explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2106: Sharing Options

2024-07-20T21:48:43Z

172.70.90.178: /* Explanation */ Pretty sure "sighting" (up) is a typo/thinko for "signing" (up)....

{{comic
| number = 2106
| date = February 1, 2019
| title = Sharing Options
| image = sharing_options.png
| titletext = How about posts that are public, but every time a company accesses a bunch of them, the API makes their CEO’s account click 'like’ on one of them at random so you get a notification.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] is signing up for {{w|social media}}, represented in the comic as a Virtual Reality cyberspace where humans float through the sky with clouds and talk to a virtual assistant shaped like a talking smartphone device. [[Ponytail]] and other characters can be seen in the background.

The virtual assistant is explaining Cueball's options for sharing information on social media: he can make it available only to those he selects — what most sites call a "Friends Only" option — or he can make it available to everyone — what most sites call a "Public" post — which by nature will unfortunately include various high risk groups.

Many social media sites allow users to control who can see content (posts, pictures, etc.) that users share. Several high profile social media sites have sparked controversy by automatically widely sharing user data, unless the user restricts access. The settings for controlling the sharing of data are not always obvious to the user, or easy to use. Access may be limited to immediate friends, or be available to all users (public); some platforms allow intermediate levels of control.
As most social media sites are free to use, the business model for these companies involves a mixture of selling advertising space on their website and selling data on its users. Targeted advertising takes data on users’ past behavior and things that they have liked, and uses this to predict what adverts they may be interested in or be most vulnerable to. Targeted adverts are more valuable to advertisers as they avoid paying to show adverts to individuals who are unlikely to be interested in their products; but can lead to users feeling that they are being spied on. While the terms and conditions for social media websites will include details of how data will be used, the length of these documents and legal terminology may deter users from reading them, meaning that they may be unaware that their data is being exploited in this way. Regulation has been slow to catch up with changing online trends; however, the European Union have recently introduced {{w|General Data Protection Regulation|General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR)}} which aims to regulate how user data can be shared. GDPR was featured in comic [[1998: GDPR]].

Data from social media may be used for marketing, for law enforcement, {{w|mass surveillance}} and social control, for investigative journalism, for criminal activity, {{w|Confidence trick|confidence games}}, among other things.

{{w|Internet fraud|Internet scammers}} use online information to manipulate people, often to commit fraud. They may acquire personal data using web crawlers to automatically scan social networks for personal information (particularly emails) to scam their owners. Those bots called web crawlers can get the information without scammers' manual browsing of the victims' profile. Those people who set their social network account as public (the 2nd option in the comic) are more likely victims of scammers since they can access their profiles without being the victim's friend or follower.
Other examples of questionable uses for social media on xkcd include [[300: Facebook]].
Randall is making a point that there ought to be some option between sharing posts only with your friends and making them completely public. The title text shows that he would specifically like to know when corporations read regular peoples' posts.

This also could be a stab at the sharing policies between Facebook and the just-announced end of Google+. Google+ allowed users to create multiple groups called 'circles'. Posts could then be shared by targeting specific circles. For example: "I'm in the hospital" could be shared with just the family circle, but the "I got a promotion" could be shared with the family circle, the co-workers circle, and the general public circle. Facebook provides an option to share with “friends of friends,” leaving the decision about how widely a post is shared not with the posts creator, but with the posts recipients.
The comic is set in the future of VR, yet the fact that Internet companies like Facebook, Tencent and Twitter try hard to collect and sell user data won't change. This may suggests that Randall believe those companies will never reconsider their approach regarding user privacy.

==Transcript==

:[Cueball floating in midair is communicating with a small floating screen that resembles a smartphone. Other people and clouds visible floating by in background.]
:Screen: Welcome to social media! When you put stuff here, you have two options: (1) You can make it available to a small set of 300 or so approved friends.

:[Cueball is still floating and talking with the smartphone. Other people and clouds visible floating by in background.]
:Screen: Or (2) you can share permanent copies of it all with billions of people, including internet scammers, random predatory companies, and hostile governments.

:[In a frameless panel, Cueball has stopped moving and is facing the screen]
:Cueball: Why would anyone pick option two?
:Screen: Two is the default.
:Cueball: Yikes.

:[Cueball is still floating and talking with the smartphone. Other people and clouds visible floating by in background. Cueball has his hand raised]
:Cueball: So those are the only two options? There’s nothing in between?
:Screen: I don’t understand. Like what?

:[Cueball continues floating and talking with the smartphone. Other people and clouds visible floating by in background.]
:Cueball: I mean...there are numbers between 300 and a billion.
:Screen: Huh? Name one.
:Screen: ''Pretty'' sure I would have heard of those.

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

2960: Organ Meanings

2024-07-18T13:42:29Z

172.70.90.178: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2960
| date = July 17, 2024
| title = Organ Meanings
| image = organ_meanings_2x.png
| imagesize = 407x346px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = IMO the thymus is one of the coolest organs and we should really use it in metaphors more.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT'S PINEAL GLAND - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This is a graph by [[Randall]] ranking how well he understands the function of certain human organs, compared to how much he understands {{w|metaphor}}s using them. 

One might expect understanding an organ's role and its use in metaphor to be strongly correlated, since the metaphors work by drawing a parallel to biological function. However, since our understanding of biological functions has evolved dramatically over time, and metaphorical language does not always keep up, the correspondence is often much looser. To complicate matters, many such anatomical metaphors vary from culture to culture, even though the biological functions remain largely consistent {{Citation needed}}.

The {{w|pineal gland}}, located in the center of the brain, was described as the “Seat of the Soul” by the dualist {{w|René Descartes}} in the 17th century. If this was what it was, the metaphors that might be derived from it would be pretty explicit. It was only in the mid-20th century that its real neuroendocrine (hormone-producing) biological role was grasped. Thus, the real meaning of the metaphor "the pineal gland of something" is uncertain, as is its actual function for the layman.

The {{w|thymus}}, highlighted in the title text, plays an important role in the immune system. It is not commonly used in metaphors,{{Citation needed}} but is perhaps ripe for use in ones describing such things as resilience, indomitability, and adaptability to changing circumstance, were more people to know what it was.

{| class="wikitable" style="margin:auto"
|-
! Organ !! Biological understanding !! Metaphor understanding !! Biological function !! Metaphor meaning(s)
|-
| {{w|Appendix_(anatomy)|Appendix}} || 3% || 85% || Maintaining gut flora, introducing pathogens to the immune system || Uselessness
|-
| {{w|Nerves}} || 40% || 90% || Sensing stimuli, and controlling muscles and organs || Courage; lack of courage; unsettledness; arrogance; (emotional) feeling
|-
| {{w|Spine}} || 50% || 80% || Holding other bones up || Courage; resoluteness; structural integrity; centrality
|-
| {{w|Heart}} || 80% || 90% || Circulation of blood || Emotion; feeling; sympathy; love; courage; resilience; core; essence; the vulnerable self
|-
| {{w|Bones}} || 75% || 80% || Holding the skin and muscles up || Basic/underlying structure; something hidden; core; essence; an issue of debate
|-
| {{w|Stomach}} || 70% || 65% || Repository for cake || Ability to tolerate unpleasant circumstances; motivation
|-
| {{w|Liver}} || 10% || 48% || Processing alcohol ||
|-
| {{w|Lungs}} || 60% || 52% || Oxygenation of blood; speaking || Loudness (e.g. of singing); purification
|-
| {{w|Spleen}} || 22% || 34% || Storing extra blood || Anger; viciousness
|-
| {{w|Thymus}} || 10% || 13% || Training immune cells (T-Cells) ||
|-
| {{w|Kidneys}} || 47% || 19% || Filtering blood ||
|-
| {{w|Pineal gland}} || 2% || 2% || Produces melatonin ||
|-
| {{w|Tongue}} || 70% || 5% || Taste; chewing; speaking || Speaking/Language; unidentified speakers (particularly in relation to gossip/secrets); something long and extended
|}

==Transcript==
:[A graph is shown with X and Y-axis without arrow or ticks. To the left of the Y-axis and below the X-axis there are labels with an arrow pointing up from the top of the Y-axis label and an arrow pointing right above the X-axis label, just beneath the x-axis.]
:Y-axis: How well I understand what it means when used in metaphors
:X-axis: How well I understand its actual biological function

:[On the graph is a scatter plot with 13 labels. Each label is written inside a line that goes just around the words. There are most in the top right corner, but they are spread all over the graph. Here in approximate reading order from top left with indicating of where on the graph the words are located:]
:[Top left:]
:Appendix
:[Top middle:]
:Nerves
:Spine
:[Top right:]
:Heart
:Bones
:Stomach
:[Center left:]
:Liver
:Spleen
:[Center right:]
:Lungs
:[Bottom left:]
:Thymus
:Pineal gland
:[Bottom middle:]
:Kidneys
:[Bottom right:]
:Tongue

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Scatter plots]]
[[Category:Rankings]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Language]]

Talk:2954: Bracket Symbols

2024-07-04T08:16:56Z

172.70.90.178: /* Initial draft */

ummm. How does editing this stuff work. Is this HTML? Why can't we have a gooey? Also, I only sort of get this comic, but it's not that funny.
<marquee behavior="scroll" direction="up">Here is some scrolling text... going up!</marquee>
[[Special:Contributions/172.69.58.102|172.69.58.102]] 05:13, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

== Initial draft ==

Did my best with my first ever contribution - I know there's a chart feature but I cba to relearn html. Feel free to fix it and PLEASE finish my bad explanations. [[User:Qwikster|Qwikster]] ([[User talk:Qwikster|talk]]) 06:05, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

⌊⌋ are floor brackets (and you can now copy-paste them from here into the explanation as needed) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.33|162.158.126.33]] 06:03, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
* As for the spaghetti, in Python, it'd be a list containing a tuple containing a list containing a set containing an empty tuple. Probably doesn't mean anything specific and pretty much useless), but it *is* legal code [[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.164|162.158.126.164]] 06:05, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Yay, I figured out how to use a table! [[User:Qwikster|Qwikster]] ([[User talk:Qwikster|talk]]) 06:42, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm British, ex 60+ years and I'm sure I was taught in school to use "for first person speech" and 'for quoting others'. I hadn't even noticed printers doing the opposite. But there again I didn't go to Grammar School. [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 07:36, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm British, too, and as I recall my school says sixty years ago, the symbols () are just called brackets and parenthesis is just the grammatical construct in which they can be used. But you can use dashes or even commas to indicate a parenthesis. This has been discussed on such blogs has Ben Yagoda's Not One-off Britishisms. https://notoneoffbritishisms.com/2015/12/15/square-brackets/ --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.178|172.70.90.178]] 08:16, 4 July 2024 (UTC)