explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2916: Machine

2024-04-15T08:43:01Z

172.70.86.80: /* Implementation? */

rather late for an april fools comic innit? also there doesn't seem to be anything exciting in this one lol, none of the usual cool exploration easter eggs, as far as i could tell at least [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.76|172.71.178.76]] 16:41, 6 April 2024 (UTC)Erfaniom
:Randall posted an eclipse comic on Apr. 1. All April Fools comics are interactive. [[User:Z1mp0st0rz|Z1mp0st0rz]] ([[User talk:Z1mp0st0rz|talk]]) 15:27, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

: We're exploring crowdsourced human creativity here, in a way, so it can be a lot more interesting then Randall's exploration comics, at least for me, because i did take two years of GCSE psychology and enjoyed it. [[Special:Contributions/172.64.238.130|172.64.238.130]]

: looks like the egg's on my face lmao, i think i was among the first people to make anything, so everywhere was under construction for me, i didn't even understand that it was like a crowd thing [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.52|172.70.210.52]] 14:19, 9 April 2024 (UTC)Erfaniom

Just popped over using Chrome on Android and all I see is four "missing picture" logos spinning around, plus another down the bottom right... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.68.193|141.101.68.193]] 18:13, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
:Okay, followup: it behaves quite differently on the non mobile site. You get two entry points with red balls and yellow balls and you need to place the various gizmos to direct the balls to the correct exit point. Once enough have correctly passed to turn the red X into a green tick, you have the option to submit. If you do, once you have named your design it will be added to the grid with other submissions all of which exist to push red and yellow balls around. (if you come across "Memories of Ragnarok", that's mine) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.134.207|172.71.134.207]] 18:27, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
::The number of inputs appears to vary between 1 and 4, each of a different color, with one color-coded output for each. [[User:Claire Kholin|Claire Kholin]] ([[User talk:Claire Kholin|talk]]) 18:49, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

On the "machine" section, you see lots of "under construction cells". Perhaps this will develop as more are submitted. I notice the "under construction tape" has "DJIA" and "31415", perhaps a reference to "dow jones industrial average" and the first five digits of pi. [[User:Zeimusu|Zeimusu]] ([[User talk:Zeimusu|talk]]) 18:37, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
:Whenever someone submits a cell, it fills in one of the under construction cells. [[User:Claire Kholin|Claire Kholin]] ([[User talk:Claire Kholin|talk]]) 18:49, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
[Robert'); DROP TABLE Student!:;--] i just got a machine with 3 outputs one yellow another red and a third blue AND green and 3 inputs one green one blue and one red blue and yellow https://xkcd.com/2916/#xt=7&yt=50 hope its still there {{unsigned ip|172.70.115.173|18:01, 9 April 2024}}
:I think I just 'did' one with a Red+Yellow source (also separate singular Blue and Green) and a combined Blue+Green sink (and separate Yellow and Red). Got it working well, actually using fan-levitation to separate the R+Y enough to route them to their destinations, the Y then having to cross the occasional flying Green (which I was forced to "Bonk" and bounce up, entry being nearly at the bottom on right, exit being nearly at top on left) for its exit, everything else fairly simple. No idea if it got integrated, of course. Never seen any of my machines be accepted (when I later look around at what's there), so I'm still unsure if there's anything I can do to increase my chance of a successful square being made permanent on the grid.... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.49|172.70.163.49]] 20:58, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
:...still had it sitting there [https://imgur.com/kZdp3kH on my browser], though note that the Red+Yellow supply (mid-left) and the Green supply (right) aren't working here, through the "move the screen around, lose the feeds from 'Under Construction' squares" issue, or similar. But still I managed to submit it. The occasional Yellow and Red are falling from the Blue entrance in the top (I've not done anything special to filter those out/send them to a more proper exit, and it's too late to do so now anyway, it was just a Blue entry during the development process, of course).
:It's a pity you can't see it working, but I quite like my Yellow/Red separation. This might be the only time you see it in place, though, so a shame I didn't take a screenshot immedediately after submitting it. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.49|172.70.163.49]] 21:30, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
:I encountered a puzzle with five distinct pairs of in/out (none combined): Two blue, two red, one yellow. It was difficult! AFAIK five pairs is the highest reported so far. When I submitted the solution to the Machine, it had Under Construction above and to each side, and (IIRC) empty below, and no balls were provided, alas.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.216|172.69.134.216]] 03:46, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
I wanted to add an image for each object, but do not have the necessary access, can someone who has access add the images that I linked in the table so they can be included? [[User:Claire Kholin|Claire Kholin]] ([[User talk:Claire Kholin|talk]]) 18:49, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

I found a discussion with some guy talking about the API at https://euphoria.leet.nu/room/xkcd/ ; this could be useful for the wiki.

<code>
[c+1] now time to try fucking with the api
[c+1] https://incredible.xkcd.com/
[userwithnoaccount] 404
[c+1] it seems there are numbered machines under incredible.xkcd.com/machine/x
[c+1] returns a grid of individual machinlets
[c+1] which are uids like 3a7af27c-5389-5dcb-b660-3feab6be2ceb
[c+1] they're stored at urls like incredible.xkcd.com/folio/3a7af27c-5389-5dcb-b660-3feab6be2ceb
[c+1] there appear to be 33 machines total
[c+1] the json it returns seems to refer to these as "versions"
[c+1] $ curl -s https://incredible.xkcd.com/machine/21 | jq ".version"
21
[c+1] there is a machine/0, but it's all null
[c+1] going to https://incredible.xkcd.com/machine/current redirects to the current machine
[c+1] $ curl -sL https://incredible.xkcd.com/machine/current | jq ".version"
35
[c+1] wait, is that the *total* number of mahcines?
[c+1] i would've thought there'd be more
[c+1] this whole think is rather esoteric
[c+1] Written in rust, too: https://rapier.rs/
[c+1] Uh oh.
https://i.hypercone.us/?v=8e283d
[c+1] HMMM
https://i.hypercone.us/?v=079f8f
[c+1] it seems there is no limit
[c+1] i've uploaded a ~50M title
</code>

With this I was able to make a script that visualizes paths of the balls. I was hoping that there would be an interesting pattern somewhere but it appears to be mostly random (https://i.imgur.com/ZvLlucU.png) --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.131.24|172.71.131.24]] 17:12, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

[[Special:Contributions/172.70.57.146|172.70.57.146]]

Had quite a lot of fun, added a few 'successful' machines to the grid. Noted that whenever I try to use the Prism that (after a short delay) the comic-pane blanks and I need to refresh the page/get a completely new 'challenge' to start from scratch, so I'm just not using the prism at all (used most of the other items, in combination or 'just the one across the whole board', whichever seems most fun). But it doesn't seem to do what I'd like it to do, which is sort multiple colours from the same inflow into different outflow directions. Which would be ''very'' useful in a 'crossroads' situation, the general solution of directing them cross-path being too prone to random collisions. Also might be useful in the 'submitted machine grid', as I note that errors propagate, whereas adding a filter on all inputs would clean out (dispose of/send off to a valid gate?) the rogue balls. Anyway, gonna have to come back to this later when there's more time... Maybe then I'll even have something useful to add to the Explanation. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.31|172.70.163.31]] 19:03, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

The balls appear to be different weights. I just saw a machine that used fans to separate yellows from greens and blues in a sort of 'wheat from the chaff' manner to direct them to their correct outputs. I wonder what other hidden tricks are included. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.1.159|172.68.1.159]] 19:40, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

They're not all accepted, though it makes you think they are. Or something else more complex is going on we haven't realized yet. I made a machine that was working reliably, submitted it, and saw it on the overall grid. Reloading from a different browser I found the same location of the machine, with the same surroundings, but my machine had been replaced. It's nowhere else on the grid either. The first browser still shows it (but not after a reload with a cache clear). I'm not sure if there's some kind of "save" event that needs to happen beyond seeing your machine in the broader one, or if all user collaboration is an illusion, or if the system changes its mind about us somehow.

: Yeah, i've been seeing this too. Please tell me if you find any of my machines, images at https://i.hypercone.us/?v=22d562 , https://i.hypercone.us/?v=ad8e3a , and https://i.hypercone.us/?v=8d4d6a . I want to be one of the few to have added Catalan and Spanish to the grid. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.134.164|172.71.134.164]] 20:56, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

I've added some more observations to the page. Also, a guess which is too uncertain to put on the main page: The ball launcher for the yellows on the far left side misses a lot, and the yellow container isn't the one on the left. So I think the whole machine with crossing streams will result in the colors being sorted in their container order, and possibly have the streams combined and deposited at the bottom just above the containers. --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.147.100|172.71.147.100]] 21:07, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

has anyone seen the boat at the very bottom? [[User:Mushrooms|Mushrooms]] ([[User talk:Mushrooms|talk]]) 21:21, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

trying to see it on Firefox for Ubuntu and it just tells me to "visit xkcd.com to view" - THAT'S WHERE I AM?! Tried clearing website data (but not my entire cache) and that didn't help. Is there something I'm missing?

Oooh, just had one with four ball-entries (four colours) and ''three'' exits (one caters for two arrows). Pity it's rather complicated to get entries to exits (even if I can merge two of the streams). Might have to give up on it, but I'd like to have seen how it fits in with the 'submited grid'. i.e. someone else gets a two-colour introduction spot. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.119|162.158.74.119]] 22:37, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
:Me again. I'm just refreshing the page, looking at the pattern of entries/exits (just a dozen or so screens in, getting some repeats of pattern, indicating that it's going back to tiles it was suggesting before, probably depends on how many others are contributing and extending...)
:Found another 'double-colour' example. Two yellows ''from the same side'', which probably means that there's a two-yellows been asked to exit from the neighbour (will check shortly).
:Quickly adapting from my spreadsheet notation, "R, Y, G, B" in order, each "(Entry, Exit)", I've been using <dir> of L/R/T/B and a number (nominally percentage, though seems to include only values of 20, 30, 50, 70 and 80, so it ''might'' be more 1/6..5/6?) relating to the distance along from L to R (for T/B) or T to B (for L/R).
:This line is therefore (0,0)(L20+L70,R30+B70)(R80,L80)(T70,L50) ... no reds, two yellow pairings, a red pairing, a blue pairing. Would require at least two path-crossings (but I was going to calculate those things later, and double-colours might confuse my intended simple line-intersection calculation).
:...anyway, spent some time on this message, which might mean I'll get into a 'new batch' of available patterns as people have succeeded some of the challenges that I've been 'swiping left'. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.20|172.70.162.20]] 19:28, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
:...very next click: (0,0)(T30+L20,R20+R70)(R80,L80)(R50,B50), which is clearly the actual left-neighbour of the above. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.19|172.70.162.19]] 19:32, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
:Ok, stopped my refreshing to [https://imgur.com/a/OMFOmzy 'solve' a screen]. First of all I routed both yellows entries (right-upper and upper-right) to one yellow exit (middle-left) and gradually teased the greens across (lower-left to middle-right), as that way I was avoiding a criss-cross of balls, but the the other yellow exit (left-lower) was, of course, invalid.
:Changed it to drop one stream of yellows down towards the lower exit, across the rapidly firing greens (added a fan to filter away the occasional yellow that gets bounced over there, not much of an opportunity to filter falling-greens out of the yellow exit, so apologies to whoever gets the sceen below). Submited as "Two Yellows, One Green!", whether or not that'll save (apparently, I should continue to contribute and not refresh/close, or else the server will not keep the solution?).
:Interestingly, all four adjacent tiles are "Under construction", and if I scroll up... *DARN* the comic has blanked out (nothing there between the upper PREV/RANDOM/NEXT buttons and the lower ones, just whitespace). This may mean that it did not save. This is the kind of 'page crash' I get when I try using a Prism or get too many balls rattling around on top of a Black Hole. Perhaps it doesn't like that I'm scrolling into an Under Construction that shouldn't be there? (But then, why ''is'' it there?)
:Anyway, all extra information for everyone.
:I'll just refresh the page and go back and do some more entry/exit mapping, maybe? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.20|172.70.162.20]] 20:17, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

If you combine a bunch of these silly claw things in the middle by just spamming it, it begins to lag and do some chaotic collisions, even without balls colliding on it. It's curious how it does that seemingly randomly though. I wonder how calculations are added and if there's a tiny sprinkle of RNG. (Also, errors occur and say something about damaging recursion in the Rust programming language, so I guess we know how it was made. It's also pretty weird how there's not a lot of opening combinations? It's possible that the machine loops over in chunks of gears or something (that's what I'll call them). ([[User talk:Leo|talk]]) 13:15, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

If you place a black hole in the centre of a wheel, it makes the wheel behave unpredictably between resets. Sometimes it's almost normal, sometimes it's a lot faster than usual, and sometimes it's stopped but launches balls that touch it with extreme force. I was able to use this to submit a machine which didn't actually let a single ball through after being submitted. https://i.hypercone.us/?v=928bcd [[Special:Contributions/162.158.33.149|162.158.33.149]] 01:19, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

The page says that (and I have taken note of) the ball hue is ''coded'' to certain values, but is there a logic to those values that might be derived from the colour (either as RGB triplet or HSV/other colourspace definition). For example, the two ball-types with zero green component in their makeup are 'unit density' (green is far heavier "green+red" is far lighter, so it's not a simple relationship, unless it converts from °hue, in some way) and the only secondary colour exhibits non-zero drag. There's the possibility that it just derived from "we need different properties, we need different colours, we have no reason to connect either with other deliberately" or even some non-mathematical symbology (fire=red, water=blue(?), earth=green, air(/sunlight?)=yellow). But it makes me wonder what combination of properties cyan/magenta balls might have, if added. (Or is the choice of those four colours constrained, anyway? Though R/G colorblindness is already something of an accessibility failure, if anyone suffers that.) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.205|172.69.194.205]] 17:02, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
:For color vision issues, on Mac, open System Preferences, select Accessibility, select Display (in the Vision group), select the Color Filters tab, select Enable Color Filters, then finally try the different filters in the Filter Type menu. One of them should help make the colors distinct.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.216|172.69.134.216]] 03:40, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

[https://pastebin.com/7PAiLnyF Python script to get the URL and title of each Cell in the current machine]

[https://pastebin.com/xBhywGde Result of running that script at the moment] (encoded with ROT13 because pastebin wouldn't let me save it otherwise)
:has anybody at all whatsoever been able to find their creation using this API? [[User:Bellydrum|Bellydrum]] ([[User talk:Bellydrum|talk]]) 21:58, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

[https://pastebin.com/jN5MP2za Result of running that script on the first 42 machines], at least on these it looks like the only difference is that one cell is added each time? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.99.195|172.71.99.195]] 17:22, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

I've submitted four now, none of which was accepted. I tend to spend a lot of time getting them just right. Any hints as to what the acceptance criteria might be? Or do I just stink at this?
[[Special:Contributions/172.69.59.204|172.69.59.204]] 19:47, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

There appears to be a new object: a cat that bats things that touch it.
[[Special:Contributions/172.69.214.39|172.69.214.39]] 20:17, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Is anyone else experiencing the bug where prisms cause the comic to disappear (leaving only the white background where it was) after a while? It makes viewing the whole machine basically impossible. (On further testing it appears to be firefox-exclusive.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.38|172.70.162.38]] 20:31, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
:I've had the "Prisms break things" from the beginning (before any practical content). As in, trying to use them in a design breaks things. But I ''did'' glance upon their occasional use in the 'view submissions grid'. Right now I'm suffering from "white only" issue (see my "multi-yellow" accounts, above). I ''am'' using Firefox, if that's indeed relevant to this issue, but right now I'm not near any other up-to-date browser I care to use. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.31|172.70.163.31]] 21:37, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
:I'm getting the same issue with black holes (which probably makes more sense - put a black hole there and you'd expect everything else to disappear :o) - except that on one occasion I was able to put about 6 black holes in before the 7th one vanished everything.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.121|172.69.194.121]] 09:15, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Has anyone seen their own cell in the machine at all yet? A manual approval system is probably necessary for obvious reasons, but if so it does seem to be moving quite slowly.
[[Special:Contributions/172.69.65.24|172.69.65.24]] 02:58, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

I've never seen one of my own cells after refreshing the page. :( [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.122|172.70.110.122]] 20:27, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

How on earth is everyone seeing different parts of the grid? If I request "view machine" I can only see my own square, and the edges of everyone elses. Nothing else, definitely not all of the machine. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.64.149|172.68.64.149]] 21:11, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
::You should be able to click and drag the view around. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.54|172.71.242.54]] 21:41, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Whoever designed the room entirely full of fans is evil - every time I scroll near it my entire browser freezes up and becomes unresponsive. And then the comic usually blanks.[[;8Special:Contributions/172.69.194.81|172.69.194.81]] 08:23, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

None of [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2916:_Machine&diff=339487&oldid=339486 these edits] were anything to do with "grammar", so why would anyone describe the change as such? The spelling of "colo(u)r" is an internationali[s|z]ation issue, of note, and why I usually prefer to defer to using words like "hue", instead, in such contexts on this site. The change of the link from "The Incredible Machine" (where the page exists) to "The Credible Machine" (where it doesn't, because that's really just this comic's own joke) I aready changed back... If you think it doesn't properly explain the pun/negation, then rewrite; but don't make it an invalid link to something that doesn't even exist, as you'd know if you had even followed the link(s). [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.141|172.69.194.141]] 15:22, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Folks might be interested in my list of all published blueprints with their titles and permalinks: https://github.com/scpso/incrediblexkcd. scpso [[Special:Contributions/172.68.144.147|172.68.144.147]] 13:18, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

== Level scrolling bug ==

When one views the whole machine, and scrolls down far enough, everything just disappears, and the comic is completely unresponsive. Has anyone else seen this? [[Special:Contributions/198.41.236.152|198.41.236.152]] 20:38, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

:I'm now seeing the same issue, I wasn't before. (I'm using Chrome) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.20|172.70.162.20]] 21:06, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

::A hard refresh appears to have fixed this for me (same person as above). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.101|141.101.99.101]] 10:28, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

:I've been having this issue as well (I'm using firefox). Opening the site in Edge instead seemed to work around it for me, so it might only affect Firefox (and derivatives). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.31|172.70.163.31]] 21:27, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
::See also the 'firefox bug' comments currently immediately above this section. (Please don't ask me to start Edge up, I hate it, won't use it any more than the system requires me to...) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.31|172.70.163.31]] 21:37, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

:Update - I did a hard refresh so I could play around with the new additions and I'm no longer encountering the bug, even on firefox. I think the "white screen" bug is fixed now and you just need to hard-refresh to download the fixed JS instead of using the cached one. (same person as 172.70.163.31 and 172.70.162.38) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.16|172.70.86.16]] 11:16, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

==New Category: Ball Pit?==

What do you think about a new category for comics with [[ball pits]]? [[150]], [[219]], [[485]], [[498]], [[2916]]? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.229|162.158.134.229]] 21:50, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

[[:Category:Playpen balls]] already exists.
[[Special:Contributions/172.70.174.133|172.70.174.133]] 17:35, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

== Prism Use? ==

Can the prism be used to sort balls by color? (or in any other way that is useful and different?) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.34.61|172.68.34.61]] 12:11, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
:From what I've seen, no. Though may be ''extremely'' susceptible to incident angle. As far as my own use has been, they seem to randomise the trajectory (possibly also do a total-internal-reflection, I've had balls bounce around and exit at ''really'' weird angles), but it's hard to collimate a feed of balls into a single exact track, even straight down from a ceiling-feed (if you have a ceiling feed directly over the floor exit, lucky you, it'll still occasionally perturb balls off to the sides just enough to be bounced out as a gate-miss, unless you add 'funnel' architecture of one kind or another). Oh, and when balls do a lot of 'internal bouncing' it often forced me to reload the comic (overloaded the physics engine?), so could not continue to tweak the same design.
:On the other hand, perhaps this was the ''intent'', and just code/browser failings made it work erratically. Maybe would be an idea to go back and retest for this (anybody who can), do a little !!science!! to be recorded and explained on the page. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.183|172.69.43.183]] 12:51, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
:So, ive did some testing and found..nothing. i ''did'' find some uses for the prism though. Like outting them diagonally makes the balls follow a "path", speeding up more and more (not really that great but it works with yellows), and that any ball hitting the left edge will try to go the the right edge. Not sure what else it can do, though. [[User:Begocc|Begocc]] ([[User talk:Begocc|talk]]) 09:35, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
::I did some thorough testing on a combined Red/Blue set of balls (carefully managed so that they were dropping into the target area as similarly as possible) and both rotated and moved the prism in various ways to check for any effects - like needing to enter parallel/perpendicular to the colour-bands, either to land on the 'target band' or start to pass across it, with the band then either facilitating or angling its 'fall through'. (Just visually checked, at first, then later adding 'buckets' below and to the sides, to try to catch balls departing on various trajectories in various 'clumps' making note of any that hit the 'bucket'-boundaries and bounced off elsewhere.)
::I found no significant sorting, and some balls would jitter around so much (within the prism) that they even launched almost straight back up where they came from (less poerfully than a Bonk-buffered ball, but not far off - also not reliable enough to use as a ball-elevator).
::In my experience, Yellow-sorting is easy (even against Blue and/or Red) by other means. Green is the easiest to have everything else sorted ''from'' (because it resists the fan method). The hardest to unmix are Reds from Blues, which one might think ''should'' be the most prism-differentiated but I'm afraid I just can't invoke that. Easier to have them fall a long way then bounce off a suitable bit of 'furniture', I can then get them to distribute ''fairly'' distinctly in two handy recepticles/onward-feed-hoppers, though it does need some careful placement of items to do it justice. It appears that none of my designs have made it to the 'public wall', but I have made a submitable machine or two that does such sorting sufficiently successfully to send it out (theoretically) to be seen. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.30|172.70.163.30]] 11:38, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

== Bugs and Exploits ==

You can use a sword to break the physics on the hinge thingy and create your very own "magnetic hill": https://imgur.com/a/IRZ0AlL [[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.108|162.158.134.108]] 13:02, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
:Hard to tell from that what other fans (perhaps) you've got completely off-clip.
:Those hinge-thingies can definitely be shifted by horizontal (outwith ball-weight pressures), but I've not found them to be reliable components as the "Stop" button (ball reset) seems to let those 'hinges' slring back to level, which might need a re-reset by moving them back past the thing that's holding them off-level.
:I have tried a few things with them:
:*'Ticker' mechanism, almost like a clock escapement, nudged by the rotating 'waterwheel', perhaps to try to release balls through a stream of other balls whilst keeping the path clear of collisions for each set, in turn.
:*'Batch dumper', accumulating a number of balls (above the 'hinge', behind a vertical bulkhead) until there's weight enough to 'open the hatch' and roll them out. (Again, an attempt to reduce collisions, by clumping batches together).
:*Finely configured inclines, by shoving something up into a free end of hinge with better angular resolution (but, as mentioned, this doesn't seem to want to 'hold', so probably would fail upon submission).
:...I had wondered if there was supposed to be a "falling anvil creates a catapult/ballista" idea behind the piece, but we don't ''have'' falling anvils (and definitely not in a repeating manner), and ball-powered catapult (esssentially "clown/acrobat jumps on one end of seesaw, clown/acrobat on other end flies up into the air") also doesn't seem practical.
:I'll try to recreate ''your'' design, work out if there's anything new about it, but right now looks like it's a fan-powered incline-raiser. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.38|172.70.162.38]] 14:23, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
:: No fans! Here's a wider view: https://imgur.com/a/xPJcsor
:: It survives the reset, because the balls falling on the lever push it down to the sword and it gets stuck there every time. But you need to place the sword just right to make the gravity bug happen. And even then it depends on the number of balls in some ways. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.243.27|172.68.243.27]] 14:46, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
::: I've replicated the "tip of sword grabs the 'hinge'" thing, which is very interesting, but not the anti-gravity effect. The movement still seems ''to me'' more like a fan's 'area of effect' thing, than a wonky sense of gravity, the way that the balls are rolling/resisting/interacting with each other. No, I can't see where you've 'hidden' the fan (and I'm sure that fans can't act across submission-grid-boundaries, which was my next guess), so it's a bit of a funny thing that you've got there. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.49|172.70.163.49]] 21:35, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

On occasion, two balls will fall from the containers as a pair, as if glued together. When this happens, they float down as if under much lower gravity, and then suddenly explode violently away from each other.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.182|172.69.43.182]] 10:56, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
:What contaniners?? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.252|172.70.110.252]] 14:58, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
::At the bottom of the grid are four containers that the balls are fired in to, from where they drop in to a pit with a boat.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.38|172.70.162.38]] 08:40, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

== The USS Buoyancy ==

Guys. The Buoyancy. She ''floats''. When all four sets of balls reach the ball pit there aren't further additions. The boat starts floating on them. I've been watching it for a while. It seems she moves left and will probably end up escaping the ball pit. [[User:DL Draco Rex|DL Draco Rex]] ([[User talk:DL Draco Rex|talk]]) 20:44, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
:Update: A new row spawned in and it reset just before the Buoyancy could escape. Here's a screenshot I grabbed a while before the reset, she'd moved further left by the time the reset occurred. https://imgur.com/gallery/8UCASCu [[User:DL Draco Rex|DL Draco Rex]] ([[User talk:DL Draco Rex|talk]]) 20:51, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Alright, I'm almost 100% of the time seeing Buoyancy sink. Yes, she *floats* at first. But as she drifts to the sides, instead of yellows going underneath, reds and greens pile on top. Then, as the balls under expire (90 second timeout), she will start to sink. Very consistent behavior over time.
[[User:Keybounce|Keybounce]] ([[User talk:Keybounce|talk]]) 19:20, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

What is the Bouaancy i cant find it anywhere??? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.252|172.70.110.252]] 14:58, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
== Added key combinations, found in source ==

ctrl+alt+b
ctrl+shift+option+d
wheel: arrow keys

: Can you clarify what "option" is? I have tried alt, function, and "operating system", and none are doing it.
::It is alt [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.252|172.70.110.252]] 14:58, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

== Fixed Number of Possible Machinelets? ==

I was resetting my browser to try and find new machinelet configurations, but there seem to be fewer and fewer as the game progresses. Hypothesis: the 'under construction' machinelets are set, and once one of them gets approved and added to the grid, that specific configuration of entrances/exits can't show up again.

== Advanced components? ==

How does one get access to the full set of components to build from? I'm only given planks, mallets, swords, scoops, anvils, bricks and fans. I never get any pillows, bumpers, cats, stick figures et cetera. Do they need to be "unlocked" through some achievement, or what? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.222.102|162.158.222.102]] 11:04, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

:This caught me for a while as well. I have since discovered that the tool box has a scroll bar and can be scrolled down; that's where the others are hiding.
::Invisible scrollbars – every GUI obfuscator's favorite tool for making users' lives harder. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.222.142|162.158.222.142]] 18:17, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

== Limit of 100 components? ==

Has anyone else seen this? At some point I started getting a count "95 / 100" towards the bottom of the toolbar. When it hits "100 / 100" the rest of the toolbar greys out, and I can't add anything more. (I suppose the physics engine has to keep a ceiling on the number of possible interactions between components.) —[[User:Scs|Scs]] ([[User talk:Scs|talk]]) 11:53, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
:Yes, quite early on I was dealing with a quite simple 'drop from ceiling straight down to floor' setup. After adding just enough 'funnel' to deal with 'splatter', I then built a castle wall in the open space just to make it fun (with some figures on/below it, that I've also tried to decorate in later submissions), of the 'grey blocks'.
:I actually hit the 100/100 ''exactly'' as I placed my final intended block. (No doubt that it's easy to hit the limit by just overlapping things so you can't see most of them, and other 'useless' placement, too...) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.48|172.70.85.48]] 19:57, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

== uss boyancy ==

Why have i not been seeing any uss boyancy [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.122|172.70.110.122]] 14:04, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Haha I dare you to go to https://xkcd.com/2916/#xt=7&yt=57 and stare at the two black holes next to eachother >:) [[User:Z1mp0st0rz|Z1mp0st0rz]] ([[User talk:Z1mp0st0rz|talk]]) 15:27, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

== Build a "working" machine from parts? ==

Has anyone started working on this idea:

Since any given machine segment seems to be saved, even if not in the final result, *and* since these segments are failing when combined in the whole, how about a "really working" machine that starts replacing failing segments when they jam or otherwise fail to work in the real machine?

The idea being something like, start the machine. Watch the top row, and see where the parts are failing to pass balls properly after two minutes. Replace the segments that are failing/jaming/etc, and let the new part process balls.

As you work your way down, over about 2 hours at the current size, you will eventually get a machine that properly sends balls down to the bottom, without jamming, without having to "pretend" that off-screen parts are working.

I mean, it's not like a gigantic, 600 segment machine will overflow memory on modern 32gb systems, nor consume so much power that these big huge CPU's will fail, right?
There is a 100 piece limit sadly
[[User:Keybounce|Keybounce]] ([[User talk:Keybounce|talk]]) 17:41, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
ps.: Why do white holes, black holes, prisms, etc, cause problems on some machines like mine and not others?

== Foreshadowing ==

I think that this Machine comic / game is foreshadowed by comic # 2785 titled Marble Run. {{unsigned ip|172.70.130.120|22:15, 11 April 2024}}

== Implementation? ==

Should we have a section on how this thing is implemented? How much is known? Obviously it's hugely dependent on [https://rapier.rs/ Rapier], as credited in the header text. I assume everything else is written in {{w|Rust (programming language)|Rust}}, too. But how is it deployed? Does Rust compile to {{w|Web Assembly}}, or what? Under Color Routing, our explanation mentions that the ball "values were extracted from the code" — how much of the code is actually visible? —[[User:Scs|Scs]] ([[User talk:Scs|talk]]) 16:39, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
:There are source maps available for the client side. So most of the client source is pretty much there an available. DevTools will load these maps automatically by default, and you can find the ball parameters under incredible/src/components/widgets/Balls.tsx. As for the server, it has a Server header of Warp/3.3.31, a web server used for WAI applications in Haskell. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.44|172.70.114.44]] 13:37, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

== XKCD Prize ==

I propose the award of "Good Job" trophies for answers to the following weighty questions:

Cells ...

:C1. There is always at least one entry-exit (same color) pair. I have seen up to five pairs. Is there a limit?

:C2. I have never seen a two-color entry or exit, in over 100 tries, but I have seen pictures posted of this case. How rare are they?

Entry points (where balls enter the cell) ...

:E1. The entry rate varies randomly. Is there a limit to the range of time between two balls?

:E2. Some entries produce balls much faster than others, forever. Does this depend on color? Location? Anything else?

Exit points (where balls leave the cell) ...

:X1. At exits there is a display indicating x or check, and a ring meter showing progress towards check. Eating the wrong color reduces the ring score. By how much? Is it the same amount as is gained by eating the correct color?

:X2. The ring countdown starts about 4 seconds after the last ball, and lasts about 10 seconds. Does this ever vary?

Object properties ...

:O1. The pillow clearly absorbs energy. What other objects have variation in bounce, and how much? By sending a stream of green balls at high speed into targets, it can be observed that the brick and the shot glass (outside edge) are more bouncy than the anvil, which in turn is more bouncy than the plank. Are other colors (such as red) affected the same way?

:O2. Does the bounciness of any objects vary over their shape? The head of the mallet seems a little bouncier, but it's hard to set its angle to precisely match other test objects. The shaft of the pivot thing seems to be sticky. The dead edges of the triangle bonkers seem to absorb all inward energy from green balls, but only some energy from red balls.

:O3. Do the bonkers give a constant exit speed, or does it depend on something like the arrival speed or ball color? Does the exit speed replace the entry speed, or are they combined somehow? Like the dead edges (see O2) I suspect the live edge also absorbs inbound energy before it fires, so the outbound energy may be constant, though maybe not for all colors.

Cats ...

:K1. Over what range and direction will the cat swat at a nearby ball?

:K2. Does the cat always add the same amount of energy when swatting a ball?

:K3. Does the cat always add energy in the same direction when swatting a ball? At first glance the direction seems to be random over a range of angles, but this may be due to random entry points, speeds, and directions for the balls, rather than due to randomness by the cat.

:K4. Is there a rate limit for how often the cat will act?

Black holes and Repulsers ...

:B1. At their default size, repulsers are much stronger than black holes. How much stronger?

:B2. How does effect scale with distance? Are black holes inverse-square? What about repulsers?

:B3. Is there frame dragging around black holes? (good luck :)

:B4. At an exit, does the rate of ring decay slow down if a black hole is nearby?

Bonus observation: Black holes have large solid centers. A red ball stuck to a black hole can be seen bouncing off the center.

Spoiler for B1 and part of B2: If five default size black holes and one default size repulser are all placed at the default center, they seem to cancel out exactly, at all distances, though the solid centers still repel direct collisions. So the ratio is 5:1 and the distance equation (whatever it is) seems to be the same for both objects.
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.167.94|162.158.167.94]] 15:53, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

: C1: Current (as of y=70 filled) maximum across the machine is 5 pairs, only occuring 5 times, so I suppose it doesn't go higher. C2: So far there are only three combined gates in the machine, all two-color: one between (3, 8) and (4, 8) and two between (6, 50) and (7, 50). So yes, they are very rare. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.250.206|172.70.250.206]] 21:38, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2536: Wirecutter

2024-03-29T16:45:49Z

172.70.86.80:

Note: they don't say they tried out a large number of ''religions'' but a large number of '''belief systems'''. This could include things like "Libertarianism" or "Monarchists". (By CWALLENPOOLE, but not signed in.)
:But the picture of the article title says “The Best Religion” [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.233|108.162.216.233]] 20:31, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

The phrase "highly controversial" should not be used in the explanation. For the record, I am opposed to the things listed in that sentence and my objection is not based in a desire to defend them. Religion itself might be said to be "highly controversial" so the use in the last sentence is both superfluous and biased. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.82.53|172.70.82.53]] 00:34, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

I really want this article to be real. ----Dave
: Me too. I did something similar in my early 20s, and feel such an article honestly done would be a great help to many. In fact, the current description is slightly inaccurate- in that even lifelong practitioners, do usually have a wandering time in early adulthood if not given direction. Such an article would give some direction.[[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 15:03, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
:Try kialo.com/what-is-the-best-religion-to-believe-3371 . [[Special:Contributions/172.70.82.53|172.70.82.53]] 00:16, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

The major problem with trying multiple religions is that to fully test a religion you need to die - and most people only die once, with the ability to die multiple times being exclusive feature of small number of religions. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 04:49, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
:I ain't mad Hkmaly, but the idea that a religion's primary purpose is to promote a vision of the afterlife is alien to a lot of religions (including my own flavor of Judaism), whose policy on the hereafter is "afterlife, shmafterlife, pass the bagels." Hence also my edits toning down the "religions are about provable belief claims" rhetoric (eyeroll). ----Ben
::Reviewers rarely fully test tech items. (e.g. they often don't cover complete lifecycle costs - what happens to the device after it dies, how easy is it to move on to a new one, etc.) Don't have to test everything to have a meaningful review.
::Many religions make claims about impacts in this life. (e.g., intercessory prayer) Such claims are eminently testable. A comparative review would be interesting. I am only aware of a few such tests, mostly comparing a single product to general average or to no intervention {{w|Efficacy of prayer}}. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.167|108.162.245.167]] 19:18, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

It doesn't look like the search bar text says "search," but I can't make out what it actually says.--[[User:KrazyKat|KrazyKat]] ([[User talk:KrazyKat|talk]]) 06:33, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
:Maybe it says Seance, since for "seach" the high stoke from the H is missing. -- [[Special:Contributions/162.158.203.10|162.158.203.10]] 07:33, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
::or Sermon maybe, that would fit the theme
:Could be Search with large S and smaller caps for the rest? Anyone subscribe to the NYT and care to visit the actual WireCutter site to see the formatting? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.147.195|172.70.147.195]] 12:40, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
:: Don't need to be a subscriber to see the site. It says "Show me the best..." [[User:Paddles|Paddles]] ([[User talk:Paddles|talk]]) 13:26, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

I don't want to sound controversial but tithing would be a refreshing change comparing to current tax systems [[User:Tkopec|Tkopec]] ([[User talk:Tkopec|talk]]) 10:31, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
: Agreed- 10% is much less than the near 50% I'm paying when I figure it all in.[[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 15:03, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
:: You really want to pay tithes AND taxes? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.63|108.162.249.63]] 18:54, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Last night I was writing a huge thing about religions' almost universal reluctance to be 'tried out' (lestways allowing easy unsubscription at the end)  but on reflection, after a night's sleep, I'm wondering if they just had 70+ 'mystery shoppers' tasked to report back on one assigned 'product' each, their reports aggregated so this didn't matter too much (to the overall report-writers, at least). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.175|172.70.85.175]] 14:31, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Also, the 'religious' wars metaphor extends quite easily to different platforms, yet (say) laptop reviews might compare a set of Windows vs a Mac or two (vs Chromebook, and maybe others) as options. And when it comes to keyboards, the QWERTY-Othodoxy and the Dvorak-Reformists both have bad (and untrue) things to say about each other, when 'enough time' with any given layout should be good enough to prosper in that. (That said, I had a {{w|Casio_FX-702P|programmable calculator}} from the '80s until it gave up the ghost some time post-Millenium, and I really did not get on with its ''alphabetical''-order keyboard all that time, perhaps because I was QWERTYing almost everywhere else.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.175|172.70.85.175]] 14:31, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
:In the case of religions though, the wars are not allegorical, they are literal. Nothing else in human experience really compares to the effects of a religious war (except ''maybe'' our wars to support a certain socioeconomic idealogy). The impact of format wars don't even come close; even if you count Uranium VS Thorium. This comic doesn't really draw a ''comparison'' between reviewing religions & reviewing products; so much as it ''contrasts'' the enormous differences in how we approach the two subjects... 
:[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 17:41, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

(Also also: QWERTY with UK-layout is my own personal sub-sect, with occasional need to adapt to US-layout (physically printed keycaps and/or what the computer ''thought'' was plugged in) with " and # and ~ characters amongst the main jumbled up ones, and no easy £ access. Which wasn't actually as unnerving as being in the 'wrong' bit of Belfast, but had the same subtle note of discordant undertone to it until I shifted my mental gears or ideally corrected the situation satisfactorarily by configuration.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.175|172.70.85.175]] 14:31, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

There's a book by John S. Dunne, ''The Way of All the Earth'', that advocates essentially trying out religions while keeping one foot in one's own (Dunne describes it as "crossing the abyss and crossing back"). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.158|162.158.74.158]] 17:17, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Surprised no-one has yet mentioned this joke was done in almost exactly the same way on the UK satirical TV show TW3 in 1963 by David Frost (of later Frost/Nixon fame). --- jg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRZWyfERiCc

I was just looking for psychological/psychiatrical papers that say something about the frequency of mental illnesses by religion. Maaaaaaaaaayyybeeeeeeeeee there is a religion that is clearly superior to other religions in that regard, and so government health officials could make a recommendation to change to a specific religion. :-P --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.88.57|162.158.88.57]] 10:58, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
:But then, illnesses (as well as the symptoms of the same illness) depend on the culture, so my sardonic idea was probably left unresearched...--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.106|162.158.91.106]] 12:23, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Feels like there should be a line in there about how religion is itself often "that which determines what is valued" and therefore very hard to treat objectively. So, for example, if your religion taught that discipline was inherently good, you would think less of another religion that specifically warned against the dangers of excessive discipline. Meanwhile, a member of that religion might think YOUR religion was worse, because - according to the tenets of THEIR religion - you put TOO MUCH emphasis on discipline, while you think your emphasis is correct and THEY are wrong for not having it.
Now, granted, people might want different things from their technology - one person might want user-friendliness, another might value greater customizability - but religion is different in that it, in itself, informs our understandings of "what is valuable". It would be like if Apple users actively began extolling the benefits of user-friendliness BECAUSE they are Apple users and Apple itself is what taught them to value user-friendliness, while Linux users were originally indifferent but BECAME fans of customizability BECAUSE they used Linux. (And yes, there can be cult-like elements of both fandoms, but hopefully the distinction I'm drawing here is reasonably clear: religion tells you what is valuable, technology does not.)

(Also, why all the Judaism-specific stuff now?) --mezimm [[Special:Contributions/172.69.68.106|172.69.68.106]] 16:42, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Rather than picking one religion - join them all. Slag-blah takes a militant agnostic approach (we don't know, and neither do you). So they believe in/practice all religions (one a day for a year, so their calendar is 7,823 days long). From [https://web.archive.org/web/20150428210028/http://www.airshipentertainment.com/buckcomic.php?date=20071222 Buck Godot Zap Gun for Hire - Learning about Slag-blah by Phil Foglio, Dec. 2007] Sadly hard to find online, but here is the relevant page from the archive. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.167|108.162.245.167]] 19:18, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Went to graduate school (Wash U, St Louis) where one of my classmates said [of the weather!], "I don't know what religion to be." Huh? He explained his habit was to try out a different religion each season, but the weather that month had been changing so often that he didn't know which one to follow on a given day! [Think he was only half serious]

I feel like the explanation's focus on "can't easily change religion" is both inaccurate and quite missing the point. Religious freedom is not about whether belief is inherent or chosen, but rather about the fact that no one has the right to tell anyone else what to believe. The controversial part, IMO, is not "criticism of an inherent feature like race", but rather, it's the fact that Wirecutter is analysing belief systems, not by trying to judge their truthfulness, but in simple ROI terms. It's a bit like analysing whether female or male children are more cost-effective; people will get upset about the fact that you made the analysis in such mercenary terms at all.

I am also concerned with the paragraph speculating about ease of changing religion and its possible implications towards comparison between discrimination on the basis of political belief versus skin color. This is a topic about which there is much debate in many places and I'm not sure that debate is appropriate for this site. I say this not out of any particular stance regarding that debate, I say that because this site is intended to provide explanations relating to XKCD and not really for comparison of different kinds of discrimination. I'm going to remove that paragraph. If you strongly disagree please feel to revert my edit but I'd appreciate it if you would then share here why you think it helps explain the comic to someone who might not otherwise understand. [[User:Tomb|Tomb]] ([[User talk:Tomb|talk]]) 13:31, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

:The fact that people cannot compare and choose a religion (and are also willing to die with their chosen religion, e.g. in the face of persecution) is the very reason religious freedom exists. Thank you for deleting the section. I will not contribute here for a while.--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.89.128|162.158.89.128]] 22:42, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
::This wiki is exclusively about presentation of the comic, not discussion. Nor is it a Mom an' Pop shop where you can threaten their lively hood and stomp out and feel superior. Consider going to reddit or any other media to discuss the expanded meanings of these comics. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.125|172.70.126.125]] 18:00, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

Pascal's Wager has literally nothing to do with this comic. Literally nothing. I'm tempted to remove that paragraph altogether, especially since it's also presenting an atheistic critique of the idea and thereby slanting the neutrality of the explanation. --mezimm [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.47|172.69.71.47]] 13:46, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

The assumptions here really need pruning. For starters, groups *exist* to do exactly what is suggested here: http://shipoffools.com/mystery-worshipper/ being a perfect example. Just as brand loyalty to car manufacturers doesn't prevent reviews, neither does loyalty to religions. And while the claim that all wars are purely economic has been debunked, the idea of purely religious wars will get similar mocking from historians. The claim of exclusivity is absurd, given that Christians use the Jewish scriptures, and Muslims regard both Moses and Jesus as prophets; the Messianic Jews are the most famous example of belonging to two religions.

:Huh? Mystery worshipper isn't about reviewing *religions* but different congregations of the same religion (at least if we consider Protestants, Catholics, Orthodox etc. all part of the same religion, which many do). This is a much easier (and less self-defeating) task than what the comic suggests.--[[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.80|172.69.34.80]] 01:48, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
::"...which many do..."? It depends upon [https://upjoke.com/heretic-jokes who you ask]... (Multiple versions there of the one that I mean!) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.173|172.70.90.173]] 06:45, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Well Christans, Jews and Muslims all belive Moses to be a prophet. And Jews and Christans (and maybe Muslims??) worship the same God(kinda, Christans belive Christ is God as a human, and Jews say that Christ is a false prophet.). So everything before 3 B.C. they agree on, thats why they use the same religous texts. However after Christ died, 27 new texts were created talking about his life, death, and teachings. Obvously the Jews dont use these texts so thats where they differ. Just wanted to clear that up, they are very different religions and belifs, they just all agree on what happened before Christ. Also the part where it says in the explanation about how that most people don't change their religion, I'm not sure if thats true for other religions, but my religon(non-demoninational Christian) is all about choosing wether or not to accept God into your heart. Also most teens or college students fall away from God and later in life they come back (Quite a few of them, in fact, my youth pastor went through the same thing). My pastor grew up in a house that practiced "magic", and most defently wasnt taught religon, but in his later years he became a Christian. [[User:Apollo11|Apollo11]] ([[User talk:Apollo11|talk]]) 14:38, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
:Religion is ...[https://brandonvogt.com/funniest-religious-joke-of-all-time/ complicated]. And it might help to realise that what you experience as 'most people do this' might be a bit skewed towards only what your experiences have been. I think you're mostly amongst practicing Christians where you find that those who left ''and returned'' seem to show that people 'leave and return'. Others may have communities who shun returnees, and/or where leavers (perhaps of a distorted belief system) see absolutely no reason to return to the now obviously broken system. Some people grew up without a great faith, but find themselves drawn to one, fervently (perhaps your pastor was one, I don't know what you/he means by "magic", possibly he was in a synchratic system so instead just rejected one bit of his family's faith and concentrated on the rest). There are those who have taken up surprisingly different creeds from where they started off. People might also have been brought up as essentially secular and ''remain'' secular (give or take a 'social nod' towards the local spin on communal religion, but as habit rather than true belief).
:You can know your own heart, and believe you know the hearts of others (and, indeed, God in whatever form you believe exists), but faith is a tricky thing. Could be as solid as a rock, easily windblown into a handy corner, just like autumn leaves, or as ultimately fragile as a cobweb, if not as intangible and transient as a dream. And, if you want my opinion, all of these can (and do) co-exist. Where there's trouble is where the ideology (with or without any actual belief) violently tries to create a lock-step culture in its own strict image. You can't truly make (or change) genuine beliefs, in others, especially if you don't believe it yourself.
:One can only be whatever it is that one believes is right. If you're lucky, that may not include making compromises for outwards appearances. And, if you're kind, that will not mean forcing others to compromise on your behalf. That should apply whatever shade of religion (or none) you subscribe to. But there's a world (at least!) of possibilities out there, and you are always a product of your own particular lived life. I can only hope that you be happy with that. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.19|172.70.162.19]] 15:25, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
::Your right I don't know what other religons are like. I can only speak for my religon and my experiences. And yes, many religions (or even demoninations) arent very reaccepting or forgiving. A lot of people have left and been unable to return. Or somepeople just don't return, I know several people who've done that. My point wasn't that even if someone leaves their religion that they'll come back, it was that people do leave and change religions. Those people I talked about changed religions twice, thats why I brought it up.
::And I 100% agree with you that nobody should force their opinion on anyone. I would never try to pressure anyone to belive anything, or yell at anyone for beliving in a certain religion.[[User:Apollo11|Apollo11]] ([[User talk:Apollo11|talk]]) 15:53, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
:::Was mainly responding to "most teens or college students fall away from God and later in life they come back". I might not argue that they fall (or move) away from their household's interpretation (as a teen, you're biologically programmed to look at things differently than you did when younger, and ''moving away'' to college also takes you outside your 'silo' to potentially expose you to alternate viewpoints - anyone who doesn't, I'd consider 'indoctrinated', rather than merely lovingly guided). That "most come back", I'm not sure about. I'm not saying that most will abandon all faith, or most will go to a new(ly discovered) one, but "back" is relative. Even those broadly settling back in the same 'spirit' may have evolved their faith (e.g., their opinions on evolution!). Greater or lesser fervency.
:::In the broadest view, you'll probably end up the same type of faith as you used to be. A vast number of the world's population probably don't 'rebel' very far (not much scope for investigating shintoism if you live a substistance lifestyle in an Indian village, or encounter much scientology in the Amazon) and social pressures will keep many well within the same brand of monotheism (if that's where they were), even if no more than a 'casual adherence'.
:::More narrowly, generations ''do'' tend to change, especially in 'the modern world'. Immigrant families may arrive with a basic 'lived' version of their native religion (but not so fervant thst they couldn't move away, and may even have done so to escape it), their children may almost completely secularise to fit in with(/not stand out from) their new home's society (with maybe a nodding acquaintence with the local temple/mosque/gurdwara/chapel, for appearances), the ''grandchildren'' may 'rediscover' and become far more adherent to their 'ancestral' faith than their great-grandparents ever did.
:::But all these examples depend upon the scope of anyone's premise of where boundaries are between brands/intensities of faith. Hence it being 'complicated', and using personal experiences does not necessarily map to the universal.
:::Mostly, though, you do not choose how you were brought up. This would greatly influence both where you might naturally drift in and out of ''and'' how others treat you if you even try to take up a different scope of faith. Perhaps most easy to just drift out of organised religion and stay out of it, ''except'' where some religion has a stranglehold on you (whatever your true feelings). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.80|172.70.86.80]] 16:45, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

2893: Sphere Tastiness

2024-02-13T12:49:07Z

172.70.86.80: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2893
| date = February 12, 2024
| title = Sphere Tastiness
| image = sphere_tastiness_2x.png
| imagesize = 388x392px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Baseballs do present a challenge to this theory, but I'm convinced we just haven't found the right seasoning.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a STRANGELY TASTY MOON MADE OF RUSSIAN PELMENI - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic graphs the tastiness vs. size of four roughly spherical objects: {{w|melons}}, {{w|grapes}}, {{w|Earth|Earth}} and the {{w|Moon}}. Melons and grapes are, in this context, small and very tasty to most people, but the Earth and Moon are large and [https://news.uchicago.edu/explainer/formation-earth-and-moon-explained made of rocks and metals], which are not usually considered very tasty. The Earth is a bit higher (tastier) than the Moon, probably due to the fact that some things on the surface of Earth are tasty.

The comic takes these four data points and makes a regression with them. [[Randall]] interpolates from this line that there must be a medium-sized sphere that "tastes okay". Other fruit opinions have previously been mentioned in [[388: Fuck Grapefruit]], but it is unknown what the line would be like if Randall included grapefruit.

The title text points out that {{w|baseball (ball)|baseballs}} seem to refute this theory since they're not usually thought of as tasty, but they're between the sizes of grapes and melons. Baseballs are balls used in the sport {{w|baseball}}, usually made out of a combination of a rubber or cork centre wrapped in yarn, and covered either by either horsehide, cowhide or synthetic leather. Although these materials may not be immediately lethal to consume, they are not likely to be very delicious to eat. Randall suggests that if the right seasonings were found, they would be as tasty, which seems rather unlikely (at least using seasoning in reasonable quantities). This appears to be a classic case of fitting the data to the hypothesis - the 'researcher' finds ways to exclude or explain away data points which do not support the conclusion they wish to reach.

This is the second comic in a row to feature fruit, graphs and predictions, after [[2892: Banana Prices]], and continues the theme of a logarithmic axial scale to facilitate plotting a linear regression. Here the line is interpolated between known data, rather than extrapolated beyond it. This would ordinarily be far more accurate than extrapolating outside the range of known data. However, Randall's analysis is flawed in multiple ways. Firstly, there are only four data points, which is insufficient to extrapolate from. Secondly, these clusters represent entirely different sub-classes of spherical object (fruit vs. astronomical bodies) while other subclasses are not represented at all, such as one that the title text makes reference to. Thirdly, as tight clusters of [[2533: Slope Hypothesis Testing|similarly sourced data]], it effectively reduces it down to two useful data points. Fourthly, the lack of any point not very near the end-points means that the choice of a log-median interpolation (rather than fully linear, exponential, etc) may be unjustified. Fifthly, the 'tastiness' scale has no indication of what assessment (subjective or objective) it records. Nor does it even have graduations, making it unknown if the graph is linear-log or log-log (or otherwise), changing the implied meaning behind the choice of straight-line interpolation.

Also, it should be noted that edible things are not manufactured in 800-meter (½-mile) spheres, as that may be hard either to prepare or consume.{{Citation needed}} The 800-meter wide sphere could also be a small asteroid or other celestial object, but would not be very tasty as (just like the Earth and the Moon) they are made largely of rocks and metals. If this is true, Randall’s interpolation on the graph would probably be incorrect. Unless the problem is just seasoning, just like a baseball; possibly it just needs whatever 'special sauce' that makes the Earth marginally more tasty than the Moon.

The comic refers to this plot as research. This is an exaggeration, since two clusters of paired points are rarely considered sufficient for research purposes. But plotting a justifiably sufficient quantity of data points on a logarithmic plot, and then drawing a line through them, is a common way to visualize an actual exponential relationship more comprehensibly. An example of that is the {{w|Gutenberg–Richter law}} where the magnitude of earthquakes (an intrinsically logarithmic scale) in a particular region is plotted together with the frequency of occurance, typically resulting in a statistically significant straight line.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Graph with Y axis using an arrow indicating tastiness from "Not Tasty" to "Tasty" and X axis labelled "Sphere Diameter (meters)" with a logarithmic scale running from 10-5 to around 108 (with 10-3, 100, 103 and 106 labelled).]

:[The graph contains two points for "Grapes" and "Melons" at the "Tasty" end of the Y axis, between 10-2 and 10-1 meters, and two points for "The Earth" and "The Moon" at the "Not Tasty" end, both around 107 meters. A straight dashed line shows a linear interpolation between the points. There's a circle with a question mark about halfway between them.]

:[Caption below the panel:]
: My research suggests the existence of an 800-meter sphere that tastes okay.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Baseball]]

2893: Sphere Tastiness

2024-02-13T12:46:43Z

172.70.86.80: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2893
| date = February 12, 2024
| title = Sphere Tastiness
| image = sphere_tastiness_2x.png
| imagesize = 388x392px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Baseballs do present a challenge to this theory, but I'm convinced we just haven't found the right seasoning.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a STRANGELY TASTY MOON MADE OF RUSSIAN PELMENI - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic graphs the tastiness vs. size of four roughly spherical objects: {{w|melons}}, {{w|grapes}}, {{w|Earth|Earth}} and the {{w|Moon}}. Melons and grapes are, in this context, small and very tasty to most people, but the Earth and Moon are large and [https://news.uchicago.edu/explainer/formation-earth-and-moon-explained made of rocks and metals], which are not usually considered very tasty. The Earth is a bit higher (tastier) than the Moon, probably due to the fact that some things on the surface of Earth are tasty.

The comic takes these four data points and makes a regression with them. [[Randall]] interpolates from this line that there must be a medium-sized sphere that "tastes okay". Other fruit opinions have previously been mentioned in [[388: Fuck Grapefruit]], but it is unknown what the line would be like if Randall included grapefruit.

The title text points out that {{w|baseball (ball)|baseballs}} seem to refute this theory since they're not usually thought of as tasty, but they're between the sizes of grapes and melons. Baseballs are balls used in the sport {{w|baseball}}, usually made out of a combination of a rubber or cork centre wrapped in yarn, and covered either by either horsehide, cowhide or synthetic leather. Although these materials may not be immediately lethal to consume, they are not likely to be very delicious to eat. Randall suggests that if the right seasonings were found, they would be as tasty, which seems rather unlikely (at least using seasoning in reasonable quantities).

This is the second comic in a row to feature fruit, graphs and predictions, after [[2892: Banana Prices]], and continues the theme of a logarithmic axial scale to facilitate plotting a linear regression. Here the line is interpolated between known data, rather than extrapolated beyond it. This would ordinarily be far more accurate than extrapolating outside the range of known data. However, Randall's analysis is flawed in multiple ways. Firstly, there are only four data points, which is insufficient to extrapolate from. Secondly, these clusters represent entirely different sub-classes of spherical object (fruit vs. astronomical bodies) while other subclasses are not represented at all, such as one that the title text makes reference to. Thirdly, as tight clusters of [[2533: Slope Hypothesis Testing|similarly sourced data]], it effectively reduces it down to two useful data points. Fourthly, the lack of any point not very near the end-points means that the choice of a log-median interpolation (rather than fully linear, exponential, etc) may be unjustified. Fifthly, the 'tastiness' scale has no indication of what assessment (subjective or objective) it records. Nor does it even have graduations, making it unknown if the graph is linear-log or log-log (or otherwise), changing the implied meaning behind the choice of straight-line interpolation.

Also, it should be noted that edible things are not manufactured in 800-meter (½-mile) spheres, as that may be hard either to prepare or consume.{{Citation needed}} The 800-meter wide sphere could also be a small asteroid or other celestial object, but would not be very tasty as (just like the Earth and the Moon) they are made largely of rocks and metals. If this is true, Randall’s interpolation on the graph would probably be incorrect. Unless the problem is just seasoning, just like a baseball; possibly it just needs whatever 'special sauce' that makes the Earth marginally more tasty than the Moon.

The comic refers to this plot as research. This is an exaggeration, since two clusters of paired points are rarely considered sufficient for research purposes. But plotting a justifiably sufficient quantity of data points on a logarithmic plot, and then drawing a line through them, is a common way to visualize an actual exponential relationship more comprehensibly. An example of that is the {{w|Gutenberg–Richter law}} where the magnitude of earthquakes (an intrinsically logarithmic scale) in a particular region is plotted together with the frequency of occurance, typically resulting in a statistically significant straight line.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Graph with Y axis using an arrow indicating tastiness from "Not Tasty" to "Tasty" and X axis labelled "Sphere Diameter (meters)" with a logarithmic scale running from 10-5 to around 108 (with 10-3, 100, 103 and 106 labelled).]

:[The graph contains two points for "Grapes" and "Melons" at the "Tasty" end of the Y axis, between 10-2 and 10-1 meters, and two points for "The Earth" and "The Moon" at the "Not Tasty" end, both around 107 meters. A straight dashed line shows a linear interpolation between the points. There's a circle with a question mark about halfway between them.]

:[Caption below the panel:]
: My research suggests the existence of an 800-meter sphere that tastes okay.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Baseball]]

764: One Two

2024-01-24T19:09:42Z

172.70.86.80: /* Explanation */ de-'Google-Amping' the link, it being messy and unnecessary.

{{comic
| number = 764
| date = July 9, 2010
| title = One Two
| image = one two.png
| titletext = Cue letters from anthropology majors complaining that this view of numerolinguistic development perpetuates a widespread myth. They get to write letters like that because when you're not getting a real science degree you have a lot of free time. Zing!
}}

==Explanation==
The comic parodies {{w|Sesame Street}}, an American children's TV show. The Count is a character in Sesame Street who teaches counting to viewers. The Count usually laughs after counting numbers, an innocent version of the sinister laugh that is a stereotype of old Hollywood horror films.

In the book {{w|One Two Three ... Infinity}}, the writer describes African tribes that only have words for numbers up to three and their inability to distinguish or comprehend larger numbers. The {{w|Pirahã language}} of Brazil was originally thought to only have numerical terms for one, two, and many, although it is now thought these words are relative terms like "few" rather than absolute terms like "one." Similarly, see {{w|Edmund Blackadder}} try to teach {{tvtropes|BumblingSidekick|Baldrick}} [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u99LjJ32qOo to count beans]. Also worth mentioning, some {{w|Constructed language|conlangs}} (Most notably {{w|Toki Pona}} with 0, 1, 2, 5, many[https://omniglot.com/language/numbers/tokipona.htm]), only have very limited number choice, while [https://sirterrypratchett.tumblr.com/post/159070715962/everyone-knows-trolls-cant-even-count-up-to/amp the Discworld's trolls] are less limited than their contemporaries imagine and may even be linguistically related to whoever is behind the comic's Count.

In the title text Randall predicts that anthropology majors will write to complain that this view of primitive tribes is a myth no longer held true by today's anthropologists. He makes a jab at them saying they would have time to write letters to complain about things because they don't have to spend time doing real science and thus real research.

==Transcript==
:[A television set with The Count from 'Sesame Street'.]
:The Count: One! Ah ah ah... Two! Ah ah ah... ...Many! ah ah ah...
:Primitive cultures develop Sesame Street.

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

Talk:2885: Spelling

2024-01-24T14:17:17Z

172.70.86.80:

citing every word in an essay because I really, ''really'' don't know how to spell [[User:Mushrooms|Mushrooms]] ([[User talk:Mushrooms|talk]]) 13:00, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
:Fungi. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.80|172.70.86.80]] 14:17, 24 January 2024 (UTC) ;)

2885: Spelling

2024-01-24T14:15:59Z

172.70.86.80: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2885
| date = January 24, 2024
| title = Spelling
| image = spelling_2x.png
| imagesize = 281x333px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Any time I misspell a word it's just because I have too much integrity to copy answers from the dictionary.
}}

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

Some words are difficult to remember how to spell, but Google and other search engines have autocorrect when you search misspelled words, so some people look up some garbled version on Google, then copy the corrected version and pasted it into their document.
Cueball is having a moral dilemma about if it is okay to do that for the word 'plagiarism' (taking other's work without permission or credits) because he thinks that doing so would be plagiarism, and presumably undermine the point he might be intending to make (e.g. "I don't support plagiarism", "I have never committed plagiarism in my life" or even "To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.").

The title text is referring to a similar moral dilemma, in which Cueball says he tends to misspell words because he would rather not "copy from the dictionary," considering that plagiarism. This is against the point of the dictionary, however, as the dictionary itself isn't actually the copyrighted intellectual property of a specific person, but rather meant to be a catalogue of all the words in the English language. Thus it wouldn't actually be plagiarism to copy the correct spelling from there.

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

[Cueball and Megan are looking at a laptop being operated by Cueball]

Megan: When I can't spell a word I usually just google and copy and paste it from the results.

Cueball: Yeah, but I can't do that '''HERE!!'''

[Caption below the panel:]
Why spelling "plagiarism" is especially hard
{{comic discussion}}

Talk:2884: Log Alignment

2024-01-23T09:59:37Z

172.70.86.80:

so does anybody know how a video with a misaligned log scale even looks? like what does a log scale even mean for a video? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.99.18|172.71.99.18]] 19:30, 22 January 2024 (UTC)mstrofcmdy209
:I think he's suggesting that the video shows the changes in a graph over time, and the misalignment could also change during the video. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 20:47, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
:Imagine that a plot is just a 2D picture, or even more fundamentally as a function taking two variables and returning a pixel color. Changing an axis of the plot to be logarithmic is equivalent to applying a non-uniform scaling to one of the input variables to that function. In this comic that non-uniform scaling has instead been applied along an axis that does not correspond to either the X or Y axes but instead some combination of the two. A video can similarly be thought of as a function of 3 variables (X, Y, T) and so the non-uniform log scaling could be applied along an axis that is some combination of the X, T, and T axes. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.252|172.71.154.252]] 23:37, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

:it's time, probably -jade [[Special:Contributions/172.69.64.198|172.69.64.198]] 20:28, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

:{{w|Log_profile|LOG}} is also a video format, though I don't understand this well enough to discern whether this might be part of the joke or an unintentional coincidence.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.80|172.70.86.80]] 09:59, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

There seems to be a subtle relativity joke in the title text, with misalignments in both time and space being a reference to spacetime. {{unsigned ip|172.71.154.42|00:05, 23 January 2024}}

Shall we try to straighten out the plot with regards to the axes, leaving the log stripes all wavy? For kicks? {{unsigned|Enfield|02:14, 23 January 2024}}
:https://xkcd.com/356/ [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 08:33, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

I feel like this comic, along with others like 2023: Y-Axis and 2311: Confidence Interval should go in a category for misleading charts. -- {{unsigned ip|172.69.33.111|02:23, 23 January 2024}}

2884: Log Alignment

2024-01-23T00:29:44Z

172.70.86.80: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2884
| date = January 22, 2024
| title = Log Alignment
| image = log_alignment_2x.png
| imagesize = 351x312px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = A video can have a log scale that's misaligned with both the time AND space axes.
}}

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

This comic jokes about how there isn't a rule in math that requires you to align log scale and graph axes. Therefore, the person who drew the graph in the comic decided to make it distorted. According to that person, this graph is still valid. Whilst a plot ''can'' be made according to measures not consistent with the graph axes, especially where [https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Curvature-introduced-by-pen-type-recording-system-Comparison-of-a-raw-seismogram-showing_fig5_364100386 other factors dictate the plotting], it is more usual to make use of {{w|Graph paper#Examples|variant grid systems}} that are directly suited to your intended purpose (and stick to them).

The comic shows a background distribution of straight and parallel (but notably off-orthagonal) lines, such as might normally define the log-magnitude on a log-log or semi-log graph. But there are no perpendicular gradations ''and'' the bar graph drawn upon it appears to have no relation with the background, drawn distorted in an almost Dalíesque manner as if a projection of ons twisted in 3d space, both its bars and the base/vertical axes seem to have no relation to to the supposed underlying log-scale. However, with the slight exception of the bar tops crossing the log lines at an angle, and the curved vertical axis having {{w|Graduation (scale)|graduation ticks}} that bear no linear ''or'' log relation with the intersecting background, the distorted bars only travel unidirectionally across the underlying parallels and ''could'' feasibly be read as indicating a definitive magnitude (or range) of some kind. Or at least could with number-labels to give an idea of what values to associate with each log-line. That two bars appear from outside the frame of the comic (the base axis having fallen off the bottom) might not even matter, so long as we can work out what quality or sample each of the bars represents (being similarly unlabeled).

The title text further reinforces the concept of misalignment by stating that the time axis at the bottom of a video can be misaligned with the video itself and a log scale in that video.

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

:[Distorted bar graph on top of gray log scale lines in the background that are slightly tilted, with the lower ends on the left]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:There's actually no rule in math that says your log scales have to be aligned with your graph axes.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Bar charts]]

944: Hurricane Names

2024-01-04T15:43:55Z

172.70.86.80: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 944
| date = August 29, 2011
| title = Hurricane Names
| image = hurricane_names.png
| titletext = After exhausting the OED, we started numbering them. When overlapping hurricanes formed at all points on the Earth's surface, and our scheme was foiled by Cantor diagonalization, we just decided to name them all "Steve". Your local forecast tomorrow is "Steve". Good luck.
}}

==Explanation==
The {{w|World Meteorological Organization}} (WMO) maintains [https://public.wmo.int/en/our-mandate/focus-areas/natural-hazards-and-disaster-risk-reduction/tropical-cyclones/Naming lists] of potential names for {{w|tropical cyclones}} in each {{w|tropical cyclone basin}}; {{w|Regional Specialized Meteorological Centre#Tropical cyclones|Regional Specialized Meteorological Centres (RSMCs) and Tropical Cyclone Warning Centres (TCWCs)}} are responsible for assigning those names to tropical cyclones within their respective areas of responsibility. In the {{w|North Atlantic Ocean}} (including the {{w|Gulf of Mexico}} and {{w|Caribbean Sea}} as pictured), the {{w|NOAA}}'s {{w|National Hurricane Center}} (NHC/RSMC Miami) gives names to tropical cyclones (of which {{w|Atlantic hurricane|hurricanes}} are a subset), going through the alphabet (excluding Q, U, X, Y, and Z) and resetting at "A" at the beginning of the year. For example, the North Atlantic storms in 2012 were named "Alberto", "Beryl", "Chris", "Debby", and so on. There are six {{w|Tropical cyclone naming|lists of names}} for the North Atlantic Ocean, which rotate every six years. Storms that are extremely catastrophic are removed from the lists.

If there were more than 21 hurricanes in a season before 2021, the 21-letter alphabet becomes exhausted and the hurricanes are named with Greek letters. This has happened only twice: in the {{w|2005 Atlantic hurricane season}}, see [[1126: Epsilon and Zeta]], and in the {{w|2020 Atlantic hurricane season}}. In 2021, the World Meteorological Organization [https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/wmo-hurricane-committee-retires-tropical-cyclone-names-and-ends-use-of-greek ended the use of the Greek alphabet] and unveiled a supplementary list of names to be used in event of exhaustion.

There have never been enough cyclones in one season to exhaust both the English and Greek alphabet (which would require more than 45 cyclones in a season; the most so far has been 30), and Randall is hypothesizing what the names would be if this happened. In the comic, the NHC has named the hurricanes using random words out of the {{w|Oxford English Dictionary}} (OED). The humor here is intrinsic: "Hurricane Eggbeater" is a bizarre and hilarious name (and may also refer to how an eggbeater spins and 'destroys' an egg in a similar manner to how a hurricane might affect the surrounding area). The place in the image shown is the Gulf of Mexico and its surroundings, with the land being white, and the ocean, black.

The title text takes this already surreal twist to an even more ridiculous extreme, where an impossibly long hurricane season exceeds 300,000+ storms and exhausts the OED completely. Even when the NHC starts referring to them using {{w|Natural number|counting numbers}}, which will be sufficient to cover an infinite number of hurricanes, they are foiled by a theorem in {{w|set theory}}. In mathematics, the set of all counting numbers is a {{w|countable set}} (as are the set of all integers or all fractions) whereas the set of all points on a surface is an {{w|uncountable set}} (as is the set of all real numbers). {{w|Cantor diagonalization}} is a famous proof that it is impossible to map objects from an uncountable set one-to-one with objects from a countable set. Applying this theorem to hurricanes, if there were to be one hurricane for every possible point on Earth's surface, it would be impossible to assign a distinct counting number to each one. This of course defeats NHC's last-resort naming scheme, but more pertinently, human civilization would be in a ''lot'' of trouble.

At this point, the meteorologists give up and decide to name all the hurricanes "Steve", which is popular on the internet as an arbitrary, generic name. Ironically, this makes "Steve" no longer arbitrary. The reporter then goes on to tell people that their forecast is "Steve" meaning that the hurricanes are everywhere. He says "good luck", which is probably because there are currently hurricanes on all points of the earth's surface at the time of his speaking, but then, how is he still alive?

==Transcript==
:[A weather reporter sits behind a desk with an image of the Gulf of Mexico and surrounding land masses displayed to his left. 9 hurricane symbols are scattered across the map, primarily over the Greater and Lesser Antilles.]
:Reporter: After the latest wave of hurricanes, not only have we run through the year's list of 21 names, but we've also used up the backup list of Greek letters. All subsequent storms will be named using random dictionary words.
:Reporter: The newly-formed system in the gulf has been designated "Hurricane Eggbeater", and we once again pray this is the final storm of this horrible, horrible season.

==Trivia==
*There actually was once a {{w|Cyclone Steve}} in the Australian Basin.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:News anchor]]
[[Category:Hurricanes]]

1506: xkcloud

2023-12-30T20:20:58Z

172.70.86.80: /* Don't contact us */

{{comic
| number = 1506
| date = April 1, 2015
| title = xkcloud
| image = xkcloud.png
| titletext =
}}
<div class="toclimit-3">{{TOC}}</div>
*To experience the interactivity of the game, visit the {{xkcd|1506|original comic}}.

==Explanation==
This was the sixth [[:Category:April fools' comics|April fools' comic]] released by [[Randall]]. The previous fools comic was
[[1350: Lorenz]] from Tuesday April 1st 2014. The next was [[1663: Garden]] scheduled for release Friday April 1st 2016, but in the end released on [[1663:_Garden#Monday_4th_of_April_release|Monday April 4th]] 2016.

In this interactive {{w|April Fools' Day}} comic [[Cueball]], presumably representing [[Randall]], admits to the readers he built a flimsy {{w|Cloud computing|cloud}} services company using spare computers and parts. Included in the cloud hardware are (from left to right) a {{w|Macintosh}}, several old laptops, an {{w|Alienware}} tower, a {{w|Nintendo}} {{w|VirtualBoy}}, an old desktop with the cover off, and an {{w|Atari, Inc.|Atari}} {{w|Pong#Home_version|Pong Console}}.

He named the company after xkcd, xkcloud being a [[:category:Portmanteau|portmanteau]] of "[[xkcd]]" and "{{w|Cloud computing|cloud}}", here pronounced XK-cloud. The portmanteau incidentally still contains all four xkcd letters in the correct order: xkcLOUd. This was later reused for the xkcd keyboard in [[2150: XKeyboarCD]], where the word Keyboard, has an X before the word and a C before the D with the xkcd letters capitalized.

After providing his services to various (very big) companies ({{w|Facebook}}, {{w|Twitter}} and {{w|Tumblr}}), that are very concerned with securing the users data, his setup failed (some portions may even have caught fire? He is not sure). This has caused him to lose the data he was required to preserve as part of his service. He thus requests the readers help to make up and re-imagine the lost data by pressing the large red button at the bottom of the comic. Preferably ''before Facebook & Co notice we lost it.''

If you take him up on his request and push the button, you will be taken to a "survey" where you will get the chance to help by either trying to combine a posted picture with its lost text or, vice versa, by trying to combine a posted text with its lost picture. In either case you get a selection of texts/pictures to choose from but can also choose to write your own text or even draw the picture. After doing this you get to see this combination in the news feed together with several other posts (which other people have helped combine from other lost data). And then you can continue helping as long as you like.

The content of the "surveys" appear to come from reader submissions, and are different upon every click. This is thus both an interactive and a dynamic comic with only the first picture shown on top of this page. By inviting the xkcd readers to add content that will be displayed in the comic later, the result of all the interactions leads to the generation of {{w|Crowdsourcing|crowd-sourced content}}.

It was not immediately clear if the reader-created drawings or captions are, in fact, being cycled into the surveys and feeds, or if the displayed items were all created by Randall and the reader-created content is simply discarded. With the huge amount of different comments and drawings that already appeared on the first day, and since especially the drawings look like they are created in the simple Paint app (i.e. not by Randall), there can be no doubt that most of the content is created by the users. However he must have made some pictures to get it all started, and at least one of these can be seen [[1506: xkcloud/Pictures posted by users#Randall's pictures|here]].

This comic resembles last years April Fools' comic [[1350: Lorenz]] where user input also generated a very complex crowd-sourced comic. In both comics it was possible to create a [[#Permalink|permalink]] to save a given version of the comic to share with others.

An earlier comic was also related to problems with cloud computing: [[908: The Cloud]].

Due to the very complex nature of this comic, there are lots of details that may need an explanation. This can be found in the sections below.

*Note that there have been some [[#Changes and bugs|changes and bugs]] regarding this comic after it was first released.
*Some of the pictures that are referenced below was saved before these changes took place. So consult [[#Changes in the comic|these changes]] if the pictures do not match the expectations.

===Functionality===
*Pressing the red button at the '''front page''' (shown here above) links to one of two interactive survey pages (see [[1506: xkcloud/Pictures of other pages|the pictures]] of all types of pages.).
**All these pages have a news feed below the top post. This will be described [[#News feed|here below]].
*The '''Lost picture page''' (see several [[1506: xkcloud/Pictures of other pages#Help.21 We lost the picture page|pictures here]]) asks the reader to indicate which of eight '''line-drawings''' (see several [[1506: xkcloud/Pictures posted by users|examples here]]) best matches a given caption, or the reader can create their own drawing.
**This can be done on the '''Draw one your self sub-page''' (see several [[1506: xkcloud/Pictures of other pages#Draw one your self page|pictures here]]) in a simple web-based "{{w|Paint (software)|paint}}"-style {{w|Web application|app}}.
***Note that someone found a way to copy a picture into the comic. See at least one example of this [[1506: xkcloud/Pictures posted by users#Copy pasted pictures|here]].
*The '''Lost text page''' (see several [[1506: xkcloud/Pictures of other pages#Help! We lost the text page|pictures here]]) asks the reader to indicate which of eight captions best matches the given drawing, or the reader can create their own caption and submit this instead.
**These captions are user generated. See transcribed examples of these '''post from users''' [[1506: xkcloud/Transcript#Post from users|here]].
*In either case, at the top of the pages, we are given the '''Reason for the data loss'''. And there are many different reasons (all by account of Randall).
**A list of transcribed reasons (with explanations included) [[1506: xkcloud/Transcript#Reason for data loss|can be found here]].
*After completing the "survey" you go to a new page appears:
*The '''Help us recover more data''' page (see several [[1506: xkcloud/Pictures of other pages#Help us recover more data page|pictures here]]) has yet another red button like the front page, but on this page it is at the top of the page, saying exactly ''Help us recover more data''.
**By pushing this button you go to one of the two "Lost" pages mentioned above.
*It is possible to go back to the front page at any time by clicking the picture of Cueball sitting behind his desk in the same way as he does in the first picture on the front page.
**Cueball is always present to the left on all pages after the front page.
**But if you go back to the front page like this, then if you again click on the "original" red button to return to help with the recovery, you will always go back to the same page you came from (with the same posts in the news feed and if it is one of the lost data pages also with the same post to fix.)
**You can thus only get to a new survey page by finishing the current task (or pressing a permalink as [[#Permalink|discussed below]]).

===News feed===
*Below the "survey" or the post you just recovered (to begin with), you will be presented with a listing similar to a {{w|Facebook features#News Feed|Facebook news feed}}, listing six posts of the line-drawings apparently tagged with the captions as paired up by other users survey results.
**The posts are made by apparently '''fictional randomly-named readers''' (see transcribed examples [[1506: xkcloud/Transcript#User names|of names here]]).
**But there are only 20 '''user pictures'''. See these (and why it is known that there are only 20) as well as a description of these pictures [[1506: xkcloud/Transcript#User pictures|here]].
**The posts are accompanied by a button similar to Facebook's "'''{{w|Like button}}'''" but here the button is labeled with different words which are all {{w|synonyms}} for ''[http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/want want]'' (see transcribed [[1506: xkcloud/Transcript#Like buttons|list of words here]]). So not "to like" but "to want" is the new thing in this version of Facebook.
*After the first time you recovered a post, there will thus be seven posts on the ''Help us recover more data'' page, six new posts below the one you just helped complete.
**The only difference when you click this pages red button (rather than when you start for the first time at the front page) is that there will now be seven posts below the one you need to fix.
**These seven posts are the same as those you had on the previous page, including your own at the top.

===Permalink===
*Next to each post there is a text ''Link'' above the "Want" button above the picture. (This goes for all three types of pages mentioned above.)
*The "Link" is an actual link of the type that is called a "'''{{w|permalink}}'''", a portmanteau of "permanent-link".
*If you wish to "save" any given post for future reference (for instance one with your own drawing) you can do so by copying down this link.
**Last year's April Fools comic, [[1350: Lorenz]], was the first time the [[1350: Lorenz#Permalink|concept of a permalink]] was used on xkcd.
**The permalink option did not appear in the comic until very late in the afternoon on April 1. The "Link" was thus not present on the pictures refereed above. (See [[1506: xkcloud/Pictures of other pages#After 18:00 ET on April 1st|these pictures]] instead).
*Pressing the "Link" next to any given post takes you to the page of the permalink:
**This page will show a version of the ''Help us recover more data'' page with the chosen post as the top post.
**When you click the permalink it takes you to this "new" page and this page will '''not''' show all the posts from the page where you chose it.
**Only the post you saved via the "Link" next to it.
***All the other post will again just be chosen at random, and these will change again every time you reload this page via the saved permalink.
***Even the text on the "want" buttons also continues to change.
***The user name and user picture stay the same though.
*As an '''example''' of a [http://xkcd.com/1506/#post/50b47c70-3a7c-504d-bcc0-60597338e999 permalink] this is a post saying: ''We told Iran that atomic energy is unsafe'' for a picture of a black devil and two Cueballs next to a road.
**Originally the user name was {{w|Mark Zuckerberg}} but this has since changed to ''Destiny1983'' next to a user picture of a stick figure with black hair on a skateboard.
**See [[#Changes in the comic|Changes in the comic]] below for a possible reason.
**Also please make a note here, if the user name and picture is no longer the same.
*A huge '''collection of permalinks''' with link to the pictures have been amassed here:
**[[1506: xkcloud/Table of Permalinks|Table with permalinks]] contains all known images and captions at least once. (2179 feed entries, featuring 1481 different pictures and 1935 different captions, as of 2015-04-24)
**[[1506: xkcloud/List of Permalinks|List of Permalinks]] contains all known permalinks (25585 links, as of 2015-04-24)

====Details on the permalink====
*Since the post from the page where you choose the first permalink is reloaded... Can you then only save one post at a time?
*The answer is "no" - you can save all posts on any given page.
**For each "Link" text on a given page, there has already been generated a unique permalink {{w|URL}}.
**Thus you can copy any permalink via the "Link", without actually pressing the "Link" to obtain the permalink for a given post.
**Furthermore, since this may be the only comic where you can copy the text, you can simple mark the entire page and copy paste it into a document that contains formating. If you do this then you will have all the text, pictures and most importantly the permalinks for all the posts.
*If you click the Link and go to the permalink page there will be seven posts, six new and the one you just saved.
**The behavior of the posts is very strange from here if you press more permalinks on this first permalink page
**Also it will not be the same again after this first time as compared to if you continue to help recover more data and use the permalink later.
**On this first permalink page, where your chosen post is at the top, if you click on another post's permalink the following will happen:
***The post you originally choose disappears from the page, as the new chosen post is moved to the top.
***The other five post remains in the same order, so there are not only 6 posts.
***If you continue to choose the other posts one at a time, they will simply exchange place with the one at the top, with all six posts remaining.
***Once you have been through all of them, then the order of the post has been determined.
****So if you click on a "Link" that you have already once activated, then this page will just reload, and the post will have the same order as last time.
****This is only until you choose to reload, or when you load such a permalink later. Then again it will just be the chosen post, and then always six other new posts.
**If you then at some point move on via the red button you kind of stay in the permalink page, now just with new options to choose from.
***If you then create a new post, six new posts will be loaded below.
***When you click on a permalink at this point, there will not be any reloading of the post (because it is not the first time).
***Any post you click will move to the top, but all the other (six this time) will stay, the top post just moving down to another position.
****It is not always a direct exchange. Sometimes the top post moves to another position and then pushes the others down until they reach the now calculated position of the post now at the top.

===Our policy regarding your personal data===
:On every of the pages after the front page Cueball sits at his desk labeled XKCD.COM
:Below him are xkcloud's policy:
:''Our policy regarding your personal data'':
*Please stop sending us your personal data
*We are running out of places to put it
*Is this even yours?
*Does anyone recognize whose data this is?
*Oh jeez never mind here comes more data
*Why are you doing this
*Please stop
*Help
:As can be seen he is getting desperate because people keep sending them more data.
::He has no place to store it.
::And he do not even know who the data belongs to.
::So now he hopes someone else recognize the data (what you are doing if you choose to help).
::In the end he simply pleads for people to stop and then shouts ''Help''.
:If you click on the desk you are sent back to the front page of the comic.
:But below Help is their real contact detail [[#Don't contact us|Don't contact us]]:

===Don't contact us===
*At the same time that the permalink appeared, there was also suddenly a new link on all other pages than the front page:
**The link is written in a very weak gray font; it can even be hard to see on some screens. However, it can be found using a simple ctrl-f.
***It has possibly changed color since it first appeared, as it was fairly easy to see then.
***This is certainly intentionally done so by Randall, as it is a reference to another comic (see below).
**It is located right beneath ''help'' at the bottom of the list of problems written under ''our policy regarding your personal data'' right beneath Cueball at his desk to the left (see [[1506: xkcloud/Pictures of other pages#After 18:00 ET on April 1st|picture here]]).
**In some cases tilting the screen will help to make it visible.
**If you cannot see it, you can still find it with the cursor, or you can also highlight the text below Cueball all the way down and copy-paste it into a text editor to see what it says.
*The link text reads '''Don't contact us''' and links to a chatroom at [https://instant.leet/&xkcd].
*Clicking the link opens the [https://euphoria.io/room/xkcd/ xkcd chatroom] at Euphoria. (See a [[1505: xkcloud/Pictures of other pages#xkcd chat forum|picture here]]). <ref>euphoria <s>seems to have</s> has been shut down. the xkcd room still remains on [https://instant.leet.nu/room/xkcd/ instant], if anyone wants to join. we're currwntly working on a better replacement site.</ref>
**Several xkcd users began posting there at around 18:00 {{w|Eastern Time Zone|Eastern time}} (Randall's timezone).
**After picking a username, you can chat in real time with the other users.
**When you return later, the site will remember your user name.
***You can change your username by clicking on it near the bottom of the screen, and entering a new one.
''We are open for anyone to chat here. Hey you! Come right over and say hello to us! ~<s>[https://euphoria.io/room/xkcd euphoria.io/room/xkcd]</s> https://instant.leet.nu/room/xkcd/''

====Undocumented Feature====
*This chat room is reminiscent to the one in comic [[1305: Undocumented Feature]].
*As mentioned above Randall has linked to a chat room, which is:
**Hard to access! You need to know that there is a hidden link on the pages you get to by pressing a red button in {{xkcd|1506}}.
**Only those who entered the page at the right time, would have a chance to learn about this themselves (else they have to come to a page like this).
**It is not easy to even find the "instant.leet" homepage.
**You do get to choose your username (this is not the case in Undocumented Feature), but you could change it. Or others could use the same.
*At the moment it came out, many users began using the chatroom.
*Maybe Randall timed these extra features for when people came back from work all over the US.

===Extra xkcloud pages===
Since this comic is so big and complicated extra pages have been created to include much more information than is wished for on this main page (which is already of considerable size). These pages are listed here for convenience, but they are also listed in the relevant sections below:
*[[1506: xkcloud/Pictures of other pages]] - Pictures representing the other three main types of pages.
*[[1506: xkcloud/Pictures posted by users]] - Some of the pictures of the comic created by users.
*[[1506: xkcloud/Transcript]] - A transcript of these pages with explanations for the reason for data loss and other features, such as usernames, like buttons, etc.

==Changes and bugs==
*During the first day there occurred several changes to the comic, and also some bugs very present.

===Changes in the comic===
*All the changes mentioned here occurred during April 1 on the release day:
*Since being [[Media:Originalxkcloud.png|originally posted]] the words "Click here" were relatively quickly added in large text to the top of the red button followed by the word "to" being added to the beginning of the existing text.
**The text changed from
***''Help us recover user data before Facebook & Co notice we lost it.'' to
***''Click here to help us recover user data before Facebook & Co notice we lost it.''
**The reason for this is most likely that too few users understood that they could enter a second part of the comic by clicking on the red button.
*Late in the afternoon on April 1 (around 18:00 {{w|Eastern Time Zone|ET}}) several changes occurred to the pages that can be reached from the front page:
**The [[#Permalink|permalink]] option appeared
**The link that says [[#Don't contact us|Don't contact us]] appeared under the text beneath Cueball's desk with a link to an xkcd chat room.
***Though only for the text font to fade out to being almost invisible again later on April 1.
**The alignment of the text right beneath Cueball's desk changed. (Compare this [[1506: xkcloud/Pictures of other pages#Help us recover more data page|before picture]] with this [[1506: xkcloud/Pictures of other pages#After 18:00 ET on April 1st|picture after]] 18:00 ET).
**The number of posts increased from 3 or 4 to 6 or 7. (See the pictures above — scroll down to see the relevant after picture).
**Also the number of pictures and text to choose from increased from five to eight (as can also be seen by comparing the pictures found here for before — for [[1506: xkcloud/Pictures of other pages#Help! We lost the text page|text]] and for [[1506: xkcloud/Pictures of other pages#Help! We lost the picture page|picture]] — with the [[1506: xkcloud/Pictures of other pages#After 18:00 ET on April 1st|pictures after]] (scroll down as mentioned before)).
***The reason he increased the number of posts (both to see and to choose from) could simply be because there where now is so many possible posts that the risk of seeing the same is smaller even with 6 posts.
*Sometime on April 2, Randall made an update to the names list.
**That this happened could be seen since the names shown in permalinks did change. And since then they have stayed constant.
**For instance, [http://xkcd.com/1506/#post/3c34fb48-1a07-51d2-a81d-5257a3681024 this permalink], to an atomic bomb explosion with the caption ''that's one nasty burn!'', had the name "Lauren Ibsen Dolores Amit" (a play on "{{w|Lorem ipsum|Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet}}"), but then displayed the name "Virginia2006" next to a picture of a man with black hair. Currently, it displays the name "Michelleii" next to the same image.
***(If this changes please make a note - then the names list have either been changed again, or the assumption that the names stay constant is wrong.)

===Bugs===
*From time to time, instead of the interactive page there is a page with [[Media:three dots only.png|three dots only]].
**This also occurred after April 1.
*Around 18:00 when all the changes occurred the xkcd page did not work properly. (Overload plus new features).
**The chat room was also overloaded at this time.

==Transcript==
:[This transcript only transcribes what can be seen in the first picture shown at the top of the explanation here. '''For more''' see link below.]

:[One large frame with a five part comic and a large red button at the bottom.]
:[Cueball sitting behind a desk.]
:Cueball: We've made a huge mistake.
:Desk: XKCD.COM

:[Cueball stands and indicates a motley collection of computers and related equipment strewn around the desk.]
:Cueball: I figured starting a cloud services company would be easy.
:Cueball: After all, I've got ''tons'' of computers!

:[A zoomed view on Cueballs head.]
:Cueball: Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr— they all struggle to protect privacy and user data...
:Cueball: And '''''we''''' offered a solution.
:Cueball: I forget what it was, though.

:[Cueball is standing with his arms up.]
:Cueball: Anyway, long story short, we screwed up ''immediately'' and lost ''tons'' of their data.
:Cueball: Also a bunch of stuff is literally on fire?

:[Cueball standing behind a desk.]
:Cueball: We can fix this.
:Cueball: But we need your help.
:Desk: XKCD.COM

:[Below the above is a large red rectangular clickable button, that will take the reader on to the interactive part of the comic. On the button it says in large white letters:]
:'''CLICK HERE'''
:To help us recover user data before Facebook & Co notice we lost it.

:[The standard text for the next possible pages can be seen on the link to the '''[[1506: xkcloud/Transcript|continued transcript]]'''. Also here will be a list (which may not be possible to make complete) with possible text for the lost data.]

==Trivia==
*It's the first comic:
**Without a title text. (If you don't count the unnumbered [[A Smarter Planet]] comics and [[404: Not Found]].)
**Where you can copy and paste most of the text from the comic. I.e it is not drawn but printed.
***This goes only for the follow up pages after the front page.
***It does not only go for the user input.
**These two facts could go together since the way this comic had to be created (i.e. it is not a single picture), there may not have been any possibilities for making a title text
*Source code of elements in the drawing interactive contain the attribute "data-reactid", indicating it is written using the [http://facebook.github.io/react/ React JavaScript library,] developed to use with Facebook & Instagram.
*One of the peices of text you can get explains the very reason you need to put in the image for it.

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Interactive comics]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:April fools' comics]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Knit Cap]] 
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Portmanteau]]
[[Category:No title text]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Elon Musk]]
[[Category:Dynamic comics]]
[[Category:Characters with hats]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Joe Biden]]

2870: Love Songs

2023-12-21T17:43:00Z

172.70.86.80: /* Explanation */ prior editor: EaSL? "(Taking) out an ad" is correct, for creating it; "noticing () an ad" would be seeing it for the first time, and "noticing out" really doesn't work (at least not anywhere these two contexts). HTH.

{{comic
| number = 2870
| date = December 20, 2023
| title = Love Songs
| image = love_songs_2x.png
| imagesize = 373x341px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The Piña Colada song carves a trajectory across the chart over the course of the song.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a LOVE SONG WHERE BOTH SIDES HATE EACH OTHER (AND THEMSELVES) - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The comic shows an xy-chart of various love songs, graphed according to how the subjects of the song feel. The x-axis represents the narrator/singer's feelings for whomever they are singing to or about, from "No!!" to "Yes!!", while the y-axis represents the other person's feelings for the one singing the song.

The songs are all in this [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0R1FWH3Hq4Ur08HSNSFtyf?si=WMD6u3QuThW7f2GXBTTJQA&pi=e-wEOR4pNmQ2Sp Spotify playlist].

{|class = "wikitable"
! Song !! Artist(s) !! Explanation !! Do I like you? !! Do you like me?
|-
| {{w|No Scrubs}} || {{w|TLC (group)|TLC}} || The narrator is the target of another person's affections but considers that person completely undesirable as a romantic partner. || No!! || Yes!!
|-
| {{w|That Don't Impress Me Much}} || {{w|Shania Twain}} || The song says the person singing doesn't find certain things impressive in a potential partner, and having nice things alone won't make them like that person. It shows the singer cares about being independent and wants someone special. This song was referenced in [[984: Space Launch System]]. || Unclear/Neutral || Yes!
|-
| {{w|Cry Me a River (song)|Cry Me a River}} || {{w|Justin Timberlake}} or {{w|Cry Me a River (Arthur Hamilton song)|Knight/Cocker/Wilson/Welch/Bublé}} || The lyrics describe a relationship that has ended, and the singer expresses a sense of betrayal and heartbreak. The title phrase "Cry me a river" is a metaphorical way of telling the other person to go ahead and cry as much as they want because the singer has moved on and is no longer affected by the breakup. || No! || Yes!
|-
| {{w|We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together}} || {{w|Taylor Swift}} || At the start of the song, the narrator has spent a prolonged time in an on-and-off relationship with someone, repeatedly getting close to them before they distance themselves. As the song progresses, the narrator expresses their frustration with their partner and makes it clear that this time, ''they'' are the one leaving, and they're ''never'' coming back, no matter what their now-former lover says or does. || No!! || Yes?
|-
| {{w|You're So Vain}} || {{w|Carly Simon}} || The song talks about someone who is very self-centered and vain, with the lyrics describing various instances of their narcissistic behavior. The narrator expresses frustration with this person's attitude, but there's a sense of mystery about their identity. This song has been [[1501: Mysteries|mentioned before]] in xkcd. || No! || Unclear/Neutral
|-
| {{w|I Will Survive}} || {{w|Gloria Gaynor}} || The narrator's partner left her to hurt her emotionally, only for her to eventually realize the abusive nature of their relationship and decide she doesn't need him anymore. As he tries to come back to her, she refuses to take him back and tells him to leave. || No! || No!
|-
| {{w|Somebody That I Used to Know}} || {{w|Gotye}} feat. {{w|Kimbra}}  || The narrator's relationship with his partner has ended, but he is upset that his former partner has since then broken off all contact with him. The third verse is from the former partner's point of view, and she claims she ended the relationship because he was emotionally abusive, instead of the narrator's claim in the second verse that they simply drifted apart. || Unclear/Neutral || No!
|-
| {{w|You Oughta Know}} || {{w|Alanis Morissette}}  || The song describes the intense emotions and pain experienced after a breakup, expressing feelings of betrayal, anger, and confusion toward the former partner. The powerful delivery and memorable chorus contribute to its reputation as a compelling anthem of heartbreak and resentment. || No!! || No!!
|-
| {{w|Thank U, Next (song)|Thank U, Next}} || {{w|Ariana Grande}}  || The song reflects on past relationships, expressing gratitude for the lessons learned from each one and emphasizing personal growth. The lyrics convey a positive and forward-looking attitude, acknowledging the importance of self-love and moving on from the past. || Unclear/Neutral || Unclear/Neutral
|-
| {{w|Teenage Dream (Katy Perry song)|Teenage Dream}} || {{w|Katy Perry}} (or {{w|Teenage Dream (T. Rex song)|T. Rex}} or {{w|Teenage Dream|others}}) || Celebrating self-empowerment and confidence, the song encourages embracing one's individuality and standing tall, like a T-Rex. The lyrics convey a lively and spirited message, promoting self-love and expressing strength in uniqueness. || Yes!! || Yes!!
|-
| {{w|Shape of You}} || {{w|Ed Sheeran}} (or {{w|Shape of You (Reshaped)|Beverly Knight}}) || This song is about being in love physically, and to a lesser extent, emotionally, to another person. The verses indicate that the love is reciprocated.|| Yes!! || Yes!!
|-
| {{w|I Will Always Love You}} || {{w|Dolly Parton}}, cover: {{w|Whitney Houston}} || Expressing deep love and gratitude, the lyrics convey a heartfelt farewell while emphasizing the enduring commitment to cherish memories and maintain love despite the separation. The song reflects on the bittersweet emotions of saying goodbye with a sense of everlasting affection. || Unclear/Neutral || Yes
|-
| {{w|Call Me Maybe}} || {{w|Carly Rae Jepsen}} || The lyrics describe a hopeful and lighthearted encounter where the narrator gives their number to someone they find attractive, expressing the excitement and anticipation of a potential connection. This song/Carly in general has been mentioned [[2379: Probability Comparisons|so]] [[2198: Throw|many]] [[Challengers|times]] in xkcd. || Yes! || Unclear/Neutral
|-
| {{w|Killing Me Softly with His Song|Killing Me Softly}} || {{w|Lori Lieberman}}, cover: {{w|Roberta Flack}}, {{w|The Fugees}} || Capturing a powerful connection, the singer recounts the experience of hearing a song that seems to reflect their own life story, eliciting strong emotions. The narrative unfolds with a sense of vulnerability as the music resonates deeply, touching the listener's emotions and leaving a lasting impact. || Yes!! || Unclear/Neutral
|-
| {{w|Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne song)|Girlfriend}} || {{w|Avril Lavigne}} (or {{w|Girlfriend (disambiguation)|many others}})  || The narrator is in love with a boy who already has a girlfriend, and spends the song trying to convince him to dump her so she herself can go out with him. || Yes || Unclear/Neutral
|-
| {{w|You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'}} || {{w|The Righteous Brothers}} || The song expresses the pain and sorrow of a fading romantic connection, capturing the emotional toll of lost love and the desire to rekindle the passion that once defined the relationship. The lyrics convey a heartfelt yearning for the return of the deep affection that has diminished over time. This song was featured in [[317: That Lovin' Feelin']]. || Unclear/Neutral || No?
|-
| {{w|You Belong with Me}} || {{w|Taylor Swift}} || The narrator has a crush on someone already in a relationship (implied throughout the song to be a toxic one), and lists various reasons why they would make a better partner. It's also worth noting that in the [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VuNIsY6JdUw& music video], the narrator's crush is actually on decent terms with them, rather than flat-out disliking them as the chart suggests.|| Yes || No!
|-
| {{w|Creep (Radiohead song)|Creep}} || {{w|Radiohead}} || Expressing feelings of inadequacy and unrequited love, the song conveys the narrator's sense of not belonging and yearning for someone who appears out of reach. The lyrics capture the emotional struggle of grappling with self-worth and longing for a connection that seems elusive. || Yes!! || No!!
|-
| {{w|Escape (The Piña Colada Song)|The Piña Colada Song}} (title text) || {{w|Rupert Holmes}} || The narrator is stuck in an unfulfilling relationship and takes out a personal advertisement looking for a new partner. He mentions that he likes Piña Coladas (And getting caught in the rain). He responds to the ad and goes on the date, only to find out that the woman who placed the ad is his wife. They seemingly recognize that their relationship isn't as bad as they thought, resulting in a trajectory from the lower left to the middle or upper right. || varies || varies
|}

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

:[Y-axis label:]
:Do you like me?

:[X-axis label:]
:Do I like you?

:[X- and Y-axis values (from bottom left):]
:''NO!!''; No; Unclear or Neutral; Yes; ''YES!!''

:[Top left quarter:]
:No Scrubs
:That Don't Impress Me Much
:Cry Me a River
:We Are Never Ever Ever Getting Back Together

:[Middle left:]
:You're So Vain

:[Bottom left quarter:]
:I Will Survive
:Somebody That I Used to Know
:You Oughta Know

:[Center:]
:Thank U, Next

:[Top right quarter:]
:Teenage Dream
:Shape of You
:I Will Always Love You
:Call Me Maybe

:[Middle right:]
:Killing Me Softly

:[Bottom right quarter:]
:Girlfriend
:You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'
:You Belong with Me
:Creep

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Songs]]
[[Category:Romance]]

2862: Typical Seating Chart

2023-12-05T19:37:19Z

172.70.86.80: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2862
| date = December 1, 2023
| title = Typical Seating Chart
| image = typical_seating_chart_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x943px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Now that airlines have started adding wheel locks to their drink carts, less than half of flights have one accidentally fall out through the hole.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOEING 777 PASSENGER SHOOTING A ROGUE A-10 WARTHOG TO REACH PLATINUM MEDALLION STATUS- Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic shows a seating chart for a 182-seat airplane (and its fighter escort) with several unusual features.

{|class = "wikitable"
! Label !! Location !! Notes
|-
|{{w|Cowcatcher}}
|Front of plane
|This looks like a {{w|Cowcatcher|train cowcatcher}}, a metal grate on the front of some trains, which is intended to ''deflect'' obstacles (including animals) rather than actually capture them. This one could help deflect livestock both on the ground (while taxiing) and perhaps also in the air (to "catch" flying cows, such as any that have decided to jump over the Moon).

A bit of trivia: in railroad parlance, the cowcatcher is known as a ''Pilot''.
|-
|Please only pick these seats if you're a pilot
|Cockpit
|These are the cockpit seats, typically saved for the airline's employee pilots. However it's possible the airline might have a system like in [[726: Seat Selection]], where a passenger can pick this seat.
|-
|Main stage
|rowspan="3"|First Class
|This plane is set up to hold a concert or other performance in flight.
|-
|Mosh pit
|A {{w|mosh pit}} is common in punk and heavy metal concert performances. Moshing during take-off, landing and (potentially) during periods of in-flight turbulence would not be very safe, but moshers (and any performers) would presumably also have a booked seat.
|-
|Various fancy classes
|Airlines make a point of distinguishing between their "fancy classes", such as First Class and Business Class, but this one humorously buckets them together. (This is the first actual seating type.)
|-
|Some airplane companies waste this space
|Wings
|The comic suggests that wing space is traditionally wasted. In reality the space inside the wings is often used for fuel, and it is not advised to sit in or on the wing.

The {{w|Junkers G.38}} was one airplane that had seating in the wing (and forward facing windows).
|-
|Lookout
|End of wings
|A "lookout" is more common at the edges of things like army encampments or pirate ships, not planes. These passengers seem to look for any dangers – perhaps the pursuers mentioned in the description of the tail gunners.
|-
|Passenger has to pedal
|Propellers
|Exit row seats come with additional responsibilities to help in the case of an emergency. These passengers' responsibility is to pedal, turning the propellers. It is not feasible for two passengers to contribute sufficient power to make a significant difference to that already supplied by the two equipped jet engines. {{w|Human-powered aircraft|Pedal-powered planes}} do exist, although not in combination with jet engines.
|-
|Hole for trash
|Middle of plane, just behind wings
|In reality, a big hole here would reduce cabin pressure and be a danger to people or things falling through the hole (such as drink carts as mentioned in the title text). Planes try to keep all trash on board until they land.

There have been reported incidents of waste (from bathrooms) falling from airplanes in the form of "{{w|Blue_ice_(aviation)|Blue Ice}}", though these are by accidental leaks rather than by design.
|-
|Sidecar
|Attached to left side of plane, behind wings
|Some vehicles like motorbikes have a sidecar, a small device attached to the main vehicle. An airplane sidecar would make it less stable unless accounted for in the initial design. The {{w|Rutan Boomerang}} and {{w|Blohm & Voss BV 141}} are notable exceptions, but their sidecars are not for passengers.
|-
|Extra middle seats
|Back of plane
|Here instead of having an aisle between three seats on the left and three on the right, the aisle separates one seat on the left and five on the right. Those five seats are an aisle seat, three middle seats and a window seat. This setup could actually exist, although it would be inconvenient to traverse. Middle seats are considered less desirable than aisle or window seats, so intentionally adding more is unusual. Those who might actually like this arrangement include larger families with small kids who wish to sit together, as well as solitary travelers who want a seat that's both an aisle and a window, with no one next to them.
|-
|Bumper car seating
|Just in front of tail
|These seats are presumably not attached to anything, instead able to move freely like bumper cars – not exactly a safe way to fly.{{Actual citation needed}} Alternatively, the seats could simply be {{w|Bumper cars}}.
|-
|Penthouse
|Tail (rudder)
|A seat located in (or upon the front slope of) the vertical stabiliser, presumably higher than the rest of the seats. The tail of a plane does not usually have any seating, and airlines do not generally appreciate having passengers "higher than the pilot".

Some Etihad Airways planes actually have an apartment like cabin class called "the residence" that is sometimes called a penthouse by the media. That is located at the front of the plane, though, and it is unclear if this a reference to that.
|-
|Extra legroom
|Hanging off of front-left surface of the horizontal stabiliser
|A common complaint with airplane seating is the lack of legroom. These seats do not have this problem – in fact, they have the entire atmosphere as legroom. Loss of shoes and/or glasses or other loose clothing could be an issue, as these seats appear to be outside the protection of the pressure-controlled main cabin, so passengers would bear the brunt of the wind.
|-
|Fighter escort
|Separate, smaller plane
|A smaller fighter jet flying alongside the main plane, apparently with seating options for 14 passengers. A few seats are at the front of the fighter, which means that those passengers may have to operate the jet if it's not autonomous.

A fighter escort would more normally be deployed to escort a plane that was considered a potential target, but not usually as a simple extension of the main flight.
|-
|Tail gunners (Must protect plane from pursuers but earn extra miles)
|Tail (riding above the stabiliser)
|People in these seats must protect the plane from any pursuers. The fact that these people are passengers is clear from the incentive of extra air miles. {{w|Frequent-flyer program|Frequent-flyer programs}} are a common system that airlines implement where passengers can receive special awards for flying often. It's not uncommon for different fare classes to earn different amounts of miles, but the difference is traditionally due to price or class, not because of in-flight services rendered.
|}

The total of 182 seats on the plane is a similar amount to a typically equipped Boeing 737-800, a very popular passenger plane. Up to 7,000 are in use around the world for short-range and mid-range flights. A typical Boeing 737-800 with 189 seats has a one-class layout in the configuration of three blocks (port/amidships/starboard) with each row of each block having three seats (left/middle/right). A bit simpler than what's seen here.

The presence of lookouts, tail gunners and a fighter escort suggests that this plane expects to be a target of air-to-air attacks, which suggests it may be carrying VIPs and flying over uncontrolled airspace with the possibility of attack.

The title text expands on the hole, suggesting that it was a common occurrence for drink carts to fall down the hole until they implemented wheel locks. The lack of wheel locks would make it easier for a cart to slide towards the hole.

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

:Typical Airliner Seating Chart

:[Labeled items of a plane from front to back:]
:[Front of plane:]
:Cowcatcher
:[Cockpit (2 seats):]
:Please only pick these seats if you're a pilot
:[First Class section (22 seats):]
:Main stage
:Mosh pit
:Various fancy classes
:[Wings (2 x 55 seats):]
:Some airplane companies waste this space
:[Ends of wings (2 x 1 seat):]
:Lookout
:[Propellers (2 x 1 seat):]
:Passenger has to pedal
:[Middle of plane, just behind wings:]
:Hole for trash
:[Left side of plane, behind wings (7 seats):]
:Sidecar
:[Back of plane (24 seats):]
:Extra middle seats
:[Just in front of tail (4 seats):]
:Bumper car seating
:[Tail (1 seat):]
:Penthouse
:[Hanging off of left side of tail (3 seats):]
:Extra legroom
:[Tail (4 seats):]
:Tail gunners (Must protect plane from pursuers but earn extra miles)

:[Separate, smaller plane to the right (14 seats):]
:Fighter escort

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Aviation]]

2825: Autumn and Fall

2023-09-06T22:21:47Z

172.70.86.80: /* Explanation */ Adding the reasons for there being different seasonal boundaries.

{{comic
| number = 2825
| date = September 6, 2023
| title = Autumn and Fall
| image = autumn_and_fall_2x.png
| imagesize = 392x212px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Of course in reality this is just a US/UK thing; in British English, 'fall' is the brief period in between and 'autumn' is the main season.
}}

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

{{w|Autumn}}, also known as "fall" in the United States, is the season between summer and winter. These terms are used interchangeably, but Randall in this comic treats them as separate seasons. His timeline uses "autumn" as the season between the end of summer and the "{{w|September equinox|fall equinox}}", and the season of "fall" as the period after that until winter. Of course, there are only 4 seasons, not 5.{{Citation needed}}

The comic depicts two of the three possible boundaries, for any given hemisphere, for the recognised end of summer.
* Some treatments of the seasons (not shown) treat the summer solstice very much as "midsummer", and all other seasons also more or less equally straddling their own equinoxes/remaining solstice, putting the seasonal boundaries half way between each of these astronomically significant points.
* For others, the equinoctial/solstitial dates are used for the changeover time (so that autumn/fall goes from the equinox (shown) until the astronomically shortest day, and the start of winter. This system tends to be traditional where the climate 'lags' the solar calendar.
* Meteorological seasons are handily aligned to months, for administrative reasons. Spring is March through May, summer across June to August, the September start (to the close of November) is as illustrated, leaving winter to be covered by December and on until the end of the following February. Or shifted round by two of the triples for the southern hemisphere.

The title text "reverses" these 2 extra seasons, as the term "autumn" is more commonly used in the UK, compared to "fall" in the US.

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

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Time]]
[[Category:Timelines]]