https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&feedformat=atom&user=172.70.85.5explain xkcd - User contributions [en]2026-06-27T15:13:49ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.30.0https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3096:_Check_Engine&diff=3786813096: Check Engine2025-05-31T17:13:51Z<p>172.70.85.5: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 3096<br />
| date = May 30, 2025<br />
| title = Check Engine<br />
| image = check_engine_2x.png<br />
| imagesize = 331x383px<br />
| noexpand = true<br />
| titletext = They say it's probably safe to keep orbiting for a while, but if it stays on or starts flashing we might have to call someone.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|This page was created by THE SOLAR PIT CREW. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}<br />
{{w|Sunspot|Sunspots}} are temporary, relatively small, darker (because cooler) regions on the surface of Earth's Sun. The number of sunspots that can be observed varies over an approximately 11-year cycle. The current cycle is {{w|Solar_cycle_25|the 25th since reckoning began in 1755}}.<br />
<br />
The joke in this comic is that the sunspot array shown has taken the form of a "{{w|Check engine light}}", found on the instrument panel of most automobiles. The illumination of this light means that the automobile's onboard computer has detected an engine malfunction, which should be checked out by an experienced mechanic. For such a signal to appear among the nuclear fires and plasma of the sun would most certainly be of concern to astronomers.<br />
<br />
Apart from very old vehicles (with far more obvious status lights) and fairly new ones (with a full '{{w|glass cockpit}}' approach), it is common for various lit indicators on a dashboard to be formed by subtly translucent shapes in the base board, around the various active dials for vehicle/engine speeds and the like, that only become obvious when a light goes on behind them. The position and purpose of the lights regarding the current use of indicators, headlights, etc, may quickly become very familiar to a driver, even in a previously unfamiliar vehicle. Other warning lights may be less frequently seen, and may not be entirely obvious that they exist, until they light up or the vehicle's operating manual is read thoroughly enough. The Check Engine light is one that drivers will rarely see (and usually hope that they never have cause to, as it might mean a costly problem; or at least the inconvenience of paying someone to check, to possibly find that it's merely a sensor error), and a strange new light with a perhaps ambiguous shape or lettering is bound to worry an owner of a vehicle, especially as it gets older and various possible faults become more likely to occur.<br />
<br />
The display system in use by the Sun, if not a full-on glass-cockpit display, seems to be an inverse of the backlit-symbol method, activating a "black patch" (perhaps akin to the method used in a {{w|liquid-crystal display}}) that has been waiting there just for such a time as it is needed. As with drivers' vehicles, this probably hints at there being a few more such messages, hidden and currently inactive, and could prompt some peolle to go looking for the long-unread manual to discover ''what else'' could eventually go wrong, as well as to find out as much as possible about what this current warning might entail.<br />
<br />
The title text says that "they" (presumably the text of the Sun's owner's manual, continuing the analogy with motor vehicles) advise that it's probably safe for Earth to continue to orbit the Sun unless and until there is a change in the nature of the "check engine light" sunspot array. Such a change, on an instrument panel, signals that the matter needs immediate attention, lest something dramatic and expensive occur, such as an [https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/l8j0ip/eli5_what_is_a_seized_engine/ engine seizure], which can be spectacular and is irreparable. The solar equivalent of an engine seizure would be a {{w|Nova|nova}}, which would definitely be of concern to astronomers (and everyone else), and for which the prospect of "calling someone" that can do anything useful (a cosmic tow truck to pull Earth to a safe distance?) seems remote.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}<br />
:["Check Engine" warning light (from a car's dashboard) is shown on the surface of the Sun]<br />
<br />
:[Caption below the panel:]<br />
:This new sunspot cluster has raised concern among astronomers<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<noinclude><br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]<br />
[[Category:Astronomy]]</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3096:_Check_Engine&diff=3786803096: Check Engine2025-05-31T17:13:23Z<p>172.70.85.5: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 3096<br />
| date = May 30, 2025<br />
| title = Check Engine<br />
| image = check_engine_2x.png<br />
| imagesize = 331x383px<br />
| noexpand = true<br />
| titletext = They say it's probably safe to keep orbiting for a while, but if it stays on or starts flashing we might have to call someone.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|This page was created by THE SOLAR PIT CREW. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}<br />
{{w|Sunspot|Sunspots}} are temporary, relatively small, darker (because cooler) regions on the surface of Earth's Sun. The number of sunspots that can be observed varies over an approximately 11-year cycle. The current cycle is {{w|Solar_cycle_25|the 25th since reckoning began in 1755}}.<br />
<br />
The joke in this comic is that the sunspot array shown has taken the form of a "{{w|Check engine light}}", found on the instrument panel of most automobiles. The illumination of this light means that the automobile's onboard computer has detected an engine malfunction, which should be checked out by an experienced mechanic. For such a signal to appear among the nuclear fires and plasma of the sun would most certainly be of concern to astronomers.<br />
<br />
Apart from very old vehicles (with far more obvious status lights) and fairly new ones (with a full '{{w|glass cockpit}}' approach, it is common for various lit indicators on a dashboard to be formed by subtly translucent shapes in the base board, around the various active dials for vehicle/engine speeds and the like, that only become obvious when a light goes on behind them. The position and purpose of the lights regarding the current use of indicators, headlights, etc, may quickly become very familiar to a driver, even in a previously unfamiliar vehicle. Other warning lights may be less frequently seen, and may not be entirely obvious that they exist, until they light up or the vehicle's operating manual is read thoroughly enough. The Check Engine light is one that drivers will rarely see (and usually hope that they never have cause to, as it might mean a costly problem; or at least the inconvenience of paying someone to check, to possibly find that it's merely a sensor error), and a strange new light with a perhaps ambiguous shape or lettering is bound to worry an owner of a vehicle, especially as it gets older and various possible faults become more likely to occur.<br />
<br />
The display system in use by the Sun, if not a full-on glass-cockpit display, seems to be an inverse of the backlit-symbol method, activating a "black patch" (perhaps akin to the method used in a {{w|liquid-crystal display}}) that has been waiting there just for such a time as it is needed. As with drivers' vehicles, this probably hints at there being a few more such messages, hidden and currently inactive, and could prompt some peolle to go looking for the long-unread manual to discover ''what else'' could eventually go wrong, as well as to find out as much as possible about what this current warning might entail.<br />
<br />
The title text says that "they" (presumably the text of the Sun's owner's manual, continuing the analogy with motor vehicles) advise that it's probably safe for Earth to continue to orbit the Sun unless and until there is a change in the nature of the "check engine light" sunspot array. Such a change, on an instrument panel, signals that the matter needs immediate attention, lest something dramatic and expensive occur, such as an [https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/l8j0ip/eli5_what_is_a_seized_engine/ engine seizure], which can be spectacular and is irreparable. The solar equivalent of an engine seizure would be a {{w|Nova|nova}}, which would definitely be of concern to astronomers (and everyone else), and for which the prospect of "calling someone" that can do anything useful (a cosmic tow truck to pull Earth to a safe distance?) seems remote.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}<br />
:["Check Engine" warning light (from a car's dashboard) is shown on the surface of the Sun]<br />
<br />
:[Caption below the panel:]<br />
:This new sunspot cluster has raised concern among astronomers<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<noinclude><br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]<br />
[[Category:Astronomy]]</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:3094:_Mass_Spec&diff=378580Talk:3094: Mass Spec2025-05-28T11:12:15Z<p>172.70.85.5: </p>
<hr />
<div><!-- Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom. --><br />
<br />
; Site issues<br />
Took me about 10 goes to get to the page, and there's nothing here. And I can't even get to previous pages, they won't load! Is it broken forevers? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.176|172.71.154.176]] 04:26, 27 May 2025 (UTC)<br />
:The site has been behaving erratically for at least the last four comics, but this is the worst it's been. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.22.109|172.68.22.109]] 06:50, 27 May 2025 (UTC)<br />
::If you look at something like the New User stats, which is a handy indicator of traffic (albeit of overwhelmingly "spam accounts" created, that generally then do nothing), you can track the reduced number of 'regular spambot' traffic as having started roughly on 12/May. This agrees almost exactly with the usage stats (either a depression of 'normal traffic', or a notable increase in all traffic; or both as, like here, there's mild inconvenience for proper users while the background hum of traditional spambot attempts gets vastly cut down because they're more easily thwarted by the newly-overwhelming amount of scraping/whatevering going on) on other online places that I have an interest in, which each have had varying degrees of having been able to counter it.<br />
::It's hard to discern from any of explainxkcd's statistics that I can easily get hold of and analyse, but in other places it seems like there's been a 24-hour cycle (and ''possibly'' a weekday/weekend difference) that seems to indicate that the most pressure is happening during some sort of 'business hours' cycle. Perhaps suggesting that it isn't just a massive web-trawling scraper left to run upon every site it finds, but actually might be a more semi-automated "click click click" by a regular workforce. It suggests ''maybe'' a Russian thing (give or take a specific time-zone/working pattern), though also goes down through the Black Sea area, the general area of Arabia and bits of East Africa. Or, others suggest, it's something is being deliberately done ''out'' of (local) working hours, in which case it would suggest that it's being thrown out from one or other TZ in North America (but doesn't actually fit the traditional tech-hubs of the west-coast).<br />
::Without access to any original IP ranges (which can easily be faked/proxyed, if anyone cares to), no-one I've otherwise discussed this with can say for sure. But the consensus is definitely that ''some'' grand project was started from maybe the 10th of May and built up at least until the 13th, after which there seems to have been a sustained level of disruption.<br />
::I've never had a "10 goes to get to a page" in this period of problems (surprisingly often, no retries needed; second go usually works, if necessary; third, maybe on occasion... fourth+ ''very'' rarely), but I also tend to wait a few seconds before retrying. And wait a few more seconds before re-retrying, if necessary. That way, I'm not adding to the server load unduly (remember, guys, if you ever ''are'' using a site-scraper, do remember to include a decent 'sleep time' between your pokes and prods; throttle your traffic, lest you throttle everyone elses!), and perhaps (if the culprits ''are'' using rough sleep-cycles between each batch of 'gets', or at least their automated systems are now hitting loads of 503s/etc and wisely backing off a bit from their own connectivity mess) you'll be luckier in five, ten, twenty seconds or so and now be requesting your (more legitimate) responses during a self-imposed lull in whatever process was previously overloading it.<br />
::I feel your pain. But perhaps I'm just a bit more relaxed about the whole thing, having previously been very well used to [[598: Porn|slow modem]] connections or, if on a campus network, knowing that every now and then that the 'fat pipe' across the Atlantic might go down and severly reduce the ability to telnet sites on the other side of the Pond... ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.58.168|172.70.58.168]] 12:59, 27 May 2025 (UTC) [ Unless I am given a reason to edit this again, I have needed... *0* ... repeat attempts to post this response (though the entirely responsive CAPTCHA didn't believe me until the third attempt at telling it what was motorcyles/bicycles, on the very first attempt!). Fingers crossed, eh? ;) ]<br />
:::Ya know, this all sounds more and more like a {{w|I_Put_My_Blue_Genes_On|short story by Orson Scott Card}}, played out with bits instead of germs. Maybe we should all be laying in stocks of goose quills, charcoal, and birch bark. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.146.129|172.71.146.129]] 14:43, 27 May 2025 (UTC)<br />
:::I added a "We Need Help!" message to the Admin Requests page, and it took me 39 tries for the comment to successfully post. (Try 6 to post this, BTW.) -- [[User:Dtgriscom|Dtgriscom]] ([[User talk:Dtgriscom|talk]]) 01:01, 28 May 2025 (UTC)<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
I believe the first way to weigh someone was a balance beam and goats (Doctor office balance scale). [[Special:Contributions/172.71.223.147|172.71.223.147]] 04:32, 27 May 2025 (UTC)<br />
: I thought the original way to measure someone's weight was to shake their hand.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.5|172.70.85.5]] 11:12, 28 May 2025 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Interesting. Who am is quite munged. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.42.119|172.70.42.119]] 04:37, 27 May 2025 (UTC)<br />
:Was quite munged: "[[Special:Contributions/172.70.42.119|172.70.42.119]] 04:37, 27 May 2025 (UTC" [[Special:Contributions/172.68.245.164|172.68.245.164]] 04:51, 27 May 2025 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Unlike a bathroom scale, this apparatus measures mass, not weight. So apart from the obvious fact that it's not remotely sensitive enough, it would work on a space station. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.186.119|162.158.186.119]] 07:49, 27 May 2025 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Why wouldn't they use the Archimedes principle? Lower person into a tub of water, measure volume of water that overflows, calculate weight of the water. That was known since 246 BC. [[User:Mschmitt|Mschmitt]] ([[User talk:Mschmitt|talk]]) 18:40, 27 May 2025 (UTC)<br />
:That would measure volume, not weight. However, note that Archimedes principle was method to measure volume, which was not possible before, using already existing ability to measure weight. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 23:39, 27 May 2025 (UTC)<br />
::Well, technically, if you force a body to fully submerge in water (noting how much of a full bath/etc of water you spill), then allow it to float naturally (noting how much extra water you can put back in - or just do it the other way round, see how much water you expel when floating and how much additional water when dunking), then this'll give you useful density, volume ''and'' weight information. At least if what you're measuring ''does'' float (and doesn't dissolve, etc). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.58.130|172.70.58.130]] 00:12, 28 May 2025 (UTC)<br />
:::Well, for some objects this might work. For humans, not so much, as humans BREATHE and with it, change volume AND density. Anyway, Archimedes were already able to measure weight, because method for that existed since 3rd millennium BC, using balance {{w|weighing scale}}s. He might've actually be submerging such scales in water as method to measure density, according to Galileo Galilei. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 01:10, 28 May 2025 (UTC)</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3046:_Stromatolites&diff=3644403046: Stromatolites2025-02-04T09:54:48Z<p>172.70.85.5: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 3046<br />
| date = February 3, 2025<br />
| title = Stromatolites<br />
| image = stromatolites_2x.png<br />
| imagesize = 581x505px<br />
| noexpand = true<br />
| titletext = If only my ancestors had been fortunate enough to marry into the branch of the bacteria family that could photosynthesize, like all my little green cousins here.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by an EXTREMELY GREAT NIBLING OF A STROMATOLITE - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
This comic makes fun of claims to 'special' ancestry, such as some old royal family or similar, that may be made after doing research on a {{w|family tree}} site. These services allow the user to input the names and other information of family members and cross reference with various documents to trace lines of descent. Often, those who find a connection to historically significant individual are quite excited about this, and may feel that it somehow makes them special. However, in reality, once you go back more than a few generations there will be many thousands of such connections, and once you get back more than a thousand years or so, anyone you could be related to will also be related to pretty much everybody else still alive in some way or other.<br />
<br />
While out for a walk, [[Beret Guy]] is explaining to [[Cueball]] how he has been on such a site and kept clicking back until he found an ancestor from "a few billion years back". These services typically do not allow the user to track their familial history prior to written records{{citation needed}} (although some do provide genetic sequencing which allows for more information to be acquired, but this isn't accurate enough to track on a wide scale individual people who lived before such technology existed), but with his [[:Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy|strange powers]] it is no wonder that Beret Guy could make this work!<br />
<br />
Beret Guy found out that he is related to {{w|Stromatolites}}. They are layered sedimentary formations created mainly by photosynthetic microorganisms that produce adhesive compounds that cement sand and other rocky materials to form mineral "microbial mats" (Cueball calls them ''bacterial mats''). Some fossil stromatolites in Australia from 3.48 billion years ago form the oldest undisputed evidence of life on Earth, though people have also claimed {{w|Earliest known life forms|other, older evidence}} for this record. Since this is some of the first life on Earth it is basically a given that all life that came after (not even just all humans) is related. Beret Guy only claims he is related to their cousins and that it is from their cousin bacteria that he got his {{w|mitochondria}} and also cell nuclei, so he is not claiming to be a direct descendant from stromatolites, which makes sense since they can photosynthesize, and as he mentions in the title text, he cannot!<br />
<br />
Cueball asks if he would like to contact his distant relatives, since there are still living stromatolites today (or at least something very similar to those from billions of years ago). But Beret Guy imagines they are busy so he will not bother them. When asked by Cueball what he would use his newfound knowledge for he lies down on the hill they have climbed to bask in the sun. Because as he says ''Lying on a hill in the warm sun is an old family tradition.'' This is basically the only thing stromatolites can do, but they are doing it all the time and could thus be said to be busy with this. It seems, however, like Beret Guy is going to enjoy this tradition.<br />
<br />
In the title text Beret guy muses about how great it would have been if his distant relatives had married into the branch of the bacteria family that could photosynthesize... And then refers to the grass he is now lying on as ''my little green cousins here''. If this had happened he would either have been able to lie on the hill without eating since he would be able to photosynthesize getting energy directly from the sun (instead of eating some of his small green cousins closer relatives). Or else he would actually have been a plant instead.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Cueball and Beret Guy, seen from a far in silhouette are walking up a grassy hill.]<br />
<br />
:[They continue walking up the hill, reaching its grassy summit. Now with a standard white background. Beret Guy is a bit ahead of Cueball.]<br />
:Beret Guy: I learned something today.<br />
:Beret Guy: I went on one of those family tree sites and kept clicking back, and it turns out I'm related to stromatolites!<br />
<br />
:[Closeup on Cueball. Beret Guy's reply comes off-panel from a starburst on the right edge of the panel.]<br />
:Cueball: The bacterial mats?<br />
:Beret Guy [off-panel]: Yeah! A few billion years back, on my mitochondria's side.<br />
<br />
:[Cueball and Beret Guy standing on the top of the grassy hill facing each other. Berety Guy holding a hand out towards Cueball.]<br />
:Beret Guy: My Archaean ancestors absorbed some bacteria that were cousins of stromatolites. That's how I got mitochondria.<br />
:Beret Guy: Cell nuclei, too.<br />
<br />
:[Cueball is standing behind Beret Guy who is now sitting down in the grass leaning back on one arm with the other arm resting on his bend knee.]<br />
:Cueball: I think there are still living stromatolites. You could get in touch.<br />
:Beret Guy: Nah, they're probably busy. I don't want to bother them.<br />
<br />
:[Cueball is sitting behind Beret Guy who is now lying down, both again shown in silhouette from a far, revealing they are on the top of the grassy hill.]<br />
:Cueball: So what ''are'' you going to do with this knowledge? Nothing?<br />
:Beret Guy: Lying on a hill in the warm sun is an old family tradition.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]<br />
[[Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy]]<br />
[[Category:Biology]]</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3045:_AlphaMove&diff=3641783045: AlphaMove2025-02-01T00:46:33Z<p>172.70.85.5: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 3045<br />
| date = January 31, 2025<br />
| title = AlphaMove<br />
| image = alphamove_2x.png<br />
| imagesize = 500x526px<br />
| noexpand = true<br />
| titletext = It struggles a little with complex positions, like when there are an even number of moves and it has to round down, but when run against itself it's capable of finding some novelties. At one point I saw six knights on the board at once; Stockfish rarely exceeds four.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by THE SEVENTH KNIGHT, WAITING IN ANTICIPATION. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
This comic shows a new chess engine, presumably created by Randall, which takes a list of all legal moves (in {{w|Algebraic notation (chess)|algebraic notation}}) in alphabetical order and chooses the median. Algebraic notation begins with a symbol for which piece is being moved, which is always the first letter of the piece name except for knights (N) and pawns (nothing). This is then followed by the square that the piece is being moved to. (Rc4 would indicate a move that moved a rook to c4.) Other symbols include (extra info here)<br />
<br />
In practice, this algorithm runs into a few issues. As seen in the comic, the algorithm rarely moves bishops and rooks due to their relative lack of moves in the early game, and their tendency to inhabit the edges of any list when they do have sortable moves. Among basic moves, only pawns destined to move in the first two files of a board can ever sort higher than bishops, and nothing other than another rook can be closer to the far end than a rook. AlphaMove can never {{w|Castling|castle}} due to the notation for it (0-0 or 0-0-0) being the only one to start with a number, and thus (if ever possible) always being the first in the list. (It also can't get to a board state where it's the only legal move because the king od rook moving into the empty squares, independently, will always create at least three more moves.) The algorithm instead favors knight and king moves, with entries starting with the most alphabetically middling "K" and "N" list entries, and (to a lesser extent) pawns destined to move up the right side of the board, the "h"-file pawn (or a "g"-file pawn taking a piece to its front-right) generally having the greater statistical chance.<br />
<br />
<br />
See also [[3036: Chess_Zoo]].<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:3034:_Features_of_Adulthood&diff=361311Talk:3034: Features of Adulthood2025-01-08T12:59:19Z<p>172.70.85.5: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
No comments yet? Probably everyone's still considering the filling in of the table. As for me, I just put a load of words in about the middle name(s), but perhaps it drifts and could be cut back a lot. However, I think we do know a lot of middle names of people, especially [[2393: Presidential Middle Names|politicians]]. Or at least use their middle initials (like with "John F[itzgerald]. Kennedy"), even if we don't use their full names (like with "Harry S. Truman"... :p ). Not that I've had much experience with middle names. Don't have one myself. Knew a couple of people at school who would admit to having them (one had "Colin", the other had "Douglas"), which weren't really names given to people our age and location, so they ''must'' have been grandparental honorifics (though I'm not sure the names were right for two generations back, either... never enquired further, but maybe they were being traditional ''middle'' names, inherited but never really used). To my knowledge, neither the "Colin" nor the "Douglas" ever went on to use those in post-school life, but at least one of them also changed from their first name as their habitual name to be known by, and likely they prefered to go for something altogether new. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.27|172.69.195.27]] 03:23, 7 January 2025 (UTC)<br />
:In Denmark middle names are common, and Kynde is actually my middle name... Many people use their second name like their first, which can be confusing in work places where the e-mail is auto generated from full name, so no one can find Nicolai, because his first name is Christian... which he never uses. Have more than one of those here at my job. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:56, 7 January 2025 (UTC)<br />
::In Denmark middle names are necessary. Otherwise we'd be lost in a vast sea of Jens Jensen, Hans Hansen and Niels Nielsen. Min farfar Niels Peder Nielsen, hedde altid Peder, ikke Niels. {{unsigned ip|108.162.238.139|13:58, 7 January 2025}}<br />
::''Not'' having a middle name is unusual in the UK too, and many people (myself included) choose to go by them here as well.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.5|172.70.85.5]] 12:59, 8 January 2025 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Unexplained smells or noises: I'm trying to figure out what he means by this. I can't say that this comes up often in my adult life. Am I just deaf and {{w|Anosmia|anosmic}} (I don't think so)? Is Randall worried about gas leaks or his house creaking and falling down? What could he be referencing? [[User:Mtcv|Mtcv]] ([[User talk:Mtcv|talk]]) 09:29, 7 January 2025 (UTC)<br />
:I often smell something that others cannot or do not. So I'm completely at par with Randall here. Just now my office has a damp smell, after new people moved their things into my office replacing earlier office mates (four in the room). I'm sure it is some of their stuff that smells, but since the hole room is permeated with the smell, it has not been possible for me to find out what could cause the smell. But have tried this many times, for instance when someone leaves a citrus fruit to rot. Some people just cannot smell the fruit whereas I'm getting an instant headache from it. Also in my office, the guy with the rotten fruit, actually destroying his backpack, could not smell it, whereas other people could smell it down the hall. But inside the office it was hard to pinpoint the source as for those that could smell it is was all over the room. I could go on... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:57, 7 January 2025 (UTC)<br />
<br />
''"In later life, a person may drop the use of middle names (or, conversely, adopt only them as the name they are known by) and the unwieldy complete set of names becomes less common, as they may be considered unprofessional and unnecessary."'' -- What? Who says middle names may be considered unprofessional? Never heard of this before. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.55.140|172.70.55.140]] 14:55, 7 January 2025 (UTC)<br />
:Yeah - seemed spurious - removed it.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.5|172.70.85.5]] 12:59, 8 January 2025 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Just popping in to explain where this comic came from. It's an adaptation of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8l6mJQeclo an old John Mulaney bit] that makes the rounds every so often on social media unattributed. (Example: [https://x.com/tmorello/status/463160714337603584 Tom Morello stealing the bit] over ten years ago on what was then Twitter.) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.58.74|172.69.58.74]] 18:23, 7 January 2025 (UTC)<br />
<br />
As someone born before 1960 who grew up when espionage shows were prevalent on television and toy spy gadgets were prevalent in toy stores, it is amusing to me the difference in what children thought about passwords then and how we use passwords now.--[[Special:Contributions/172.70.83.55|172.70.83.55]] 18:42, 7 January 2025 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Yeah, I was also born before 1960 and I can attest that flat tires were very common then, and every kid learning how to drive also practiced changing the tire. The tire could go flat when you just hit a pothole or hit the curb. I clearly expected to have to deal with flat tires frequently. However, with the advent of radial steel tires, flats are very infrequent unless you pick up a nail or something. So nowadays, flat tires are almost nonexistent. I can now go for years without a flat. In this case change in frequency was because of changed technology rather than changed perception. [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 19:45, 7 January 2025 (UTC)</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:3031:_Time_Capsule_Instructions&diff=360612Talk:3031: Time Capsule Instructions2024-12-31T13:07:17Z<p>172.70.85.5: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
Neither date has a calender suffix, which allows the finder to assume it to be a BC date, which would render the issue… moot.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.102.192|172.71.102.192]] 22:45, 30 December 2024 (UTC)<br />
<br />
The answer is simple! Open the box after 2025 (Vikram Samvat calendar) and before 2024 (gregorian) [[User:Nerd1729|Nerd1729]] ([[User talk:Nerd1729|talk]]) 22:49, 30 December 2024 (UTC)<br />
<br />
1: Open first box in a GMT+X tz, where is already 2025; 2: Travel to tz GMT+X-Y, where is still 2024, remove second box from inside first box and open it; 3: Wait for the year to turn 2025, close the first box and open it again; 4: Now both first and second boxes were open in the same tz and you can open the third one. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.49.76|162.158.49.76]] 22:50, 30 December 2024 (UTC) auroralimin<br />
:you have overthought this so much but it works surprisingly [[User:Nerd1729|Nerd1729]] ([[User talk:Nerd1729|talk]]) 23:16, 30 December 2024 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Open it standing next to a border between time zones, step across, then stand in both? {{unsigned ip|162.158.62.154|02:36, 31 December 2024}}<br />
<br />
The third box can be defeated by being at one of the two geographic poles, which have no time zones (or at least, which can't be said to be in any time zone). [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 03:23, 31 December 2024 (UTC)<br />
:Both poles (indeed, all poles) still have a timezone (and, when I last read the page, I also wanted to point out that east/west travel wasn't consistently later-to-earlier, and even without considering going to a pole, it's not just E-W journeys that can step your timezone across). Even the ISS has a timezone, even if that's just the old backup of UTC. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.54|141.101.98.54]] 11:03, 31 December 2024 (UTC)<br />
<br />
"WHAT'S IN THE BOX?!" (sorry folks) [[User:Jaap-Jan|Jaap-Jan]] ([[User talk:Jaap-Jan|talk]])<br />
:A fourth box saying do not open this unless on a another planet than the one you opened the first three boxes on. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:43, 31 December 2024 (UTC)<br />
:"You must open this box if (and only if) you haven't opened any of the other boxes"... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.5|172.70.85.5]] 13:07, 31 December 2024 (UTC)</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3022:_Making_Tea&diff=3589303022: Making Tea2024-12-10T07:17:45Z<p>172.70.85.5: /* Explanation */ Did not like the "tea-kettle" bit, as it was put. Revised it all.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 3022<br />
| date = December 9, 2024<br />
| title = Making Tea<br />
| image = making_tea_2x.png<br />
| imagesize = 690x291px<br />
| noexpand = true<br />
| titletext = No, of course we don't microwave the mug WITH the teabag in it. We microwave the teabag separately.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Microwaved by a TEA-MAKING AUTOMATON - Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
Tea is exceptionally popular in the United Kingdom. Virtually every home has an electric kettle as a standard appliance, if not a normal one and a cooker hob, with teapots and other related crockery being found in many cupboards, or even on a shelf in full display. In contrast, tea is less commonplace in the United States of America (Randall's native country) and owning separate devices for tea-making is probably far less common than having coffee-makers of various kinds. As a result, when Americans need a cup of boiled water — for tea or otherwise — it is considered normal to put the water in a microwave oven.<br />
<br />
British people are stereotyped as taking genuine offense to microwaved water, believing it to be an objectively incorrect way to make tea. Randall mocks this stereotype through exaggeration, saying British people would be less offended by the theft of the {{w|Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom}} than they would be by a cup of microwaved water.<br />
<br />
===Methods mentioned===<br />
;Making it in a kettle<br />
:Perhaps an intentional misnomer. Water may be ''boiled'' in a kettle, but the tea itself is made in a separate {{w|teapot}}, with loose or bagged tea-leaves, ready for pouring into {{w|teacup}}s, {{w|mug}}s or {{w|vacuum flask|thermos flask}} as required.<br />
<br />
;Boiling water in a pot, steeping in a mug<br />
:The reverse misnomer, as the boiling water from the ''kettle'', as well as being used to fill any (tea)pot, can be poured straight into a mug. Either with a teabag already waiting in it (typical for "{{w|Builder's tea}}", where it may remain for a long while, ''perhaps'' until being fished out by a spoon just before drinking) or into which the teabag will now be dipped (at the personal discretion of the recipient, to taste, thus fine-tuning the time it infuses).<br />
<br />
;Making it in a chalice and ampulla stolen from the Crown Jewels<br />
:The most un-British thing about this is the stealing. Though many may have considered it, and occasionally {{w|Thomas Blood#Theft of the Crown Jewels|attempted it}}, it would not be taken kindly by many others. And to do so to make tea would be just {{wiktionary|not cricket}}. The stone challice and gold ampulla are also doubtful as being of suitable materials for British tea-making (as opposed to silver-plated steel, robust ceramics, etc) and there'd definitely be some complaints that it does not taste like a proper cuppa.<br />
<br />
;Microwaving a mug<br />
:Apparently common in the US, possibly because the standard US home power supply (~120V) is less convenient to power an electric kettle such as the British might use (with ~240V). The microwaving method of heating water is widely mistrusted in the UK, with warnings about generating superheated water that explodes in your face the moment it is disturbed. In general, one doesn't put 'just water' in a microwave; the closest analogue would be something like soup (from a can but now in a microwave-safe bowl), and keeping an eye on it/applying a loose lid to prevent it sputtering and overboiling.<br />
:The title text continues with this theme, by reassuring us that the microwaved mug doesn't have a teabag in it (analogous to the 'boiling tea-kettle' version, together with new uncertainty about sudden nucleation of the water). Instead, it is separately microwaved. As tealeaves (and bag) should normally be dry and receive little to no heating from its own stint in the microwave, the wrongheadedness this invokes does little to dissuade the skeptic's doubts about how utterly perverse this colonial variation on tea-making has become.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
[A chart is shown with four labeled tick marks. The first two are close together on the far left side of the graph, the third is approximately in the center, and the fourth is on the far right side of the graph. Above the chart are, from top to bottom, a heading, a subheading, and a labeled arrow pointing right.]<br />
<br />
:<big>Ways of making tea</big><br />
:By how angry British people get when Americans do them<br />
<br />
:More angry<br />
<br />
:Making it in a kettle<br />
<br />
:Boiling water in a pot, steeping in a mug<br />
<br />
:Making it in a chalice and ampulla stolen from the Crown Jewels<br />
<br />
:Microwaving a mug<br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3018:_Second_Stage&diff=3585523018: Second Stage2024-12-03T15:56:48Z<p>172.70.85.5: /* Explanation */ Extended context (boiling it down to rapid-reuse fuel-to-orbit missions, for simplicity - and only time will tell if this approach ever actually matures exactly as predicted)</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 3018<br />
| date = November 29, 2024<br />
| title = Second Stage<br />
| image = second_stage_2x.png<br />
| imagesize = 740x272px<br />
| noexpand = true<br />
| titletext = Hmm, they won't do in-flight delivery, so let's order a new first and second stage to our emergency landing site and then try to touch down on top of them to save time.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a BLUE ORIGIN DELIVERY DRIVER - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
In this comic, two people have lifted off in a {{w|Multistage rocket|staged launch vehicle}} without their second stage installed. This is unlikely to happen in real life, because rocket launches are thoroughly planned and checked and the lack of an entire stage would be glaringly obvious to anyone who is part of the project, but can be a problem in games such as {{w|Kerbal Space Program}}.<br />
<br />
Staging in rocketry refers of the segmentation of a launch vehicle into distinct, separable modules, each one with an independent {{w|Rocket engine}} (or engines) and {{w|Rocket propellant|fuel}} supply. This is practiced for two critical reasons: firstly, different engine designs work better at different altitudes, so you'd want to use one engine type deep in the atmosphere and a different engine once you get to space; and secondly, since you only need one of those engines (or sets of engines) at once, it'd be better to simply expend the first engine(s) and its fuel tank once you no longer need it. By getting rid of that useless mass, you can {{w|Tsiolkovsky rocket equation|go farther using the same amount of fuel}}. A launch vehicle that does not employ staging is called an {{w|Single-stage-to-orbit}} (SSTO), but none of them have been successful due to the technical challenges. There's a tradeoff between the greater effectiveness of different engines under different conditions, and the mass penalty of having to have multiple engines as well as extra hardware that can be separated.<br />
<br />
As Pilot 1 calls to fire the second stage, Pilot 2 is initially confused and asks if a second stage was needed. Pilot 1 confirms that there was supposed to be a second stage, and thought that it was the Pilot 2's responsibility to install and confirm there was a second stage. When both pilots realize there is no second stage, Pilot 2, naturally, thinks he can order one on {{w|Amazon (company)|Amazon}} with {{w|same-day delivery}} (though Amazon typically doesn't sell space ship stages - at least not with same-day delivery{{citation needed}}). He then has difficulty picking an address {{w|ZIP Code}} as they are likely traveling too high above the ground and too fast to be in a single postal area for long enough for the delivery to take place. The joke is likely poking fun at people who forget to pack certain items when going on road trips or vacation, and rely on Amazon to deliver replacements to them. There is also humor to be found in this rocket apparently being designed, built, and piloted by only a couple of people — in real life, the construction of a rocket, especially a manned one, generally involves thousands of people. Although {{w|test pilot}}s often have input in the development of many vehicles, and many were chosen for various space programs, generally they do not do the designing themselves. There are possibly some {{w|Wan Hu|notable}} {{w|Mike Hughes (daredevil)|exceptions}} to this — but with varying degrees of credibility, and almost certainly none that did any better than those voices in the comic.<br />
<br />
The comic also alludes to a not-so-distant future when space travel is a much more mundane endeavor. If companies such as {{w|SpaceX}} succeed in their mass-production and launch cadence goals, one could imagine a scenario where rocket parts become standardized and easily replaceable-- similarly to how it is easy today to replace a car's tire or fill its fuel tank if you get stranded on a highway.<br />
<br />
In the title text, Pilot 2 concludes that in-flight delivery won't be possible but proposes to have a new first and second stage delivered to their emergency landing site, properly stacked, so they can simply land on top of them, attach, and immediately take off again. This is not too dissimilar to how SpaceX is proposing to rapidly turn around Starship launches atop its Booster stages; though not yet close to being proven possible and practical, a Starship would descend to be caught by a {{w|SpaceX Starbase#Launch site (Orbital Launch Pad A and B)|'Mechazilla'}} tower, ready to be relaunched from there atop an awaiting Booster stage that had also been recently 'delivered' (perhaps by itself having been recently caught, having returned from the same or another recent flight) with perhaps minimal additional preparation other than whatever refuelling is required.<br />
<br />
This is not the first time Randall discusses the idea of a mid-flight delivery. A {{what if|149|What If? explanation}} attempts to answer if it possible to have pizza delivered to you, by a bird, while flying on a commercial airliner.<br />
<br />
== Trivia ==<br />
*The rocket, though apparently at least one segment short, appears to be substantially taller than the launch tower of the pad, which is a strangely incongruous detail. Unless the real rocket support is an angled back "hard spine" structure that has been rotated out of the way and down into the exhaust-flume/flame-trench quenching system. Since the voices are coming from what appears to be a separate module at the top of the rocket, it may be that the ''shell'' of the second stage is present, but not the engine and/or fuel.<br />
<!--> FOR ANYONE WHO WANTS TO GIVE A SPECIFIC EXAMPLE OF ROCKET STAGING, HERE'S THE ROCKET EQUATION: v<sub>f</sub> = v<sub>i</sub> + v<sub>e</sub>log(m<sub>i</sub>/m<sub>f</sub>); where v<sub>f</sub> is final velocity, v<sub>i</sub> is initial velocity, v<sub>e</sub> is exhaust velocity, m<sub>i</sub> is initial mass, and m<sub>f</sub> is final mass. <!--><br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
:[A multi-stage rocket, with a capsule on top, is lifting-off the ground from a launchpad, at least two rocket nozzles are visibly producing a flame, and the pad is surrounded with smoke and/or steam from the blast suppression system. A voice comes from the capsule at the top.]<br />
:We have liftoff.<br />
<br />
:[The first stage separates from the rest of the rocket, part way through the roll-program. There are no obvious engines standing out from the 'second stage' (or extended payload trunk) lower shroud.]<br />
:Main engine cutoff.<br />
:Stage separation confirmed.<br />
:We are go for second stage burn.<br />
<br />
:Second stage?<br />
<br />
:Yes.<br />
:...What?<br />
<br />
:[The first stage and the rest of the rocket are drifting apart in apparent freefall. No rocket is firing and the background does not seem to indicate that this view is beyond the atmosphere.<!-- nor that it is, with any passage-through-air lines, but conspicuously not darkened background of even suborbital space -->]<br />
:We were supposed to have a second stage?<br />
<br />
:...Yes!<br />
<br />
:Did '''''you''''' set up a second stage?<br />
<br />
:I thought '''''you''''' were handling staging!<br />
<br />
:Oh no.<br />
<br />
:[They continue to drift apart slowly.]<br />
:Okay, don't panic.<br />
:Lemme see if we can order a stage online for same-day delivery.<br />
<br />
:''Sigh''.<br />
<br />
:Hey, what zip code should I put? Ours keeps changing.<br />
<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Space]]<br />
[[Category:Rockets]]</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2666:_Universe_Price_Tiers&diff=2939442666: Universe Price Tiers2022-09-02T11:04:54Z<p>172.70.85.5: /* Explanation */ Punctuation position. Template original (while I'm here) rather than relying upon the lazy redirected template.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2666<br />
| date = August 31, 2022<br />
| title = Universe Price Tiers<br />
| image = universe_price_tiers.png<br />
| titletext = In Universe Pro®™ the laws of physics remain unchanged under time reversal, to maintain backward compatibility.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a SOWN WIND - Explained the main point, more details needed. Please change this comment when editing the page . Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
Philosophers have posed many questions in trying to understand the nature of the universe. Some of these have become well-known in popular culture; while some are deliberately open-ended, several others are presented as a choice between two or more options, and are assumed to have a single answer, the debate being about which is correct. In this comic, Randall proposes that the answers to these questions are instead not fixed, but vary according to a tiered {{w|subscription business model}}, as seen in many business pricing schemes, particularly in software. In this model, the no-cost tier gets you a universe experience of a lower quality, while at higher tiers better options are available for a cost - for example in the highest tier the processes of aging and death are "Opt-in" rather than "Mandatory". It is not clear from the comic who is supposed to be paying these subscription fees, or to whom they are paid (presumably the developers or maintainers of the universe, or the {{w|Simulation hypothesis|hypothesized simulation thereof}}), or whose experience of the universe is supposed to be affected.<br />
<br />
The universe does not have a subscription model,{{Citation needed}} but on the chart some of the categories that refer to observable properties such as the speed limit or existence of the {{w|Uncertainty Principle}} indicate ours is the Universe Standard® subscription, but other specifications may not entirely match our user experience.<br />
<br />
The title text refers to the concept of {{w|T-symmetry}} in physical laws. Most properties of our universe are asymmetric, meaning that the property changes if time is reversed (e.g. the entropy of the universe decreases as time flows backwards). Randall again makes a reference to software subscription models in a play on words as the Universe Pro®™ sub appears to have laws that maintain "backwards compatibility".<br />
<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
|-<br />
! !! Universe Lite™ !! Universe Standard® !! Universe Pro®™!!Explanation<br />
|-<br />
! Price <br />
| Free || $14.95/month || $49.95/month || Indicative of a typical Freemium product, the versions released include what is effectively an 'unlimited trial' version, but lacking some potentially desired features, and then extra tiers with increased functionality so that you can "get what you pay for".<br />
|-<br />
! Ads<br />
| Yes || Yes || No || Again typical of a tiered subscription, where ad revenue supports the lower tiers. There are indeed ads in our own universe, but whether they are an intrinsic property of the universe or not is an open question.<br />
|-<br />
! Number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin<br />
| 4 || 64 || 4,096 || "{{w|How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?}}" is a question used to poke fun at medieval angelology and medieval scholasticism in general by claiming discussions in its fields revolve around meaningless questions. It is also used as a metaphor for wasting time debating useless questions, as it is generally accepted that we can have no definititive answer. Here, the question is given concrete answers that are powers of 2 often seen when using binary representation. It may also be a reference to [[485: Depth]].<br />
|-<br />
! Free will or determinism <br />
| Determinism || Free will || Free will || Another predominantly philosophical issue, although physics (both Newtonian and Quantum) has not shied away from trying to answer this (see Does God Play Dice? below). It is interesting that the paid versions of the universe are the only ones to include free will, implying that either such a quality is inherently desirable or it is a necessary condition of some other feature in the paid plan (such as, for instance, the dice-playing mentioned below).<br />
|-<br />
! Cosmic speed limit <br />
| 65 mph || 300,000 km/s || Unlimited || The Cosmic speed limit refers to the {{w|speed of light}}, which rounds to 300,000 kilometers per second in our particular universe, one of the few definite clues as to which tier we might exist in. Living in a universe with a 65 mph speed limit would render many aspects of experience unrecognizable from our own; assuming the speed of light and thus all relativistic effects were similarly scaled, the act of driving at highway speeds would result in [http://gamelab.mit.edu/games/a-slower-speed-of-light/ human-observable] time dilation and apparent spatial distortion. The {{w|special relativity}} consequences of a low speed of light are explored in one chapter of George Gamow's {{w|Mr Tompkins}}; in Mr Tompkins' dream, the speed of light is approximately 10 mph. The idea of having a speed cap is reminiscent of computer simulations and game engines, which often prevent agents from accelerating beyond a certain point to prevent unintended behavior.<br />
|-<br />
! If a tree falls in a forest and there's no one there to hear... <br />
| No sound || Simple beep || Full sound || {{w|If a tree falls in a forest}} is a popular philosophical question whose answer depends largely on one's philosophical belief system and the interpretation of the question itself. Here it's suggested that there is a definite answer which differs depending on the quality of the universe subscription. On the assumption that "our" universe is on the Standard Plan, this table implies that all trees falling outside of the auditory range of anyone or anything capable of noticing it emit a simplified "beep" sound, rather than the complex crashing one would expect. This concept is similar to the discussion in [[2664: Cloud Swirls]].<br />
|-<br />
! Meaning of Life <br />
| Unknowable || Uncertain || Clearly explained || All we can know is that we (currently) don't know, which makes our universe one almost certainly either with an unknowable or uncertain state of affairs.{{Actual citation needed}}<br />
|-<br />
! Sound of one hand clapping <br />
| [None] || [None] || ''Kazzap!'' || A {{w|Koan}} from Buddhism. Koans deliberately have no answer &mdash; one hand cannot clap, as the sound of two hands clapping relies upon there being two hands percussing and displacing/resonating air. The "Kazzap" referenced is humorous because it provides an answer to something with no answer, in the form of a nonsense onomatopoeia. To members of our universe, this is absurd. The implication is that those in the Pro version of the universe have access to this seemingly impossible feat.<br />
|-<br />
! Aging and death <br />
| Mandatory || Mandatory || Opt-in || If this is a mere option, we clearly haven't read (or understood) the online manual or perhaps read the tool-tips.<br />
|-<br />
! Does god play dice with the universe? <br />
| Yes, and he cheats || Yes || No || A reference to a phrase famously ascribed to Einstein (in opposition to the concept of quantum uncertainty) that "God does not play dice with the universe." This option and the Determinism/Free Will choice, above, are interestingly linked but not necessarily in a way we can comprehend.<br />
|-<br />
! Bad things... <br />
| Happen to good people only || Happen to good and bad people || Don't happen || Relates to whether there is justice, compassion or fairness in the universe, where good and bad events often seem uncorrelated with whether people morally deserve them. In theological arguments, this debate is intimately connected with theodicy (the problem of how a benevolent god could create a world that contains evil), but like the existence of free will it is hotly debated in non-theological contexts as well. Randall suggests that the situation in a lower-tier universe is even worse, and interestingly that there is no tier where bad things only happen to bad people. <br />
|-<br />
! What happens to those who sow the wind <br />
| Reap the whirlwind || Reap the whirlwind || Lots of crops everywhere || This is a reference to the famous phrase "sow the wind, reap the whirlwind", taken from Hosea 8:7. The phrase means that those who do evil without thought to the consequences will receive punishment. However, in Universe Pro®™, nothing bad happens to anyone, which excludes the possibility of the "whirlwind". This implies that it is possible to ''literally'' sow wind (in the farming sense) in the Pro version, which apparently translates to growing crops in a vastly wider range than normal.<br />
|}<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
|-<br />
! !! Universe Lite™ !! Universe Standard® !! Universe Pro®™<br />
|-<br />
! Price <br />
| Free || $14.95/month || $49.95/month<br />
|-<br />
! Ads<br />
| Yes || Yes || No<br />
|-<br />
! Number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin<br />
| 4 || 64 || 4,096<br />
|-<br />
! Free will or determinism <br />
| Determinism || Free will || Free will<br />
|-<br />
! Cosmic speed limit <br />
| 65mph || 300,000 km/s || Unlimited<br />
|-<br />
! If a tree falls in a forest and there's no one there to hear... <br />
| No sound || Simple beep || Full sound<br />
|-<br />
! Meaning of Life <br />
| Unknowable || Uncertain || Clearly explained<br />
|-<br />
! Sound of one hand clapping <br />
| [None] || [None] || ''Kazzap!''<br />
|-<br />
! Aging and death <br />
| Mandatory || Mandatory || Opt-in<br />
|-<br />
! Does god play dice with the universe? <br />
| Yes, and he cheats || Yes || No<br />
|-<br />
! Bad things... <br />
| Happen to good people only || Happen to good and bad people || Don't happen<br />
|-<br />
! What happens to those who sow the wind <br />
| Reap the whirlwind || Reap the whirlwind || Lots of crops everywhere<br />
|}<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category: Philosophy]]<br />
[[Category: Religion]]</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2666:_Universe_Price_Tiers&diff=293943Talk:2666: Universe Price Tiers2022-09-02T11:01:12Z<p>172.70.85.5: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
<br />
We seem to be in Universe Standard, based on the cosmic speed limit<br />
[[User:Victor|Victor]] ([[User talk:Victor|talk]]) 22:03, 31 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Is the price per user (human)? Or payed by the "god" who runs the universe?<br />
The interpretation would change quite a bit. If per user, some could travel fast while others would not see ads and could even be immortal.<br />
If per universe, would the concept of ads disappear?<br />
[[User:Victor|Victor]] ([[User talk:Victor|talk]]) 22:25, 31 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::The tree sound can't be a particular human's experience, and the speed limit seems intended to be per universe.<br />
<br />
General comment, I think each line of the table should have a separate one-line or one-paragraph explanation, rather than squishing it into one column of a table which mostly reproduces the comic text. i.e. we don't need the table in the explanation, although it works fine in the transcript imo. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.62.71|172.69.62.71]] 23:40, 31 August 2022 (UTC)edit: a word<br />
<br />
"Yes, and he cheats" may be a reference to a quote from ''Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri''.<br />
::I fully expected something like ''"Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don't find out 'til too late that he's been playing with two queens all along."'' (from ''Interesting Times'' by Terry Pratchett) [[User:RAGBRAIvet|RAGBRAIvet]] ([[User talk:RAGBRAIvet|talk]]) 01:47, 1 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
::The SMAC quote is "Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded. - Chairman Sheng-ji Yang", from the Probability Mechanics tech. Also, the "God does not play dice" quote is stated during the Supercollider secret project movie. I doubt the comic is referencing any particular media here, though. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.5|172.69.22.5]] 02:40, 1 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
::Meanwhile, Stephen Hawking said "Not only does God play dice, but... he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen." -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 16:01, 1 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Under ''Number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin'', '64' is 2⁵ and may be making reference to the Nintendo 64 game system. [[User:RAGBRAIvet|RAGBRAIvet]] ([[User talk:RAGBRAIvet|talk]]) 01:54, 1 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
::And just for the record, 4096 is 2¹². [[User:RAGBRAIvet|RAGBRAIvet]] ([[User talk:RAGBRAIvet|talk]])<br />
<br />
:: Note that the philosophical question of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin turns to have much more useful meaning if we realize that the question wasn't if 64 or 4096, but if it's a finite or infinite number, that is, if angels are subject to {{w|Pauli's exclusion principle}}. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 15:59, 1 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
::: I think the answer is [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8071704/characters/nm0000531 to be found elsewhere]. And it is a different power of 2! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.147|172.70.162.147]] 17:26, 1 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Who is paying our subscription? How do we ensure we don't get demoted to lite?<br />
<br />
Here, the sound of one hand clapping is pretty much "toop." Put your hand out flat fingers together, and no thumb involved, quickly make a fist. Toop. Edit I'm not making a fist. Im keeping the last joints straight and smacking my hand[[Special:Contributions/172.70.134.95|172.70.134.95]] 15:59, 1 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
:But two hands each doing that (or slapping another bit of body) aren't "two hands clapping", but more like two hands ''clasping''/something-or-other-like-that.<br />
:If you could bring your one hand to a sudden stop in mid-air ''as if'' hitting another hand, it might be closer, but there's no sudden stop possible like a contact-stop. Plus a full-fledged clap for maximum ovational volume involves cupped hands trapping a resonant volume of air between them, almost sealed (wet hands so positioned can be used to force a squeaky-fart sound out from between them), and neither an "air clap" or the toop-clasp can do anything so dramatic with a solo hand. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.154|141.101.99.154]] 17:54, 1 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
: the sound can be more clap like if you bend your hand upwards and keep it like that. Then loosen your fingers, and smash your upward lower arm to the front and back. My one armed brother taught me. It's handy (hehe) if one hand is holding a drink. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.51.204|172.68.51.204]] 07:36, 2 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
<br />
I have a problem with the "Bad things..." portion. ''If'' I was a bad person, then I would never pay for the universe, as I would be better off in the free version, where nothing bad would ever happen to me. [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 19:17, 1 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
<br />
The "bad things" section is a bit bothersome: good things don't exist without bad things. Without bad things, good things are just...things. So maybe awareness of bad things is still extant in UniPro? That way, good things would still be at the upper end of a theoretical scale.<br />
<br />
But the subjectivity of badness is concerning in a bad-things-don't-happen realm. I reckon plenty of people who could spring for fifty bucks a month would list rum, Katharine Hepburn movies, gay people and Jews as bad things that therefore won't happen. If I stump up my Pro subscription, do I have to share the universe with these douchebags, or do we each get our own? And if it's the latter, how much of a douche must you be to be excluded from my universe? Can we differ a little and still coexist, or do we have to gel perfectly? And how would that ever happen...and would it be tolerable to live surrounded by my opinion-clones? Is this...is this the too-perfect Matrix v.1.0? Am I buying a ticket to a simulated utopia while my body atrophies?<br />
You monster! Guards! Guards! Let me out.....<br />
<br />
[[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.35|172.71.178.35]] 23:09, 1 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
Note that Universe Lite is marked as trademark, Universe Standard as a registered trademark, and Universe Pro as...BOTH. This is a joke; more is better, esp. in lists of features. But there's no point in claiming a mark is both a trademark and a registered trademark.<br />
<br />
How to clap with one hand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwoq3QBaQAY [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 04:38, 2 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
If a tree falls in a forest and there's no one there to hear it, then there is NO SOUND. The act of the tree falling will create vibrations in the air, but those vibrations only become 'sound' when they impact on a tympanic membrane (such as an eardrum) that is connected to a brain. Sound happens in your head, folks. Of course, in practice, the likelihood of a tree falling in an area that contains NO tympanic membranes at all is impossible given the abundance of miniature scaled life on Earth. That said, we have no idea whether insects actually perceive those air vibrations as 'sound' in the same way that humans do - the fairy fly, for example, is so small that it can 'swim' through air rather than flying, so probably perceives sound waves the same way that humans experience ocean waves.<br />
<br />
[[User:MarquisOfCarrabass|MarquisOfCarrabass]] ([[User talk:MarquisOfCarrabass|talk]]) 05:50, 2 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
We should do a comparison of universe standard vs our universe see if that's what we're doing [[User:Mushrooms|Mushrooms]] ([[User talk:Mushrooms|talk]]) 08:13, 2 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
:...hang on, I already downloaded a crack to repatch the executables to get around the pesky copy protection/licence-key manager. The patcher utility says it might take some time, and I've had to give it superuser access to the entire system for some reason, so it might be a good idea to save your current session and let it do its job before messing about in the menus or we might find unexpected results! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.5|172.70.85.5]] 11:01, 2 September 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2665:_America_Songs&diff=293775Talk:2665: America Songs2022-08-30T13:57:53Z<p>172.70.85.5: </p>
<hr />
<div>Many of these rely on "ia"/"ie"/"io" serving as the 3rd and 4th syllables, so every song would be sung like "God Bless <s>Olimpiya</s> Algeriya". Virginia Beach appears to be the only one to escape this.--[[User:Magtei|Magtei]] ([[User talk:Magtei|talk]]) 19:39, 29 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:As a Washingtonian, I pronounce Olympia without the diphthong (so four syllables; the “a” being distinct). It’s probably a dialect thing, and some pronunciations are more common than others, but as long as one fairly-common pronunciation scans, I think it’s fine. [User:Szeth Pancakes|Szeth Pancakes] ([[User talk:Szeth Pancakes|talk]]) 03:37, 30 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::Alright, bad example. Skipping it is unheard of in areas further south. Do you (or a large part of the US) fully pronounce most dipthongs, [https://www.howmanysyllables.com/syllables/syria Syria with three syllables], etc.?--[[User:Magtei|Magtei]] ([[User talk:Magtei|talk]]) 07:02, 30 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:There are also some locations with three-syllable names, such as Detroit Lakes or Fergus Falls (both located northwest of St. Cloud, Minnesota) which, although not listed by Randall, will also work and not use the noted syllables. [[User:RAGBRAIvet|RAGBRAIvet]] ([[User talk:RAGBRAIvet|talk]]) 02:35, 30 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
This phrase, "scans to", has me confused. Can the explanation address what this is supposed to mean?<br />
--anon 16:23, 29 August 2022<br />
:You betcha [[User:Szeth Pancakes|Szeth Pancakes]] ([[User talk:Szeth Pancakes|talk]]) 20:38, 29 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::What does scanning mean in relation to sung verse? Just syllables and their stress pattern, or is their more? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.28|172.69.34.28]] 23:11, 29 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:::I'm not familiar with the term, but I assume it's related to scansion. If I'm right, it's probably just syllables and stress pattern. [[User:GreatWyrmGold|GreatWyrmGold]] ([[User talk:GreatWyrmGold|talk]]) 06:52, 30 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::::- There was a young man from Japan<br />
::::- Whose limericks never would scan.<br />
::::- And when they asked why,<br />
::::- He said "I do try!<br />
::::- But when I get to the last line I try to fit in as many words as I can."<br />
::::...though – and this is me talking, not the famous limerick – after making sure your poetry rhymes (if you want it to; and/or assonate, consonate, etc) and scans (some words are tricky, as mentioned, according to dialect/accent/etc) you also need to check the meter (does it obviously flow and split in patterns like the iambic one where "da-DUM da-DUM-da DUM-da DUM-da-DUM" might be how it works with word-boundries).<br />
::::You might be wise to avoid words like "vehicle" with theoretically, two to four syllables and all kinds of stress-patterns and vowel-sounds (c.f. stereotypical Deep South, north British, Aussie, etc), at least as an early (establishing) element. Maybe you can set up its far more knowable rhyme/scan/metering partner first and rely upon the reader adopting the intended variation (give or take the relatively opposing strengths of writer/reader accents, etc) after being given the prior clue.<br />
::::I would personally say the scan(sion) is mostly the simple syllable count, and may need some writing tricks ("learned" as in "I learned something" and "learn'ed" as in "a very learned person") to convey well during sight-reading or initial internalised read-through.<br />
::::On that, I personally have some problems reading "-ya" syllables as singular (depending upon what the preceding symbol is, I would consider it a "-ee-ah"/"-ee-uh" (or mid-point) with a cut-down "-ee-"), while I have no problem with the "-lm" dipthong/whatever (c.f. Northern Irish tends to clearly enunciate as "fill-um" for 'film', whilst I might almost consider it a syllable/beat of its own). But I suspect the right voice (internal or external) could convince me of any of those examples as given, eventually... ;) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.105|162.158.159.105]] 13:46, 30 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Aussie here: we tend to say (and sing) "Australia" with three syllables. For example, see the [https://www.pmc.gov.au/resource-centre/government/australian-national-anthem-scores Australian national anthem]. Occasionally two syllables: Straya mate!! But saying it with four syllables is perhaps an American thing. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.2.207|162.158.2.207]] 21:19, 29 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Interesting! It probably is a dialect thing. As an American, I've always pronounced it with four. [[User:Szeth Pancakes|Szeth Pancakes]] ([[User talk:Szeth Pancakes|talk]]) 21:23, 29 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
In the comic, Saskatchewan is spelled as Sasketchewan. Might be fixed later?<br />
<br />
Just putting this here: https://www.quora.com/A-lot-of-place-names-in-the-USA-have-four-syllables-Minnesota-Chattanooga-Albuquerque-Tallahassee-Talladega-Massachusetts-Massapequa-Mississippi-Cincinnati-Sacramento-Indiana-Alabama-Oklahoma-etc-Is-there-a (with the understanding that "scanning" doesn't necessarily mean only the number of syllables, e.g. Al-BUH-ker-key has the wrong stress pattern.)[[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.49|172.70.210.49]] 21:51, 29 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Hot dog, jumping frog, Albuquerque! [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.211|172.69.79.211]] 22:03, 29 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::''AlBUquerque, AlBUquerque, God shed his grace on theee...!'' [[Special:Contributions/172.70.207.8|172.70.207.8]] 22:46, 29 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Does anyone know how to craft a Wikidata query for all the place names with four syllables following the .'.. stress pattern? We should probably say how many there are. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.183|172.70.214.183]] 23:15, 29 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
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Jurassic park, Jurassic park, how lovely are thy branches… [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 23:31, 29 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
The pronunciation of Vidalia, Georgia, is "vi-DAIL-ya" -- three syllables, not four. It doesn't actually scan like "America". Seems like the comic is assuming the pronunciation is "vee-DAHL-ee-ah", which would scan.ing<br />
:And the age old question of whether an optional schwa constitutes a syllable rears its head. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.161|172.69.134.161]] 05:14, 30 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::I came to say a similar thing about Montpelier. In Vermont, at least, it has three syllables. [[User:CeramicMug|CeramicMug]] ([[User talk:CeramicMug|talk]]) 10:42, 30 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I simply wish to note the similarity to "Thighs" (#321), which is one of my favorite xkcd comics and one that I find comes to mind surprisingly often.<br />
<br />
For changing the tune of a song but not the lyrics (or the lyrics in entirety but not the tune), see the title text to 788: The Carriage [[Special:Contributions/172.70.131.126|172.70.131.126]] 11:24, 30 August 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2664:_Cloud_Swirls&diff=293561Talk:2664: Cloud Swirls2022-08-27T11:51:28Z<p>172.70.85.5: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
3-D video games? HUH??[[Special:Contributions/172.70.131.126|172.70.131.126]] 09:33, 27 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:It's not how I would have started the Explanation, but I think it'll quickly be rewritten enough that this element is downplayed/subsumed in some more generalised attempt to explain everything from QFD to the CBR. As I'm only just reading this now, just before I have to wander off to do something else, I shall have to defer my own dabbling edits until later, by which time it will have been matured (or at least remixed) into a more thorough text, so no point me worrying upon how to improve the necessary but rarely inviolable initial attempt to Explain. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.5|172.70.85.5]] 11:51, 27 August 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2663:_Tetherball_Configurations&diff=2934752663: Tetherball Configurations2022-08-25T11:13:04Z<p>172.70.85.5: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2663<br />
| date = August 24, 2022<br />
| title = Tetherball Configurations<br />
| image = tetherball_configurations.png<br />
| titletext = Ground-pole-ball-pole can be fun if you shake the first pole to get the second one whipping around dangerously, but the ball at the joint gets torn apart pretty fast.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a GROUND-POLE-BALL-BALL-POLE-ROPE-POLE - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
{{w|Tetherball}} is a game for two players with the objective to wind a rope completely around a pole. The rope is attached to the pole in one end and to a ball in the other end. The players try to wind the rope in opposite directions and do so by hitting the ball at the rope's loose end with their hands or with paddles. [[Randall]] has the usual configuration last with five stars, preceded by several humorously inane configurations with fewer stars:<br />
<br />
'''Ground-rope-ball''' receives only one star because there is no way to keep "score". [[Megan]] holds the rope while looking at [[Cueball]] holding the ball. What to do...<br />
<br />
'''Ground-pole-ball''' receives only one star because there is no way for anything to happen. The pole is fixed in place, and the ball is fixed in place at the top. [[Ponytail]] can be seen waving her hand at the ball at the top of the pole, but it's too tall and she can't even reach it. [[Hairbun]] has just given up.<br />
<br />
'''Ground-rope-pole-ball''' is slightly better than the previous configurations and therefore receives two stars instead of one. The players have some way to keep score by seeing which way the rope is wound around the pole, but a player who is behind can reset the score by pushing the rope-windings off of the rope. Also, twirling the rope in order to rack up point-windings would be awkward—and possibly even dangerous to the other player, depending on how long the pole is. Lastly, the ball serves no purpose in this case. Ponytail holds the rope while [[White Hat]] holds the ball from which the pole goes up.<br />
<br />
'''Ground-pole-rope-ball''' is the best and therefore receives five stars. Players can accumulate point-windings by hitting the ball past the other player, and gravity and the pole's height prevent the player who is behind from unscrupulously resetting the score. This is the configuration that is used in real life. Back to Cueball and Megan, who are getting ready to play a regular game of Tetherball.<br />
<br />
In the title text a fifth alternative is mentioned, where there is no rope, and instead a second pole rotates freely around a joint made out of a ball:<br />
'''Ground-pole-ball-pole''' is mentioned to be fun, because if you shake the pole stuck in the ground, the loose one connected via the ball could begin whipping around dangerously. Whether this is actually entertaining depends on whether you get hit by it... Again, You would not be able to keep score in the same way as regular tetherball, but you could count who got hit by the second loose pole first, or, for instance, the first to 10 hits. Alternatively, you could score a point by managing to make the free pole make a complete rotation without your opponent managing to change its direction. If the pole is not padded, or made of a soft material, this would likely be dangerous, or at least painful. Randall also remarks that the ball would probably get torn apart as it acts like a joint between the two poles. No rating is given, but, given that he calls it fun, at least 3 stars might be expected.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Four panels shows four different configurations in which the elements of a tetherball game could be connected. Two persons are trying to play each of these configurations in each panel. Below the ground level in each panel a star rating with up to five stars are shown. In each panel, above the players and their tetherball equipment, there is a label stating what combination of the parts are used. Above all four panels there is a heading:]<br />
:Tetherball configuration playability ratings<br />
<br />
:[Megan holds on to the rope with both hands while looking at Cueball holding the ball in both hands, who is looking back at her. They are standing equal distances on either side of where the rope is connected to the ground. The rope goes from the ground to the left up and through Megan's hands and then to the right over to the ball. The configuration gets a one star rating, with one black and four white stars shown below.]<br />
:Ground-rope-ball<br />
<br />
:[Ponytail is stretching as high as she can while waving one hand towards the ball that sits at the top of a pole much taller than she is. Hairbun is standing on the other side of the pole looking at Ponytail. The configuration gets a one star rating, with one black and four white stars shown below.]<br />
:Ground–pole–ball<br />
<br />
:[Ponytail is looking at and holding on to the rope to the left of, but close to, where it is tethered to the ground. The rope then goes up to the top of a pole, but this pole is not put into the ground, but is attached to the ball, which White Hat holds in both hands, while he is looking at it. The pole points steeply up towards Ponytail's side. The configuration gets a two star rating, with two black and four white stars shown below.]<br />
:Ground–rope-pole-ball<br />
<br />
:[Cueball is standing to the left of the pole, from where a rope goes down to the right to a ball that Megan balances on one hand while preparing to hit it with her other hand. She is looking at the ball and Cueball is looking at Megan. This standard configuration of tetherball gets a five star rating, with five black stars shown below.]<br />
:Ground-pole-rope–ball<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]<br />
[[Category:Sport]]</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2663:_Tetherball_Configurations&diff=2934742663: Tetherball Configurations2022-08-25T11:12:13Z<p>172.70.85.5: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2663<br />
| date = August 24, 2022<br />
| title = Tetherball Configurations<br />
| image = tetherball_configurations.png<br />
| titletext = Ground-pole-ball-pole can be fun if you shake the first pole to get the second one whipping around dangerously, but the ball at the joint gets torn apart pretty fast.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a GROUND-POLE-BALL-BALL-POLE-ROPE-POLE - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
{{w|Tetherball}} is a game for two players with the objective to wind a rope completely around a pole. The rope is attached to the pole in one end and to a ball in the other end. The players try to wind the rope in opposite directions and do so by hitting the ball at the rope's loose end with their hands or with paddles. [[Randall]] has the usual configuration last with five stars, preceded by several humorously inane configurations with fewer stars:<br />
<br />
'''Ground-rope-ball''' receives only one star because there is no way to keep "score". [[Megan]] holds the rope while looking at [[Cueball]] holding the ball. What to do...<br />
<br />
'''Ground-pole-ball''' receives only one star because there is no way for anything to happen. The pole is fixed in place, and the ball is fixed in place at the top. [[Ponytail]] can be seen waving her hand at the ball at the top of the pole, but it's too tall and she can't even reach it. [[Hairbun]] has just given up.<br />
<br />
'''Ground-rope-pole-ball''' is slightly better than the previous configurations and therefore receives two stars instead of one. The players have some way to keep score by seeing which way the rope is wound around the pole, but a player who is behind can reset the score by pushing the rope-windings off of the rope. Also, twirling the rope in order to rack up point-windings would be awkward—and possibly even dangerous to the other player, depending on how long the pole is. Lastly, the ball serves no purpose in this case. Ponytail holds the rope while [[White Hat]] holds the ball from which the pole goes up.<br />
<br />
'''Ground-pole-rope-ball''' is the best and therefore receives five stars. Players can accumulate point-windings by hitting the ball past the other player, and gravity and the pole's height prevent the player who is behind from unscrupulously resetting the score. This is the configuration that is used in real life. Back to Cueball and Megan, who are getting ready to play a regular game of Tetherball.<br />
<br />
In the title text a fifth alternative is mentioned, where there is no rope, and instead a second pole rotates freely around a joint made out of a ball:<br />
'''Ground-pole-ball-pole''' is mentioned to be fun, because if you shake the pole stuck in the ground, the loose one connected via the ball could begin whipping around dangerously. Whether this is actually entertaining depends on whether you get hit by it... Again, You would not be able to keep score in the same way as regular tetherball, but you could count who got hit by the second loose pole first, or, for instance, the first to 10 hits. Alternatively, you could score a point by managing to make the free pole make a complete rotation without your opponent managing to change its direction. If the pole is not padded, or made of a soft material, this would likely be dangerous, or at least painful. Randall also remarks that the ball would probably get torn apart as it acts like a joint between the two poles. Given that he calls it fun, a 3 star rating might be expected... But it is not mentioned.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Four panels shows four different configurations in which the elements of a tetherball game could be connected. Two persons are trying to play each of these configurations in each panel. Below the ground level in each panel a star rating with up to five stars are shown. In each panel, above the players and their tetherball equipment, there is a label stating what combination of the parts are used. Above all four panels there is a heading:]<br />
:Tetherball configuration playability ratings<br />
<br />
:[Megan holds on to the rope with both hands while looking at Cueball holding the ball in both hands, who is looking back at her. They are standing equal distances on either side of where the rope is connected to the ground. The rope goes from the ground to the left up and through Megan's hands and then to the right over to the ball. The configuration gets a one star rating, with one black and four white stars shown below.]<br />
:Ground-rope-ball<br />
<br />
:[Ponytail is stretching as high as she can while waving one hand towards the ball that sits at the top of a pole much taller than she is. Hairbun is standing on the other side of the pole looking at Ponytail. The configuration gets a one star rating, with one black and four white stars shown below.]<br />
:Ground–pole–ball<br />
<br />
:[Ponytail is looking at and holding on to the rope to the left of, but close to, where it is tethered to the ground. The rope then goes up to the top of a pole, but this pole is not put into the ground, but is attached to the ball, which White Hat holds in both hands, while he is looking at it. The pole points steeply up towards Ponytail's side. The configuration gets a two star rating, with two black and four white stars shown below.]<br />
:Ground–rope-pole-ball<br />
<br />
:[Cueball is standing to the left of the pole, from where a rope goes down to the right to a ball that Megan balances on one hand while preparing to hit it with her other hand. She is looking at the ball and Cueball is looking at Megan. This standard configuration of tetherball gets a five star rating, with five black stars shown below.]<br />
:Ground-pole-rope–ball<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]<br />
[[Category:Sport]]</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2663:_Tetherball_Configurations&diff=2934732663: Tetherball Configurations2022-08-25T11:11:11Z<p>172.70.85.5: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2663<br />
| date = August 24, 2022<br />
| title = Tetherball Configurations<br />
| image = tetherball_configurations.png<br />
| titletext = Ground-pole-ball-pole can be fun if you shake the first pole to get the second one whipping around dangerously, but the ball at the joint gets torn apart pretty fast.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a GROUND-POLE-BALL-BALL-POLE-ROPE-POLE - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
{{w|Tetherball}} is a game for two players with the objective to wind a rope completely around a pole. The rope is attached to the pole in one end and to a ball in the other end. The players try to wind the rope in opposite directions and do so by hitting the ball at the rope's loose end with their hands or with paddles. [[Randall]] has the usual configuration last with five stars, preceded by several humorously inane configurations with fewer stars:<br />
<br />
'''Ground-rope-ball''' receives only one star because there is no way to keep "score". [[Megan]] holds the rope while looking at [[Cueball]] holding the ball. What to do...<br />
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'''Ground-pole-ball''' receives only one star because there is no way for anything to happen. The pole is fixed in place, and the ball is fixed in place at the top. [[Ponytail]] can be seen waving her hand at the ball at the top of the pole, but it's too tall and she can't even reach it. [[Hairbun]] has just given up.<br />
<br />
'''Ground-rope-pole-ball''' is slightly better than the previous configurations and therefore receives two stars instead of one. The players have some way to keep score by seeing which way the rope is wound around the pole, but a player who is behind can reset the score by pushing the rope-windings off of the rope. Also, twirling the rope in order to rack up point-windings would be awkward—and possibly even dangerous to the other player, depending on how long the pole is. Lastly, the ball serves no purpose in this case. Ponytail holds the rope while [[White Hat]] holds the ball from which the pole goes up.<br />
<br />
'''Ground-pole-rope-ball''' is the best and therefore receives five stars. Players can accumulate point-windings by hitting the ball past the other player, and gravity and the pole's height prevent the player who is behind from unscrupulously resetting the score. This is the configuration that is used in real life. Back to Cueball and Megan, who are getting ready to play a regular game of Tetherball.<br />
<br />
In the title text a fifth alternative is mentioned, where there is no rope, and instead a second pole rotates freely around a joint made out of a ball:<br />
'''Ground-pole-ball-pole''' is mentioned to be fun, because if you shake the pole stuck in the ground, the loose one connected via the ball could begin whipping around dangerously. Whether this is actually entertaining depends on whether you get hit by it... Again, You would not be able to keep score in the same way as regular tetherball, but you could count who got hit by the second loose pole first, or, for instance, the first to 10 hits. Alternatively, you could score a point by managing to make the free pole make a complete rotation without your opponent managing to change its direction. This would likely be dangerous, or at least painful. Randall also remarks that the ball would probably get torn apart as it acts like a joint between the two poles. Given that he calls it fun, a 3 star rating might be expected... But it is not mentioned.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Four panels shows four different configurations in which the elements of a tetherball game could be connected. Two persons are trying to play each of these configurations in each panel. Below the ground level in each panel a star rating with up to five stars are shown. In each panel, above the players and their tetherball equipment, there is a label stating what combination of the parts are used. Above all four panels there is a heading:]<br />
:Tetherball configuration playability ratings<br />
<br />
:[Megan holds on to the rope with both hands while looking at Cueball holding the ball in both hands, who is looking back at her. They are standing equal distances on either side of where the rope is connected to the ground. The rope goes from the ground to the left up and through Megan's hands and then to the right over to the ball. The configuration gets a one star rating, with one black and four white stars shown below.]<br />
:Ground-rope-ball<br />
<br />
:[Ponytail is stretching as high as she can while waving one hand towards the ball that sits at the top of a pole much taller than she is. Hairbun is standing on the other side of the pole looking at Ponytail. The configuration gets a one star rating, with one black and four white stars shown below.]<br />
:Ground–pole–ball<br />
<br />
:[Ponytail is looking at and holding on to the rope to the left of, but close to, where it is tethered to the ground. The rope then goes up to the top of a pole, but this pole is not put into the ground, but is attached to the ball, which White Hat holds in both hands, while he is looking at it. The pole points steeply up towards Ponytail's side. The configuration gets a two star rating, with two black and four white stars shown below.]<br />
:Ground–rope-pole-ball<br />
<br />
:[Cueball is standing to the left of the pole, from where a rope goes down to the right to a ball that Megan balances on one hand while preparing to hit it with her other hand. She is looking at the ball and Cueball is looking at Megan. This standard configuration of tetherball gets a five star rating, with five black stars shown below.]<br />
:Ground-pole-rope–ball<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]<br />
[[Category:Sport]]</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2594:_Consensus_Time&diff=293418Talk:2594: Consensus Time2022-08-24T21:52:07Z<p>172.70.85.5: </p>
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<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
What if there's, like, a group of trolls that all press the button at like 9:00 pm? [[User:Sarah the Pie(yes, the food)|Sarah the Pie(yes, the food)]] ([[User talk:Sarah the Pie(yes, the food)|talk]]) 17:20, 16 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
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Less than a day should be enough time for a team of people to notice and override the trolls' attempt to game the system.<br />
Unless the trolls decide to push the button right before midnight.<br />
--[[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.147|172.70.162.147]] 23:11, 16 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Presupposes that an executive decision that "oh, that was just sabotage, we can ignore all those 'votes'" by an oversight panel is deemed ok to occasionally enforce. As with actual election votes, that shouldn't be taken lightly (for fear of top-down skewing of the actual sincere wish of those casting their opinions).<br />
:As it's a median (in itself a good idea, as there's no reason to cast very extreme outliers — it doesn't do anything more to the result than a barely marginal outlier) all you need to do is ask enough people (in excess of any counter-aiming participation, if there's a fight over it) to merely adjust their 'feeling' to half an hour later (or earlier, if that's your aim) than they normally would.<br />
:Added to the 'natural' variation in feeling (spread statistically amongst your participating group) it would be practically impossible to decide that a distinct tapering-lump of results exists, to possibly disqualify. Whereas if results show clear 'lumps' hours apart (e.g. around 3AM and/or 9PM, as well as the standard bunch around the 'honest' opinion point), there might be a case to officially intervene. Or at least officially review the procedure. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.64|172.70.86.64]] 09:14, 17 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
: It's basically Wiki-Time, the same principles apply as a Wiki... and Wikis are always 100% accrate, rite? --[[User:192·168·0·1|192·168·0·1]] ([[User talk:192·168·0·1|talk]]) 18:42, 17 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
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Probably a reference to the Senate DST thing[[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.237|172.70.210.237]] 17:46, 16 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
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I feel like this could supersede time-zones as well, by weighting reports by relative longitude, so you could have a kind of continuous change in time as you travel. I'm sure this wouldn't cause any problems at all, since every single computer would effectively be in its own mini time-zone, with its clock going at a slightly different speed, and both current time and speed of time would vary continuously with position.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.11|162.158.159.11]] 17:53, 16 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
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I have to feel that the night shift people would really not like this. [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 19:35, 16 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
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My take on this is that Midnight is a fixed point, it's always at the same time, and the day compresses and expands around it based on the median 9AM location. So, some days will have long hours in the morning, then compressed hours in the afternoon and evening. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.52|162.158.107.52]] 20:37, 16 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
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See also consensus new year https://xkcd.com/2092/ [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.237|172.70.210.237]] 20:43, 16 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
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I think he's also ripping on the concept of "wisdom of the crowd". [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 21:31, 16 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
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If someone makes this app, I'd use it. I might not follow its clock, but I'd be interested in seeing what happens. [[User:Draco18s|Draco18s]] ([[User talk:Draco18s|talk]]) 00:01, 17 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
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The sociologist in me wants to see this... The computer scientist in me could not be reached for comment and only mumbled something about "checking stock in the bomb shelter" [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.62|108.162.246.62]]<br />
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Hmm... Does this probably mean 9AM today could theoretically be '''after''' 9AM tomorrow in some cases!? Talk about a new approach to time travel. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.147.9|172.70.147.9]] 05:12, 17 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
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Working example: https://matthewminer.name/projects/consensus-time/ --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.130.91|172.70.130.91]] 20:47, 18 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
: 👏 excellent work --[[User:192·168·0·1|192·168·0·1]] ([[User talk:192·168·0·1|talk]]) 18:46, 17 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
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I've often thought the answer to the arguments about daylight saving time could be solved by going back to something like the old Canonical Hours with the period from sunrise to sunset divided into 12 hours, with short hours in winter and longer ones in summer. Incidentally, in the late sixties, an experiment was tried in the UK to keep the country on daylight saving all year round, called British Standard Time. I remember going to school in the north of England in December and it was still dark to well past nine o'clock in the morning. It apparently reduced road deaths, but it was abandoned after three years. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.147|172.70.162.147]] 09:09, 17 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
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Re. "the next vote would occur sooner or later respectively": This doesn't make sense - by definition, the vote takes place at no fixed time. Everybody votes at different times, depending on when they feel like it's 9am. They could, if they wished, do this capriciously, with no relation at all to the previous day's vote. One possible outcome of this is that the consensus view could drift so far from that of some individual views that it becomes impossible to determine which 'day' they're voting in respect of, and therefore which vote they should be counted in.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.239|162.158.34.239]] 11:25, 17 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
:I see your point. If I was writing it, I'd suggest one of three alternatives.<br />
:*The time that an otherwise consistent (possibly even 'accurate') voter votes is at variable times according to the Consensus Clock.<br />
:*What it really means is that the votes are ''actioned'' (or processed, but see below) at Consensus Midnight (close-of-votes) which is going to usually be earlier/later than 24-hours after the prior C.M. point.<br />
:*During the period of longer (or shorter) hours, for the Consensus adjustment, the vote that comes in three Consensus Hours before that day's Consensus 9AM will not actually be three 'real' hours before that point, and there is no indication that it will be back-adjusted, in case the Consensus Median Vote asked for 15 minutes earlier but might appear to be (say) 10 minutes earlier. (A vote that is deemed Consensus Median and 15 minutes later will ''always'' be intrinsically 15 minutes later.)<br />
:But I don't think there'll ever be a problem deciding which day a vote is effective for (though it might be different from intention, for the more inattentive voters). My proposed implementation would be to assume a cut-off at (or maybe slightly before, depending upon overheads) C.M., with all votes now either held off or handed straight over to the next day's vote as very-early votes for the next 9AM rather than very-(very-very-)late votes for the one now being acted upon.<br />
:A simple method that saves end-of-day time to process involves a chronological-queue of incoming votes. For every odd-numbered vote added to the tail of the queue, from the 3rd one onwards, a single recorded vote (the current earliest) is shifted off the head of the queue (to be recorded/archived, maybe, but no longer relevent to the result we will calculate).<br />
:At the moment of tallying, the head of the queue has your median-vote. The next one waiting to be shifted, if it's an odd-length, the mid-point of that with the next one on if the queue is even-length. (If I've described/imagined it correctly!)<br />
:This immediately sets the time-factor used to expand/contract the hours from 00:00 to 09:00 in the Consensus Clock to get 9AM to match the Consensus Median Plus 24 Hours.<br />
:Problems with lag/latency of incoming votes (chronologically confirmed, at source, but late to be processed centrally) would be most important with those immediately around the precisely defined Median, when sheer weight of opinion suggests that it'll be the most busy, but there should be enough idle-capacity to insert or shuffle items into the right bit of queue before the Midnight point. Or maintain sub-lists (5 minute slots?) that are maintained and finalised seperately and then their number of entries reported as a simple digest so that the system knows that "the ''n''th point of the ''m''th array", and maybe the n+1th, or the first in the m+1th (if needed), is/are to be plucked out at Midnight and looked at.<br />
:It really won't matter if a million votes come in at 23:59, so long as they are counted and have been at least balanced by a million earlier-votes from 00:00 onwards. But if valid and acceptable but ''very late'' votes filter through after a preliminary decision has already been made based upon a now pre-Median time-vote timing, the new (true) Median can be established within the first few minutes (or probably seconds, or even microseconds!) of the adjusted-hours and the adjustment-Rate simply re-adjusted accordingly to meet whatever the revised Consensus is (seconds later? minutes later, at a push?).<br />
:It could not push the next 9AM beyond 24 hours from the vote-period's closing Midnight, and likely won't push it beyond the prior idea of what the Midnight the upcoming day would originally have, without serious mass-action to break the system.<br />
:An example of deliberate breaking could be by coordinating ''everyone'' to seed a few heavily premature votes (so the next Midnight is sent close to 15 real-hours after the vote-close one, very compressed 0:00->09:00 upon the clocks) then virtually nothing until everyone else quite deliberately votes at a confirmable moment of 23:59:59 (or as close as feasible, without being next-day votes, whilst jamming the queue-mechanism and forcing delayed evaluation) to force the rapidly-compressed clocks to switch over to a snail-paced rate to compensate...<br />
:...But that kind of coordinated civil-disruption wouldn't be suddenly conjoured out of nowhere. I would expect that there'd be plenty of forewarning that any particular disruptive strategy is being considered (or experimented with), and it also needs (almost) everyone to be striving to force the exact same scenario with easily detected coordination of instructions. Heavily outnumbering both honest-voters and those dishonest-voters contrarily inclined. Otherwise the effect is minimal, or even practically ineffective. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.229.27|172.68.229.27]] 21:39, 17 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
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Of course, before mechanical clocks, hours varied across the year. With 12 short hours each day, and long ones over night in winter and 12 long ones in summer, with shorter hours overnight. [[User:Arachrah|Arachrah]] ([[User talk:Arachrah|talk]]) 21:31, 17 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
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The total day length would remain the same in this proposal. That means that the length of the hours (both before and after 9AM) would vary.<br />
The reference to the weekly cycle seems to refer to the fact that people tend to sleep in during the weekends. Thus, on Saturday and Sunday the buttons would be pressed later, and consequently 9AM would be relatively late on Sundays and Mondays. What (if any) effects there would be on other weekdays is unclear to me, which makes it an interesting experiment to conduct in someone else's country.<br />
[[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.20|141.101.99.20]] 10:13, 19 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
:"The total day length would remain the same in this proposal." - I'm not sure about that. If it had marked 'Shorter Hours' for the latter ⅝<sup>ths</sup> of the day, I'd agree. The drawn hour-ticks might indeed look (possibly measure) differently-spaced between each example of 9AM to Midnight. But I'm not sure that isn't just an illustrative foible. The assertion that midnights on that retro-subjective scale are locked to the objective (solar? meridean-gap wide?) midnights is far more obvious in its ommission. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.29|162.158.159.29]] 15:14, 19 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
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My personal solution is for my clock noon to be identical to solar noon, at my present location, and for clock midnight to be halfway between solar noon of the previous and next days. That may mess up everyone else, but I'll be satisfied. (I hate early sunsets during the winter here.) [[User:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For]] ([[User talk:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|talk]]) 20:27, 21 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
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This is not entirely dissimilar from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_Turkey Historic Turkish Time], which evidently included setting clocks to midnight at sunset. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.131.214|172.70.131.214]] 17:07, 24 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
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Ironic that the IP editor who finally removed the Incomplete-tag (in this and apparently many other articles) then went on to [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2594:_Consensus_Time&diff=prev&oldid=293391 ''further modify'' the page]. Not that I'm a fan of perpetual-Incompleteness, but I just wanted to note the arse-wise editing priority. At least make the change you want and then (in the same edit-submission or a follow-up one once you're sure) ''then'' make it officially Complete. Not that I expect that IP to notice this assessment of their actions, but it makes me feel better to share my rather predictable thoughts on this... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.5|172.70.85.5]] 21:52, 24 August 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2661:_Age_Milestone_Privileges&diff=2933202661: Age Milestone Privileges2022-08-23T16:27:12Z<p>172.70.85.5: /* Explanation */ Expound upon 100 votes (or any vote counts as being 100?)... More reasons that it probably isn't just a statement of record.</p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2661<br />
| date = August 19, 2022<br />
| title = Age Milestone Privileges<br />
| image = age_milestone_privileges.png<br />
| titletext = If you reach 122, you get complete unrevertible editorial control over Jeanne Calment's Wikipedia article.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a BABY GOD-EMPRESS MAKING THE PRESIDENT'S LETTER R-RATED - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
This is a list of "age milestones" in the United States. As usual for Randall, he has added many fictional entries to supplement some real life ones. The real milestones are the ages at which Americans are generally allowed to do certain things for the first time. These are a mix of legal restrictions (such as the age for driving and voting), rules from private companies (such as movie theaters and car rental companies) and medical guidance (like the shingles vaccine). <br />
<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
! Age || Privilege || Real? || Description<br />
|-<br />
| 16 || Drive || Yes || Legal driving age in the US is set by the individual states, but the general rule is that Americans are allowed to begin driving on public roads at age 16. There are various levels of restrictions on this privilege, however. In Randall's state of {{w|Driver's licenses in the United States#Licenses for adults and minors; GDL laws|Massachusetts, and in 8 other states}}, 16 is the minimum age to apply for a learner's permit. {{w|Driver's licenses in the United States#/media/File:Restricted license age requirements by US state.svg|In most of the country, 16 years is the minimum age for a restricted driver's license.}}<br />
|-<br />
| 17 || Attend R-Rated movies alone || Yes || In the US, the Motion Picture Association assigns {{w|Motion_Picture_Association_film_rating_system|ratings}} to movies based on whether they consider the film's content to be suitable for children. In this classification, "R" stands for "restricted", and the guidance from the MPAA is that no one under the age of 17 should be allowed to see it if not accompanied by a parent or legal guardian. It should be noted that this guidance does not have force of law, but is sufficiently accepted that nearly all US theaters adopt it as a policy.<br />
|-<br />
| 18 || Vote || Yes || The Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution prevents a minimum age of voting from being set above eighteen, meaning that eighteen-year-olds are old enough to legally vote anywhere in the country. Some states allow 17-year-olds to vote in primaries if they will turn 18 before the general election, but Randall's state of Massachusetts is not one of them.<br />
|-<br />
| 21 || Buy alcohol || Yes || While individual states have official power over the drinking age, the {{w|National Minimum Drinking Age Act}} restricts federal funding from states that do not enforce a drinking age of 21 years. This has resulted in a ''de facto'' national drinking age of 21 in the US, which is higher than most countries. It should be noted that some states allow minors to drink alcohol under certain circumstances, but no state allows anyone under 21 to buy alcohol. <br />
|-<br />
| 25 || Rent a car || Generally || Car rental companies set their own age restrictions on renting cars. The industry standard in the US is to charge a higher rate for drivers under the age of 25. Thus, there was not a "prohibition" per se, but 25 is a milestone for "regular" rates and fees on car rentals.<br />
|-<br />
| 30 || Run for Senate || Almost || This entry is slightly incorrect: According to {{w|Article_One_of_the_United_States_Constitution#Clause 3: Qualifications of senators|Article 1, Section 3, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution}}, one must be at least 30 years old in order to ''become'' Senator, not ''run'' for Senate. For example, Joe Biden was 29 years old when he was first elected to Senate but turned 30 before being sworn in.<br />
|-<br />
| 32 || Rent a Senator's car || No || This is the first joke entry in the table. For one thing, most Senators do not rent out their cars, which they probably need to use regularly themselves because they have jobs{{Citation needed}} to commute to, and it would be a security hazard to allow random strangers access to their vehicle.<br />
<br />
This could also be a reference to the Ambassador, a now defunct car brand.<br />
|-<br />
| 35 || Run for president || Almost || In the United States, according to {{w|Article Two of the United States Constitution#Clause 5: Qualifications for office|Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution}}, a person must be at least 35 years old to be eligible to hold the Office of President. Similar to the age 30 entry, this is slightly incorrect. However, unlike the Senate case, this technicality has not been relevant for anyone elected as United States president—at least not yet (as of 2022).<br />
|-<br />
| 40 || Rent a flying car || No || A 25-year-old might be able to rent a non-flying car today, but not a flying car, because the technology is not mature enough to the point where they're available to rent. The joke is that by the time a 25-year-old reader becomes 40, the technology will exist and they'll be able to rent a flying car. Unlike the earlier lines, the limitation has nothing to do with their age, just technological development.<br />
Alternatively, even once flying cars are developed, their usage will be more restricted. For example, young people are perceived to be more reckless and/or otherwise dangerous.<br />
<br />
This whole issue may be virtually negated if the newly developed flying cars are introduced only as ''self-''flying cars (an off-shoot of self-driving technology but devoid of many of the dangers of navigating roads, i.e. person-controlled vehicles, pedestrians and other ground-based hazards), in which case the age (or even presence) of the renter may be very much more irrelevant than the nature of any route/destination the guidance computer is tasked to fulfill. The question would then be how much a potential passenger would trust pure electronics to avoid all the actual dangers for what is essentially a flying taxi, compared to a human controller who may be fallible but presumably at least has their own fully developed common sense and a degree of self-preservation as well as any requisite training.<br />
|-<br />
| 45 || Learn about the God-Empress || No || Obviously, the God-Empress does not actually exist because this comic is visible to people under 45 years old.{{Citation needed}} According to [[1413]], she will be public knowledge by 2040 anyway.<br />
|-<br />
| 50 || Join AARP || Yes || Full {{w|AARP}} (formerly called the American Association of Retired Persons) membership is available to anyone age 50 and over. Officially, there are no age restrictions to membership, but members under the age of 50 do not have access to full benefits.<br />
|-<br />
| 50 || Get a shingles vaccine || Recommendation || At the time of the comic, the [https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/shingles/public/shingrix/index.html CDC recommended] that adults 50 years and older get the shingles vaccine called Shingrix (this line was not in the original version of the comic, corrected later)<br />
|-<br />
| 52 || Click to skip captchas || No || Older people might have more difficulty understanding [[:Category:CAPTCHA|captchas]]. Also, they could be more inconvenienced because some older people move more slowly, so it would take them longer to move the mouse, and people would care more about older people anyway. However, this would be impractical to implement because if the computer knew the person's age, it would know that the user is a person, not a bot, so there would be no point in a captcha anyway.<br />
|-<br />
| 55 || Vote for God-Empress || No || It appears that a person must have knowledge of the existence of the God-Empress for ten years before they are sufficiently qualified to elect a new one. Since the God-Empress is (presumably) in power for life, it is likely that most people would have to wait much longer than ten years.<br />
|-<br />
| 62 || $80 national parks lifetime pass || Yes || The US National Parks Service has a [https://www.nps.gov/planyourvisit/passes.htm lifetime membership pass] for Americans ages 62 and over, which allows access to national parks and other areas managed by the NPS.<br />
|-<br />
| 65 || Eligible for Medicare || Yes || {{w|Medicare (United States)|Medicare}} is a US government-run health insurance for older people, and indeed begins eligibility at age 65 for the general public.<br />
|-<br />
| 67 || Collect Social Security || Yes || {{w|Social Security (United States)|Social Security}} is a system of benefits for retired individuals, disabled persons and widows/widowers. U.S. individuals may collect reduced Social Security benefits starting at age 62, and they can collect increased Social Security benefits if they wait until age 70. 67 is considered "Full Retirement Age." There is some debate about whether one would be better off waiting or taking it right away, but for most people Full Retirement Age (67) is at least close to optimal.<br />
|-<br />
| 68 || See "Skip ads" button on live TV|| No || Some DVRs and streaming applications have a feature to skip over commercial breaks in recorded programs, but this could not be available in live TV, since it would require jumping forward in time. Time travel is currently impossible.{{citation needed}}<br />
|-<br />
| 70 || Run for God-Empress || No || The name suggests that this would also only be available to women.<br />
|-<br />
| 75 || Ride any animal in a national park || No || The National Parks Service probably could institute this relatively safely because most people over 75 would not be able to run fast enough to outrun/catch up to an animal and mount it{{Citation needed}} and would not have the rebellious/risk-taking/adventurous streak that would incline them to try.{{Citation needed}}<br />
|-<br />
| 80 || Eligible for Megacare || No || This is based on becoming eligible for Medicare at age 65.<br />
|-<br />
| 85 || Click to toggle whether an ad is positive or negative about the product || No || In line with previous milestones regarding advertisements, this implies the ability to control reality and change the mood of the ad one is watching as it is running. obviously, this is impossible, but could potentially be pulled off by adding an option to change the ad to another ad about the same product, but with the opposite viewpoint of the product. Ignoring the issue that ads that are just negative about a specific target don't tend to be commissioned. Except perhaps in certain areas of political campaigning.<br />
|-<br />
| 90 || Click to make any movie R-rated || No || It is unclear whether this would actually make the movie less appropriate or change the Motion Picture Association's rating to be erroneous. Also, what if the rating was previously NC-17?<br />
|-<br />
| 100 || Get a letter from the president || No || In the US (which other milestones, such as running for president starting at age 35, indicate is the country being referred to), you can instead get [https://www.today.com/series/today-celebrates/celebrate-today-ask-al-roker-wish-your-loved-ones-happy-t69606 congratulated] by the weatherman ({{w|Al Roker}}) on the {{w|Today (American TV program)|Today Show}}. However, the United Kingdom is much closer. People there can [https://www.royal.uk/anniversary-messages-0 apply to receive a card] (formerly a telegram, later a TeleMessage) from the Queen on their 100th birthday. <br />
|-<br />
| 102 || (35+67) Collect a presidential pension || No || The idea behind this joke is that it is the minimum age of presidency plus the minimal age to collect Social Security. There are several reasons why this must be a joke. Two are that Social Security begins 67 years after the person was born, not 67 years after the person's job started, and that the United States government would not bother to set up such a system because the vast majority of people, including former presidents, do not live to 102 years old. In fact, as of 2022, no former United States president has ever lived to 102 years old. The current oldest former U.S. President is Jimmy Carter at 97. Good luck Jimmy, only 5 more years!<br />
|-<br />
| 105 || Get a birthday card from the God-Empress || No || Being a God-Empress would be more important than being the leader of a single country. This would make the God-Empress's time more valuable, so she only has to send a birthday card to the few people who reach the age of 105. Contrariwise, the God-Empress is presumptively all-powerful and furthermore capable of delegation of ministerial tasks such as card transmission, so the utilitarian fact that the scarcity of 105-year-old people reduces workload is not a plausible justification.<br />
|-<br />
| 111 || Leave your own birthday party early by putting on a magic ring || No || This is a reference to the Lord of the Rings where Bilbo leaves his eleventy-first birthday party (the Bilbo Baggins Farewell Birthday Party) invisibly by using The One Ring.<br />
|-<br />
| 118 || Vote 100 times || No || Presumably a joke meaning the person can now cast 100 votes, for each election issue that a younger person can only vote for once, giving their opinion a vastly increased personal weight (or subtlety, if they vote more across the board than merely grant 100 votes to the same outcome), although it may not greatly change the result unless sufficient voters exist (of a like mind) to disproportionately swing the result towards the result desired more by these elder voters than their one-vote juniors.<br />
It is the 100th anniversary of their having (potentially) first voted, and as such is a century milestone. But if there were exactly one election at the same time each year, the first vote on or after their birthday would actually be the 101st vote the person has been eligible to cast in their lifetime. If the sole election of each year were held at a different time of each year, someone who voted in every election might vote for the 100th time at either age 116, 117, or 118. However this milestone would happen earlier because there are often multiple elections per year, e.g., primaries, general elections and possibly runoffs. There may also be several reasons why the person may not have been given the opportunity to vote every year since they were 18, e.g. prior to the {{w|Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|women's suffrage}} being officially ratified barely 100 years ago, but most importantly that the mandated minimum voting age was 21 until {{w|Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution|much more recently}}.<br />
|-<br />
| 120 || Collect the pensions of all elected officials || No || <br />
|-<br />
| 125 || Drink alcohol in an R-rated movie while getting a shingles vaccine from the president || No || This entry references four earlier milestones (attending an R-rated movie, drinking alcohol, becoming President, and getting the shingles vaccine) whose corresponding ages (17, 21, 35, and 50) sum to 123. While not exactly 125, this may have contributed to the inspiration or age selection of this milestone. <br />
|-<br />
| 128 || Age rolls over, become a baby again || No || {{w|Integer overflow}} happens in computers when there are not enough bits (binary digits) to store the result of a calculation, and typically happens in computers at a given power of two, such as 128. An unsigned 7-bit number can hold the values 0 to 127 (127 being 2<sup>7</sup> - 1) and an attempt to go beyond 127 will overflow, also called rollover, back to zero. 7-bit numbers are not common native values in today's computers. For the more usual unsigned integers of one byte (8 bits), the correct rollover number would be 256. <br />
<br />
A signed 8-bit number uses the first bit to allow the value from the remaining seven to be negative, the value 128 would become either -128 or -0, depending upon implementation. In its most practical form, a signed 8-bit number can hold values from -128 to 127 and when calculating 127+1 (the binary value 01111111 changing to 10000000) the value is -128 due to the {{w|Two's Complement}} method of having the sign-bit represent the most negative value possible, which is generally a more utilitarian method than the 'simpler' method of using it to indicate the positivity/negativity of the value. Either way, though, this means you could have a weird experience of your next phase of life, as your age now is interpreted as successive negative values if the incrementing algorithm and the interpreting algorithm are not thinking about the raw bits in the same way, or at least flagging up the overflow as having happened. <br />
<br />
However, maybe the system uses just 7 bits (the 8th bit often used to be reserved for parity, or other flagging purposes, and otherwise stripped/ignored) if it has never before needed an eighth bit and this had once seemed like a sufficient form of data-packing with no expectation that this limit would be reached. Computers using such systems would have a Y2K-analogous bug once someone actually reached 128 years old, where anomalous processing might indicate the person to be a baby (or fail in other ways). But that would not have happened yet.<br />
<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
The title text mentions {{w|Jeanne Calment}}, who holds the record for the oldest person ever (there are biblical references to older people, such as {{w|Methuselah}}, who supposedly lived to 969, but their ages haven't been verified). She reportedly was age 122 when she died in 1997. There's some controversy whether Calment actually claimed her mother's records, including birth certificate, as her own. "Editing wars" have been fought over her Wikipedia page. Randall claims that if you match her age you get sole editorial control over that article. However, if anyone managed to exceed her achieved age, presumably they would get their own page (albeit that they should not be encouraged to {{w|Wikipedia:Editing Your Own Page|edit it}} themselves) and hers would cease to be as interesting - although that might depend on what use is made of the unparalleled editorial control now granted.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
<br />
<big>Age Milestones</big><br><br />
and associated privileges<br />
<br />
16&nbsp; Drive<br><br />
17&nbsp; Attend R-rated movies alone<br><br />
18&nbsp; Vote<br><br />
21&nbsp; Buy alcohol<br><br />
25&nbsp; Rent a car<br><br />
32&nbsp; Run for senate<br><br />
35&nbsp; Run for president<br><br />
40&nbsp; Rent a flying car<br><br />
45&nbsp; Learn about the God-Empress<br><br />
50&nbsp; Join AARP<br><br />
50&nbsp; Get a shingles vaccine<br><br />
52&nbsp; Click to skip captchas<br><br />
55&nbsp; Vote for God-Empress<br><br />
62&nbsp; $80 National parks lifetime pass<br><br />
65&nbsp; Eligible for Medicare<br><br />
67&nbsp; Collect Social Security<br><br />
68&nbsp; See "Skip Ads" button on live TV<br><br />
70&nbsp; Run for God-Empress<br><br />
75&nbsp; Ride any animal in a national park<br><br />
80&nbsp; Eligible for MegaCare<br><br />
85&nbsp; Click to toggle whether any ad is positive or negative about the product<br><br />
90&nbsp; Click to make any movie R-rated<br><br />
100&nbsp; Get a letter from the president<br><br />
102&nbsp; (35+67) Collect a presidential pension<br><br />
105&nbsp; Get a birthday card from the God-Empress<br><br />
111&nbsp; Leave your own birthday party early by putting on a magic ring<br><br />
118&nbsp; Vote 100 times<br><br />
120&nbsp; Collect the pensions of all elected officials<br><br />
125&nbsp; Drink alcohol in an R-rated movie while getting a shingles vaccine from the president<br><br />
128&nbsp; Age rolls over, become a baby again<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:CAPTCHA]]<br />
[[Category:Politics]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]] <!-- Jeanne Calment --><br />
[[Category:Wikipedia]]</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2662:_Physics_Safety_Tip&diff=293317Talk:2662: Physics Safety Tip2022-08-23T09:09:08Z<p>172.70.85.5: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
<br />
To be fair, many physicists are excited about habitable planets. And fluid dynamics, which would include Earth's atmosphere and hydrosphere. A friend's son is a "condensed matter" physicist, meaning he studies ordinary matter. [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 02:42, 23 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
When I was an undergraduate, the diamond press was exciting - it creates the pressures near the core of the Earth - being a hydaulic press it was very sensitive to temperature, it was the only air conditioned lab in te building. made it quite popular on summer days. [[User:Arachrah|Arachrah]] ([[User talk:Arachrah|talk]]) 08:14, 23 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I had to laugh more from the explanation than from the comic. Kudos! [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 06:36, 23 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
"They have thoroughly studied everything there is to study about these ordinary conditions" is, er, a bold claim.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.5|172.70.85.5]] 09:09, 23 August 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2661:_Age_Milestone_Privileges&diff=293150Talk:2661: Age Milestone Privileges2022-08-20T00:23:31Z<p>172.70.85.5: </p>
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<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
Who is God empress?{{unsigned ip|172.68.50.207|23:05, 19 August 2022}}<br />
:I reminds me of the God-empress of Missouri from an earlier comic about nested WWII speculation.{{unsigned ip|172.69.69.207|23:17, 19 August 2022}}<br />
: The age to learn about Her Majesty, the God-empress is accurate, you kids will just think he's joking before you turn 45 and hear Her voice in your head.{{unsigned ip|162.158.62.167|23:56, 19 August 2022}}<br />
<br />
The age must be stored in a 7 bit number because it wraps back to zero when 128 is reached. - Brian K {{unsigned ip|172.70.174.159|23:52, 19 August 2022}}<br />
:''(Hey, you eager lot, you've all forgotten to (''properly'', if at all) sign your discussion contributions...)''<br />
:...if it were 8-bit signed, unchecked bitwise rollover could be awkward. Especially in 1's Compliment. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.5|172.70.85.5]] 00:23, 20 August 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2659:_Unreliable_Connection&diff=2931122659: Unreliable Connection2022-08-19T02:37:40Z<p>172.70.85.5: /* Explanation */ The (now not revertable) editor that changed "eleven On and one Off" to "twelve On and one Off" clearly made the same error that I nearly made at one point yesterday. Expanding to qualify without so much ambiguity.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2659<br />
| date = August 15, 2022<br />
| title = Unreliable Connection<br />
| image = unreliable_connection.png<br />
| titletext = NEGATIVE REVIEWS MENTION: Unreliable internet. POSITIVE REVIEWS MENTION: Unreliable internet.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by ROUND TRIP LATENCY BACKOFF. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
In today's world, the Internet, pervasive mobile technology and the COVID pandemic have all caused an implicit expectation for many people to be available all hours of the day, whether for work or social communications, even when on vacation. In this comic, [[Randall]] addresses the issue with a deliberately suboptimal internet device that drops Internet connectivity intermittently and at unpredictable intervals, thereby causing activities that require a constant, uninterrupted connection to be unusable. The device appears to be an internet {{w|modem}} connected to an automated version of a {{w|Galton board}} or {{w|Jin Akiyama}}'s mathematical {{w|pachinko}} machine[https://arxiv.org/pdf/1601.05706.pdf] with a series of twelve switches at the bottom to be pressed by falling balls, eleven that would turn the equipment "on" and one <br />
that can turn it "off". This solves the social problem of demands for the likes of {{w|synchronous conferencing|synchronous teleconferencing}}, by causing {{w|Asynchronous communication|asynchronous}} methods of communication to be relatively more reliable and efficient for personal use. <br />
<br />
This is funny because such a device could likely much more easily be implemented in the {{w|firmware}} of the internet or WiFi modem or {{w|Router (computing)|router}}s. (See [[1785: Wifi]] for an explanation of firmware.) It's not clear whether the switches merely interrupt the connection momentarily or control power to the modem, which would involve a much longer booting sequence. The "unreliable" connection provides an excuse to be unavailable for work or social calls, and thus free to enjoy one's vacation. However the device also allows the user to have a fast internet connection most of the time, enabling them to use it for leisure purposes, such as downloading movies for entertainment, or to connect with others on one's own terms. It thus retains most of the benefit of a good connection.<br />
<br />
The probability of a ball hitting the "off" switch is 165/2048, or about 8%, assuming the machine is ordinary [https://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2018/8817/pdf/LIPIcs-FUN-2018-26.pdf], because it's in the ninth position. We don't know the frequency with which new balls are dropped, so we can't estimate the frequency at which the device is likely to trigger {{w|Session Initiation Protocol}}, {{w|Transmission Control Protocol}}, or similar {{w|Timeout (computing)|timeout}} conditions that would likely close synchronous {{w|VOIP}}, video conferencing, and e.g. {{w|VRChat}} connections. Even if such connections were to survive the induced service interruptions, the {{w|application layer}} call or teleconference quality would suffer during them. The device may cause interruptions rarely enough that the connection is usable for casual purposes, but the user can still reasonably claim that it's unreliable to get out of online obligations.<br />
<br />
The title text reflects on today's increasingly always-connected world, where emphasis may be changing from finding rare vacation spots that have reliable internet, to now finding somewhere worthwhile to go that still doesn't have it. It could also be a comment on the mild paradox that a nominally unreliable internet connection has advantages for those whose communication schedule, volume, or style preferences make synchronous teleconferencing less practical, desirable, or both. The reviews for the new vacation spot indicate that disconnections are found to be both desirable and undesirable, possibly even by the same person.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
:[There are twelve switches under an automated Galton board or pachinko machine, eleven of which are linked to a large item marked "on" but the ninth of which is linked to one marked "off", apparently controlling the operation of a modem connected to a gigabit data-cable and also connected onwards to a WiFi router. There is a supply of balls in a hopper above the board, with the triangular configuration of pins directing the balls chaotically to one or other of the switches, as shown by a single released ball and a motion path partially showing how it had rebounded from around half-way down until after hitting and rebounding away off a bottom-layer "on" switch.]<br />
<br />
:[Caption below the panel]:<br />
:My new vacation spot has very fast internet that turns off randomly every now and then, just so you can tell people you'll be staying somewhere without a reliable connection.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Internet]]<br />
[[Category:Social interactions]]</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2658:_Coffee_Cup_Holes&diff=2929972658: Coffee Cup Holes2022-08-17T10:28:11Z<p>172.70.85.5: /* Philosopher */ Grammar tweaks (presuming I understand the intent) and reduced repetition (hopefully retaining the meaning).</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2658<br />
| date = August 12, 2022<br />
| title = Coffee Cup Holes<br />
| image = coffee_cup_holes.png<br />
| titletext = Theoretical physicist: At the Planck length, uncountably many.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a CAFFEINE MOLECULE WITH A HOLE DRILLED IN ITS SIDE. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
This comic depicts people in different fields of study answering the question, "How many holes are there in a coffee cup?" and also compares this to what a normal person would say. <br />
<br />
This question has different interpretations, entirely dependent upon the definition of a hole. The type of {{w|coffee cup}} shown in the comic is with a handle (like a {{w|mug}}), but [[Randall]] calls it a cup and there are also cups with handles on the Wikipedia page for coffee cups. Most people would recognize that there is a hole through the handle. <br />
<br />
The comic explores the answer to the question through several peoples’ avenues of thought:<br />
<br />
===Topologist===<br />
[[File:Mug and Torus morph.gif|thumb|200px|The coffee mug and donut shown in this animation both have topological genus one.]]<br />
[[Ponytail]], a {{w|topology|topologist}}, states the coffee cup belongs in the {{w|Genus (mathematics)#Topology|genus}} of one hole. From the topologist's point of view, the coffee cup definitely has one hole, which corresponds to the opening created by the cup handle. A cup without a handle would have zero holes, as it is equivalent to a dinner plate, just an indentation in the surface. See [[2625: Field Topology]] for more information about topology.<br />
<br />
The panel as a whole references an academic joke wherein topologists can't tell the difference between a coffee cup (with handle) and a {{w|doughnut}} since they're {{w|Homeomorphism|homeomorphic}} to each other — meaning they have the same genus (i.e one hole). <br />
<br />
===“Normal” person===<br />
[[Hairy]], representing a "normal person," is not sure (the acronym "IDK" stands for "I don't know") and asks for clarification about whether the opening at the top counts as a hole. This shows flaws in the question, which suffers from the mathematically imprecise, ambiguous common usage of the word "hole." Topologists would refer to the opening as a concavity, not a hole, and while they consider such geometrical properties generally outside their field, most practical applications of topology do involve geometric components. By contrast, in everyday usage many concavities are called holes, such as a hole dug into dirt with a shovel. Hairy would say one for the handle, and two if the opening counts as a hole, which he is not certain the one asking the question thinks.<br />
<br />
===Philosopher===<br />
[[Hairbun]], a philosopher, answers the question with an elucidating counter-question, considering a hypothetical scenario. One might expect that drilling a new hole would also increase the number of holes by one. However, as illustrated, some people would consider that the new arrangement has three holes (in addition to the handle, there is a hole at the top where coffee can be poured in, and one at the bottom where it can run out), while others would consider it to have only two (the new hole forming a continuous hole with the original opening at the top, through which coffee can run). Some might in fact say that the coffee cup now has one hole because it is leaky, disregarding the handle topology at this point. In this way she requires her interlocutor to confront the ambiguities and consider what they mean by the word 'hole' in different contexts. An interesting point about Hairbun's response is that she doesn't actually answer the question, a trope often found in philosophical replies.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Point cloud torus.gif|thumb|left|200px|A point cloud of a genus one surface]]<br />
<br />
===Chemist===<br />
[[Cueball]], a chemist, looks at the coffee in the cup on a molecular level. He envisions a {{w|ball-and-stick model}} of the {{w|caffeine}} molecules in the coffee, and estimates a total number of holes of all the coffee molecules. He comes up with a truly massive number: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (10<sup>21</sup> or 1 sextillion) “in the [https://chemapps.stolaf.edu/jmol/jmol.php?model=CN1C%3DNC2%3DC1C%28%3DO%29N%28C%28%3DO%29N2C%29C caffeine] alone.” One molecule of caffeine has two rings of bonds with holes in them, multiplied by 500 quintillion molecules, or 0.00083 {{w|mole (unit)|moles}}. As the molecular mass of caffeine is about 194 grams per mole, [[Randall]] must think that the mass of caffeine in a typical cup of coffee is 161 milligrams. The coffee could have other holes, depending on the type of coffee; for example, espresso contains significant amounts of niacin and riboflavin, which have one and three rings in their chemical structure, respectively.<br />
<br />
This estimation depends on taking the ball-and-stick model of molecules somewhat literally. However, real molecular bonds are not solid sticks, but shared electron clouds between atoms. The "holes" in the middle of a molecule's rings are not completely empty but instead merely have lower electron probability density through the middle than other parts of the bonds. So the point-cloud duality of {{w|Bonding molecular orbital|electron orbitals and bonds}} might not satisfy a topologist's, normal person's, or philosopher's criteria for a connected substrate in which holes may be formed.<br />
<br />
===Theoretical physicist===<br />
[[Image:World lines and world sheet.svg|thumb|200px|{{w|String theory}} describes the {{w|worldline}}s of point-like particles as {{w|worldsheet}}s of "closed strings," forming topological holes; shown here as a genus two surface.]]<br />
In the title text, a theoretical physicist looks even deeper, at the subatomic scale of {{w|Planck units}}. Since fundamental particle interaction is governed by fundamental forces and collision (per the {{w|Pauli exclusion principle}}) instead of tensile or ductile solid connectedness, the theoretical physicist posits that any definition providing for a single hole would also describe a number of holes akin to the factorial of the number of particles in the universe,[https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-02341882/document] or at least within the cup's {{w|light cone}}, which is a number impractical to accurately count, but not uncountable in a mathematical sense.<br />
<br />
=== Practical considerations ===<br />
The main joke is that the number of holes depends on both the scale and perspective from which you are looking at the world. From a topological standpoint, when someone digs into the ground it should go all the way through (or easier, down and up again another place) before it is considered a hole, since a hole is something that some other thing should be able to pass through. But from a common usage perspective, if people dig in the ground the result is called a hole, because functionally it creates a discontinuity in to which, for example, things can be placed or fall. Similarly, the opening in a coffee cup (without a handle) or a bottle of beer is called a hole, even though they are topologically equivalent to a dinner plate, which normal people would never say had a hole.<br />
<br />
A cavity in a surface could also be considered a physical barrier, preventing movement along the surface in certain scenarios (e.g. a {{w|sinkhole}} opening up in the middle of a road) even though it may topologically 'flat' in the most general way, and so is very open to context, and such a hole might be considered more a 'thing' than the surface that has been removed to create it. And the 'hole' in a vessel that is functionally useful to hold liquid (or the drilled one that removes that ability) is of a different nature to the holes in various of the molecules that ''are'' the liquid but are neither required nor counter-productive in the general liquid-holding capabilities of the container, as are not the holes in the planck-length model, except insofar as the general physical laws of reality. Conversely, this conceptual confusion over what a hole is or actually means can be seen in the idea of the {{w|portable hole}}, which tends to obey ({{w|Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner|or defy}}!) the owner's particular preconceptions or needs.<br />
<br />
The topological discussion here regarding cups and doughnuts is related to the question of how many holes there are in a human, which is excellently answered in Vsauce's video<br />
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egEraZP9yXQ How Many Holes Does a Human Have?]. This also takes a god look at the topological difference between a paper cup and a mug with handle.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[The first panel has text only and is phrasing a question:]<br />
:<big>Q:</big><br />
:How many holes are there in a coffee cup?<br />
<br />
:[Each of the next four panels has a caption at the top to indicate the kind of person answering the question. In the first of these Ponytail stands holding a coffee cup in its handle.]<br />
:Caption: Topologist<br />
:Ponytail: One.<br />
<br />
:[In the next panel Hairy stands to the right of Ponytail, holding the coffee cup in its handle at an angle so he can to look into it.]<br />
:Caption: Normal person<br />
:Hairy: IDK, does the opening count as a hole?<br />
<br />
:[In the next panel Hairbun is shown in closeup, holding her hand out palm up to indicate two drawings of coffee cups with handles to her left. The top drawing is larger and shows the cup with coffee inside, and a hole drilled at the bottom part of the side away from the handle. Coffee pours out of this hole. Beneath and further left is a smaller version of the same cup, but now without coffee. Instead two curved arrows goes from above to below through the hole of the handle and the hole now drilled in the bottom part of the cup. Each arrow is labeled with a question-mark.]<br />
:Caption: Philosopher<br />
:Hairbun: To answer that question, consider another: If we drill a hole in the side, how many holes are there now?<br />
:?<br />
:?<br />
<br />
:[Cueball, without any cup, stands with a drawing of a caffeine molecule above and to the right of him. It has two "rings" with 5 and 6 atoms. Those rings are connected along one side. There are 9 "edges" on this, three of those has one atom attached to it and 3 others have four atoms attached to them (one atom with three others attached). The two that are at the end of the edge that belongs to both rings have no atoms attached, and the final of the 9 also has no atom.]<br />
:Caption: Chemist<br />
:Cueball: 10<sup>21</sup> in the caffeine alone<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Food]]<br />
[[Category:Math]]<br />
[[Category:Chemistry]]<br />
[[Category:Philosophy]]<br />
[[Category:Physics]]</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2659:_Unreliable_Connection&diff=292930Talk:2659: Unreliable Connection2022-08-16T15:02:28Z<p>172.70.85.5: </p>
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I don’t think this has anything to do with teleconferencing. Am I missing something? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.81|172.70.214.81]] 22:46, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Yes. The impliction is that people are expecting you to be available for online communications, and you can use the unreliable Internet connection as an excuse to get out of it. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 22:51, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::I think it's more about communication in general. He doesn't want anybody calling him or sending him emails, so by saying he has an "unreliable" connection people might assume it will be hard to get in touch with him.<br />
:::Back in the day, email was usually configured so that it could easily overcome such unreliability, and it's still doable,[https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/running-from-home/6459/7] but today email for most people is a web or local client-server app, as opposed to a local mail store in a peer-to-peer app. Even people in urban areas can suffer unreliable internet, when squirrels or backhoes gnaw through data cables, copper theives strike, or 5G mind control base stations are congested. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.143|172.70.210.143]] 23:45, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:::This could equally cover other instant communication methods where your availability is advertised (e.g. Whatsapp). It could also be about alleviating the social pressure the subject feels to continuously check and immediately respond to messages (including emails), because the immediacy is already hindered by the spotty connection (cf the standard "I will have limited access to email" out of office line, which gives the account owner psychological permission to check it infrequently). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.5|172.70.85.5]] 09:02, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
According to a PhET simulator (https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/plinko-probability/latest/plinko-probability_en.html) for this situation, the ideal standard deviation is 1.732 and ideal mean is 6. I don’t feel like doing the calculations :P [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.134|172.70.211.134]] 23:34, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:If we assume 50-50 for each bounce, the probability that internet is off will be about (11 choose 3)/(2^11), or 8%.--[[User:Account|Account]] ([[User talk:Account|talk]]) 23:51, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::My first thought was, why so complicated? ''If'' each of the twelve switches is equally (and solely) likely to be struck by each ball, it's (100/12)% of the time, or 8⅓%.<br />
::Although the equal-chance is wrong, so you're definitely doing "end up with exactly 7 bounce rights and 3 bounce lefts, but in any combination" or similar are you? I'd have summed it differently, though. And not sure where the choose ''3'' comes in... Just one bounce left off any row-end pin 11 sends to 11 if all others bounce right. Three bounces left hits switch 9, not eight. If I'm counting correctly. Or am I doing telegraph-poles/wires miscounting?<br />
::Too early in the morning for me to untangle. The only thing I'm sure about is your division by 2^11 (how many total paths there are to get down). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.78|172.70.91.78]] 05:00, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:::Me again. I hadn't checked that the transcript (which said it was switch #8) was correct. Have now, and found it to be wrong. Have hence also just corrected the Transcript. So I'm gonna assume your 11-choose-3 is entirely correct after all. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.78|172.70.91.78]] 05:08, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
To whomever did [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2659:_Unreliable_Connection&diff=292862&oldid=292861], doesn't [https://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2018/8817/pdf/LIPIcs-FUN-2018-26.pdf] prove that symmetrical configurations nearly identical to those shown can produce uniform distributions? They seem to show it's just a matter of horizontal pin spacing. However, I for one can not verify the proof, which uses unusual (novel?) non-Unicode math notation, and a fairly opaque method of proof. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.134|172.70.211.134]] 00:07, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Not sure, but [https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%87%98%E8%AA%BF%E6%95%B4 this Japanese Wikipedia article] is fascinating. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.213|172.70.206.213]] 01:51, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
What is the chance that the ball will bounce off the first pin, go down the outside of the pins and miss all the switches?<br />
:Probably quite high if it's a bouncy ball. With idealized physics though it'd just hit the leftmost/rightmost switch. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.254.127|172.70.254.127]] 00:45, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I would describe the device as a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galton_board. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.230.109|172.70.230.109]] 00:30, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I was watching the photo and hover-over text and the image disappeared and "Unreliable Connection" showed up in its place. I don't know how often this happens.<br />
: Very neat if not a fluke! Can anyone replicate this experience on https://xkcd.com ? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.134|172.70.211.134]] 14:21, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
"An added source of humour is that Randall could likely achieve the same effect by looking through the router's settings - which most modern ones have a feature to turn on and off at scheduled times - or via purchasing a smart power strip." But by using these other methods, the connection would still be reliable. If it goes out at regular or pre-scheduled intervals then you know when it will be available or not, hence reliable. I think the joke here is that the contraption does in fact make the connection unreliable. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.77|172.70.114.77]] 14:18, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
: Addressed at [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2659:_Unreliable_Connection&diff=292926&oldid=292924]. [[User:Liv2splain|Liv2splain]] ([[User talk:Liv2splain|talk]]) 14:44, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:(Edit conflicted by at least the above, but my answer to the same question...) From a user POV, unless they happen to know that at 11:53 each day (and 12:14, 15:02, 15:07, 16:31, etc...) the scheduler disables tracfic for one (or two, or three) minutes, it is still unreliable, if ultimately predictable ''once you know'' the schedule, having seen it go round a few times and taken note. Similarly a timered power-strip could be used (or even several, in serial, the two or three daily interventions by the first also stopping and delaying the subsequent strips' interventions, making their timings uneven, further down the chain) and until you got the pattern it might as well be 'random', not entirely deterministic. (I'm wondering about some OR-gate-like/etc implementation, so power can pass by at least one parallel timer-shut-off to maintain power at the lower levels while ''some'' mid-way timers get depowered and thus 'shuffled' in interesting ways, and the resulting single output is governed by an intricate multi-dependent set of routes, but I bet an electrician would be wary about wiring that up...)<br />
:You could hack (or patch) the management firmware to be a bit more (pseudo)random about it, though it would still be pseudorandom LFSR/Xorshift with a (long) repetition cycle.<br />
:Or make it dependant upon an external factor (if the modulo 12 of the cumulative sum of all observed packet-destination IPs is zero, shut off for the five times the prior modulo 12 test value, in seconds..?), but that's ''practically'' the pachinko solution but with software hacking rather than hardware-making/hacking as per the comic.<br />
:More effort is needed to make it ultimately unpredictable, but it can still be considered unreliable if it goes out just when you 'want' it.... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.5|172.70.85.5]] 15:02, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
For real though, isn't this kind of a good idea? [[User:Fephisto|Fephisto]] ([[User talk:Fephisto|talk]]) 14:34, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Talk to edtech people in the {{w|MOOC}} space and they will tell you asynchronous is worth it, but talk to people who study educational quality factors like time to receive answers to unanticipated questions, and they will have different ideas. [[User:Liv2splain|Liv2splain]] ([[User talk:Liv2splain|talk]]) 14:44, 16 August 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2659:_Unreliable_Connection&diff=292912Talk:2659: Unreliable Connection2022-08-16T09:02:24Z<p>172.70.85.5: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
<br />
I don’t think this has anything to do with teleconferencing. Am I missing something? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.81|172.70.214.81]] 22:46, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Yes. The impliction is that people are expecting you to be available for online communications, and you can use the unreliable Internet connection as an excuse to get out of it. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 22:51, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::I think it's more about communication in general. He doesn't want anybody calling him or sending him emails, so by saying he has an "unreliable" connection people might assume it will be hard to get in touch with him.<br />
:::Back in the day, email was usually configured so that it could easily overcome such unreliability, and it's still doable,[https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/running-from-home/6459/7] but today email for most people is a web or local client-server app, as opposed to a local mail store in a peer-to-peer app. Even people in urban areas can suffer unreliable internet, when squirrels or backhoes gnaw through data cables, copper theives strike, or 5G mind control base stations are congested. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.143|172.70.210.143]] 23:45, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:::This could equally cover other instant communication methods where your availability is advertised (e.g. Whatsapp). It could also be about alleviating the social pressure the subject feels to continuously check and immediately respond to messages (including emails), because the immediacy is already hindered by the spotty connection (cf the standard "I will have limited access to email" out of office line, which gives the account owner psychological permission to check it infrequently). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.5|172.70.85.5]] 09:02, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
According to a PhET simulator (https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/plinko-probability/latest/plinko-probability_en.html) for this situation, the ideal standard deviation is 1.732 and ideal mean is 6. I don’t feel like doing the calculations :P [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.134|172.70.211.134]] 23:34, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:If we assume 50-50 for each bounce, the probability that internet is off will be about (11 choose 3)/(2^11), or 8%.--[[User:Account|Account]] ([[User talk:Account|talk]]) 23:51, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::My first thought was, why so complicated? ''If'' each of the twelve switches is equally (and solely) likely to be struck by each ball, it's (100/12)% of the time, or 8⅓%.<br />
::Although the equal-chance is wrong, so you're definitely doing "end up with exactly 7 bounce rights and 3 bounce lefts, but in any combination" or similar are you? I'd have summed it differently, though. And not sure where the choose ''3'' comes in... Just one bounce left off any row-end pin 11 sends to 11 if all others bounce right. Three bounces left hits switch 9, not eight. If I'm counting correctly. Or am I doing telegraph-poles/wires miscounting?<br />
::Too early in the morning for me to untangle. The only thing I'm sure about is your division by 2^11 (how many total paths there are to get down). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.78|172.70.91.78]] 05:00, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:::Me again. I hadn't checked that the transcript (which said it was switch #8) was correct. Have now, and found it to be wrong. Have hence also just corrected the Transcript. So I'm gonna assume your 11-choose-3 is entirely correct after all. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.78|172.70.91.78]] 05:08, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
To whomever did [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2659:_Unreliable_Connection&diff=292862&oldid=292861], doesn't [https://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2018/8817/pdf/LIPIcs-FUN-2018-26.pdf] prove that symmetrical configurations nearly identical to those shown can produce uniform distributions? They seem to show it's just a matter of horizontal pin spacing. However, I for one can not verify the proof, which uses unusual (novel?) non-Unicode math notation, and a fairly opaque method of proof. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.134|172.70.211.134]] 00:07, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Not sure, but [https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%87%98%E8%AA%BF%E6%95%B4 this Japanese Wikipedia article] is fascinating. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.213|172.70.206.213]] 01:51, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
What is the chance that the ball will bounce off the first pin, go down the outside of the pins and miss all the switches?<br />
:Probably quite high if it's a bouncy ball. With idealized physics though it'd just hit the leftmost/rightmost switch. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.254.127|172.70.254.127]] 00:45, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I would describe the device as a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galton_board. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.230.109|172.70.230.109]] 00:30, 16 August 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2659:_Unreliable_Connection&diff=2929112659: Unreliable Connection2022-08-16T08:55:36Z<p>172.70.85.5: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2659<br />
| date = August 15, 2022<br />
| title = Unreliable Connection<br />
| image = unreliable_connection.png<br />
| titletext = NEGATIVE REVIEWS MENTION: Unreliable internet. POSITIVE REVIEWS MENTION: Unreliable internet.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by ROUND TRIP LATENCY BACKOFF. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
In this comic, [[Randall]] solves the social problem of demands for {{w|synchronous conferencing|synchronous teleconferencing}} with a deliberately less than optimal internet device that causes {{w|Asynchronous communication|asynchronous}} methods of communication to be relatively more reliable and efficient for personal use. The device appears to be an automated version of a {{w|Galton board}} or {{w|Jin Akiyama}}'s mathematical {{w|pachinko}} machine[https://arxiv.org/pdf/1601.05706.pdf] with a series of eleven "on" and one "off" switches at the bottom to be pressed by falling balls. This is funny because such a device could likely much more easily be implemented in the {{w|firmware}} of the internet or WiFi {{w|modem}} or {{w|Router (computing)|router}}s. (See [[1785: Wifi]] for an explanation of firmware.) It's not clear whether the switches merely interrupt the connection momentarily or control power to the modem, which would involve a much longer booting sequence.<br />
<br />
The "unreliable" connection provides an excuse to be unavailable for work or social calls, and thus free to enjoy one's vacation. However the device also allows the user to have a fast internet connection most of the time, enabling them to use it for leisure purposes, such as downloading movies for entertainment, or to connect with others on one's own terms. It thus retains most of the benefit of a good connection.<br />
<br />
The probability of a ball hitting the "off" switch is 165/2048, or about 8%, assuming the machine is ordinary.[https://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2018/8817/pdf/LIPIcs-FUN-2018-26.pdf] We don't know the frequency with which new balls are dropped, so we can't estimate the frequency with which the device is likely to trigger {{w|Session Initiation Protocol}}, {{w|Transmission Control Protocol}}, or similar {{w|Timeout (computing)|timeout}} conditions that would likely close synchronous {{w|VOIP}}, video conferencing, and e.g. {{w|VRChat}} connections. Even if such connections were to survive the induced service interruptions, the {{w|application layer}} call or teleconference quality would suffer during them. The device may cause interruptions rarely enough that the connection is usable for casual purposes, but the user can still reasonably claim that it's unreliable to get out of online obligations.<br />
<br />
The title text reflects on today's increasingly always-connected world, where emphasis may be changing from finding rare vacation spots that have reliable internet, to show off the local facilities, to now actually finding somewhere worthwhile to go that still doesn't have it, as a {{wiktionary|humble-brag}} about the remoteness of the destination. It could also be a comment on the mild paradox that a nominally unreliable internet connection has advantages for those whose communication schedules, volume, or style preferences make synchronous teleconferencing less desirable. The reviews for the new vacation spot indicate that the 'unfortunate' disconnections are found to be both desirable and undesirable, possibly even by the same person.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
:[There are twelve switches under an automated Galton board or pachinko machine, eleven of which are linked to a large item marked "on" but the ninth of which is linked to one marked "off", apparently controlling the operation of a modem connected to a gigabit data-cable and also connected onwards to a WiFi router. There is a supply of balls in a hopper above the board, with the triangular configuration of pins directing the balls chaotically to one or other of the switches, as shown by a single released ball and a motion path partially showing how it had rebounded from around half-way down until after hitting and rebounding away off a bottom-layer switch.]<br />
<br />
:[Caption below the panel]:<br />
:My new vacation spot has very fast internet that turns off randomly every now and then, just so you can tell people you'll be staying somewhere without a reliable connection.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Internet]]<br />
[[Category:Social interactions]]</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2658:_Coffee_Cup_Holes&diff=292910Talk:2658: Coffee Cup Holes2022-08-16T08:52:35Z<p>172.70.85.5: </p>
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<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
I was confused for a moment. That's a coffee ''mug''. And the correct answer is either one (the handle) or none (because below the macroscopic level (and above the theoretical sub-Planck scale of string-theory loops) it's increasingly not even mostly holes but very, very barely anything 'solid' jostling about in empty space giving no real impediment to any theoretical quantum-scale cheesewire without even being cut through). A coffee ''cup'' has no holes (regardless) if you don't count any form of sippy-lid it might have. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.13|172.70.85.13]] 22:25, 12 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Actually, the mug has two at the macro level (the hole that makes up the handle and the hole on the top). There could conceivably be more shallow holes inside the mug where the handle connects to the cup. At a plank-length level, the atoms could be viewed as holes in the vacuum bending space time around it.<br />
::You're not a topologist, certainly. And a ''hydrogen-nucleus'' is approximately 10^20 times the planck-length. The whole atom on the order of 10,000 times larger, and the constiuent quarks 'only' 1,000th, or so, smaller, with the differences being the space betweenn that anything that cares isn't going to consider much of an obstruction. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.155|172.70.162.155]] 23:43, 12 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:There is no "hole" at the top - at best it count as an indention in the surface {{unsigned ip|172.70.211.134|23:38, 12 August 2022}}<br />
::Hole has multiple meanings. A hole in the ground doesn't have to go all the way through the Earth. The point of panel three is that we don't know what definition the question is using, which makes it impossible to answer correctly.[[User:Zzyzx|Zzyzx]] ([[User talk:Zzyzx|talk]]) 00:47, 13 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Do coffee “cups” not have handles wherever you are? Google image search shows white ceramic cups with rounded bottoms, wider than they are high, ''with round handles'' that a finger or two can pass through, on saucers; and that is indeed what I think of when I hear “coffee cup”. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_cup Wikipedia] shows similar examples in other colours and materials. In my understanding, it is entirely equivalent to a mug-with-a-handle topologically and has the same one hole. Oh, are you perhaps thinking of those cardboard cups you get from vending machines and cheap coffee shops? I wouldn’t call them “coffee cups” at all; just “paper cups”. [[User:Chortos-2|Chortos-2]] ([[User talk:Chortos-2|talk]]) 13:01, 13 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::For my part, "wider than tall and rounded (or even very tapered)" is a cup (it cups the liquid), hence "teacup", and they mostly do have handles, whilst the shape held in the comic is a mug for being more a height-dominant cylinder (or close to it). Topologically the same, but distinct in fully-fleshed form (at least for those of either not morphologically distorted towards the other, a tall cup or a wide mug, say).<br />
::A "paper cup that coffee comes in" (or a similar re-usable "cup-for-life") that does not have a handle is, however, always a ''cup'' even if it's taller than wide, for reasons clearly more descriptivist than prescriptivist in origin. There are no "paper mugs", that I'm aware of; I know you have plastic cup-holding things that give you a (re-usable) handle to hold the thing that the cup sits in so that you don't have to grip a thin, fragile and ''very heated'' disposable/vendable cup skin-on-'skin', but that's a holder for a cup and it's still a cup that it holds.<br />
::I have no compunction in calling the comic's container a mug, based entirely upon its appearance, though obviously applying my own cultural/learnt distinctions to this. YMMV. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.171|172.69.79.171]] 19:08, 13 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::In my experience, it's almost never possible to get even a single finger through the handle on one of those cups. So from a finger perspective they have no holes. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.223|172.70.90.223]] 10:19, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:::Where it ''does'' have a hole (rather than be a solid blade with a thick rim for ripping purposes) the intention is clearly to have the skin-on-skin between finger and thumb as a part of the grip-enhancement. As the hand is (ignoring blood vessels in its interior) not topologically a loop yet is touching then that qualifies the loop of plastic (however unnavigable by any whole digit) as a hole through which such contact can be made. Much more so than the fuss with what loops there are in an {{w|Alexander horned sphere}}, certainly.<br />
:::Contact between components ''may'' also count, especially as the typical 'basket' form of such a cup-holder (definite holes) is now part of the cup-assemblage unit leaving no (or even more insignificant) gaps where those holes were in the holder-alone. In which case you would indeed consider the pinched digits to be looped (finger/thumb/inter-digit-'webbing' forming the hole) and then the handle that they loop through to form a must ''in turn'' be a loop to go though the interossic(?)-hole that has a hole. Which may then topologically create a two-domain composite topology (both parts of which are genus-1-ish toroidality) for which I can't currently imagine the terminology. But it'd be interesting to look at the Borromean Rings object and work out what professional topologists think about ''that'' (three loops, none of which are individually linked to any of the other two, but they are inseperable from ''both'' of the other two). ...sorry, just idly musing about that, not sure it's entirely relevent to the coffee-mugs/etc here. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.13|172.70.85.13]] 12:23, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::::That may be the intention, but it's not the reality - to all intents and purposes the handle might as well be a solid blade in most cases. Also, plastic?? Philistine!! [Edit] Wait - I think you're talking about the things for use with coffee shop takeaways? I was responding to the earlier comment about round-bottomed china cups. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.77|172.70.162.77]] 12:59, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Randall uses Coffe Cup and those type of cups are shown on wikipedia for coffee cups, so we should use coffee cup in the explanation and I have corrected this and just mentions that it is a coffee cup of the Mug type. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:50, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Mug_and_Torus_morph.gif] [[Special:Contributions/172.70.179.4|172.70.179.4]] 23:54, 12 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
For something to be a hole, you need to consider what is capable of passing through the hole. For instance, a mesh screen might have no holes that my fingers can pass through, but it is full of holes for water or air to pass through. And while atoms might be mostly space, other atoms can't usually just pass through that space, although high-energy particles may. Also, the space can be considered filled with forces, which may act as barriers to certain things. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.130.171|172.70.130.171]] 00:36, 13 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Sure, for one definition of “hole.” That’s the whole point of the comic: there are multiple definitions, and no single definition is correct. [[User:Szeth Pancakes|Szeth Pancakes]] ([[User talk:Szeth Pancakes|talk]]) 01:01, 13 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Is “cup” or “mug” better for the explanation? “Mug” is a better descriptor, but it’s described as “cup” in the comic, so that would be more faithful to what Randall intended. [[User:Szeth Pancakes|Szeth Pancakes]] ([[User talk:Szeth Pancakes|talk]]) 01:25, 13 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Coffee Cup in the explanation with mention of Mug. I have done that --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:50, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Linguist: Zero to Two... mostly. Given linguistic variation and local functional style the object being referred to may not have a closed handle, or any handle at all (Cup vs Mug), and the top may be considered a hole in the common usage. --- [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.34|172.69.71.34]] 01:33, 13 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:You've left out the deep dark hole of despair at your existence that's reflected back at you if it's your first coffee of the day. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.223|172.70.90.223]] 10:24, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Part of the joke is that all five methods don't discern between a cup and a mug, the original cliché being that topologists are unusual because they don't. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.134|172.70.211.134]] 03:06, 13 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:All methods dicern and topologist especially notices the difference so this sentence makes no sense --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:50, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Someone should mention that part of the joke is that when the topologist says it has one hole, they're referring to the hole in the handle, while in the next panel the "normal person" assumes the one hole they mentioned is the opening and questions its validity. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.51|108.162.241.51]] 03:25, 13 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Has been done --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:50, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
All frames except the first and last depict a mug; a topologist most definitely discerns between a a cup and a mug because they give different answers, the "normal" person is only questioning a specific feature, and the philosopher is clearly considering a mug. If it's part of the joke the only contrast is the question. Seems way too subtle for Mr Munroes normal style. probably just what he is used to calling it. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.69.208|172.69.69.208]] 07:04, 13 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Yes it is a coffee cup of the Mug type. A shame he drew it like this because the mug/cup discussion has nothing with the comic to do at all. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:50, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
We have a lot of visual aids for topology in this comic, and none for the article about 2625: Field Topology. That seems backwards to me.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.39|172.69.22.39]] 22:47, 13 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:That's a good point. Please find photos of the various sports fields and edit them to overlay brightly colored and contrastive lines showing where their holes are, link to them on the admin noticeboard, and I'm sure someone will upload and add them. I think they turned off uploads by IPs and new users to discourage troll vandals. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.119|172.69.22.119]] 01:07, 14 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
In the physicist paragraph, I put an Actual Citation Needed tag after "factorial of the number of particles in the universe" because, while I see what is being got at, with string theory of force mediation e.g. photons (and gravitons? or Higgs bosons?) it would be really nice to have a reference for that topic. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.125|162.158.166.125]] 01:37, 14 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Gotchu fam [https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-02341882/document] [[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.17|172.69.134.17]] 18:19, 14 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
In LQG, at each instant of time, geometry is concentrated on one dimensional structures, called graphs, which can be arbitrarily complicated. But I don't think this implies uncountable holes?<br />
<br />
<br />
Look, I know you're all having a super-important topology discussion or whatever you call it, but did you know today is ''Star Trek'' day on [[2636: What If? 2 Countdown]]? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.71|172.69.22.71]] 18:27, 14 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
The philosopher may be referencing the following thought experiment: If you add a hole to a balloon, the result is equivalent to a flat disk that has 0 holes. Therefore, a balloon has -1 holes. (See [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymF1bp-qrjU this Stand Up Maths video] for instance.) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.145|172.69.22.145]] 18:51, 14 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Dear topologists, which interior is the inside of a balloon? {{w|Relative interior}} or one of its see-alsos, or something else? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.199|172.69.33.199]] 21:46, 14 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::IDK - but I do not think so. It is just Randall's way of showing us that on our scale a coffee cup with a handle has exactly one hole. I'm sure he is on the topologist side, but think it is a stupid question to ask regular people. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:50, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I think the philosopher explanation is a bit misleading? "Now" refers to the hypothetical scenario in which there is an extra hole. Natural language philosophy is often (always?) ambiguous, but philosophers generally accept that some interpretations are misreadings and apply the principle of charity. They are not known for "gotcha" trick questions. Rather, Hairbun's question is an example of an "intuition pump", a hypothetical scenario intended to test the reader's intuitions with regard to the concept. So in this case, we might expect the reader to answer that there are now n+1 holes, where n = the number of holes before we made a new hole. You could poll people with this question to get data on the popular understanding of "hole" and "cup" as used in everyday language. [[User:Wordnerd|Wordnerd]] ([[User talk:Wordnerd|talk]]) 01:56, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Must have been changed since this comment was written... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:50, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Coincidentally, a recent survey asked people "how many holes are there in a straw". )Most people were evenly split between 1 and 2.) https://news.yahoo.com/voices-many-holes-straw-answer-095803773.html [[User:Shamino|Shamino]] ([[User talk:Shamino|talk]]) 15:20, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
: Presumably that was a straw poll? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.77|172.70.162.77]] 15:37, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:: How dare you [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.221|172.70.85.221]] 03:42, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
All this reminds me of the joke of sending the new guy to the stores to fetch a bag of holes. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.5|172.70.85.5]] 08:52, 16 August 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2658:_Coffee_Cup_Holes&diff=2929082658: Coffee Cup Holes2022-08-16T08:43:48Z<p>172.70.85.5: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2658<br />
| date = August 12, 2022<br />
| title = Coffee Cup Holes<br />
| image = coffee_cup_holes.png<br />
| titletext = Theoretical physicist: At the Planck length, uncountably many.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a CAFFEINE MOLECULE WITH A HOLE DRILLED IN ITS SIDE. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
This comic depicts people in different fields of study answering the question, "How many holes are there in a coffee cup?" and also compares this to what a normal person would say. <br />
<br />
This question has different interpretations, entirely dependent upon the definition of a hole. The type of {{w|coffee cup}} shown in the comic is with a handle (like a {{w|mug}}), but [[Randall]] calls it a cup and there are also cups with handles on the Wikipedia page for coffee cups. Most people would recognize that there is a hole through the handle. <br />
<br />
The comic explores the answer to the question through several avenues of thought:<br />
<br />
===Topology===<br />
[[File:Mug and Torus morph.gif|thumb|200px|The coffee mug and donut shown in this animation both have topological genus one.]]<br />
[[Ponytail]], a {{w|topology|topologist}}, states the coffee cup belongs in the {{w|Genus (mathematics)#Topology|genus}} of one hole. From the topologist's point of view, the coffee cup definitely has one hole, which corresponds to the opening created by the cup handle. A cup without a handle would have zero holes, as it is equivalent to a dinner plate, just an indentation in the surface. See [[2625: Field Topology]] for more information about topology.<br />
<br />
The panel as a whole references an academic joke wherein topologists can't tell the difference between a coffee cup (with handle) and a {{w|doughnut}} since they're {{w|Homeomorphism|homeomorphic}} to each other — meaning they have the same genus (i.e one hole). <br />
<br />
[[Image:Point cloud torus.gif|thumb|left|200px|A point cloud of a genus one surface]]<br />
<br />
===Normal person===<br />
[[Hairy]], representing a "normal person," is not sure (the acronym "IDK" stands for "I don't know") and asks for clarification about whether the opening at the top counts as a hole. This shows flaws in the question, which suffers from the mathematically imprecise, ambiguous common usage of the word "hole." Topologists would refer to the opening as a concavity, not a hole, and while they consider such geometrical properties generally outside their field, most practical applications of topology do involve geometric components. By contrast, in everyday usage many concavities are called holes, such as a hole dug into dirt with a shovel. Hairy would say one for the handle, and two if the opening counts as a hole, which he is not certain the one asking the question thinks.<br />
<br />
===Philosopher===<br />
[[Hairbun]], a philosopher, answers the question with an elucidating counter-question, considering a hypothetical scenario. One might expect that drilling a new hole would also increase the number of holes by one. However, as illustrated, some people would consider that the new arrangement has three holes (in addition to the handle, there is a hole at the top where coffee can be poured in, and one at the bottom where it can run out), while others would consider it to have only two (the new hole forming a continuous hole with the original opening at the top, through which coffee can run). In this way she forces her interlocutor to confront the ambiguities and consider what they mean by the word 'hole' in different contexts.<br />
<br />
===Chemistry===<br />
[[Cueball]], a chemist, looks at the coffee in the cup on a molecular level. He envisions a {{w|ball-and-stick model}} of the {{w|caffeine}} molecules in the coffee, and estimates a total number of holes of all the coffee molecules. He comes up with a truly massive number: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (10<sup>21</sup> or 1 sextillion) “in the [https://chemapps.stolaf.edu/jmol/jmol.php?model=CN1C%3DNC2%3DC1C%28%3DO%29N%28C%28%3DO%29N2C%29C caffeine] alone.” One molecule of caffeine has two rings of bonds with holes in them, multiplied by 500 quintillion molecules, or 0.00083 {{w|mole (unit)|moles}}. As the molecular mass of caffeine is about 194 grams per mole, [[Randall]] must think that the mass of caffeine in a typical cup of coffee is 161 milligrams. The coffee could have other holes, depending on the type of coffee; for example, espresso contains significant amounts of niacin and riboflavin, which have one and three rings in their chemical structure, respectively.<br />
<br />
This estimation depends on taking the ball-and-stick model of molecules somewhat literally. However, real molecular bonds are not solid sticks, but shared electron clouds between atoms. The "holes" in the middle of a molecule's rings are not completely empty but instead merely have lower electron probability density through the middle than other parts of the bonds. So the point-cloud duality of {{w|Bonding molecular orbital|electron orbitals and bonds}} might not satisfy a topologist's, normal person's, or philosopher's criteria for a connected substrate in which holes may be formed.<br />
<br />
===Subatomic physics===<br />
[[Image:World lines and world sheet.svg|left|thumb|200px|{{w|String theory}} describes the {{w|worldline}}s of point-like particles as {{w|worldsheet}}s of "closed strings," forming topological holes.]]<br />
In the title text, a theoretical physicist looks even deeper, at the subatomic scale of {{w|Planck units}}. Since fundamental particle interaction is governed by fundamental forces and collision (per the {{w|Pauli exclusion principle}}) instead of tensile or ductile solid connectedness, the theoretical physicist posits that any definition providing for a single hole would also describe a number of holes akin to the factorial of the number of particles in the universe,[https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-02341882/document] or at least within the cup's {{w|light cone}}, which is a number impractical to accurately count, but not uncountable in a mathematical sense.<br />
<br />
The main joke is that the number of holes depends on both the scale and perspective from which you are looking at the world. From a topological standpoint, when someone digs into the ground it should go all the way through (or easier, down and up again another place) before it is considered a hole, since a hole is something that some other thing should be able to pass through. But from a common usage perspective, if people dig in the ground the result is called a hole, because functionally it creates a discontinuity in to which, for example, things can be placed or fall. Similarly, the opening in a coffee cup (without a handle) or a bottle of beer is called a hole, even though they are topologically equivalent to a dinner plate, which normal people would never say had a hole.<br />
<br />
A cavity in a surface could also be considered a physical barrier, preventing movement along the surface in certain scenarios (e.g. a {{w|sinkhole}} opening up in the middle of a road) even though it may topologically 'flat' in the most general way, and so is very open to context, and such a hole might be considered more a 'thing' than the surface that has been removed to create it. And the 'hole' in a vessel that is functionally useful to hold liquid (or the drilled one that removes that ability) is of a different nature to the holes in various of the molecules that ''are'' the liquid but are neither required nor counter-productive in the general liquid-holding capabilities of the container, as are not the holes in the planck-length model, except insofar as the general physical laws of reality. Conversely, this conceptual confusion over what a hole is or actually means can be seen in the idea of the {{w|portable hole}}, which tends to obey ({{w|Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner|or defy}}!) the owner's particular preconceptions or needs.<br />
<br />
The topological discussion here regarding cups and doughnuts is related to the question of how many holes there are in a human, which is excellently answered in Vsauce's video<br />
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egEraZP9yXQ How Many Holes Does a Human Have?]. This also takes a god look at the topological difference between a paper cup and a mug with handle.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[The first panel has text only and is phrasing a question:]<br />
:<big>Q:</big><br />
:How many holes are there in a coffee cup?<br />
<br />
:[Each of the next four panels has a caption at the top to indicate the kind of person answering the question. In the first of these Ponytail stands holding a coffee cup in its handle.]<br />
:Caption: Topologist<br />
:Ponytail: One.<br />
<br />
:[In the next panel Hairy stands to the right of Ponytail, holding the coffee cup in its handle at an angle so he can to look into it.]<br />
:Caption: Normal person<br />
:Hairy: IDK, does the opening count as a hole?<br />
<br />
:[In the next panel Hairbun is shown in closeup, holding her hand out palm up to indicate two drawings of coffee cups with handles to her left. The top drawing is larger and shows the cup with coffee inside, and a hole drilled at the bottom part of the side away from the handle. Coffee pours out of this hole. Beneath and further left is a smaller version of the same cup, but now without coffee. Instead two curved arrows goes from above to below through the hole of the handle and the hole now drilled in the bottom part of the cup. Each arrow is labeled with a question-mark.]<br />
:Caption: Philosopher<br />
:Hairbun: To answer that question, consider another: If we drill a hole in the side, how many holes are there now?<br />
:?<br />
:?<br />
<br />
:[Cueball, without any cup, stands with a drawing of a caffeine molecule above and to the right of him. It has two "rings" with 5 and 6 atoms. Those rings are connected along one side. There are 9 "edges" on this, three of those has one atom attached to it and 3 others have four atoms attached to them (one atom with three others attached). The two that are at the end of the edge that belongs to both rings have no atoms attached, and the final of the 9 also has no atom.]<br />
:Caption: Chemist<br />
:Cueball: 10<sup>21</sup> in the caffeine alone<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Food]]<br />
[[Category:Math]]<br />
[[Category:Chemistry]]<br />
[[Category:Philosophy]]<br />
[[Category:Physics]]</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2658:_Coffee_Cup_Holes&diff=2929072658: Coffee Cup Holes2022-08-16T08:43:11Z<p>172.70.85.5: /* Philosophy */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2658<br />
| date = August 12, 2022<br />
| title = Coffee Cup Holes<br />
| image = coffee_cup_holes.png<br />
| titletext = Theoretical physicist: At the Planck length, uncountably many.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a CAFFEINE MOLECULE WITH A HOLE DRILLED IN ITS SIDE. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
This comic depicts people in different fields of study answering the question, "How many holes are there in a coffee cup?" and also compares this to what a normal person would say. <br />
<br />
This question has different interpretations, entirely dependent upon the definition of a hole. The type of {{w|coffee cup}} shown in the comic is with a handle (like a {{w|mug}}), but [[Randall]] calls it a cup and there are also cups with handles on the Wikipedia page for coffee cups. Most people would recognize that there is a hole through the handle. <br />
<br />
The comic explores the answer to the question through several avenues of thought:<br />
<br />
===Topology===<br />
[[File:Mug and Torus morph.gif|thumb|200px|The coffee mug and donut shown in this animation both have topological genus one.]]<br />
[[Ponytail]], a {{w|topology|topologist}}, states the coffee cup belongs in the {{w|Genus (mathematics)#Topology|genus}} of one hole. From the topologist's point of view, the coffee cup definitely has one hole, which corresponds to the opening created by the cup handle. A cup without a handle would have zero holes, as it is equivalent to a dinner plate, just an indentation in the surface. See [[2625: Field Topology]] for more information about topology.<br />
<br />
The panel as a whole references an academic joke wherein topologists can't tell the difference between a coffee cup (with handle) and a {{w|doughnut}} since they're {{w|Homeomorphism|homeomorphic}} to each other — meaning they have the same genus (i.e one hole). <br />
<br />
[[Image:Point cloud torus.gif|thumb|left|200px|A point cloud of a genus one surface]]<br />
<br />
===Normal person===<br />
[[Hairy]], representing a "normal person," is not sure (the acronym "IDK" stands for "I don't know") and asks for clarification about whether the opening at the top counts as a hole. This shows flaws in the question, which suffers from the mathematically imprecise, ambiguous common usage of the word "hole." Topologists would refer to the opening as a concavity, not a hole, and while they consider such geometrical properties generally outside their field, most practical applications of topology do involve geometric components. By contrast, in everyday usage many concavities are called holes, such as a hole dug into dirt with a shovel. Hairy would say one for the handle, and two if the opening counts as a hole, which he is not certain the one asking the question thinks.<br />
<br />
[[Hairbun]], a philosopher, answers the question with an elucidating counter-question, considering a hypothetical scenario. One might expect that drilling a new hole would also increase the number of holes by one. However, as illustrated, some people would consider that the new arrangement has three holes (in addition to the handle, there is a hole at the top where coffee can be poured in, and one at the bottom where it can run out), while others would consider it to have only two (the new hole forming a continuous hole with the original opening at the top, through which coffee can run). In this way she forces her interlocutor to confront the ambiguities and consider what they mean by the word 'hole' in different contexts.<br />
<br />
===Chemistry===<br />
[[Cueball]], a chemist, looks at the coffee in the cup on a molecular level. He envisions a {{w|ball-and-stick model}} of the {{w|caffeine}} molecules in the coffee, and estimates a total number of holes of all the coffee molecules. He comes up with a truly massive number: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (10<sup>21</sup> or 1 sextillion) “in the [https://chemapps.stolaf.edu/jmol/jmol.php?model=CN1C%3DNC2%3DC1C%28%3DO%29N%28C%28%3DO%29N2C%29C caffeine] alone.” One molecule of caffeine has two rings of bonds with holes in them, multiplied by 500 quintillion molecules, or 0.00083 {{w|mole (unit)|moles}}. As the molecular mass of caffeine is about 194 grams per mole, [[Randall]] must think that the mass of caffeine in a typical cup of coffee is 161 milligrams. The coffee could have other holes, depending on the type of coffee; for example, espresso contains significant amounts of niacin and riboflavin, which have one and three rings in their chemical structure, respectively.<br />
<br />
This estimation depends on taking the ball-and-stick model of molecules somewhat literally. However, real molecular bonds are not solid sticks, but shared electron clouds between atoms. The "holes" in the middle of a molecule's rings are not completely empty but instead merely have lower electron probability density through the middle than other parts of the bonds. So the point-cloud duality of {{w|Bonding molecular orbital|electron orbitals and bonds}} might not satisfy a topologist's, normal person's, or philosopher's criteria for a connected substrate in which holes may be formed.<br />
<br />
===Subatomic physics===<br />
[[Image:World lines and world sheet.svg|left|thumb|200px|{{w|String theory}} describes the {{w|worldline}}s of point-like particles as {{w|worldsheet}}s of "closed strings," forming topological holes.]]<br />
In the title text, a theoretical physicist looks even deeper, at the subatomic scale of {{w|Planck units}}. Since fundamental particle interaction is governed by fundamental forces and collision (per the {{w|Pauli exclusion principle}}) instead of tensile or ductile solid connectedness, the theoretical physicist posits that any definition providing for a single hole would also describe a number of holes akin to the factorial of the number of particles in the universe,[https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-02341882/document] or at least within the cup's {{w|light cone}}, which is a number impractical to accurately count, but not uncountable in a mathematical sense.<br />
<br />
The main joke is that the number of holes depends on both the scale and perspective from which you are looking at the world. From a topological standpoint, when someone digs into the ground it should go all the way through (or easier, down and up again another place) before it is considered a hole, since a hole is something that some other thing should be able to pass through. But from a common usage perspective, if people dig in the ground the result is called a hole, because functionally it creates a discontinuity in to which, for example, things can be placed or fall. Similarly, the opening in a coffee cup (without a handle) or a bottle of beer is called a hole, even though they are topologically equivalent to a dinner plate, which normal people would never say had a hole.<br />
<br />
A cavity in a surface could also be considered a physical barrier, preventing movement along the surface in certain scenarios (e.g. a {{w|sinkhole}} opening up in the middle of a road) even though it may topologically 'flat' in the most general way, and so is very open to context, and such a hole might be considered more a 'thing' than the surface that has been removed to create it. And the 'hole' in a vessel that is functionally useful to hold liquid (or the drilled one that removes that ability) is of a different nature to the holes in various of the molecules that ''are'' the liquid but are neither required nor counter-productive in the general liquid-holding capabilities of the container, as are not the holes in the planck-length model, except insofar as the general physical laws of reality. Conversely, this conceptual confusion over what a hole is or actually means can be seen in the idea of the {{w|portable hole}}, which tends to obey ({{w|Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner|or defy}}!) the owner's particular preconceptions or needs.<br />
<br />
The topological discussion here regarding cups and doughnuts is related to the question of how many holes there are in a human, which is excellently answered in Vsauce's video<br />
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egEraZP9yXQ How Many Holes Does a Human Have?]. This also takes a god look at the topological difference between a paper cup and a mug with handle.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[The first panel has text only and is phrasing a question:]<br />
:<big>Q:</big><br />
:How many holes are there in a coffee cup?<br />
<br />
:[Each of the next four panels has a caption at the top to indicate the kind of person answering the question. In the first of these Ponytail stands holding a coffee cup in its handle.]<br />
:Caption: Topologist<br />
:Ponytail: One.<br />
<br />
:[In the next panel Hairy stands to the right of Ponytail, holding the coffee cup in its handle at an angle so he can to look into it.]<br />
:Caption: Normal person<br />
:Hairy: IDK, does the opening count as a hole?<br />
<br />
:[In the next panel Hairbun is shown in closeup, holding her hand out palm up to indicate two drawings of coffee cups with handles to her left. The top drawing is larger and shows the cup with coffee inside, and a hole drilled at the bottom part of the side away from the handle. Coffee pours out of this hole. Beneath and further left is a smaller version of the same cup, but now without coffee. Instead two curved arrows goes from above to below through the hole of the handle and the hole now drilled in the bottom part of the cup. Each arrow is labeled with a question-mark.]<br />
:Caption: Philosopher<br />
:Hairbun: To answer that question, consider another: If we drill a hole in the side, how many holes are there now?<br />
:?<br />
:?<br />
<br />
:[Cueball, without any cup, stands with a drawing of a caffeine molecule above and to the right of him. It has two "rings" with 5 and 6 atoms. Those rings are connected along one side. There are 9 "edges" on this, three of those has one atom attached to it and 3 others have four atoms attached to them (one atom with three others attached). The two that are at the end of the edge that belongs to both rings have no atoms attached, and the final of the 9 also has no atom.]<br />
:Caption: Chemist<br />
:Cueball: 10<sup>21</sup> in the caffeine alone<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Food]]<br />
[[Category:Math]]<br />
[[Category:Chemistry]]<br />
[[Category:Philosophy]]<br />
[[Category:Physics]]</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2658:_Coffee_Cup_Holes&diff=2929062658: Coffee Cup Holes2022-08-16T08:29:23Z<p>172.70.85.5: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2658<br />
| date = August 12, 2022<br />
| title = Coffee Cup Holes<br />
| image = coffee_cup_holes.png<br />
| titletext = Theoretical physicist: At the Planck length, uncountably many.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a CAFFEINE MOLECULE WITH A HOLE DRILLED IN ITS SIDE. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
This comic depicts people in different fields of study answering the question, "How many holes are there in a coffee cup?" and also compares this to what a normal person would say. <br />
<br />
This question has different interpretations, entirely dependent upon the definition of a hole. The type of {{w|coffee cup}} shown in the comic is with a handle (like a {{w|mug}}), but [[Randall]] calls it a cup and there are also cups with handles on the Wikipedia page for coffee cups. Most people would recognize that there is a hole through the handle. <br />
<br />
The comic explores the answer to the question through several avenues of thought:<br />
<br />
===Topology===<br />
[[File:Mug and Torus morph.gif|thumb|200px|The coffee mug and donut shown in this animation both have topological genus one.]]<br />
[[Ponytail]], a {{w|topology|topologist}}, states the coffee cup belongs in the {{w|Genus (mathematics)#Topology|genus}} of one hole. From the topologist's point of view, the coffee cup definitely has one hole, which corresponds to the opening created by the cup handle. A cup without a handle would have zero holes, as it is equivalent to a dinner plate, just an indentation in the surface. See [[2625: Field Topology]] for more information about topology.<br />
<br />
The panel as a whole references an academic joke wherein topologists can't tell the difference between a coffee cup (with handle) and a {{w|doughnut}} since they're {{w|Homeomorphism|homeomorphic}} to each other — meaning they have the same genus (i.e one hole). <br />
<br />
[[Image:Point cloud torus.gif|thumb|left|200px|A point cloud of a genus one surface]]<br />
<br />
===Normal person===<br />
[[Hairy]], representing a "normal person," is not sure (the acronym "IDK" stands for "I don't know") and asks for clarification about whether the opening at the top counts as a hole. This shows flaws in the question, which suffers from the mathematically imprecise, ambiguous common usage of the word "hole." Topologists would refer to the opening as a concavity, not a hole, and while they consider such geometrical properties generally outside their field, most practical applications of topology do involve geometric components. By contrast, in everyday usage many concavities are called holes, such as a hole dug into dirt with a shovel. Hairy would say one for the handle, and two if the opening counts as a hole, which he is not certain the one asking the question thinks.<br />
<br />
===Philosophy===<br />
[[Hairbun]], a philosopher, answers the question with an elucidating counter-question, considering a hypothetical scenario. Drilling a new hole should increase the number of holes by one. After the hole has been drilled, the coffee cup with handle has two holes according to topologists. Two drawings are shown; one drawing with arrows pointing to three different 'holes' (the handle, the upper cavity and the newly drilled hole), therefore implying the original cup had 2 holes, and one drawing showing two possible paths through the cup (through the handle, plus into the cavity and then out through the drilling) which implies the original previously only had the one hole. The last drawing aligns with the way the Ponytail sees it. <br />
<br />
===Chemistry===<br />
[[Cueball]], a chemist, looks at the coffee in the cup on a molecular level. He envisions a {{w|ball-and-stick model}} of the {{w|caffeine}} molecules in the coffee, and estimates a total number of holes of all the coffee molecules. He comes up with a truly massive number: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (10<sup>21</sup> or 1 sextillion) “in the [https://chemapps.stolaf.edu/jmol/jmol.php?model=CN1C%3DNC2%3DC1C%28%3DO%29N%28C%28%3DO%29N2C%29C caffeine] alone.” One molecule of caffeine has two rings of bonds with holes in them, multiplied by 500 quintillion molecules, or 0.00083 {{w|mole (unit)|moles}}. As the molecular mass of caffeine is about 194 grams per mole, [[Randall]] must think that the mass of caffeine in a typical cup of coffee is 161 milligrams. The coffee could have other holes, depending on the type of coffee; for example, espresso contains significant amounts of niacin and riboflavin, which have one and three rings in their chemical structure, respectively.<br />
<br />
This estimation depends on taking the ball-and-stick model of molecules somewhat literally. However, real molecular bonds are not solid sticks, but shared electron clouds between atoms. The "holes" in the middle of a molecule's rings are not completely empty but instead merely have lower electron probability density through the middle than other parts of the bonds. So the point-cloud duality of {{w|Bonding molecular orbital|electron orbitals and bonds}} might not satisfy a topologist's, normal person's, or philosopher's criteria for a connected substrate in which holes may be formed.<br />
<br />
===Subatomic physics===<br />
[[Image:World lines and world sheet.svg|left|thumb|200px|{{w|String theory}} describes the {{w|worldline}}s of point-like particles as {{w|worldsheet}}s of "closed strings," forming topological holes.]]<br />
In the title text, a theoretical physicist looks even deeper, at the subatomic scale of {{w|Planck units}}. Since fundamental particle interaction is governed by fundamental forces and collision (per the {{w|Pauli exclusion principle}}) instead of tensile or ductile solid connectedness, the theoretical physicist posits that any definition providing for a single hole would also describe a number of holes akin to the factorial of the number of particles in the universe,[https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-02341882/document] or at least within the cup's {{w|light cone}}, which is a number impractical to accurately count, but not uncountable in a mathematical sense.<br />
<br />
The main joke is that the number of holes depends on both the scale and perspective from which you are looking at the world. From a topological standpoint, when someone digs into the ground it should go all the way through (or easier, down and up again another place) before it is considered a hole, since a hole is something that some other thing should be able to pass through. But from a common usage perspective, if people dig in the ground the result is called a hole, because functionally it creates a discontinuity in to which, for example, things can be placed or fall. Similarly, the opening in a coffee cup (without a handle) or a bottle of beer is called a hole, even though they are topologically equivalent to a dinner plate, which normal people would never say had a hole.<br />
<br />
A cavity in a surface could also be considered a physical barrier, preventing movement along the surface in certain scenarios (e.g. a {{w|sinkhole}} opening up in the middle of a road) even though it may topologically 'flat' in the most general way, and so is very open to context, and such a hole might be considered more a 'thing' than the surface that has been removed to create it. And the 'hole' in a vessel that is functionally useful to hold liquid (or the drilled one that removes that ability) is of a different nature to the holes in various of the molecules that ''are'' the liquid but are neither required nor counter-productive in the general liquid-holding capabilities of the container, as are not the holes in the planck-length model, except insofar as the general physical laws of reality. Conversely, this conceptual confusion over what a hole is or actually means can be seen in the idea of the {{w|portable hole}}, which tends to obey ({{w|Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner|or defy}}!) the owner's particular preconceptions or needs.<br />
<br />
The topological discussion here regarding cups and doughnuts is related to the question of how many holes there are in a human, which is excellently answered in Vsauce's video<br />
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egEraZP9yXQ How Many Holes Does a Human Have?]. This also takes a god look at the topological difference between a paper cup and a mug with handle.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[The first panel has text only and is phrasing a question:]<br />
:<big>Q:</big><br />
:How many holes are there in a coffee cup?<br />
<br />
:[Each of the next four panels has a caption at the top to indicate the kind of person answering the question. In the first of these Ponytail stands holding a coffee cup in its handle.]<br />
:Caption: Topologist<br />
:Ponytail: One.<br />
<br />
:[In the next panel Hairy stands to the right of Ponytail, holding the coffee cup in its handle at an angle so he can to look into it.]<br />
:Caption: Normal person<br />
:Hairy: IDK, does the opening count as a hole?<br />
<br />
:[In the next panel Hairbun is shown in closeup, holding her hand out palm up to indicate two drawings of coffee cups with handles to her left. The top drawing is larger and shows the cup with coffee inside, and a hole drilled at the bottom part of the side away from the handle. Coffee pours out of this hole. Beneath and further left is a smaller version of the same cup, but now without coffee. Instead two curved arrows goes from above to below through the hole of the handle and the hole now drilled in the bottom part of the cup. Each arrow is labeled with a question-mark.]<br />
:Caption: Philosopher<br />
:Hairbun: To answer that question, consider another: If we drill a hole in the side, how many holes are there now?<br />
:?<br />
:?<br />
<br />
:[Cueball, without any cup, stands with a drawing of a caffeine molecule above and to the right of him. It has two "rings" with 5 and 6 atoms. Those rings are connected along one side. There are 9 "edges" on this, three of those has one atom attached to it and 3 others have four atoms attached to them (one atom with three others attached). The two that are at the end of the edge that belongs to both rings have no atoms attached, and the final of the 9 also has no atom.]<br />
:Caption: Chemist<br />
:Cueball: 10<sup>21</sup> in the caffeine alone<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Food]]<br />
[[Category:Math]]<br />
[[Category:Chemistry]]<br />
[[Category:Philosophy]]<br />
[[Category:Physics]]</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2658:_Coffee_Cup_Holes&diff=2928112658: Coffee Cup Holes2022-08-15T12:44:13Z<p>172.70.85.5: /* Explanation */ Removing an ambiguity. Possibly adding more trouble, though.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2658<br />
| date = August 12, 2022<br />
| title = Coffee Cup Holes<br />
| image = coffee_cup_holes.png<br />
| titletext = Theoretical physicist: At the Planck length, uncountably many.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a CAFFEINE MOLECULE WITH A HOLE DRILLED IN ITS SIDE. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
This comic depicts people in different fields of study answering the question, "How many holes are there in a coffee cup?" and also compares this to what a normal person would say. <br />
<br />
This question has different interpretations, entirely dependant upon the definition of a hole. The type of {{w|coffee cup}} shown in the comic is with a handle (like a {{w|Mug}}), but [[Randall]] calls it a cup and there are also cups with handles on the Wikipedia page for coffee cups. Most people would recognize that there is a hole through the handle. <br />
<br />
[[File:Mug and Torus morph.gif|thumb|200px|The coffee mug and donut shown in this animation both have topological genus one.]]<br />
<br />
[[Ponytail]], a {{w|topology|topologist}}, states the coffee cup belongs in the {{w|Genus (mathematics)#Topology|genus}} of one hole. A common joke is that topologists can't tell the difference between a coffee cup (with handle) and a {{w|doughnut}} since they're {{w|Homeomorphism|homeomorphic}} to each other — meaning they have the same genus, i.e one hole. From the topologist's point of view, the coffee cup definitely has one hole, which corresponds to the opening created by the cup handle. A cup without a handle would have zero holes, as it is equivalent to a dinner plate, just an indentation in the surface. See [[2625: Field Topology]] for more information about topology.<br />
<br />
[[Hairy]], a normal person, is not sure (the acronym "IDK" stands for "I don't know") and asks for clarification about whether the opening at the top counts as a hole. This shows flaws in the question, which suffers from the mathematically imprecise, ambiguous common usage of the word hole. Topologists would refer to the opening as a concavity, not a hole, and while they consider such geometrical properties generally outside their field, most practical applications of topology do involve geometric components. Hairy would say one for the handle, and two if the opening counts as a hole, which he is not certain the one asking the question thinks.<br />
<br />
[[File:Double torus illustration.png|thumb|left|200px|A genus two surface]]<br />
<br />
[[Hairbun]], a philosopher, answers the question with an elucidating counter-question, considering a hypothetical scenario. Drilling a new hole should increase the number of holes by one. After the hole has been drilled, the coffee cup with handle has two holes according to topologists. Two drawings are shown; one drawing with arrows pointing to three different 'holes' (the handle, the upper cavity and the newly drilled hole), therefore implying the original cup had 2 holes, and one drawing showing two possible paths through the cup (through the handle and into the cavity and out through the drilling) which implies the original previously only had the one hole. The last drawing alings with the way the Ponytail sees it. <br />
<br />
[[Image:Point cloud torus.gif|thumb|200px|A point cloud of a genus one surface]]<br />
<br />
[[Cueball]], a chemist, looks at the coffee in the cup on a molecular level, which means it has very many holes: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (10<sup>21</sup> or 1 sextillion) “in the [https://chemapps.stolaf.edu/jmol/jmol.php?model=CN1C%3DNC2%3DC1C%28%3DO%29N%28C%28%3DO%29N2C%29C caffeine] alone.” One molecule of caffeine has two rings of bonds with holes in them, so Cueball is talking about 500 quintillion molecules, or 0.00083 {{w|mole (unit)|moles}}. As the molecular mass of {{w|caffeine}} is about 194 grams per mole, [[Randall]] must think that the mass of caffeine in a typical cup of coffee is 161 milligrams. The coffee could have other holes, depending on the type of coffee; for example, espresso contains significant amounts of niacin and riboflavin, which have one and three rings in their chemical structure, respectively. However, bonds are not sticks as portrayed in many molecular models. The "holes" in the middle of a molecule's rings are not completely empty but instead merely have lower electron probability density through the middle than other parts of the bonds. So the point-cloud duality of {{w|Bonding molecular orbital|electron orbitals and bonds}} might not satisfy a topologist's, normal person's, or philosopher's criteria for a connected substrate in which holes may be formed.<br />
<br />
[[Image:World lines and world sheet.svg|left|thumb|200px|{{w|String theory}} describes the {{w|worldline}}s of point-like particles as {{w|worldsheet}}s of "closed strings," forming topological holes.]]<br />
<br />
In the title text, a theoretical physicist looks even deeper, at the subatomic scale of {{w|Planck units}}. Since fundamental particle interaction is governed by fundamental forces and collision (per the {{w|Pauli exclusion principle}}) instead of tensile or ductile solid connectedness, the theoretical physicist posits that any definition providing for a single hole would also describe a number of holes akin to the factorial of the number of particles in the universe,[https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-02341882/document] or at least within the cup's {{w|light cone}}, which is a number impractical to accurately count, but not uncountable in a mathematical sense.<br />
<br />
The main joke is that the number of holes depend both on what scale you are looking at the world, and also on the common uses of the word hole, which is also used when someone digs a bit into the ground. A hole in the ground should go all the way through (or easier, down and up again another place) before it is a real hole. Since a hole is something that some other thing should be able to pass through. But if people dig in the ground the result is called a hole, just like the opening in a coffee cup (without a handle) or a bottle of beer is called a hole, even though they are equivalent to a dinner plate, which normal people would never say had a hole.<br />
<br />
The topological discussion here regarding cups and doughnuts is related to the question of how many holes there are in a human, which is excellently answered in Vsauce's video<br />
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egEraZP9yXQ How Many Holes Does a Human Have?]. This also takes a god look at the topological difference between a paper cup and a mug with handle.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[The first panel has text only and is phrasing a question:]<br />
:<big>Q:</big><br />
:How many holes are there in a coffee cup?<br />
<br />
:[Each of the next four panels has a caption at the top to indicate the kind of person answering the question. In the first of these Ponytail stands holding a coffee cup in its handle.]<br />
:Caption: Topologist<br />
:Ponytail: One.<br />
<br />
:[In the next panel Hairy stands to the right of Ponytail, holding the coffee cup in its handle at an angle so he can to look into it.]<br />
:Caption: Normal person<br />
:Hairy: IDK, does the opening count as a hole?<br />
<br />
:[In the next panel Hairbun is shown in closeup, holding her hand out palm up to indicate two drawings of coffee cups with handles to her left. The top drawing is larger and shows the cup with coffee inside, and a hole drilled at the bottom part of the side away from the handle. Coffee pours out of this hole. Beneath and further left is a smaller version of the same cup, but now without coffee. Instead two curved arrows goes from above to below through the hole of the handle and the hole now drilled in the bottom part of the cup. Each arrow is labeled with a question-mark.]<br />
:Caption: Philosopher<br />
:Hairbun: To answer that question, consider another: If we drill a hole in the side, how many holes are there now?<br />
:?<br />
:?<br />
<br />
:[Cueball, without any cup, stands with a drawing of a caffeine molecule above and to the right of him. It has two "rings" with 5 and 6 atoms. Those rings are connected along one side. There are 9 "edges" on this, three of those has one atom attached to it and 3 others have four atoms attached to them (one atom with three others attached). The two that are at the end of the edge that belongs to both rings have no atoms attached, and the final of the 9 also has no atom.]<br />
:Caption: Chemist<br />
:Cueball: 10<sup>21</sup> in the caffeine alone<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Food]]<br />
[[Category:Math]]<br />
[[Category:Chemistry]]<br />
[[Category:Philosophy]]<br />
[[Category:Physics]]</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2655:_Asking_Scientists_Questions&diff=292176Talk:2655: Asking Scientists Questions2022-08-08T08:20:22Z<p>172.70.85.5: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
<br />
I am of three minds. Part of me wants to write a basic explanation to get us started. Part of me is worried I'll lay a terrible foundation. And part of me doesn't want to get rid of "This is a comic about scientists.{{citation needed}}" without memorializing it first. [[User:GreatWyrmGold|GreatWyrmGold]] ([[User talk:GreatWyrmGold|talk]]) 22:12, 5 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:That was cute, but your relocated {{citation needed}} is a fine replacement. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 22:37, 5 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Considering "tastes awful", I'm a chemist and know an old recipe for amalgam-related stuff, quote, "...the reaction is over when the stuff doesn't taste metallic anymore". mode=Homer "Mmmmh, mercury!" [[Special:Contributions/172.71.94.187|172.71.94.187]] 07:52, 6 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
The first line of the explanation contains the word 'blag' in parenthesis. I don't know this word and the translations that dic.cc give are 'badly behaving child' and 'armed robbery' which don't make sense in this context. Can someone explain, please? [[User:Flukx|Flukx]] ([[User talk:Flukx|talk]]) 08:37, 6 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
"Blag" is an alternate spelling of "blog" to suggest that's it's not a mere blog, but something more special. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.81|172.70.126.81]] 10:54, 6 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::Also an in joke reference to [[148: Mispronouncing]]. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.207.8|172.70.207.8]] 19:21, 6 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
Can we solve the science funding crisis by telling scientists about Fiverr? {{unsigned ip|172.70.210.183|14:24, 6 August 2022}}<br />
:No. You underestimate the amount of funds scientists need. Remember that the {{w|Large Hadron Collider|Not-as-large-as-described Hadron Collider}} has budget €7.5 billion and {{w|James Webb Space Telescope|reasonable Space Telescope}} costs $10 billion. While mathematics only need pencil, paper and eraser (and philosophers don't even need the eraser), most scientists could easily spent any amount of money received. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 03:52, 7 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
This is an impressively lengthy explanation for a comic that is essentially self-explanatory - was someone in the middle of writing a grant application when it landed? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.5|172.70.85.5]] 08:20, 8 August 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2654:_Chemtrails&diff=292007Talk:2654: Chemtrails2022-08-04T12:10:40Z<p>172.70.85.5: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
Ants navigate by following trails of chemicals on the ground, so it is ''technically'' a correct description, but also lumps ant navigation entomologists with conspiracy nuts.--[[User:NyanSequitur|NyanSequitur]] ([[User talk:NyanSequitur|talk]]) 16:01, 3 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:The point is that scientists don't call these trails "chemtrails". Cueball has made that mistaken link. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 16:05, 3 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
I must say that the title-text made me laugh out loud the most. (Also, though I'm sure there's no direct or even impliable link, made me fondly recall Aunt Hillary in {{w|Gödel, Escher, Bach}}, where she does not control or particularly care for her ants and they don't pull ''her'' strings in any way that they 'care' about.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.250|162.158.158.250]] 16:26, 3 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:But doesn't the queen spread pheromones that control the whole population, and she is not outside thus not affected by the trails left by her workers. So it is not actually so with ants, wasps, bees and termites that they are actually mind controlled by chemicals released by their government? If I'm right the title text is completely wrong on all levels. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 07:33, 4 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::Obviously the queen can't be directly affected by signals left outside the nest, but equally, workers outside the nest can't be affected by signals from the queen (except inasmuch as they are mediated by other members of the colony). And the queen's behaviour can be modulated by pheromones released inside the nest - such as increasing or decreasing fertility, or changing the pheromones she releases in response. Ultimately, the queen, like any other ant, can only influence the behaviour of those around her, and only does so in response to signals she herself receives - not in some kind of command control, dictatorial way. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.5|172.70.85.5]] 09:07, 4 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Can't quite remember which, but I think there was another comic formatted like this. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.254.165|172.70.254.165]] 17:46, 3 August 2022 (UTC)Nafedalbi<br />
:It was [[2036:_Edgelord|2036, the one about graph theory Ph.Ds]]. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.103|172.70.178.103]] 18:00, 3 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Does the caption have any relation to [[2609:_Entwives]]? I came to this explainxkcd page after reading the comic because I am not familiar with the word "entomologists". I hope somebody who knows the word can add a paragraph about the caption. --[[User:Batterystaple|Batterystaple]] ([[User talk:Batterystaple|talk]]) 07:30, 4 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:No, as you can see from the explanation entomologists is one who study insects and this word has been used before in xkcd for that meaning. Nothing to do with Ents. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 07:34, 4 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Do we need new categories for ants and for chemtrails? I found three other with chemtrails, added to the explanation and I think there is a bunch of ants comics. Added one with an ant researcher as here. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 07:33, 4 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Regarding [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2654:_Chemtrails&diff=291978&oldid=291977], there's no need for a trivia section, just put those four links in otherwise empty squarebrackets after the first sentence of that paragraph. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.88|172.70.211.88]] 11:21, 4 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
"Whether ant-gland secretion signalling is Turing-equivalent was explored in Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid" and the Placebo video are trivia, but reasons explaining why the term may be annoying are speculation. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.223|172.69.33.223]] 11:37, 4 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
As far as I can tell, there are three (possibly four) separate editorships that have tried to impose changes to the article in parallel, more or less. Individually quite sensible (I don't agree completely with all of them, but we're no hive-mind so of course I needn't!) but has created a strange flurry of upheavel. I'm certainly not fighting all my own hills. - Though note that I particularly dislike inexplicable bare-[]ed references in this context, especially if it results in <nowiki>[11][12][13][14]</nowiki> type reflinks interupting the flow. I'd rather like to make context-labelled inline links, as part of a proper sentence, for as many holdovers as we can anong those we end up with. But later, maybe. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.5|172.70.85.5]] 12:10, 4 August 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2654:_Chemtrails&diff=2920022654: Chemtrails2022-08-04T11:55:53Z<p>172.70.85.5: /* Speculation */ Separate. And I assume someone has confirmed the youtube is what it says it is, so won't bother checking now...</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2654<br />
| date = August 3, 2022<br />
| title = Chemtrails<br />
| image = chemtrails.png<br />
| titletext = Ants have reverse chemtrails--regular citizens spraying chemicals everywhere they go to control the government.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by an INKJET PRINTER FILLED WITH PERFUME. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
{{w|Ant}}s, studied along with other insects by {{w|entomologist}}s, leave trails of signalling secretions such as {{w|pheromones}}, natural chemicals that they emit along the trail to and from food sources and other events. These chemical trails guide other ants in the colony to return to food, but are only informally refered to as chemtrails by biologists. <br />
<br />
[[Cueball]] is intentionally conflating these with {{w|chemtrails}}, the subject of a conspiracy theory that the government controls the population by spraying toxic or mind-/body-transformative chemicals from high-flying aircraft. This myth may be partly based on the practice of {{w|cloud seeding}}, which uses chemical flares containing silver nitrate to attempt to increase precipitation,[https://www.vox.com/videos/23290459/cloud-seeding-manmade-rain-future-perfect] on studies of chemical mind control among ants,[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022191016301640] or both. Despite [[1677: Contrails|occasional conflation]], this is unrelated to "contrails," short for "condensation trails," which are cloud-like lines in the sky created by jet engines. Such linear cloud-formations arise from temperature and pressure disturbances of the passing engines rather than any deliberate release, but are highly visible in the right conditions (otherwise cloud-free) to those who live under flightpaths, and may have the appearance of some active "spraying" action, when the exact same routine flights above skies that are overcast – or otherwise unreceptive to incidental {{w|Nucleation#Examples_of_the_nucleation_of_fluids_(gases_and_liquids)|nucleation}} – excite no such assumptions.<br />
<br />
Chemical manipulation of unwitting people is not uncommon, as general mood-enhancing effects in specific locations,[https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/3469-smells-shoppers-spend-more.html] and doesn't involve high-altitude airplanes. There is very little evidence that sophisticated mind control posited by chemtrail conspiracists is possible, even after extensive research.[https://www.google.com/books/edition/Poisoner_in_Chief/U6iDDwAAQBAJ]<br />
<br />
[[Ponytail]] specifically studies chemically-mediated cooperative ant navigation. [[Cueball]] knows she will be annoyed when he tells her, "So, I hear you're really into chemtrails?" Indeed, he gets the reaction he hoped for when she objects strongly and rejects this with a loud, "'''No!!'''" [[Randall]] writes in the caption that this is how to annoy people like Ponytail.<br />
<br />
The title text contrasts individual ants instinctively deciding how the whole colony behaves by using chemicals to indicate routes to food or dangers to motivate the colony to react to their individual experiences, with the human fear of loss of personal independence by being regulated by otherwise disconnected ruling elites. <br />
<br />
Ants are a recurring theme, as are those who study them. See for instance [[1610: Fire Ants]]. Chemtrails was also the subject of [[966: Jet Fuel]], [[1677: Contrails]], and were mentioned in [[1803: Location Reviews]]. This comic has a similar format to [[2036: Edgelord]]: a simple one-panel interaction consisting of a (likely deliberate) misuse of a term in regards to a professional's work, followed immediately by the professional's upset outburst, and Randall's caption spelling out "How to annoy" the professional. Both of these seems to be related to Randall's [[:Category:My Hobby|hobbies]], as this is something he seems to think about a lot — how to annoy specific groups of people, which is necessary information for minimizing overall annoyance production.{{cn}}<br />
<br />
===Speculation===<br />
<br />
Ponytail may conceivably be a professional entomologist who once worked with an editor who inserted the word "chemtrails" in one of her [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00359-019-01363-z comparative physiology] or [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10071-020-01354-7 ''Animal Cognition''] drafts competing before a peer review panel with papers by [https://bio.kuleuven.be/ento/pdfs/billen_procnev_2006_signal_variety.pdf Johan Bilen] of the Leuven University Zoological Institute and Harvard's [https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674045880 Rüdiger Wehner]. Terminology is often a sore spot for those who study "slave-making" socially parasitic species.[https://evolve.community.uaf.edu/2015/04/23/emantcipation-when-captured-ants-rise-against-their-captors/]<br />
<br />
Chemical signalling for mind control is depicted in the ant-technology interaction speculative fiction-themed rock music video by the band ''Placebo'' entitled [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fISvc-yUU1A "Infrared."]<br />
<br />
Whether ant gland secretion signalling is {{w|Turing completeness|Turing-equivalent}} was explored in Douglas Hofstadter's ''{{w|Gödel, Escher, Bach|Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid}}''.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Cueball stands talking to Ponytail, who has her arms raised and has small lines above her head to indicate annoyance.]<br />
:Cueball: So, I hear you're really into chemtrails?<br />
:Ponytail: '''''No!!'''''<br />
<br />
:[Caption below the panel:]<br />
:How to annoy entomologists who study ant navigation<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:Animals]]<br />
[[Category:Biology]]<br />
[[Category:Puns]]<br />
[[Category:Conspiracy theory]]</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2654:_Chemtrails&diff=2919962654: Chemtrails2022-08-04T11:48:56Z<p>172.70.85.5: /* Explanation */ Redundanted myself!</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2654<br />
| date = August 3, 2022<br />
| title = Chemtrails<br />
| image = chemtrails.png<br />
| titletext = Ants have reverse chemtrails--regular citizens spraying chemicals everywhere they go to control the government.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by an INKJET PRINTER FILLED WITH PERFUME. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
{{w|Ant}}s, studied along with other insects by {{w|entomologist}}s, leave trails of signalling secretions such as {{w|pheromones}}, natural chemicals that they emit along the trail to and from food sources and other events. These chemical trails guide other ants in the colony to return to food, but are only informally refered to as chemtrails by biologists. <br />
<br />
[[Cueball]] is intentionally conflating these with {{w|chemtrails}}, the subject of a conspiracy theory that the government controls the population by spraying toxic or mind-/body-transformative chemicals from high-flying aircraft. This myth may be partly based on the practice of {{w|cloud seeding}}, which uses chemical flares containing silver nitrate to attempt to increase precipitation,[https://www.vox.com/videos/23290459/cloud-seeding-manmade-rain-future-perfect] on studies of chemical mind control among ants,[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022191016301640] or both. Despite [[1677: Contrails|occasional conflation]], this is unrelated to "contrails", short for "condensation trails", which are cloud-like lines in the sky created by jet engines. Such linear cloud-formations arise from temperature and pressure disturbances of the passing engines rather than any deliberate release, but are highly visible in the right conditions (otherwise cloud-free) to those who live under flightpaths, and may have the appearance of some active "spraying" action, when the exact same routine flights above skies that are overcast or otherwise unreceptive to incidental nucleation excite no such assumptions.<br />
<br />
Chemical manipulation of unwitting people is not uncommon, as general mood-enhancing effects in specific locations,[https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/3469-smells-shoppers-spend-more.html] and doesn't involve high-altitude airplanes. There is very little evidence that sophisticated mind control posited by chemtrail conspiracists is possible, even after extensive research.[https://www.google.com/books/edition/Poisoner_in_Chief/U6iDDwAAQBAJ]<br />
<br />
[[Ponytail]] specifically studies chemically-mediated cooperative ant navigation. [[Cueball]] knows she will be annoyed when he tells her, "So, I hear you're really into chemtrails?" Indeed, he gets the reaction he hoped for when she objects strongly and rejects this with a loud, "'''No!!'''" [[Randall]] writes in the caption that this is how to annoy people like Ponytail.<br />
<br />
The title text contrasts individual ants instinctively deciding how the whole colony behaves by using chemicals to indicate routes to food or dangers to motivate the colony to react to their individual experiences, with the human fear of loss of personal independence by being regulated by otherwise disconnected ruling elites. <br />
<br />
Ants are a recurring theme, as are those who study them. See for instance [[1610: Fire Ants]]. Chemtrails was also the subject of [[966: Jet Fuel]], [[1677: Contrails]], and were mentioned in [[1803: Location Reviews]]. This comic has a similar format to [[2036: Edgelord]]: a simple one-panel interaction consisting of a (likely deliberate) misuse of a term in regards to a professional's work, followed immediately by the professional's upset outburst, and Randall's caption spelling out "How to annoy" the professional. Both of these seems to be related to Randall's [[:Category:My Hobby|hobbies]], as this is something he seems to think about a lot — how to annoy specific groups of people, which is necessary information for minimizing overall annoyance production.{{cn}}<br />
<br />
===Speculation===<br />
<br />
Ponytail may conceivably be a professional entomologist who once worked with an editor who inserted the word "chemtrails" in one of her [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00359-019-01363-z comparative physiology] or [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10071-020-01354-7 ''Animal Cognition''] drafts competing before a peer review panel with papers by [https://bio.kuleuven.be/ento/pdfs/billen_procnev_2006_signal_variety.pdf Johan Bilen] of the Leuven University Zoological Institute and Harvard's [https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674045880 Rüdiger Wehner]. Terminology is often a sore spot for those who study "slave-making" socially parasitic species.[https://evolve.community.uaf.edu/2015/04/23/emantcipation-when-captured-ants-rise-against-their-captors/]<br />
<br />
Chemical signalling for mind control is depicted in the ant-technology interaction speculative fiction-themed rock music video by the band ''Placebo'' entitled [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fISvc-yUU1A "Infrared."]<br />
<br />
Whether ant gland secretion signalling is {{w|Turing completeness|Turing-equivalent}} was explored in Douglas Hofstadter's ''{{w|Gödel, Escher, Bach|Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid}}''.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Cueball stands talking to Ponytail, who has her arms raised and has small lines above her head to indicate annoyance.]<br />
:Cueball: So, I hear you're really into chemtrails?<br />
:Ponytail: '''''No!!'''''<br />
<br />
:[Caption below the panel:]<br />
:How to annoy entomologists who study ant navigation<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:Animals]]<br />
[[Category:Biology]]<br />
[[Category:Puns]]<br />
[[Category:Conspiracy theory]]</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2654:_Chemtrails&diff=2919952654: Chemtrails2022-08-04T11:48:13Z<p>172.70.85.5: /* Explanation */ Before the next bit, just making the clear/receptive sky point clear.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2654<br />
| date = August 3, 2022<br />
| title = Chemtrails<br />
| image = chemtrails.png<br />
| titletext = Ants have reverse chemtrails--regular citizens spraying chemicals everywhere they go to control the government.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by an INKJET PRINTER FILLED WITH PERFUME. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
{{w|Ant}}s, studied along with other insects by {{w|entomologist}}s, leave trails of signalling secretions such as {{w|pheromones}}, natural chemicals that they emit along the trail to and from food sources and other events. These chemical trails guide other ants in the colony to return to food, but are only informally refered to as chemtrails by biologists. <br />
<br />
[[Cueball]] is intentionally conflating these with {{w|chemtrails}}, the subject of a conspiracy theory that the government controls the population by spraying toxic or mind-/body-transformative chemicals from high-flying aircraft. This myth may be partly based on the practice of {{w|cloud seeding}}, which uses chemical flares containing silver nitrate to attempt to increase precipitation,[https://www.vox.com/videos/23290459/cloud-seeding-manmade-rain-future-perfect] on studies of chemical mind control among ants,[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022191016301640] or both. Despite [[1677: Contrails|occasional conflation]], this is unrelated to "contrails", short for "condensation trails", which are cloud-like lines in the sky created by jet engines. Such linear cloud-formations arise from temperature and pressure disturbances of the passing engines rather than any deliberate release, but are highly visible in the right conditions (otherwise cloud-free conditions) to those who live under flightpaths, and may have the appearance of some active "spraying" action, when the exact same routine flights above skies that are overcast or otherwise unreceptive to incidental nucleation excite no such assumptions.<br />
<br />
Chemical manipulation of unwitting people is not uncommon, as general mood-enhancing effects in specific locations,[https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/3469-smells-shoppers-spend-more.html] and doesn't involve high-altitude airplanes. There is very little evidence that sophisticated mind control posited by chemtrail conspiracists is possible, even after extensive research.[https://www.google.com/books/edition/Poisoner_in_Chief/U6iDDwAAQBAJ]<br />
<br />
[[Ponytail]] specifically studies chemically-mediated cooperative ant navigation. [[Cueball]] knows she will be annoyed when he tells her, "So, I hear you're really into chemtrails?" Indeed, he gets the reaction he hoped for when she objects strongly and rejects this with a loud, "'''No!!'''" [[Randall]] writes in the caption that this is how to annoy people like Ponytail.<br />
<br />
The title text contrasts individual ants instinctively deciding how the whole colony behaves by using chemicals to indicate routes to food or dangers to motivate the colony to react to their individual experiences, with the human fear of loss of personal independence by being regulated by otherwise disconnected ruling elites. <br />
<br />
Ants are a recurring theme, as are those who study them. See for instance [[1610: Fire Ants]]. Chemtrails was also the subject of [[966: Jet Fuel]], [[1677: Contrails]], and were mentioned in [[1803: Location Reviews]]. This comic has a similar format to [[2036: Edgelord]]: a simple one-panel interaction consisting of a (likely deliberate) misuse of a term in regards to a professional's work, followed immediately by the professional's upset outburst, and Randall's caption spelling out "How to annoy" the professional. Both of these seems to be related to Randall's [[:Category:My Hobby|hobbies]], as this is something he seems to think about a lot — how to annoy specific groups of people, which is necessary information for minimizing overall annoyance production.{{cn}}<br />
<br />
===Speculation===<br />
<br />
Ponytail may conceivably be a professional entomologist who once worked with an editor who inserted the word "chemtrails" in one of her [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00359-019-01363-z comparative physiology] or [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10071-020-01354-7 ''Animal Cognition''] drafts competing before a peer review panel with papers by [https://bio.kuleuven.be/ento/pdfs/billen_procnev_2006_signal_variety.pdf Johan Bilen] of the Leuven University Zoological Institute and Harvard's [https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674045880 Rüdiger Wehner]. Terminology is often a sore spot for those who study "slave-making" socially parasitic species.[https://evolve.community.uaf.edu/2015/04/23/emantcipation-when-captured-ants-rise-against-their-captors/]<br />
<br />
Chemical signalling for mind control is depicted in the ant-technology interaction speculative fiction-themed rock music video by the band ''Placebo'' entitled [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fISvc-yUU1A "Infrared."]<br />
<br />
Whether ant gland secretion signalling is {{w|Turing completeness|Turing-equivalent}} was explored in Douglas Hofstadter's ''{{w|Gödel, Escher, Bach|Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid}}''.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Cueball stands talking to Ponytail, who has her arms raised and has small lines above her head to indicate annoyance.]<br />
:Cueball: So, I hear you're really into chemtrails?<br />
:Ponytail: '''''No!!'''''<br />
<br />
:[Caption below the panel:]<br />
:How to annoy entomologists who study ant navigation<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:Animals]]<br />
[[Category:Biology]]<br />
[[Category:Puns]]<br />
[[Category:Conspiracy theory]]</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2654:_Chemtrails&diff=2919862654: Chemtrails2022-08-04T11:31:54Z<p>172.70.85.5: Moving another section (slavery aint an issue in the comic) and re-moving the GEB:EGB bit to where it is more useful (last attempt was edit-conflicted by things being reverted by the other author) ((NB New edit-conflictS, which I'll assess momentarily!))</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2654<br />
| date = August 3, 2022<br />
| title = Chemtrails<br />
| image = chemtrails.png<br />
| titletext = Ants have reverse chemtrails--regular citizens spraying chemicals everywhere they go to control the government.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by an INKJET PRINTER FILLED WITH PERFUME. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
{{w|Ant}}s, studied along with other insects by {{w|entomologist}}s, leave trails of signalling secretions such as {{w|pheromones}}, natural chemicals that they emit along the trail to and from food sources and other events. These chemical trails guide other ants in the colony to return to food, but are not generally refered to as chemtrails by biologists except informally. <br />
<br />
[[Cueball]] is intentionally conflating these with {{w|chemtrails}}, the subject of a conspiracy theory that the government controls the population by spraying toxic or mind-/body-transformative chemicals from high-flying aircraft. This myth may be partly based on the practice of {{w|cloud seeding}}, which uses chemical flares containing silver nitrate to attempt to increase precipitation,[https://www.vox.com/videos/23290459/cloud-seeding-manmade-rain-future-perfect] on studies of chemical mind control among ants,[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022191016301640] or both. Despite [[1677: Contrails|occasional conflation]], this is unrelated to "contrails", short for "condensation trails", which are cloud-like lines in the sky created by jet engines. Such linear cloud-formations arise from temperature and pressure disturbances of the passing engines rather than any deliberate release, but are highly visible in the right conditions to those who live under flightpaths, and may have the appearance of some active "spraying" action. Chemical manipulation of unwitting people is not uncommon, but is more a general mood-enhancing effect that works within a specific location[https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/3469-smells-shoppers-spend-more.html] and doesn't involve high-altitude airplanes. There is very little evidence that sophisticated mind control posited by chemtrail conspiracists is possible, even after extensive research.[https://www.google.com/books/edition/Poisoner_in_Chief/U6iDDwAAQBAJ]<br />
<br />
[[Ponytail]] specifically studies chemically-mediated cooperative ant navigation. [[Cueball]] knows she will be annoyed when he tells her, "So, I hear you're really into chemtrails?" Indeed, he gets the reaction he hoped for when she objects strongly and rejects this with a loud, "'''No!!'''". [[Randall]] writes in the caption that this is how to annoy people like Ponytail.<br />
<br />
The title text contrasts individual ants instinctively deciding how the whole colony behaves by using chemicals to indicate routes to food or dangers to motivate the colony to react to their individual experiences, with the human fear of loss of personal independence by being regulated by otherwise disconnected ruling elites. Whether ant-gland secretion signalling is {{w|Turing completeness|Turing-equivalent}} was explored in Douglas Hofstadter's ''{{w|Gödel, Escher, Bach|Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid}}''.<br />
<br />
Ants are a recurring theme, as are those who study them. See for instance [[1610: Fire Ants]]. Chemtrails was also the subject of [[966: Jet Fuel]], [[1677: Contrails]], and were mentioned in [[1803: Location Reviews]]. This comic has a similar format to [[2036: Edgelord]]: a simple one-panel interaction consisting of a (likely deliberate) misuse of a term in regards to a professional's work, followed immediately by the professional's upset outburst, and Randall's caption spelling out "How to annoy" the professional. Both of these seems to be related to Randall's [[:Category:My Hobby|hobbies]], as this is something he seems to think about a lot — how to annoy specific groups of people, which is necessary information for minimizing overall annoyance production.{{cn}}<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Cueball stands talking to Ponytail, who has her arms raised and has small lines above her head to indicate annoyance.]<br />
:Cueball: So, I hear you're really into chemtrails?<br />
:Ponytail: '''''No!!'''''<br />
<br />
:[Caption below the panel:]<br />
:How to annoy entomologists who study ant navigation<br />
<br />
==Trivia==<br />
Ponytail may conceivably be a professional entomologist who once worked with an editor who inserted the word "chemtrails" in one of her [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00359-019-01363-z comparative physiology] or [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10071-020-01354-7 ''Animal Cognition''] drafts competing before a peer review panel with papers by [https://bio.kuleuven.be/ento/pdfs/billen_procnev_2006_signal_variety.pdf Johan Bilen] of the Leuven University Zoological Institute and Harvard's [https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674045880 Rüdiger Wehner].<br />
<br />
Terminology is often a sore spot for those who study "slave-making" socially parasitic species.[https://evolve.community.uaf.edu/2015/04/23/emantcipation-when-captured-ants-rise-against-their-captors/]<br />
<br />
Chemical signalling is depicted ('''still to check that this isn't a Rick Roll - bear with me...''') in the ant-technology interaction speculative fiction-themed rock music video by the band ''Placebo'' entitled [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fISvc-yUU1A "Infrared."]<br />
<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:Animals]]<br />
[[Category:Biology]]<br />
[[Category:Puns]]<br />
[[Category:Conspiracy theory]]</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2654:_Chemtrails&diff=291947Talk:2654: Chemtrails2022-08-04T09:07:56Z<p>172.70.85.5: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
Ants navigate by following trails of chemicals on the ground, so it is ''technically'' a correct description, but also lumps ant navigation entomologists with conspiracy nuts.--[[User:NyanSequitur|NyanSequitur]] ([[User talk:NyanSequitur|talk]]) 16:01, 3 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:The point is that scientists don't call these trails "chemtrails". Cueball has made that mistaken link. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 16:05, 3 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
I must say that the title-text made me laugh out loud the most. (Also, though I'm sure there's no direct or even impliable link, made me fondly recall Aunt Hillary in {{w|Gödel, Escher, Bach}}, where she does not control or particularly care for her ants and they don't pull ''her'' strings in any way that they 'care' about.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.250|162.158.158.250]] 16:26, 3 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:But doesn't the queen spread pheromones that control the whole population, and she is not outside thus not affected by the trails left by her workers. So it is not actually so with ants, wasps, bees and termites that they are actually mind controlled by chemicals released by their government? If I'm right the title text is completely wrong on all levels. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 07:33, 4 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::Obviously the queen can't be directly affected by signals left outside the nest, but equally, workers outside the nest can't be affected by signals from the queen (except inasmuch as they are mediated by other members of the colony). And the queen's behaviour can be modulated by pheromones released inside the nest - such as increasing or decreasing fertility, or changing the pheromones she releases in response. Ultimately, the queen, like any other ant, can only influence the behaviour of those around her, and only does so in response to signals she herself receives - not in some kind of command control, dictatorial way. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.5|172.70.85.5]] 09:07, 4 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Can't quite remember which, but I think there was another comic formatted like this. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.254.165|172.70.254.165]] 17:46, 3 August 2022 (UTC)Nafedalbi<br />
:It was [[2036:_Edgelord|2036, the one about graph theory Ph.Ds]]. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.103|172.70.178.103]] 18:00, 3 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Does the caption have any relation to [[2609:_Entwives]]? I came to this explainxkcd page after reading the comic because I am not familiar with the word "entomologists". I hope somebody who knows the word can add a paragraph about the caption. --[[User:Batterystaple|Batterystaple]] ([[User talk:Batterystaple|talk]]) 07:30, 4 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:No, as you can see from the explanation entomologists is one who study insects and this word has been used before in xkcd for that meaning. Nothing to do with Ents. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 07:34, 4 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Do we need new categories for ants and for chemtrails? I found three other with chemtrails, added to the explanation and I think there is a bunch of ants comics. Added one with an ant researcher as here. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 07:33, 4 August 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2650:_Deepfakes&diff=290878Talk:2650: Deepfakes2022-07-26T21:23:53Z<p>172.70.85.5: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
<br />
Is it worth mentioning that this comic is merely sincere discussion, without (please correct me if I'm wrong) any sort of a joke or irony? The closest it gets is hyperbole in the title text. I know it's not unique in this respect, but it does seem to be different than other such comics because it seems like it might have a joke, given the obscurity of the Ea-nasir reference. If our job is truly to explain, should we let people coming here to figure out the humor know there isn't any? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.95|172.70.214.95]] 06:48, 26 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Did but [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2650:_Deepfakes&diff=290833&oldid=290831 reverted,] other opinions? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.145|172.70.210.145]] 08:39, 26 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
::I have reverted and added more. I just [[609: Tab Explosion|used a long time]] on [[214: The Problem with Wikipedia|wiki]] because of those two tidbits of info that has nothing to do with Deepfakes... :-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 09:49, 26 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:::Snap... I (not the above IP) was also on a long wikiwalk. (Did you know that the map of the copper-fraudster's house is one of the top 200 diagrams that is considered important to resubmit in vectorised format? Amongst many colour-model diagrams and how much money goes to which US surveillance and intelligence agencies. :P ) I really ought to do something important, instead. Like vectorise some diagrams. Hand me my spline-wrench and my gradient-planer! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.34|172.70.86.34]] 10:17, 26 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Not sure about there being no joke. White Hat realizing that you can write untrue things (most common types known as lies and fiction), that people have done it for a long time and calling it the new buzzword ("text deepfakes") certainly was funny to me. Cueball's somewhat obscure reference (which you don't really need to know to understand) drives home the point.[[User:627235|627235]] ([[User talk:627235|talk]]) 10:52, 26 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:The Ea-nasir punchline made me laugh, I think its a bit of a stretch to say there's no joke here [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.34|172.70.86.34]] 11:00, 26 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:The text about no joke is utterly wrong. There's no single punchline, but this is a very funny strip. [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 11:02, 26 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:: It's though-provoking, interesting, and insightful — maybe even profound — but I wouldn't call it humorous. It's probably a good idea to put something in for people like me who come here looking for the joke. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.90|172.70.211.90]]<br />
: The Ea-nasir reference is hilarious. Fake product reviews on clay tablets!--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.11|162.158.134.11]] 12:34, 26 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:: Or "Instead of Copper Ingots, package contained Near Eastern Wildcat"... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.5|172.70.85.5]] 21:23, 26 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
: Not all humor is 'laugh-out-loud' or 'clownish' - - - or, even necessarily 'funny' depending upon your definition. 17:37, 26 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
: It's all a matter of taste. For example - take the closing reference in the explanation "A similar dilemma was discussed in 1958: Self-Driving Issues, where technology does not create a new way to lie, but may make such lies more convincing to certain parties (in the other strip, self-driving cars)." --- although there is no punchline it is humorous (absurd) because there were no self-driving cars 64 years ago, and I am pretty sure XKCD was not even around in 1958. Or, maybe it is an example a text deepfake provided for elucidation. [[User:DMG|DMG]] ([[User talk:DMG|talk]]) 17:56, 26 July 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2650:_Deepfakes&diff=2908762650: Deepfakes2022-07-26T21:07:32Z<p>172.70.85.5: /* Explanation */ Different form of typo?</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2650<br />
| date = July 25, 2022<br />
| title = Deepfakes<br />
| image = deepfakes.png<br />
| titletext = If so great a deductive mind as Arthur Conan Doyle can be fooled by the Cottingley Deepfakes, what chance do we mortals have? Soon our very reality will be dictated by the whims of Frances (9) and Elsie (16).<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a DEEPFAKE - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
A {{w|deepfake}} is an altered video, designed to deceive by replacing a person in a video. [[White Hat]] believes that this technology will make it difficult to trust videos. However, [[Cueball]] responds by saying that "fakes" have always existed, in photos (either through {{w|photoshopping|alterations by software such as Adobe Photoshop}}, or deliberately staging faked images, e.g. {{w|Loch Ness Monster#%22Surgeon's photograph%22 (1934)|of the Loch Ness Monster}}) and even more so by people simply lying. White Hat comes around to Cueball's position and says that even the written word is prone to deception and lying.<br />
<br />
Scientific studies of deepfakes have produced surprising results, suggesting that they are more likely to increase uncertainty than persuade,[https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2056305120903408] that their increased prevalence could inoculate the public against {{w|disinformation}},[https://dspace.cuni.cz/handle/20.500.11956/150489] and that they are more likely to be shared because of their humorousness than persuasiveness.[http://essay.utwente.nl/91654/] Other studies have found that deepfakes are persuasive, especially among those who are unfamiliar with them.[https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cyber.2020.0174][https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1780812]<br />
<br />
The {{w|complaint tablet to Ea-nasir}} is a 3,800 year-old clay tablet containing the oldest known written complaint, in which a customer complains to a merchant, Ea-nasir, about his copper ingots. Cueball's last statement says that perhaps this complaint could have been a lie to begin with, and there was nothing wrong with Ea-nasir's wares. This supposition is arguably the humor of the comic, apart from the hyperbole of the title text.<br />
<br />
The title text references the {{w|Cottingley Fairies}}, a series of five photographs produced in 1917 by two children, Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths, who were 16 and 9, respectively. The photographs appear to show the children playing with fairies in their garden. The photographs received widespread attention when Sir {{w|Arthur Conan Doyle}}, the author of the ''Sherlock Holmes'' stories, used the photos as proof of paranormal phenomena in a 1920 magazine article. Conan Doyle was notable for being a strong proponent of reaching conclusions based on evidence and reason, and also held a deep belief in paranormal and supernatural phenomena. In 1983, Elsie and Frances finally confessed that the photos had been faked, by the simple process of posing cardboard figures cut out of a children's book. Due to technical advances, young children now can more easily create convincingly realistic fakes.<br />
<br />
A similar dilemma was alluded to in the [[1958: Self-Driving Issues]] comic, where technology does not create a new way to lie, but may make certain lies more convincing to some parties, such as self-driving cars in that comic.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[White Hat and Cueball are walking to the right.]<br />
:White Hat: Thanks to deepfakes, soon we won't know what's real anymore. Video will become meaningless.<br />
<br />
:[White Hat and Cueball walk on, Cueball lifts one hand with the palm up.]<br />
:Cueball: I dunno.<br />
:Cueball: We've had Photoshop for decades and staged photos for centuries.<br />
:Cueball: It hasn't made photos meaningless.<br />
<br />
:[Zoom in on Cueball, who is turned left towards off-panel White Hat.]<br />
:Cueball: The bottleneck for fake stuff isn't technical. The bottleneck is willingness to lie.<br />
:Cueball: "People lying" is a very old problem.<br />
:Cueball: It's a known exploit.<br />
<br />
:[Zoom back out on White Hat and Cueball who have stopped. White Hat has a hand on his chin. Cueball holds his hands out to the sides.]<br />
:White Hat: I guess technically we've been able to make '''''text''''' deepfakes for 5,000 years.<br />
:Cueball: Maybe Ea-nasir's copper ingots were actually fine!<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]<br />
[[Category:Photography]]</div>172.70.85.5https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2650:_Deepfakes&diff=2908462650: Deepfakes2022-07-26T10:01:05Z<p>172.70.85.5: /* Explanation */ "Seems like..." -> "It seems like..." -> "It may seem like..." -> (...a few more minor adjustments to make it less conversational...) -> "It may be that..." ;)</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2650<br />
| date = July 25, 2022<br />
| title = Deepfakes<br />
| image = deepfakes.png<br />
| titletext = If so great a deductive mind as Arthur Conan Doyle can be fooled by the Cottingley Deepfakes, what chance do we mortals have? Soon our very reality will be dictated by the whims of Frances (9) and Elsie (16).<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a DEEPFAKE - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
A {{w|deepfake}} is an altered video, designed to deceive by replacing a person in a video. [[White Hat]] believes that this technology will make it difficult to trust videos. However, [[Cueball]] responds by saying that "fakes" have always existed, in photos (either through {{w|photoshopping|alterations by software such as Adobe Photoshop}}, or deliberately staging fakes images, e.g. {{w|Loch Ness Monster#%22Surgeon's photograph%22 (1934)|of the Loch Ness Monster}}) and even moreso by people simply lying. White Hat comes around to Cueball's position and says that even the written word is prone to deception and lying.<br />
<br />
Scientific studies of deepfakes have produced surprising results, suggesting that they are more likely to increase uncertainty than persuade,[https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2056305120903408] that their increased prevalence could inoculate the public against {{w|disinformation}},[https://dspace.cuni.cz/handle/20.500.11956/150489] and that they are more likely to be shared because of their humorousness than persuasiveness.[http://essay.utwente.nl/91654/] Other studies have found that deepfakes are persuasive, especially among those who are unfamiliar with them.[https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cyber.2020.0174][https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1780812]<br />
<br />
The {{w|complaint tablet to Ea-nasir}} is a 3,800 year-old clay tablet containing the oldest known written complaint, in which a customer complains to a merchant, Ea-nasir, about his copper ingots. Cueball's last statement says that perhaps this complaint could have been a lie to begin with, and there was nothing wrong with Ea-nasir's wares.<br />
<br />
The title text references the {{w|Cottingley Fairies}}, a series of photographs of "fairies" by two children, Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths, who were 16 and 9, respectively. The photographs received widespread attention when Sir {{w|Arthur Conan Doyle}}, the author of the ''Sherlock Holmes'' series and noteworthy for his logical analysis alongside an unshakable belief in mysticism, used the photos as proof of paranormal phenomena in a 1920 magazine article. In 1983, Elsie and Frances confessed that the photos had been faked.<br />
<br />
Unlike most xkcd comics, this one consists of sincere discussion without any joke or other form of intentional humor, except for the hyperbole in the title text and the obscure references to the complaint and the fairies. Often White Hat would be saying something that Cueball think is bad. But in this case he just discuss that it might not be so big a problem as White Hat fears. It may be that [[Randall]] just found a way of telling his followers about the oldest known written complaint and a fairy story hoax believed by a well known author.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[White Hat and Cueball are walking to the right.]<br />
:White Hat: Thanks to deepfakes, soon we won't know what's real anymore. Video will become meaningless.<br />
<br />
:[White Hat and Cueball walks on, Cueball lifts one hand with the palm up.]<br />
:Cueball: I dunno.<br />
:Cueball: We've had Photoshop for decades and staged photos for centuries.<br />
:Cueball: It hasn't made photos meaningless.<br />
<br />
:[Zoom in on Cuebal, who has turned towards White Hat - who is off panel left.]<br />
:Cueball: The bottleneck for fake stuff isn't technical. The bottleneck is willingness to lie.<br />
:Cueball: "People lying" is a very old problem.<br />
:Cueball: It's a known exploit.<br />
<br />
:[Zoom back out on White Hat and Cueball who have stopped. White Hat has a hand on his chin. Cueball holds his hands out to the sides.]<br />
:White Hat: I guess technically we've been able to make '''''text''''' deepfakes for 5,000 years.<br />
:Cueball: Maybe Ea-nasir's copper ingots were actually fine!<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]<br />
[[Category:Photography]]</div>172.70.85.5