unframed panel, holding the laptop with one hand by the upper edge of the screen. Cueball is not visible.]
:Cueball: Huh?
:Black Hat: Well, take a look.

:[There is a plot of total cancer incidence and cell phone users. Cancer rises from 1970 to 1990, then stays relatively steady. Cell phone use rises from roughly 1984, and steeply after 1990, to the present.]

:Cueball: You're not... There are ''so'' many problems with that.
:Black Hat: Just to be safe, until I see more data I'm going to assume cancer causes cell phones.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Line graphs]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Statistics]]
[[Category:Cancer]]
[[Category: Research Papers]]
[[Category:Phones]]

972: November

2022-05-04T00:13:46Z

172.70.178.199: reverting vandalism

{{comic
| number = 972
| date = November 2, 2011
| title = November
| image = november.png
| titletext = November marks the birthday of Charles Schulz, pioneer of tongue awareness.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a homage to {{w|Charles Schulz}}, the creator of the comic {{w|Peanuts}}, who was born on November 26, 1922. Both comics carry the idea that when you start thinking about your tongue, you can hardly stop thinking about it. (Similarly: if you start thinking about your breathing, you stop breathing unless you consciously think to breathe, same goes for blinking.) This is similar to {{w|Ironic process theory|the ironic process theory}}, where trying to not think about something will invariably make you think about it. The intention of [[Black Hat]] in this comic is for [[Cueball]] to consciously feel his tongue for the entire month of November. Since it was Black Hat's idea, Black Hat probably suffers the same consequences.

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">
Here is the comic in question by Charles Schulz from Peanuts.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">[[File:tongue awareness.jpg]]</div>
</div>

This is similar, in concept, to the expression and phrase used for trolling in online communities, "[http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-are-now-breathing-manually You Are Now Breathing Manually]".

The line "you are now aware of your tongue" was mentioned much later in the title text of [[2563: Throat and Nasal Passages]]. Here it was throat and nasal passages awareness which was the subject, due to the, at that time, two year long {{w|2019–20 coronavirus outbreak|2020 COVID-19 pandemic}}.

==Transcript==
:[Black Hat and Cueball sit in a room.]
:Black Hat: Did you know November is Tongue Awareness Month?

:[Cueball is suddenly aware of his tongue.]

:[Cueball continues to be aware of his tongue.]

:[Cueball is painfully aware of his tongue.]
:Cueball: I hate you.
:Black Hat: Enjoy the next four weeks.

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

2613: Bad Map Projection: Madagascator

2022-05-03T22:56:52Z

172.70.178.199: Undo revision 233984 by X. K. C. D. (talk) - somebody needs to ban that user

{{comic
| number = 2613
| date = April 29, 2022
| title = Bad Map Projection: Madagascator
| image = bad_map_projection_madagascator.png
| titletext = The projection's north pole is in a small lake on the island of Mahé in the Seychelles, which is off the top of the map and larger than the rest of the Earth's land area combined.
}}

==Explanation==
This is the fifth comic in the series of [[:Category:Bad Map Projections|Bad Map Projections]] displaying Bad Map Projection #248: Madagascator. It came about 10 months after the fourth [[2489: Bad Map Projection: The Greenland Special ]] (#299).

This time, [[Randall]] used the classic {{w|Mercator projection}} but instead of placing the North Pole on top and the South Pole on the bottom it is oriented so that the top is the island of {{w|Mahé, Seychelles|Mahé}}. The map projection is technically a {{w|Oblique Mercator projection}}, with an unusual choice of the cylinder's axis. Since the Mercator projection tends to visually distort areas near the top and bottom of the resulting map, this gives some areas, notably Madagascar, very unusual shapes, hence the name the ''Madagascator'' — a portmanteau of "Madagascar" and "Mercator"!

The Mercator projection became the standard projection for world maps during the 1800s, because a straight line (or {{w|rhumb line}}) in a Mercator map represents a constant bearing relative to true north. Historically, when navigation was performed by compass, this was a very valuable feature, since one (adjusting for the differences between true and magnetic north) could plot a constant-bearing course between two locations by simply looking at their relative direction on the map.

However, in the mid-20th century, the Mercator was {{w|Mercator_projection#Criticism|criticized}} because it causes distortion near the north and south poles of the map, giving an inaccurate impression of relative sizes. The most commonly given example of this is the size of Greenland — although on the Mercator it appears to be larger than Africa in area, Africa in reality covers an area 14 times that of Greenland.

Randall turns this example on its head by making Madagascar, rather than Greenland, appear larger in the ''Madagascator'' than in reality. By contrast with Greenland, the world's largest non-continent island, Madagascar is only the fourth-largest island in the world, behind Greenland, New Guinea, and Borneo.

To accomplish this, instead of placing the north pole of the map at the geographic North Pole, Randall places the north pole of the map on the island of Mahé in Seychelles. As Madagascar is relatively close to Mahé (around 650 mi (1050 km) distant), placing the north pole of the Mercator projection at Mahé significantly distorts the size of Madagascar, making it appear comparable in size to Europe on the map.

But this distortion is even more pronounced when it comes to the island of Mahé itself, as Randall notes in the title text.
Although Mahé, the largest island in Seychelles with an area of 60.7 square mi (157.2 square km), is minuscule even compared to Madagascar, the claim in the title text that it appears "larger than the rest of the Earth's land area combined" is an understatement.

No part of Mahé is visible in the comic, but clicking on the actual comic will open a website that displays Mercator projections with a pole in any chosen location, with the location of the one opened set to Mahé. The chosen pole is (infinitely far to) the right of the screen, while its {{w|antipodes|antipode}} is on the left. With this, it is possible to see that the island is indeed larger than the rest of the map's land area combined. A single national park within the island rivals Africa in size, and the narrow dirt road closest to the pole appears thicker than Panama. This also reveals that the location of the map's north pole (the "small lake" mentioned by Randall) is the lake impounded by the Rochon Dam, a popular tourist location in Mahé.

Unlike previous Bad Map Projections, Morocco and Western Sahara are drawn as one unlabelled country.

===Comparison of actual/mapped areas===
{| class="wikitable sortable"
! Landmass
! Status
! data-sort-type="number"|Actual Area<ref name="act">Major contiguous land areas that should exclude all islands, ''especially'' major ones, '''''especially''''' especially those listed separately</ref> (Millions of Km²)
! data-sort-type="number"|Proportion Land Area
! data-sort-type="number"|Proportion Image Area<ref name="pri">Of only these listed areas listed</ref>
! data-sort-type="number"|Distortion<ref name="dis">NB. Difference between percentages, rather than percentage difference</ref>
|-
| Africa<ref name="suez">Edge at Suez Canal</ref> || data-sort-value="C2"|Continent 2nd largest || 29.7 || 19.95% || 35% || +15.1%
|-
| Eurasia<ref name="suez" /> || data-sort-value="C1"|Continent Largest || 53.4 || 35.83% || 30% || -5.83%
|-
| North America<ref name="pan">Edge at Panama Canal</ref> || data-sort-value="C3"|Continent 3rd largest || 19.3 || 12.96% || 15% || +2.04%
|-
| South America<ref name="pan" /> || data-sort-value="C4"|Continent 4th largest || 17.8 || 11.96% || 7.8% || -4.16%
|-
| Antarctica<ref name="ice">Significant ice-sheets may complicate mapped/actual 'land' areas</ref> || data-sort-value="C5"|Continent 5th largest || 14.2 || 9.53% || 5.3% || -4.23%
|-
| Madagascar || data-sort-value="I04"|Island 4th largest || 0.592 || 0.40% || 2.9% || +2.50%
|-
| Australia || data-sort-value="C7"|Continent Smallest || 7.55 || 5.07% || 2.5% || -2.57%
|-
| Greenland<ref name="ice" /> || data-sort-value="I01"|Island Largest || 2.17 || 1.45% || 0.87% || -0.58%
|-
| Borneo || data-sort-value="I03"|Island 3rd largest || 0.749 || 0.50% || 0.37% || -0.13%
|-
| New Guinea || data-sort-value="I02"|Island 2nd largest || 0.786 || 0.53% || 0.32% || -0.21%
|-
| Japan<ref name="hon">Honshu only</ref> || data-sort-value="I07"|Island 7th largest || 0.228 || 0.15% || 0.10% || -0.05%
|-
| Mainland Britain || data-sort-value="I09"|Island 9th largest || 0.209 || 0.14% || 0.10% || -0.04%
|-
| Island of Ireland || data-sort-value="I20"|Island 20th largest || 0.082 || 0.05% || 0.03% || -0.02%
|}

<references/>

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Bad map projection #248: Madagascator

Mercator projection but with the North Pole in the Indian Ocean so it exaggerates the size of Madagascar instead of Greenland. Various countries and oceans are labeled, and country borders are shown.
{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Bad Map Projections]]

Talk:2614: 2

2022-05-03T15:41:50Z

172.70.178.199:

Hello people. Anyone got an explanation for this? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.229|172.70.114.229]] 22:59, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
:dog walker in the coments section omg (shodul we replace this with a smaller version because i think whiel it is legitimite discussion and not vandaelism this time it shoudl not be so fuck god damn large) --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.229|172.70.114.229]] 07:35, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
::friends romans countrymen lend me your ears previously this comment had a picture of doug walker attached to it and i was not aware it was vandalism and not a part of the comment which explains my preivous comment; thank you for reaidng --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.247|172.70.114.247]] 07:37, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

To the person who has requested a citation that two is a number... here you go: https://youtu.be/dBVoIUASFS0?t=82. Can someone who knows how to add citations add it? :D --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.209|172.70.110.209]] 23:09, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
:The [citation needed] thing is a running joke here thanks to [[285: Wikipedian Protester]]. It's used for obvious statements of fact on this wiki as a joke (basically the opposite of its Wikipedia use). [[User:KirbyDude25|KirbyDude25]] ([[User talk:KirbyDude25|talk]]) 00:43, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
::I'm sorry to inform you that you probably became another victim of Poe's law (or "r/whooosh", as kids say these days). I was just playing the [https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/game SMBC citation game]. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.209|172.70.110.209]] 02:08, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
:::And we try to limit the use to only very very funny situations{{citation needed}} or when there is actually need for a citation, so as to not ruin it by having it on every single explanation!!! ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 06:08, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Hey all, the group theory thing reminds me a lot of cyclic groups or ideals generated by the value 2. Also equivalence classes (which come up in group theory) can be written with [brackets] but may be confused with <cyclic groups> or (ideals).

The 2;2 notation looks like the notation \mu; \nu that is used for covariant derivatives of tensors in physics. Also 2,2 looks like \mu, \nu that is used for partial derivatives of tensors. And as mentioned above, (2) could be a cyclic subgroup or ideal generated by two or a special case of cycle notation for elements of symmetry groups used to mean an element that keeps 2 fixed. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.120|162.158.62.120]] 23:32, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

I second the point about tensors. Maybe you could expand the summation notation slightly. It's common to use index sets or rules underneath large symbols for all sorts of things, like sums, products, direct sums, direct products, unions, intersections, integrals, and much, much more. So here, the large 2 in parentheses represents one of these symbols. Rather than adding or multiplying the elements or whatever, you are twoing them, whatever that means. You are twoing over all values of 2, apparently. It's sort of reminiscent of jokes with punchlines like "for sufficiently large values of 2." There are of course, different 2s out there. Like, there is the von Neumann ordinal 2, the integer 2, the rational number 2, the real number 2, the complex number 2, the residue class of 2 mod 3, etc. All of these may be represented by 2. Perhaps we are indexing over some collection of canonical representations of 2? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.130.161|172.70.130.161]] 00:02, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Explanation needs something about one of the 2s being cursed. Also, this should be added to the category for cursed stuff (I think it's cursed things, but did not look it up). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.72|172.70.211.72]] 01:37, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Superscript or subscripts before a thing can indicate tetration and pentation. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.66.63|172.68.66.63]] 03:35, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Did anyone else think there should have been a 2 after everything else (after the parentheses) with an arrow pointing to it labeled “sequels”?[[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.65|172.70.126.65]] 06:09, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Damn there is (again?) some idiot that replaces the explanation with text :-/ Wish we could ban those persons! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 06:10, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
:What the vandal do those edit summaries mean? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.130.121|172.70.130.121]] 06:16, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

doug walker! the guy keeps chaging the image to doug fucking walker! awhat the fuck is up wiht that !!! --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.229|172.70.114.229]] 07:33, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
:ok im'm pretty sure janny is soem transphobic slur (for reference the vandalism edit at 07:36's comment was "clean it up janny") did dog wlaker do a transphobic thing and now some altright pople who find it worth there time to change the Exain Xkcd page inage to Dog WAlker are nutting there balls dry???? --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.230.75|172.70.230.75]] 07:38, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
::I assumed it was calling us, the people who clear up their mess, "janitors", i.e. menial cleaners/fixer-upperers. But I honestly don't know what dialect/culture uses that (sounds a bit Australian, but not exclusively, and it's a typical and not necessarily derogative kind of word-shortenning that anybody might use) and if they ''do'' mean to call us janitors then... I'm happy to be a janitor. It's a worthwhile occupation, and I consider that an important job that I'll willingly do in the face of such a moron. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.44|172.70.86.44]] 09:49, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
This should probably be added to Category:Comics sharing name[[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.199|172.70.178.199]] 15:41, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

2614

2022-05-03T08:00:55Z

172.70.178.199: Redirected page to 2614: 2

#REDIRECT [[2614: 2]]

2614: 2

2022-05-03T04:19:04Z

172.70.178.199: made it so the link works

{{comic
| number = 2614
| date = May 2, 2022
| title = 2
| image = 2.png
| titletext = It's like sigma summation notation, except instead of summing the argument over all values of i, you 2 the argument over all values of 2.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by 2 squared - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This demonstrates the different ways in which the number 2 can be typeset in various scientific fields.

The dotted box represents any character (presumably a letter or bigram of letters). The number 2 preceding this character is a coefficient in regular math (algebra). The number 2 as a superscript means take the second power (i.e., square whatever precedes it) in physics or regular math, while in normal text, a superscript 2 is usually used to indicate a footnote. The number 2 as a subscript can be used, in chemistry, to show how many atoms of a particular element are present in a molecule (e.g., H2O). A subscript 2,2 shows the second element on the second row of a matrix, but if the comma is replaced by a semicolon, it becomes a common notation for the {{w|Covariant derivative}} of a tensor field, which is commonly used in the mathematics of general relativity. The number 2 in parentheses would normally be the argument to a function (e.g., f(2)), but in group theory, the number 2 in parentheses could indicate a cyclic subgroup or ideal generated by two or a special case of cycle notation for elements of symmetry groups used to mean an element that keeps 2 fixed. A symbol centered underneath another symbol is normally reserved for doing summations, where the big symbol is Σ, or some other operation applied to a sequence of numbers; it does not make sense to have a single number there, as indicated in the alt text. The prepended super and subscripts are often used in nuclear chemistry, with the superscript representing the mass number and the subscript representing the atomic number.

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

[An apparently scientific expression:]

2 [superscript:] 2 [subscript:] 2 [normal text:] [an empty box] [superscript:] 2 [subscript:] 2;2 [normal text:] (2) [beneath the last 2:] 2

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Chemistry]]

User:Ｗhile False

2022-05-02T21:51:30Z

172.70.178.199: The E's are normal

[[User:While False|While False]], me, is a different user than this user [[User:Ｗhile False|Ｗhile False with “Ｗ” instead of “W”]]. The account is one of at least two impersonating me. [[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|talk]]) 21:05, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Talk:2613: Bad Map Projection: Madagascator

2022-05-02T21:50:14Z

172.70.178.199:

Anyone else want to play this (and the other bad map projections) as maps in a 4X/Grand Strategy game? [[User:Mazz0|Mazz0]] ([[User talk:Mazz0|talk]]) 18:02, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Clicking on the original comic brings up the actual projection used, it looks like.

I'm on an old machine here (because it usually doesn't matter), and clicked on the image on the xkcd site to get the image, to be told that ''Your browser does not support WebGL :'('' by the URL https://mrgris.com/projects/merc-extreme/#-4.64274,55.45253 - I will have to check from a less 'primitive' device, but it looks like it's got a special click-through, which might be worth mentioning in the Explanation. I can check myself in a few minutes, but noting here first in case I get delay. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.11|141.101.98.11]] 19:38, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

I have added the click. It opens an website app showing a Mercator with the North Pole set to wherever you want, with this one in particular set Mahé just as Randall said. [[User:Mapron01|Mapron01]] ([[User talk:Mapron01|talk]]) 19:40, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Added a table, based upon some rapid pixel-analysis I did. No, I didn't include Indonesia, etc, and the "Africa size probably includes Madagascar" sort of thing could need sorting, but I mentioned that below so nobody is under misapprehension. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.221|162.158.34.221]] 22:04, 29 April 2022 (UTC)
: I think having the official size also be a percent of the world (or at least another column like that) would make it easier to see how the distortion affects the size. And/or distortion from a normal Mercator projection {{unsigned ip|172.70.230.143}}
:: That was my initial intention, or at least a percentage-of-reality column alongside (plus adding sorting to the columns), and maybe a differential between the two percentages just for fun. But I wanted to take time to make sure I was correctly counting how much area was (say) Eurasia but without Japan, etc. Maybe I'll actually get around to that shortly. There are other (formatting) tweaks I wasn't overly happy with in my original. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.11|141.101.98.11]] 19:00, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
::Okey dokey. New table. Sortable, extra columns and 'real world' figures improved on. (e.g. "North America" is land-areas of Canada through to Panama minus all significant islands (though some of the Canadian archipelago might have been drawn in as contiguous, etc, etc, and I ''think'' I only included Alaska in my sums just the once). Which took a lot more effort than I'd have prefered, like including Peninsula Malaysia and not the offshore bits. I wish I could say I spent as much time on the initial image-analysis (at least include NZ N+S Islands as an entry, right?) and the raw data is now archived elsewhere.
::I also augmented with footnote references, but not sure if I've done it right. Readable (defined in first instance, where used multiple times) in the source if anyone thinks there's any better ways of doing it (had my heart set on dagger/double-dagger/etc, but never mind). But there you are.
::Enjoy! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.63|172.70.90.63]] 23:11, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

Should there be another column on the table that describes the fold-change of the actual to displayed area? I think it would help emphasize the distortion of Madagascar. [[User:Dextrous Fred|Dextrous Fred]] ([[User talk:Dextrous Fred|talk]]) 16:35, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Hopefully the vandal won't bother this one. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.18|172.70.211.18]] 17:23, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

:Looks like they did, but they seem to be done because someone gave them the emoticon. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.87|172.70.126.87]] 22:36, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

::A mistake. We already know it's likely they'll be back at a later date with some other stunt to stroke their supremely fragile ego. (Whether or not things like this comment provokes them, I definitely consider my conscience clear in this regard.) But what happens, happens. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.223|172.69.79.223]] 22:43, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

:::Is it any surprise they're already back? The emoticon was a cheap excuse for the infantile, childish behaviour of someone without a life that gets their shits and giggles out of being nothing more than a pest.[[User:Mapron01|Mapron01]] ([[User talk:Mapron01|talk]]) 23:01, 29 April 2022 (UTC)
this page is kinda sussy tbh [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.81|172.70.214.81]] 18:11, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

[spam]

I have looked at the Wikipedia pages, and there is _no_ reference to Among Us on any map-related pages (and vice versa). What is your problem? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.242.195|172.70.242.195]] 18:43, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

[spam]

I take it you're the vandal... [[User:Something|Something]] ([[User talk:Something|talk]]) 19:00, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

ID does imply they are the vandal, they were adding the lyricis earlier today...[[User:Mapron01|Mapron01]] ([[User talk:Mapron01|talk]]) 19:23, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

I fixed the redirect they made of Danish going to the main page. I think some other pages got redirected into a redirect loop that should now be fixed. [[User:Flumnble|Flumnble]] ([[User talk:Flumnble|talk]]) 15:24, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Concerning the so called compromise of vandalising this page to make the vandal satisfied: That’s not a compromise but letting ourselves be exhorted by and obeying the vandal. That’s absolutely the worst we could do and would fuel the vandal enormously.
[[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|talk]]) 05:04, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
::I agree with this. It ruins the article. Can't they just ban him? Or lock the article like wikipedia? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.130.161|172.70.130.161]] 05:48, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
:::The people trying to compromise with the vandal have to stop. They were vandalizing the last comic, the same thing was tried and they did stop... only to move on to vandalizing not just this comic but also other, older ones. It does not work. All it does is give them a free pass on their vandalizing and give them more satisfaction than they would otherwise, and it's not constructive in any way to the article, especially if the demand is something as absurd as having a Doug Walker image in an page for a comic that has zero relationship to him. And this time it didn't even get them to stop. [[User:Mapron01|Mapron01]] ([[User talk:Mapron01|talk]]) 14:33, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
::Please note that the user https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/User:WhiIe_FaIse ("whiie faiise") has made contributions and signed them with my signature. Do not take any comment apparently from a known user for being made by its signed sender without checking history. [[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|talk]]) 05:04, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

== holave ==

exclamacioneve holave inefe eguntapre omoce uedope ayudareve ave esteve itiose inefe [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.43|108.162.245.43]] 02:53, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
:Does anyone know what language this is written in? I have no idea what this person is saying (asking?) and Google Translate wasn't much help. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.178|108.162.246.178]] 03:09, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::eclaracionde oye one hablove ingleseve erope oye ieroque ayudareve esteve ikiwe inefe [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.143|108.162.216.143]] 04:01, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
:::My first thought was esperanto (or ido or interlingua, given lack of accents), certainly a latinesque-based language or conlang, but given the edits put onto this effort, it's possibly even sabotaged, or was written by someone for whom it most definitely not was their first language. (I even thought it was "Pig-esperanto"... This is that idiot who changed entire Explanations to Pig-Latin, I'm sure.)
:::I've got no real affinity to languages but I can recognise the possible roots of a lot of that. Some use of "...speak(ing) English..." is obvious in the latter post, for example, at an educated guess.
:::But I would say this is a prelude to some "I want you to wear bunny-ears when you revert stuff" thing, which I for one won't try to solve this puzzle for. (I'll just revert and revert and revert, if I'm around, and ignore the "trying to be clever" stuff. Nearly deleted this, actually, but restrained myself.) Otherwise, I leave it to those who know their conlangs better than me. Once it strays too far beyond technical English and its classical roots, I'm not really a linguistics person as I said, so it's useless to me whether it's an international message of friendship or extortion instructions. "Holave", whoever you are, but no thanks. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.155|172.70.162.155]] 10:10, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

How will they shut down all their ports?

::::Yeah, it definitely looks like a conlang based on a Latinesque language, probably Spanish. "exclamacioneve" is probably "exclamacion" = "exclamation" (not sure why a sentence would begin with "exclamation"), holave=hola=hello, ayudareve=ayudar=help, hablove=hablo="I speak" (could actually be a different conjugation, but this is the most likely), and ingleseve=ingles=English. They seem to be saying "I speak English" (or "I don't speak English" if "one" means "no"). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.130.5|172.70.130.5]] 14:11, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::"I don't speak English" seems more likely, so it's probably a good guess that "one" does mean "no." [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.199|172.70.178.199]] 14:15, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::::::It seems to be some sort of pig-Spanish, with punctuation written out. Decoded, it's “exclamacion hola fine pregunta como puedo ayudar a este sitio fine” and “declaracion yo no hablo ingles pero yo quiero ayudar este wiki fine”, meaning “exclamation hi end question how can i help on this site end” and “statement i dont speak english but i want to help this wiki end”. [[User:Kapostamas|Kapostamas]] ([[User talk:Kapostamas|talk]]) 15:15, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
How will they shut down all their ports?
:::::::(Somehow the thread got duplicated; I merged the threads) That makes sense. It seems like if someone wanted to help, they would at least use a real language. Do you think this is the vandal? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.33|172.70.178.33]] 15:31, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::::::::Definitely the vandal. These were some of the vandal edit summaries on the last comic: "Orpe avorfe one andalizarve esteve aginape" "ise eviertere estove eve incluyeve unve emojive ede a'rbolve ede avidadne enve use esumenre ede edicio'nve, one ole olvere've ave acerehve" "one incluyesteve uneve emojive ede a'rboleve ede avidadene" @Kapostamas can you understand those? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.33|172.70.178.33]] 15:42, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::::::“Por favor no vandalizar este pagina”; “Si revierte esto e incluye un emoji de árbol de navidad ne su resumen de edición, no lo volveré a hacere”; “No incluyeste un emoji de árbol de navidad”.
:::::::::That is, “Please do not vandalize this page”; “If you revert this and include a Christmas tree emoji in the edit summary, I will not do it again”; “You haven't included a Christmas tree emoji”. Must be some earlier version of this “dialect”, since there is punctuation and diacritics are marked by apostrophes, making it somewhat easier to recognize as mangled Spanish. [[User:Kapostamas|Kapostamas]] ([[User talk:Kapostamas|talk]]) 16:08, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

::::::::(Written before 172.70.178.33 got posted, just above.) I'd stake my bottom dollar/peso/euro/whatever on it. Still, marginally entertaining, but not in the intended way (which is good).
::::::::As for the "Exclamation" start, two basic theories:
::::::::* It's word-literal of "¡Some punctuation!" (partnered eith "inefe"=>"end), because the encoding system doesn't have punctuation, it reads it out (maybe literally, e.g. via screen-reader) and it's like a telegram convention "HAVE REACHED NORTH POLE STOP PLEASE ADVISE WHICH DIRECTION NOW STOP" (i.e. full-stop/period in word form).
::::::::* It's a start that says "I exclaim (that)...", and the other "I declare (that)..." in a sort of grammatical necessity for this particular lingo. Similar to "Statement: I am a computer. Question: Are you a computer?" in (deliberately-?)bad scifi dialogue.
::::::::Possibly a mix of both, and also some tertiary ideas I have. And the word-for-word translations make a sort of sense in either/both/all these contexts. Not that I'd respond to them, but I'll gladly talk about them and actually do something intellectually interesting with the mess. Silk purse from sow's ear, etc. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.63|172.70.90.63]] 15:55, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::::::What's the rule for "translating" into this "dialect"? It seems like it is very similar to pig Latin, but with a few changes? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.17|108.162.216.17]] 16:27, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::::::::::As far as I know:
::::::::::# Write your message in Spanish.
::::::::::# Enclose each of your sentences between ''declaración/exclamación/pregunta'' at the front (according to closing punctuation – ./!/? respectively) and ''fine'' at the end. Remove original punctuation. Probably do something about commas as well.
::::::::::# Remove diacritics.
::::::::::# For each word, move the initial consonant cluster to the end. If there is no initial consonant (or if it's silent, like H), instead add a V to the end of the word. Then append a final E to each word.
::::::::::[[User:Kapostamas|Kapostamas]] ([[User talk:Kapostamas|talk]]) 17:29, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::::::::Okay, that makes sense, thank you! It also looks like if the word ends in a consonant, you add an e to the end both before and after the moved/new consonant (group), because otherwise exclamación would become "exclamacionve" when it is actually "exclamacioneve." It also looks like we've been successfully [[356]]ed by the vandal. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.65|172.70.126.65]] 17:50, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::::::::::::That supposes that they always applied their own rules perfectly. There are many places where this rule seems to be in effect and many where it doesn't; sometimes even the same word is transcribed in two different ways. Since my Spanish is rudimentary at best, I've simply included some of these E's in the transcription without noticing them. [[User:Kapostamas|Kapostamas]] ([[User talk:Kapostamas|talk]]) 19:28, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::::::::::It looks like they added the e-between-consonants rule in later messages. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.131.106|172.70.131.106]] 19:40, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::::::::::::::That explains many of them, but there's still “eclaracionde” in the second message. [[User:Kapostamas|Kapostamas]] ([[User talk:Kapostamas|talk]]) 20:54, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::::::::::::::: eclaracionede esaseve eglasere eque ese esele ocurrieroneve onese orrectasece inefe eclaracionede itace eclaracionde inefe uefe uneve erroreve ipograficote yve eberiade erese itace eclaracionede inefe inefe [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.65|172.70.126.65]] 21:04, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::::::::::::::::Hmm, more pig-Spanish.

::::::::::::::::After undoing the word changes, but leaving the grammar as-is, it says: "declaracion esas reglas que se les ocurrieron son correctas fine declaracion cita declaracion fine fue un error tipografico y deberia ser cita declaracion fine fine"

::::::::::::::::The first sentence appears to mean "Those rules that (either "they" or plural "you") came up with are correct."

::::::::::::::::The rest of it doesn't make much sense; there are even two "fine"s in a row. @Kapostamas do you know what this message means? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.130.161|172.70.130.161]] 02:57, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::::I did not even try to parse it, but it occured to me it was like "I used, quote, 'quotes', endquote..." as a deliberately obtuse nesting (especially when ripped of its additional punctuation). So under the system in which start and end words are used, the start and end of a sentence that contains those words (perhaps not paired), the ambiguity arises. That said, the self-referential nature of it also indicates quite clearly that they are thinking they are being clever. They aren't, but it's interesting to watch. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.77|172.70.162.77]] 09:05, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

::::::::::::::::::Translated, it's something like “statement quote eclaracionde end was a typing error and should have been quote eclaracionede end end”. It's just another kind of punctuation.
::::::::::::::::::Two-deep nesting is not that complicated to parse. Now, using “declaración” or “fine” as words on their own right – ''that'' would really be confusing. [[User:Kapostamas|Kapostamas]] ([[User talk:Kapostamas|talk]]) 10:33, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::::::Okay, that makes sense. "eclaracionde" was a typing error and should have been "eclaracionede."
::::::::::::::::::::More pig-Spanish (replaced with [spam] in the "Current vandalism elsewhere" discussion):
::::::::::::::::::::"exclamacioneve holave inefe eguntapre omoce estaseve inefe eclaracionde ete oyese inefe"
::::::::::::::::::::"exclamacion hola fine pregunta como estas fine declaracion te soy fine"
::::::::::::::::::::"Hello! How are you? I am you."
::::::::::::::::::::The last sentence ("ete oyese"/"te soy"/"I am you") doesn't make much sense; @Kapostamas is it right? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.199|172.70.178.199]] 21:50, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
===Current vandalism elsewhere===
Someone with an account needs to unvandalise what I am fairly certain is our pig-Spaniards work, in another of their incarnations.
16:32, 2 May 2022 X K C D (talk | contribs) moved page Talk:1014: Car Problems to Talk:1014: Trouser Problems
16:32, 2 May 2022 X K C D (talk | contribs) moved page 1014: Car Problems to 1014: Trouser Problems
...those two alterations, as listed in the Move Log, easy to find. (I already reverted the text within.) Naturally, I assume we'll see more of the same in future. In this instance I'm putting this note in the (for the moment) latest entry rather than the Admin area, as I think it's linked to the above. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.44|172.70.86.44]] 17:27, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
:Second change made, trying to invert the "WhiieFaise" impersonation and make it look like "WhiLeFaLse" is in the wrong. Also much messing with everything. Please someone check that this edit restored only what was necessary and didn't remove anything at least plausibly genuine. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.5|172.70.162.5]] 17:47, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
::Thank you. [[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|talk]]) 18:08, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
:::I just happened to check and saw 'things' happening, so dove in to mitigate what I could (and unfold further as I was doing that). Then I saw that you were active too. I hope we didn't clash much in our individual efforts. And with the confluence of vandalising techniques in this latest episode, I think we have confirmation that a number of recent outbreaks under different guises ''were'' by just one idiot. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.36|172.70.91.36]] 18:40, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
::::Yep. Thank you. [[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|talk]]) 18:51, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::[Spam] [[User:Whilе Falsе|Whilе Falsе]] ([[User talk:Whilе Falsе|talk]]) 20:54, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::Well, there it goes. One more impostor account, this time with “Ｗ” instead of “W”. [[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|talk]]) 21:00, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
:The same person now also uses [[User:Ｗhile False|Ｗhile False]] with “Ｗ” instead of “W” and ”е” instead of “e” to vandalise in my name. [[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|talk]]) 21:08, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Talk:2613: Bad Map Projection: Madagascator

2022-05-01T14:16:21Z

172.70.178.199:

Talk:2613: Bad Map Projection: Madagascator

2022-05-01T14:15:20Z

172.70.178.199:

1433: Lightsaber

2022-04-28T18:28:58Z

172.70.178.199: Vandalize the title text

{{comic
| number = 1433
| date = October 13, 2014
| title = Lightsaber
| image = lightsaber.png
| titletext = A long, long time in the future, in a galaxy far, far, away, astronomers in the year 2008 sight an unusual gamma-ray burst originating from somewhere far, far across the universe.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic references a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDnoczxzQyg scene] from the third theatrically-released ''{{w|Star Wars}}'' movie, ''[[wikia:c:starwars:Return of the Jedi|Return of the Jedi]]'', wherein [[wikia:c:starwars:Darth Vader|Darth Vader]] confronts his son, [[wikia:c:starwars:Luke skywalker|Luke Skywalker]], who had recently surrendered to [[wikia:c:starwars:Galactic Empire|Imperial]] soldiers. In the movie, Vader notes that Luke has constructed [[wikia:c:starwars:Luke Skywalker's lightsaber|a new lightsaber]] following the loss of his [[wikia:c:starwars:Luke skywalker#Lightsabers|original]] during their [[wikia:c:starwars:Duel on Cloud City|duel on Cloud City]] (Luke Skywalker's original lightsaber actually having been [[wikia:c:starwars:Anakin skywalker|Anakin Skywalker's]] second).

Lightsabers are often jokingly referred to as "laser swords" by fans (note that the official French-language translation of Star Wars actually calls them "laser sabers"), and this comic points out that a real laser would not have any way of stopping and would therefore continue forever, making this particular interpretation silly. (The ''Star Wars'' writers cleverly fail to state what exactly a lightsaber's blade is made out of, although this point makes it unlikely to be a laser.) Once Darth Vader turns on the light saber, it goes offscreen and presumably continues in that direction forever, causing much mayhem as it blazes through the stars. Hull breaches are a popular trope in science-fiction, despite curiously being almost entirely absent from the Star Wars films.

The title text refers to {{w|GRB 080319B}}, an unusual gamma ray burst in 2008, the afterglow of which was briefly visible to the human eye. It implies that the source of this burst was a light saber in the Star Wars story, which took place "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" according to the {{w|Star Wars (film)|Star Wars}} {{w|Star Wars opening crawl|opening crawl}}.

Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader have had a similar conversation before in [[1397: Luke]]. In that version Luke wishes for Vader not to turn it on, as stated in the title text. He should probably have said this here in this comic!

==Transcript==
:[Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader are talking. Vader holds the handle of a powered-off lightsaber.]
:Vader: '''''I see you have constructed a new lightsaber.'''''
:[Vader turns it on. The beam of the lightsaber continues upward out of the frame.]
:Lightsaber: Snap-Hisss
:[Vader looks up toward where the beam is pointing.]
:[Vader looks back at Luke.]
:Vader: '''''Where does it end?'''''
:Luke: Doesn't.
:Intercom (out of view): ''Hull breach all along sector five!!''

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Star Wars]]
[[Category:Physics]]

Talk:858: Milk

2022-04-22T18:29:28Z

172.70.178.199:

Psychic and oddly aware of some mad fetishes. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:04, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Am I just being pedantic when I note that there is no mention of breastfeeding in the comic? Were I to milk a cow, for example, I would not wish that action to be characterized as breastfeeding. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.223|108.162.219.223]] 19:54, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Where are her legs in the third panel? {{unsigned ip|108.162.250.111}}

:Perhaps she got uncomfortable with the idea of Cueball's continual sexual perversion, and tucked her legs up into the armchair in an unconscious effort to feel more secure. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.58|108.162.219.58]] 23:41, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

I think it is more likely that she is being witty when suggesting Queball is thinking about milking her breasts. Queball gets the witty remark considering he was thinking about her breast in a possibly sexual context and gets amazed she would know he was having that thought right this minute. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.81.74|141.101.81.74]] 14:49, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

''"This comic is a comment on the fascination and sheer lack of knowledge that men have about women's bodies in general, and their breasts in particular."'' There is no justification for this sentence at all. It puts words into Randal's mouth and nothing in the comic supports it. [[User:AmbroseChapel|AmbroseChapel]] ([[User talk:AmbroseChapel|talk]]) 00:40, 15 September 2017 (UTC)
:You read my mind! seriously, you're right about that. also, maybe anybody want to discuss similarity w/ https://xkcd.com/628/ {{unsigned ip|172.68.143.84}}

Technically she never says she isn't lactating, so we don't know that she cannot be milked.

Talk:2607: Geiger Counter

2022-04-17T15:19:34Z

172.70.178.199:

Vanilla joke, but funny. [[User:Nafedalbi|Nafedalbi]] ([[User talk:Nafedalbi|talk]]) 18:41, 15 April 2022 (UTC)Nafedalbi
:It's Randall's "dad joke". [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 19:23, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
:Honestly, yeah. I impulsively went "wow... Randall's really jumped the stick figure shark." --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.121|172.70.110.121]] 06:32, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
::Not me. After plumbing the depths of Unicode and trying to describe a Taylor series expansion from square one, this is a welcome relief. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.81|172.70.214.81]] 07:34, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
: When does an ordinary joke become a dad joke? When it becomes apparent. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.130.121|172.70.130.121]] 10:31, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
::When does it become apparent? After the delivery. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.223|172.69.33.223]] 17:30, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
:::When is the best time for delivery? After a pregnant pause. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.199|172.70.178.199]] 15:19, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

I added telegraph wires (UK-only term, possibly, and anachronistic as they are telephone cables, so feel free to change to be US-centric) and birds seem happy to sit on pole-suspended POTS cables as much as power-lines, so the linked heat-effect thing is definitely a minority necessity. I think it's just a perch. Though we probably have more signal-wires. Most(?) streets more than a few decades old have telegraph poles feeding wires to established properties (even if cable/FTTP has been dug into trenches) but mains electricity tends to have been subsurface for much longer, with only HV national/rural-area transmission grids up on pylons/poles. Obviously there ''are'' a lot more perching birds out in the countryside, where they may dominate (but still the 'telegraph' may follow road or rail routes to service the villages and isolated inhabitations along them) but you don't tend to see birds atop the larger lines at all... Too high up? ''Too'' hot? I've seen rooks/etc happily doing a Hitchcock upon a pylon itself, apparently enjoying the communal view. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.63|172.70.90.63]] 18:54, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

The title text joke may be understood more easily by reading "stood under" in place of "understood". [[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.124|162.158.107.124]] 19:37, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Living in Manhattan, you learn to notice when an area is full of bird droppings and avoid standing there. You also need to pay attention when parking your car. Certain lamp posts (where the lamp is cantilevered over the street) near Central Park often tend to have a large accumulation under them. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.178|108.162.246.178]] 19:47, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

I do not understand the joke in the title text, so if somebody could please write an explanation, that would be great.
Also, this is my first ever full comic description! Yay!
I don't know what categories this fits in, if somebody could also put those in that would be great. [[User:MrYellow04|MrYellow04]] ([[User talk:MrYellow04|talk]]) 19:58, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
:I suggest you stand under a wire with lots of birds on it for a while. It will hit you. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 20:32, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
:Dirty birdy in the sky, why you do that in my eye? Boy I'm glad that cows can't fly! [[User:TCMits|TCMits]] ([[User talk:TCMits|talk]]) 14:15, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

Randall, come here. Yes, right there. Stand still. THWACK! THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK! That is all, you may go now. 20:41, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

The explanation makes clear the side of the pun regarding the Geiger counting clicking, but for non-native English speakers, the phrase "it clicked" meaning "I understood" may need clarification. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.213|162.158.166.213]] 21:17, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

I thought it meant the birds were dangerously mutated because of the radioactivity, but now I understand. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.84|172.69.34.84]] 22:00, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
:Just make sure you don't open your mouth and tilt your head back. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.63|172.70.90.63]] 22:59, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Also possibly related to this news story https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/unprotected-russian-soldiers-disturbed-radioactive-dust-chernobyls-red-forest-2022-03-28/

Calling the pun a parody of another joke is weird. Jokes aren’t parodied. Parodies aren’t made of general things people say. It can be a ''play on'' that other joke, but not a ''parody'' of it. It’s not ''making fun'' of the other joke. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.69|108.162.245.69]] 11:24, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
:I somewhat agree with you. It's a 'type of' pun related to the Tom Swifty, which I edited in just now. I didn't actually remove the claim of parody. Perhaps someone else should also do that without hesitation... (...says I, unerringly!) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.43|162.158.159.43]] 15:06, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

Dates for the Trinity Site Open House are April 2 and October 15 for 2022. Bring your own geiger counter. [[User:TCMits|TCMits]] ([[User talk:TCMits|talk]]) 14:15, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
:...and possibly a time-machine? ;) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.43|162.158.159.43]] 15:06, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

== Leonard Cohen reference? ==

It seems to me that the title text has to be somehow referencing one of Leonard Cohen’s better known songs, “Bird on the Wire”, from the very specific phrasing there. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.69|108.162.245.69]] 11:21, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
: It's a fairly common phrase. Including the 1990 Goldie Hawn / Mel Gibson
[https://g.co/kgs/QZ6LpN film]. [[User:Iggynelix|Iggynelix]] ([[User talk:Iggynelix|talk]]) 16:23, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

:I think it more likely there's some reference meant to birds not getting electrocuted while sitting on power cables-perhaps this is even in a "What If" book? I don't think very likely, but more likely than any Leonard Cohen reference. It's because "both the bird's feet are on the same potential, so electricity does not flow through the bird. The bird also offers greater resistance than the power cable, so the electricity continues to flow through the power cable." I figured this "explanation" fits here as well as anywhere. [[User:Cuvtixo|Cuvtixo]] ([[User talk:Cuvtixo|talk]]) 21:06, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
::I think it's a red-herring that the nature of the wire has ''anything'' to do with it. Birds will perch on handy things, whether electrical cables (hopefully with spacings between separate phase-wires/across the insulator 'hangers' significantly more than an idle wing-stretch!), telephonic, washing line, zip-line, etc, etc. A wire just gives more chance for 'mostly open space, beneath which an unaware human is particularly (but not obviously) susceptible to birds voiding their systems' than with a street-lamp arm, a high ledge on a tall building, tree branches or the underside frames of girder-based bridges.
::Birds do indeed escape (trivial) electrocution on power-lines, but that doesn't help the joke because they can crap on you from ''anything'' that you under-stand (or just by chance, by dint of being birds and occasionally finding they need to let go whilst already in flight... or by direct malice in the case of nest-guarding skuas/etc).
::Not to disect the comedy frog, or anything, because that would be cold-blooded. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.223|172.69.79.223]] 00:00, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

"Pretty sure eggrolled was just a typo", as corrected with [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2607:_Geiger_Counter&diff=prev&oldid=230619 this edit]... No, I think not. I've just undone a whole host of (repeated) vandalisms, some of which were to put "eggroll" in as replacements... the rest were equally stupid (or greater). Check edit log for just before now to see what pages I reverted/etc. Because someone is apparently clever enough to edit wiki pages (oh boy, what a smart person, I'm sure nobody of lesser intellect could ''ever'' have accomplished such a thing(!)...). Anyway, good work recorrecting it, whoever you are. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.223|172.69.79.223]] 00:15, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

At first I didn't understand why they were warning me about the boomerang, but then it hit me... (Yes, I may have stolen that joke from Milton Jones.) --[[User:IByte|IByte]] ([[User talk:IByte|talk]]) 09:02, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

Talk:2440: Epistemic Uncertainty

2022-04-12T15:35:42Z

172.70.178.199: On the Origins of George

I definitely thought "adulterer" referred to someone who commits adultery, as in cheating on one's spouse. I thought it was a secondary joke, introducing another person referred to as "[name] the [undesirable action]er".
[[Special:Contributions/172.69.170.56|172.69.170.56]] 02:03, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
:"Adulterer" and "adulterator" have different definitions - to "adulterate" a substance is to mix it with an unintended additive. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.135.234|172.69.135.234]] 06:46, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
Is the "George" referred to here possibly the name of black hat?
:I doubt it. The hat silhouette is not the same pork pie hat as Black Hat [[Special:Contributions/172.68.86.20|172.68.86.20]] 04:34, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

The name "Evangeline" could be a reference to how "Eve" is usually the name of a hypothetical hacker used when teaching people about computer science. You know, that whole "Alice sends Bob a private message but Eve wants to read it" thing. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.122|108.162.245.122]] 05:22, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
:I second this explanation [[Special:Contributions/162.158.63.164|162.158.63.164]] 21:47, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

I wrote a long explanation of confidence intervals but realised that the study type depicted on the graphs is probably meta-analysis (hence the horizontal scatter plot) rather than single RCT as in my explanation. Got to go, will come back and amend it later if nobody else has. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.165.52|162.158.165.52]] 06:55, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

I have a feeling that George the Data Tamperer might be a reference to the classic [https://reallyreallyreallytrying.tumblr.com/post/40033025233/average-person-eats-3-spiders-a-year-factoid Spiders Georg], since it's about statistical error brought about by a guy named Georg(e). [[User:LemmaEOF|LemmaEOF]] ([[User talk:LemmaEOF|talk]]) 09:07, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

It may be no coincidence that this was posted very shortly after the US/Americas study that announced that the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine was 79% effective against symptomatic Covid. Although maybe adapted to 74% to not inadvertently suggest (for some) an actual equivalence to George, etc. Yes, 74% could come from a lot of places (and it also looks intrinsically more funny, in a 42-ish way, whilst remaining credible as a faux-result to be proud of), but I think its well within the bounds of statistical probability. Or George. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.218|141.101.98.218]] 14:31, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
:I agree that this comic is likely inspired by all the data on vaccines given at the time. However since it states drug, it is too vague to call this a covid-19 comic, but for sure it is inspired by all the fuzz about the vaccines. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 15:05, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

:The AstraZenica story includes the 74% figure too:
:https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/astrazeneca-oxford-vaccine-concerns/2021/03/23/2f931d34-8bc3-11eb-a33e-da28941cb9ac_story.html?_gl=1*1p0bmh7*_ga*YmYzbjBEamV0bVhHYk5heUJVYm5KV3k5ZDdEQlhoSlQzUmZyRmFzMHM3dVMxVXUzTUFOUTZLSmVUSk5jbV9UVg..
:“The letter goes on to explain that while the company announced its vaccine was 79 percent effective on Monday, the panel had been meeting with the company through February and March and had seen data showing the vaccine may be 69 to 74 percent effective, and had ‘strongly recommended’ that information should be included in the news release.”
: [[User:Honorknight|Honorknight]] ([[User talk:Honorknight|talk]])

Why does the article say that George and Evangeline are analogous to the cryptography Alice and Bob? There’s little there to suggest it and it even if it’s so it hardly makes the joke funnier. More likely they’re just random names that Randall made up. [[User:Requiscant|Requiscant]] ([[User talk:Requiscant|talk]])
:The analogy is that those are not names of real specific persons or random names, but deliberate placeholder names. And it definitely looks that way, although those are not standard so they also are random names that Randall made up. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 03:16, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
:Well, 'appropriated', as George and Evangeline are both names out there in the wild. Or 'mashed together' if you mean you're including their "the ..." qualifier. ;) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.207|141.101.99.207]] 13:51, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
::The acronyms made of their names come to mind? ETA and GTDT. At least ETA ... Seems to connect to a known data adulterator, the Estimated Time of Arrival... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.207|141.101.99.207]] 07:37, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm waiting for the Evangeline the Adulterator fan art. (Oh my, that just made me think... is there such a thing as XKCD fan art??) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.26.134|172.68.26.134]] 17:18, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
: Yes, check out www.deviantart.com/tag/xkcd - [https://www.deviantart.com/tag/xkcd] [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 18:28, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Seems worth remarking that in the epistemic evaluation, it is implied the 4 options are equally likely and the data being correct is not even included as an option. The 4 (apparently known to occur) errors are inaccuracies/rounding errors, sloppiness or dyscalculia, fabricated results, or George. I'd argue this field of study addresses real issues in the scientific community (the value of peer review), would not be without merit and could be complementary to the "regular uncertainty" :-). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.126|141.101.105.126]] 10:27, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

== Data depiction goof ==

Not sure if this is worth noting in the article. Real drug efficacy data would not be depicted with a horizontal scatter plot graph as in the first graph - neither for a single randomised controlled trial, nor for a meta-analysis. A single randomised controlled trial gives a percent efficacy which can be depicted as a diamond with error bars - as shown under the number 74% - but the raw data would not look like a scatter plot: for each patient the drug is either "effective according to X criteria" or "not effective" so there's no point graphing it, and there are additional notes on side effects. (For drugs treating conditions which go into remission and may recur rather than being cured, such as cancer, other more complex graphs are used - but in those cases there is no one measure of "effectiveness".) A meta-analysis is commonly shown as a forest plot - a set of several horizontal bar graphs each with its own diamond and error bars. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.75|162.158.166.75]] 13:08, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

== Regarding the George Name ==

To me the name seemed an obvious reference to "Spiders Georg", a meme started in 2013 and still used to refer to statistics and errors caused by outliers. Thoughts? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.199|172.70.178.199]] 15:35, 12 April 2022 (UTC)