explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

67: Nerd Girls

2024-11-25T17:45:09Z

172.70.211.84: /* Explanation */ don't think so at all

{{comic
| number = 67
| date = February 22, 2006
| title = Nerd Girls
| image = nerd girls.jpg
| titletext = Nothing personal, high schoolers.
}}

==Explanation==

The stereotypical nerd is socially inept and has an obsession with a non-mainstream hobby such as {{w|Dungeons and Dragons}}. Nerd males are also typically represented as treating ''all'' women (including female nerds) with reverence and awkward fawning due to their supposed inexperience and lack of female company in comparison to other males. In the comic, the nerd girl uses this as an excuse for her social ineptitude.

The T-shirt the girl is wearing contains the text "Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons," which is an [https://www.google.com/search?q=Do+not+meddle+in+the+affairs+of+Dragons,+for+you+are+crunchy+and+taste+good+with+ketchup&tbm=shop actual text] used for T-shirts, continuing with "for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!" This text is a modified version of a quote from {{w|J. R. R. Tolkien|Tolkien's}} {{w|The Fellowship of the Ring}}: "Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger."

==Transcript==
:[Girl with shoulder length brown hair and glasses, wearing a shirt which says "Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons".]
:Girl: At least, thanks to your constant fawning, we have an '''excuse''' for our social ineptness. What's '''yours'''?

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Social interactions]]
[[Category:Comics with lowercase text]]

3011: Europa Clipper

2024-11-14T13:57:07Z

172.70.211.84: /* Explanation */ combine paragraphs

{{comic
| number = 3011
| date = November 13, 2024
| title = Europa Clipper
| image = europa_clipper_2x.png
| imagesize = 333x356px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = They had BETTER make this a sample return mission.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a JOVIAN DESSERT. Please consider deleting this tag too soon, but refrain from doing so.}}
[[File:Animation of Europa Clipper trajectory around Jupiter.gif|thumb|right|The ''Europa Clipper's'' projected course around {{w|Jupiter}}, represented as the stationary green dot. In gold is Jupiter's moon {{w|Callisto (moon)|Callisto}}, in cyan is the moon {{w|Europa (moon)|Europa}} — the primary target of the spacecraft's study — and in orange-red is the innermost of Jupiter's four {{w|Galilean moons|"Galilean"}} moons, {{w|Io (moon)|Io}}. The spacecraft's track is shown in magenta. Jupiter's largest moon {{w|Ganymede (moon)|Ganymede}} and its second largest moon {{w|Titan (moon)|Titan}} are not shown, but their gravitational pull affects the ''Clipper's'' trajectory. A mission goal is to achieve a 6:1 {{w|orbital resonance}} with Europa by September 2034.[https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Martin-Ozimek/publication/383115312_AAS_24-433_Europa_Clipper_Mission_Analysis_Pump_Down_Trajectory_Design/links/66bcd845311cbb094938dbd6/AAS-24-433-Europa-Clipper-Mission-Analysis-Pump-Down-Trajectory-Design.pdf] ]]

The ''{{w|Europa Clipper}}'' space probe was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA, on 14 October 2024. It is expected to arrive at Jupiter and begin exploration of Jupiter's moons, particularly {{w|Europa (moon)|Europa}}, in 2030.

Europa is an icy moon. Water ice covers its surface. Beneath the ice, there is expected to be liquid water, which may contain living microbes.[https://europa.nasa.gov/why-europa/ingredients-for-life/] To sample this liquid, its crust (water ice) would need to be broken.

In the comic, the surface ice is likened to the caramel crust on the dessert ''{{w|crème brûlée}}''. To eat this dessert, its crust is broken with a spoon. The dessert is believed to have been invented in France,[https://archive.org/details/lagastronomieaug00sabb/page/272/mode/2up] a part of Europe after which the moon and the spacecraft are named. Thus [[Randall]] suggests the spacecraft might encounter crème brûlée, and has thus been equipped with a spoon for the purpose of collecting samples, as spoons are the traditional {{w|tableware}} provided for eating such deserts. The {{w|Cassini-Huygens}} probe, after landing on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan, found that its surface had what was described as [https://www.sciencenews.org/article/world-unveiled-cr%C3%A8me-br%C3%BBl%C3%A9e-titan a creme brulee consistency].

No such spoon is present on the actual spacecraft.{{cn}} Its course is designed to avoid contact with Europa so as to prevent {{w|Planetary protection|contamination}} by microorganisms on the spacecraft. The ''Clipper'' spacecraft is however equipped with a magnetometer at the end of a 8.5 meter deployable boom. Deployable instruments on spacecraft have frequently failed to correctly deploy, so the successful deployment of any instrument is considered a reason for celebration.

The title text expands on the joke by stating that the spacecraft "had BETTER" return samples of Europa to Earth. However, the ''Europa Clipper'' is not a {{w|sample-return mission}}.

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

:[A space probe with two rectangular solar panels, a circular dish of the front, and a very large spoon extending beneath, longer than the span of both solar panels]

:[Below the panel:]
:Good news: NASA's '''''Europa Clipper''''' is en route to Europa and has successfully deployed its crème brûlée spoon.

==Trivia==
The Clipper spacecraft was at one point to be developed alongside a lander, which was later dropped from being part of the same (or very closely partnered) mission. The latest version of the {{w|Europa Lander}} proposal is far behind the Clipper in implementation, not yet even being guaranteed funding.

Any actual sample return mission is currently far into the future of {{w|Ocean Worlds Exploration Program|the related plans for exploration}}, along with the possibility of digging deep enough into the ice to finally confirm or dismiss some of the more interesting theories about the world concerned.

In Arthur C Clarke's novel '''2010''', the monolith aliens tell humanity ''"All these worlds are yours - except Europa. Attempt no landing there."'' Contrary to the suggestion of the comic, no landing or any other interaction with the surface of Europa is planned.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Space probes]]
[[Category:Food]]

2989: Physics Lab Thermostat

2024-09-24T16:48:21Z

172.70.211.84: /* Explanation */ See talk

{{comic
| number = 2989
| date = September 23, 2024
| title = Physics Lab Thermostat
| image = physics_lab_thermostat_2x.png
| imagesize = 264x296px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Hopefully the HVAC people set it to only affect the AIR in the room.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by POOR WRITERS. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

A thermostat is often used to regulate the operation of heating and/or cooling for a room. This may take the form of a simple dial, graduated by desired temperature values marked Celsius or Fahrenheit, depending upon {{w|Fahrenheit#Usage|location}}. Typically a person is expected to know what sort of temperature they will find comfortable, to have heating/cooling effects kick in as the wall-device detects a temperature more than a certain amount below/above that ideal. The basic design of a physical wall-mounted dial might relate the relative position of the dial against the current state of a {{w|Bimetallic strip#Thermostats|bimetallic coil}}, switching {{w|Bang–bang control|on or off}} the relevant systems once conditions locally drift away from the chosen ideal.

In this comic, the thermostat is installed in a physics lab, with those that work there clearly being expected to be familiar with the {{w|Boltzmann constant}}, a more fundamental method of measuring temperature which relates the average kinetic energy of a particle in a gas with the temperature of that gas. The Boltzmann constant is defined as 1.380649 × 10^-23 J/K (joules per kelvin).

Thus Randall imagines a physics lab having a dial that can alter the constant between 1.418 x 10^-23 J/K and 1.351 x 10^-23 J/K. If the average kinetic energy of gas particles remains constant when moving the dial, then changing the Boltzmann constant would change how this average energy is measured in {{w|kelvin}} (and therefore {{w|Conversion of scales of temperature#Comparison of temperature scales|any other measure}} of temperature), thus "changing the temperature". The equation is E=''k''T where ''k'' is the Boltzmann constant. Notice that if E is the same, lowering ''k'' implies a raised T, so the thermostat 'works' as intended. The effective range of the thermostat, presuming it is set to "room temperature" of 23°C (73°F) runs from 15°C to 29°C (59°F to 85°F).

You can build this "Thermostat" in real life and use it to "control the Temperature" of the room, even if you just craft it out of two pieces of Cardboard. Assume you want a nice and warm room temperature of 300K. Rather than controlling the nature of the airflow into the lab (or convection heaters/coolers around it), or indeed having any effect on anything, it sets the definition of "1 Kelvin" to a value between "Each degree of freedom of every molecule has on average 1.418 x 10^-23 J" and "Each degree of freedom of every molecule has on average 1.351 x 10^-23 J" that would correspond to the current warmth in the room being 300K. With less Energy needed for each Kelvin, you have more of them. 

There have previously been control panels for properties of the universe in [[1620: Christmas Settings]] and [[1763: Catcalling]].

Because the Boltzmann constant is primarily concerned with the nature of temperature within gas, the title text expresses concern that it might not only be applied to the air (hence the capital letters) in the room. Aside from the possibility that those responsible for the {{w|heating, ventilation, and air conditioning}} (a.k.a. HVAC) of the room could perhaps directly enhance or suppress the temperature in all the solids and liquids within the room, in unknown and not necessarily conducive ways, there may also be a secondary joke in which {{w|high voltage}} forms of {{w|alternating current}} (also refered to as HVAC) are influenced, in the related but distinct use of the measure for '{{w|Boltzmann constant#Thermal voltage|thermal voltage}}'.

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

:[A black circular dial is shown with a white indicator line at the upper right. The label above the dial, enclosed in a rectangular box, says:]
:Local Boltzmann Constant
:[The two extremes of the dial are labeled as follows, the first value on the left and the second value on the right:]
:1.418 x 10-23 J/K
:1.351 x 10-23 J/K
:[The indicator line is pointing to a position on the dial somewhere around 1.375 x 10-23 J/K.]
:[Caption below the panel:]
:Physics Lab Thermostat

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

Talk:1672: Women on 20s

2024-04-29T19:35:57Z

172.70.211.84: corrected a misnomer

One (potentially) legitimate concern I have seen expressed regarding the proposed rollout date for the redesigned $20s is that we may not be using paper money anymore by then!
[[User:Rajakiit|Raj-a-Kiit]] ([[User talk:Rajakiit|talk]]) 13:01, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

The weird creepy looking eye thing is the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_Providence Eye of Providence]. And now that Randall mentioned it, I somehow have an intense emotional need to see a series of US currency with the Eye of Providence as the featured portrait on every bill....

[[Special:Contributions/108.162.217.23|108.162.217.23]] 14:46, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

:I think the humor of the Eye of Providence reference (which is on the US$1 banknote BTW) is that it's often referred to as a sign of the Illuminati. The Illuminati is often used in conspiracy theories, so replacing all of the faces with that sign specifically would not so much enrage people as much as people would be calling Illuminati takeovers. Ergo to not trigger the conspiracy theorist paranoia in our country (i'm US American, BTW) that would likely never happen. Also our $1 bill, which is the only bill to have the Eye of Providence(& no building on the back side) hasn't been changed since like the 1960s, because of vending machine lobbyists. So the anachronisms of that IMO is really annoying.
[[User:Siv3nIvy|Siv3nIvy]] ([[User talk:Siv3nIvy|talk]]) 09:25, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

The real question: why can't the Treasury leave the $10 bill alone, redesign the $20 bill (with Harriet Tubman on both sides), and release that redesign in the 2020s as planned? There is no rush here, so long as it is done.
[[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.61|173.245.50.61]] 15:34, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

There's been a furor over here in the UK about (losing) a woman from our paper money. (Not the Queen, at least not just yet, although having just turned 90...) Only the other day, though, they announced the [http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/pages/characters/nexttwenty.aspx new £20 note] (JMW Turner, the painter) set for release (as a polymer note) in 2020... And I couldn't help feeling that the fallout from the referendum, if not other events, might easily make this matter moot. One way or another ;) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.137|141.101.98.137]] 16:33, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

What is the "Security" issue referred to in the title text? {{unsigned ip|173.245.52.75}}

I'd assume he's referring to security features meant to prevent/deter counterfeiting. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.214.209|108.162.214.209]] 21:12, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

I don't get what all the fuss is about what picture is on the money. I don't even know what picture is on any of the euro bills. *Grabs a 10, 20 and 50 from wallet.* I still don't know. [[User:Tharkon|Tharkon]] ([[User talk:Tharkon|talk]]) 23:06, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

:Luckily, someone explained it on wikipedia: {{w|Euro banknotes}}: the 5 euro note has a generic rendition of Classical architecture, the 10 euro note of Romanesque architecture, the 20 euro note of Gothic architecture, the 50 euro note of the Renaissance, the 100 euro note of Baroque and Rococo, the 200 euro note of Art Nouveau and the 500 euro note of modern architecture. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 23:51, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

::Though now they are no longer entirely generic, as one guy in the Netherlands decided to build the generic bridges that are depicted on the euro notes, and now the structures depicted on the notes actually exist. (See the references in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_banknotes#Bridges .) -- [[User:Pne|Pne]] ([[User talk:Pne|talk]]) 12:28, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

The explanation claims "The current rule about changing the $10 next before they can change the $20 comes from Section 16 of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, and the Treasurer is powerless to work against it." However, I've just read through the text of that Section of that Act several times, and I can't find any wording to justify this claim. If this is a valid claim, could someone point more explicitly to where the Act restricts the order in which bills can be redesigned? [[User:Rhwentworth|Rhwentworth]] ([[User talk:Rhwentworth|talk]]) 02:27, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

This just in - Treasury decides to print a new $9 bill with Andrew Jackson on it. -[[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.16|162.158.255.16]] 04:43, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

This whole controversy is one reason why there are no real objects on the Euro notes. The individual nation's currencies did have real persons (including women - at least in Germany) or real "things" in a wider sense on them and changing them was often as complicated as depicted here. The current pictures on the Euro notes represent specific architectural styles (e.g. Gothic or Baroque), but the buildings and facades shown don't exist. I don't know if this should be part of the explanation as a side note or something, but I felt it would be nice to know, that other states or organisiations had similar struggles and actually found a compromise. [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 07:48, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
::How I long back for the old Dutch NLG 50 note with the yellow sunflower on it! One of the most beautiful banknotes I've ever seen. [[User:Palmpje|Palmpje]] ([[User talk:Palmpje|talk]]) 12:30, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Can we add a category about Comics Featuring Steve? [[User:GizmoDude|GizmoDude]] ([[User talk:GizmoDude|talk]]) 21:28, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
:I think that three examples (where it is just a name, for someone not shown) is too little for a new category. If you can find other places where it is similarly used then maybe. But be careful when searching since a "Steve" search will find real people like Steve Jobs and Seven Spielberg for instance... And please do not make a page out of it like you did (deleted the square brackets). If there would be a category it would also not take that form. [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 14:16, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
::Would [[944: Hurricane Names]] count in that category? If so, there would be four Comics Featuring Steve. Besides, there are many categories with only 2 members (10 of them), and 20 with three. [[User:625571b7-aa66-4f98-ac5c-92464cfb4ed8|625571b7-aa66-4f98-ac5c-92464cfb4ed8]] ([[User talk:625571b7-aa66-4f98-ac5c-92464cfb4ed8|talk]]) 13:59, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Can we add a category about Comics Which Make Absolutely No Sense To People Outside the USA? [[User:Kev|Kev]] ([[User talk:Kev|talk]]) 22:54, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
:Since Randall is American I think those of us not from the US should just accept that he will make local oriented comics from time to time, and then just enjoy that we can find the explanations here ;-) [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 14:16, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

I have very little information as to which parts of this comic are true or false. This page could seriously do with citations. (E.g. what broadway musical? I have no idea.) {{unsigned ip|141.101.98.110}}

:Hamilton is a real Broadway musical featuring a race-bent Andrew Hamilton, completely done in the style of modern hip-hop. It's considered to be groundbreaking if suffering from some severe historical inaccuracies (the most obvious being the titular character's race). [[user:Riomhaire|Riomhaire]]

::Ok, that’s just racist. It’s a stage play, nobody should care if the race of the actor doesn’t match that of the character. Furthermore, there were intentional choices made that the three US presidents who appeared (Washington, Jefferson, and Madison) would be played in the original cast by black men, as a statement about equality and patriotism (which is not to say that Chris Jackson, Daveed Diggs, and the guy who played Madison I forgot the name of were selected not because of their acting skills and fitness for the role otherwise.) And if you’re talking about Hamilton being described as an immigrant, he was. He was, in fact, born in the Caribbean, and emigrated to the then 13 Colonies in order to study at college. I know, I read historical book Lin Manuel Miranda read in order to research for the musical. (You are correct, however, on the fact that there are several inaccuracies in the play, but that doesn’t make it any less of a good experience.) [[User:AirPrime|AirPrime]] ([[User talk:AirPrime|talk]]) 21:12, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

::Plus his name is Alexander, not Andrew, Hamilton. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.84|172.70.211.84]] 19:35, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

One thing I feel the need to add here is that the Trail of Tears was a human rights violation due to the chiefs, not due to Andrew Jackson. While it still wasn't exactly the morally right thing to do, relocating the tribes along the Trail, the chiefs did not include their slaves in the "census" they gave to the army, resulting in a huge supply shortage. Had the chiefs considered their tribes' slaves people and counted them in the number that was given to Jackson and the army, the Trail of Tears would have been a Trail of Discomfort and Frustration instead. [[user:Riomhaire|Riomhaire]]
:The humans rights violation was the forced relocation of people off their own land by people who want to take it? With no compensation (At the time) and plenty of violence throughout? Also, while that is the bad thing he was known for, Jackson was insane in many other ways, too. I’m not even going to go into the last part. It still would’ve been a trail of tears if they were given heaps of gold and fed well. [[User:Netherin5|Netherin5]] ([[User talk:Netherin5|talk]]) 13:46, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Surely part of the humour here is the reporters being totally unconcerned about something as important as the security of currency and instead making a massive fuss over something largely irrelevant (i.e. what picture is printed on the notes)? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.226|172.70.110.226]] 18:48, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

:The press conference wasn't about security features. It was about the design of the notes. Why would putting Tubman on a bill make it less secure? [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 14:39, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

2918: Tick Marks

2024-04-11T06:25:47Z

172.70.211.84: Cat, fix date

{{comic
| number = 2918
| date = April 10, 2024
| title = Tick Marks
| image = tick_marks_2x.png
| imagesize = 292x276px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = If you're really savvy, you can hide an entire set of illicit transactions by timing them to draw what looks like a graph inset.
}}

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

This comic provides the reader with a suggestion on how to "conceal activity" that is going to be graphed over time; by timing bursts of activity with the ticks on the time axis. This is assuming that the scale of the time axis is known, and that the "bottom" of the graph coincides with the line on which the ticks are drawn, rather than the "peak" of the largest tick.

Theoretically, the graphed "activity" would be concealed behind the ticks, meaning anyone reading the graph would perceive activity as having ceased at the deadline, even though it had continued in time-axis-tick-sized bursts afterwards.

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

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

300: Facebook

2024-02-09T02:29:54Z

172.70.211.84: /* Transcript */ music

{{comic
| number = 300
| date = August 8, 2007
| title = Facebook
| image = facebook.png
| titletext = 'Here, I'll put my number in your cell pho -- wait, why is it already here?'
}}

==Explanation==
This comic approaches how {{w|Social network}}s have changed the ways of human interaction. With everyone placing their personal interests on their {{w|Facebook}} profile pages, it has become fairly easy to gather a lot of information about people. In the comic, [[Cueball]] uses this information to his advantage: He ascertained [[Megan|Megan's]] musical preferences beforehand in order to create the illusion of their sharing mutual interests. Megan is led to believe that he is {{w|soulmate|like-minded}}, thus making it easier for Cueball to persuade her into having sex with him. Here the comic takes at the fact that many people use Facebook as a hunting ground for sexual contacts.

Apparently, Megan did not only mention her favorite bands in her profile, but also her preferred {{w|sex position}}. This can be read as a sideswipe at what intimate details some people are willing to share on the internet. Although mentioning sexual preferences is hyperbolic here.

Megan's taste in both fields can be regarded as outside the mainstream. {{w|Regina Spektor}} and {{w|The Polyphonic Spree}} are representatives of the {{w|indie pop}} genre. The [http://www.menshealth.com/sex-position-playbook/wheelbarrow-standing ''Wheelbarrow''] ({{w|NSFW}}) features the man standing behind the woman and holding her legs, while she props up in a wheelbarrow-like position. The retrograde variant has the woman facing upwards. Unusual sex positions are also mentioned in comics [[414: Mistranslations]] and [[487: Numerical Sex Positions]].

The title text suggests that Cueball did not stop at reading Megan's interests on her Facebook profile, but also obtained her phone number and placed it in his phone. It is implied that some of the "mildly sleazy" uses of Facebook can border on the verge of {{w|stalking}}. When Megan discovers the number, she may realize this and stay clear of Cueball...

==Transcript==
:Mildly sleazy uses of Facebook, part 14:
:Looking up someone's profile before introducing yourself so you know which of your favorite bands to mention
:Cueball: Favorite bands? Hmm...
:Cueball: Maybe Regina Spektor or the Polyphonic Spree.
:Megan: Whoa, those are two of my favorites, too!
:Megan: Clearly, we should have sex.
:Cueball: Okay! My favorite position is the retrograde wheelbarrow.
:[Megan raises arms.]
:Megan: Ohmygod, mine too!

{{comic discussion}}

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

1857: Emoji Movie

2022-08-12T01:56:13Z

172.70.211.84: said "variety arrows" when it should be "variety of arrows"

{{comic
| number = 1857
| date = June 30, 2017
| title = Emoji Movie
| image = emoji_movie.png
| titletext = Some other studio should do the Antz/A Bug's Life thing and release The Dingbats Movie at the same time.
}}

==Explanation==

[[Megan]] asks [[Cueball]] if he knows about the then-upcoming ''{{w|The Emoji Movie}}''. It was released on July 28, 2017, a month after this comic, and had been widely reviled on the Internet for its lack of original plot, characters, and jokes.

Cueball responds to the topic by {{w|Damning with faint praise|damning it with faint praise}}, starting with the presumption that somebody had to make a film about a "section of Unicode".

{{w|Unicode}} is the standard by which almost all modern text, in all languages, is represented as computer data. It consists of thousands of "code points", grouped into about 280 contiguous sections known as "blocks". There is no formal term "section of Unicode", which Randall seems to be using to skirt the fact that emojis are not all represented within one Unicode block.

Examples of potential Unicode blocks include "Playing Cards", "Musical Symbols", "Tibetan", "Hangul Jamo Extended-B", "Braille Patterns" – and of course "Combining diacritical marks" and "Dingbats", referred to in the comic.

Emojis are standard pictograms which include smileys (eg 😂) and common objects such as beer (🍺) and eggplant (🍆). Dating from the late 1990s, they were added to Unicode in 2010. There is actually no Unicode block known as "Emojis". There is {{w|Emoticons (Unicode block)|Emoticons}} (U+1F600..U+1F64F), which contains 80 code points, mostly of facial expressions. However it does not include all emojis. For instance, "Baby" (👶) is U+1F476, within the {{w|Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs}} block.

The topic of emoji in Unicode also appears in [[1813: Vomiting Emoji]].

Megan responds to this presumption by facetiously suggesting that Hollywood should make a series of films about different code blocks, referencing Hollywood's current trend of reducing risk by making many sequels and adaptations. She proposes a movie about {{w|Combining Diacritical Marks}} (see [[1647: Diacritics]]), a different section of Unicode which contains 112 code points (each assigned to a character). These code points include many varieties of diacritics such as accents, cedillas and tildes which can be combined with other letters to produce an almost unlimited number of possibilities, such as "ў" (Cyrillic U plus breve).

Cueball quips that this series would have too many characters. This is a pun on the word "character", which has the double meaning of a {{w|Character_(arts)|fictional character}}, or a {{w|Character (computing)|symbol which corresponds to a grapheme}} (e.g. letter, digit, punctuation mark). It's true that although the Combining Diacritical Marks movie would have only 112 characters, the series as a whole would have tens of thousands, including such epics as "Egyptian Hieroglyphs" (1,071) and "CJK Unified Ideographs Extension B" (42,720).

The "''{{w|Antz}}''/''{{w|A Bug's Life}}'' thing" in the title text refers to the {{w|twin films}} phenomenon, in which two films with very similar (or identical) concepts are released within roughly the same timeframe. Competing studios Dreamworks and Pixar released their respective insect-oriented films in 1998, a year infamous for many other such film pairings (see the Wikipedia article for a full list).

{{w|Dingbat}}s were an early form of pictograph included within the normal mechanisms for producing computer text, serving a similar function to emojis, but oriented towards practical symbols such as telephones, airport symbols and a wide variety of arrows. Unlike emojis, they are usually black-and-white. Previously, dingbats required a specific font to render, but as part of Unicode (U+2700–U+27BF), they can now be displayed in a variety of fonts. For example: ✈ ✆ ➹ ✂ ✰ Some characters are both dingbats and emoji, and are followed with a variant-selector character to indicate whether they should be in color.

The joke is that although dingbats and emojis are superficially equivalent, a film which contains many cute human expressions would have much more potential for success than one about dry symbols such as arrows, asterisks and scissors.

Megan and Cueball's discussion about the movie is continued in [[1870: Emoji Movie Reviews]].

==Transcript==
:[Megan and Cueball are walking together while Megan is looking at her smartphone.]
:Megan: Did you see there's an emoji movie?
:Cueball: If they have to make a movie about a section of Unicode, it's not the '''''worst''''' choice...
:Megan: They should do a whole series. I would watch the ''Combining Diacritical Marks movie''.
:Cueball: That series would have '''''way''''' too many characters.

{{comic discussion}}

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