explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2935: Ocean Loop

2024-05-22T08:14:11Z

172.70.90.70: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2935
| date = May 20, 2024
| title = Ocean Loop
| image = ocean_loop_2x.png
| imagesize = 317x286px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = I can't believe they wouldn't even let me hold a vote among the passengers about whether to try the loop.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an EXCITED ROLLER COASTER ENTHUSIAST - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Upon hearing the term "ocean loop", many people think of horizontal {{w|ocean gyre}}s or {{w|ocean currents}}. This comic illustrates a vertical, rather than horizontal, ocean loop.

The comic shows a large construction, rising out of the sea to dwarf a nearby cruise ship. It involves a submerged water-jet sending water up out of the surface and round a rollercoaster-loop-like water-flume trough. The scale is such that it seems that the ship, once caught in the necessarily powerful stream of water, is also intended to be propelled around the inverting loop before "safely" exiting at the other side.

Apart from various other issues regarding {{what if|43|large "loop-de-loops"}}, the stream of water required to maintain this setup would be {{w|Entrainment (hydrodynamics)|acting upon the nearby water}} and so the nearby ship is probably already close enough to be drawn into the loop (with the best option left being to deliberately steer into it, rather than risk being swept uncontrollably into the structure), assuming that it isn't already caught in the tug of the water-jet's inward flow.

Even assuming a "successful" loop (the stresses, and rotation, inflicted by the loop are likely beyond the design limits of such a vessel), the emergence back into the ''relatively'' calm and stationary waters beyond the exiting outflow would be a severe challenge to navigation. On the positive side, due to the nature of buoyancy, if the loop structure itself is capable of withstanding the force of the water being forced round it then it ''should'' be equally capable of withstanding the passage of the ship, unlike an impromptu rail-based loop which might stand up on its own but then shake itself apart when the first carriage is sent around it.

Not only would there be problems for the engineers, ship and navigators, the "ride" wouldn't be pleasant for the ship's passengers in any way. Many of the passengers would suffer extreme injuries from the changes of velocity (up to 230 mph based on a loop radius of 3 x ship length) and rotation (unlike {{w|rollercoasters}}, or even airplanes during simple take-off and landing, passengers aren't normally strapped down). It is possible that the initial extreme undercurrent would capsize the ship. Depending upon where in the ship you were, the centripetal forces and the ship's rotation may not match for all passengers, forcing anyone not properly secured out towards the bow or stern. As well as the passengers, this also is relevant to all unsecured items (e.g. knives and forks would go flying off tables), as well as the dangers of breakable glass, liquids and many other dangerous objects which could create hazards even (or particularly) against those who have strapped themselves down to prevent their own movement through the ship.

Because of all these safety concerns, the bottom text, "[[:Category: Banned from conferences|I don't know why the cruise line fired me]]", suggests that someone in the company immediately realized this would not be a good idea, and seeing as cruise ship operators prioritize safety over whatever "thrill" or "uniqueness" this loop brings, either due to their good heart or because it's dangerous, shut down the concept immediately. The title text, "I can't believe they wouldn't even let me hold a vote among the passengers about whether to try the loop", implies that [[Black Hat|someone with a sadistic nature]] actually built this loop and had a ship ready to try it. The title text also suggests that not only are those in charge of the ship skeptical about sailing into this loop, but that they are worried that opening the decision-making process to the passengers might favor the exciting risk over the well-founded reason of the staff. However, cruise ships generally don't function as democracies even outside of absurd situations such as the one depicted.

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

:[A cruise ship approaches an enormous loop-de-loop flume from the left. A large jet of water is being propelled into the loop-de-loop by a hot tub style jet. The loop-de-loop that looks like a waterslide is connected to a rocky shore line, the latter is slowly rising as it approaches the right side of the panel.]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:I don't know why the cruise line fired me.

==Trivia==
* '''This trivia section was created by a BOT'''
* The [[:File:ocean_loop_huge.png|standard size]] image was uploaded with a resolution/size larger than the supposed 2x version.
* This may have been an error.
* At the time of posting, the image was ''massive'', 4760 x 4295 pixels.

{{comic discussion}}

User talk:JohnHawkinson

2024-04-19T15:37:35Z

172.70.90.70:

Yes, I'm barmar on SE. I'm pretty sure I've seen you there, too. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 23:29, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

==ip comments==
Hi. Speaking as a totally different IP to the one that you just had to deal with, there's really usually no point creating an IP's User Talk page to communicate with them [...snipthe rest of my blather...] [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.160|172.71.242.160]] 11:26, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

:I don't know why you think that there's no point. Some people have a stable IP, some people don't. Those that do will be shown the talk page automatically by MediaWiki. And others monitor [[Special:RecentChanges]], as this IP editor may have (and as you did). And furthermore, the talk page was linked from [[:User talk:Barmar]] in the thread the IP user was using. So for all those reasons, it sure seems to have a point to me. Thanks anyhow. [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 02:00, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

:: Unfortunately, nobody has a 'stable IP'. It's essentially whatever Cloudflare gateway one happens to be routed through, which is perhaps geographically grouped but otherwise semi-randomised within that group. I can't guarantee that this message will sign as 172.71.242.160 (I would heavily bet against it!), probably not within 172.71.242/8 (rare!), 172.71/16 is not likely, 172/24 is more like it (''maybe'' .69-to-71-ish?), but landing off of the 172s (subranges of the 141s and 162s are always a reasonable side-bet) can happen even between one submission and an ''immediate'' "whoops, I forgot to sign" re-edit mere seconds later.
:: Conversely, I've replied to a prior IP's chat, before, and ''had the exact same'' anon-IP. Likely they were also in the UK, possibly even on the same ISP, but as even geolocation on my non-proxied IP (direct via such a "where am I?" site) often places me at one or other major UK city often hundreds of miles away, Cloudflare can't really help in either keeping 'me' constant or reliably separating 'us' from each other.
:: For those that monitor the changes, there is no advantage to creating an insta-out-of-date User Talk page, above any other manner of passing a note. This is in part a peculiarity of the way this Wiki is set up. There are plenty of discussions on these lines sitting in the Admin pages or random spots such as these. I've seen a few (and commented in some) over the years and ''until''/unless either a configuration tweak (to immediately unproxy every IP reported) or perhaps a full update is attempted, one cannot even usefully say that those who have a stable IP at their end will ever have a (differently) stable IP reported at wikiside.
::: Exactly. "No advantage…above any other manner of passing a note." You have not proposed any other manner of passing a note, and it does not seem to have material disadvantages. Perhaps you'd like to suggest a different method of passing a note, but absent that, this one seems good, and better than no method. (I suppose the other obvious choice would be to clutter up my talk page with such, but I am disinclined to do that.) I was not aware that this wiki's CDN/whatever configuration breaks source IP address resolution; oh well, but that bumps IP talk pages from more-useful to equally useful (aka equally useless). [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 14:45, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
:::: First, I absolutely apologise for this cluttering that I have instigated (I guess you also get an email notification, if not set otherwise?), and continue. Had you not posed a further <s>question</s> answerable issue, I had intended to stop at the last one (which was supposed to be brief!).
:::: But you weigh up the relative lack of advantages, as is my point, forgetting the final sum of the disadvantages. User: and User Talk: spaces for IPs have no responsible owners to 'sub-moderate' them. Casual moderation by anyone and 'official' moderation by the fully accredited accounts (who can, and often have, delete the pages). In my mind, this tips the balance, even before considering more pernicious issues.
:::: I agree, your wish to communicate with whoever-it-was is a somewhat insoluble problem. There is no more solution from creating an IP's Talk page, above highlighting it as you did by your (legitimate) comment on your (legitimate) edit. (That they landed on the opportunity to originally ingratiate themselves into your and Barmar's dialogue suggests they ''may'', like me, be a bit of a casual page-change watcher. I don't believe the Random Page link could set them down there, etc.)
:::: It would then be for the best not to add complexity from a needless additional disconnected notification (though you did not know that, quite as well as you now do!), if you'd accept my personal IMO/IME on this matter.
:::: Not that I have authority here, clearly. 'Experience' is not a replacement for that, forgive me if you thought my attempt to smooth things down and brief you were anything more than passing helpfulness rendered overwordy and badly explained. And so there I shall stop, properly, and wish you well. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.70|172.70.90.70]] 15:37, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
:: (And actually more casual IP users will already not know to check "User Talk:<wh.at.ev.er>", ''or'' think to check the history/diffs for the response to their great big* boots creating great big muddy footprints all over the place and needing cleaning up. Some ''named users'' don't seem to know to check the usual places.) * - British phrase is often "Size nine boots", but I'm guessing you'd use an idiom that, at best, used US shoe sizing, whatever that equivalent is. And I wear 9s (9½s, maybe, sometimes even 10s, depends upon fit), so perhaps that's no longer suitable as "a big boot size".
:: Anyway, I wonder what IP this'll show as? Just done a Preview, and it says 172.70.90.93 (ha, nearly guessed 172.70.whatever, before I decided to actually test it!) but now let's see what an actual Saved reply will say, about one minute later... [[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.222|172.69.43.222]] 12:44, 19 April 2024 (UTC) (( PS, if this has helped, or especially if it has not, I still think you're best to unclutter this small diversion from your userspace :p ))

Talk:2916: Machine

2024-04-15T08:41:42Z

172.70.90.70: /* Advanced components? */

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:2916: Machine

2024-04-15T08:41:17Z

172.70.90.70: /* Added key combinations, found in source */

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)

1037: Umwelt

2024-03-02T19:11:22Z

172.70.90.70: /* Internet Explorer */

{{comic
| number = 1037
| date = April 1, 2012
| title = Umwelt
| image = umwelt_the_void.jpg
| titletext = Umwelt is the idea that because their senses pick up on different things, different animals in the same ecosystem actually live in very different worlds. Everything about you shapes the world you inhabit--from your ideology to your glasses prescription to your web browser.}}
{{TOC}}
*To view your personal version of the comic, visit the {{xkcd|1037|original comic}}.

==Explanation==
This was the third [[:Category:April fools' comics|April fools' comic]] released by [[Randall]]. The previous fools comic was [[880: Headache]] from Friday April 1st 2011. The next was [[1193: Externalities]] released on Monday April 1st 2013.

An {{w|Umwelt}}, as the title text explains, is the idea that one's entire way of thinking is dependent on their surroundings. Thus, this {{w|April Fools}} comic changes based on the browser, location, or referrer. Thus, what the viewer is viewing the comic on, where they live, or where they came from determines which comic they actually see. As a result, there are actually multiple comics that went up on April Fools' Day, although only one is seen.
(The term 'Umwelt,' as mentioned in the comic, refers to the semiotic theories of Jakob von Uexküll and Thomas A. Sebeok)

Information about how the wide variety of data was collected and credit for the viewers who contributed can be found [https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/rnst4/april_fools_xkcd_changing_comic/ here].

===The Void===
[[File:umwelt the void.jpg]]

If the device or browser you are using does not support Javascript, you will simply see a static image of a white swirl on a dark background.

Possible reference to The Ring (https://imgur.com/wlGmm), as though to suggest that using an alternative browser is dismal and horrific.

Davean (xkcd's sysadmin): "[This] comic isn't available everywhere and it can come up i[n] some situation[s] only for recognized browsers."

Browser: Alternative Browser

===Aurora===
[[File:umwelt aurora.png|800px]]

One could interpret that since Megan didn't go out and therefore missed seeing the {{w|Aurora}} (northern lights), Cueball in his [[1350:_Lorenz#Knit_Cap_Girl|knit cap]] lied about it. That way, she wouldn't have felt sad that she missed out. Another interpretation could be that he decides that since she did not even bother to go outside to see such a spectacular sight he will not tell her about it. And yet another could be that he did not think it was interesting.

Cueball could possibly also be red-green colorblind, seeing the green aurorae as grey "clouds". This would serve as an example for the theme of the comic, as a non-colorblind person and a colorblind person seeing the same color would perceive it differently, one seeing it as its true color, and the other seeing it without the shade of color they cannot see. If this is the case, then it would be a reference to umwelt, as Cueball would be living in a world where the auroras do not reach his location.

In real life, [https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-northern-lights-dont-look-anything-like-they-do-in-photos_n_5500a4d9e4b0e62d0dd4f9bb aurorae are usually seen as grey/white clouds] to the naked eye, as our eyes cannot perceive the "greener" colors as well in the dark.

This image changed based on the size of the browser window including different panels at different sizes.

Locations: Canada, Boston, Indiana, Maine, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Minnesota, Norway, Denmark, France, Ireland, Rhode Island, Mississippi, Seoul (Safari), London (on Firefox). Also in Virginia, but using Ohio in the first panel; in Maryland, but using Canada in the first panel; in Marion, Illinois, but using Canada in the first panel along with the phrase "as far south as us" in the first panel, and in Utah, also using the phrase "as far south as us", same with Colombia, Spain and Georgia.

In [[1302: Year in Review]] a possibly different Megan has a completely different approach to the chance of seeing northern lights, as that was the only event she was looking forward to in 2013, and it failed. If this is the same Megan, perhaps she learned that there actually were northern lights in her area from another source, and so desperately wanted to have another chance to see them.

===Snake===
[[File:umwelt snake composite 1024.png]]
[[:File:umwelt snake composite.png|Full size]]

The joke here is the extreme length of snakes. The world's longest living snake is the {{w|reticulated python}}, the longest ever measuring over 22 feet (6.95 meters). The blue and orange circles refer to the hit game {{w|Portal}}.
There is also a reference to the book "The Little Prince" in the second panel, where there is a large bulge in the snake that looks like an elephant. The Little Prince starts out by mentioning a drawing that the author made when he was six that showed an elephant inside a snake.

Also, the number and content of the panels changes depending on the size of your browser window.

This image changed based on the size of the browser window including different panels at different sizes.

Specific AltText for this image: Umwelt is the idea that because their senses pick up on different things, different animals in the same ecosystem actually live in very different worlds. Everything about you shapes the world you inhabit -from your ideology to your glasses prescription to your browser window size.

Location: Texas (on Chrome Version 33.0.1750.154 m), New Jersey, California (on Chrome Version 39.0.2171.95), Maryland, Massachusetts (Safari for iOS, Chrome version 49.0.2623.112), Connecticut (Safari for iOS, Chrome Version 73.0.3683.103, Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Edge), Virginia (on Chrome), Michigan (Firefox v46.0.1), Penang (Chrome Version 65.0.3325.162), London (Microsoft Edge), Germany (on Opera One (version: 106.0.4998.70)).

===Black Hat===
[[File:umwelt tortoise 1024.png]]
[[:File:umwelt tortoise.png|Full size]]

Cueball as an analyst attempts to psychoanalyze [[Black Hat|Black Hat's]] [[72: Classhole|classhole]] tendencies. Cueball's quote and the whole setup is a direct reference to the movie {{w|Blade Runner}} (1982) and Black Hat is taking the Voight-Kampff test which is used to identify replicants from real humans.

Black Hat's reason for not helping the tortoise is that ''it '''knows''' what it did'' and thus in Black Hat's world view it deserves being turned over. The final part of the joke is that when zooming out it turns out that there is a tortoise behind Black Hat and he has actually already turned it over for what it did.

Location: Seems to appear mostly in "other countries" — those without location-specific comics.

===Too Quiet===
[[File:umwelt too quiet 1024.png]]
[[:File:umwelt too quiet.png|Full size]]

A reference to {{w|Jurassic Park (film)|Jurassic Park}} which has been [[87: Velociraptors|constantly]] [[135: Substitute|referred]] [[1110: Click and Drag|to]] [[155: Search History|before]] [[758: Raptor Fences|in]] this comic.

Also referencing the film {{w|2 Fast 2 Furious|2 Fast 2 Furious}}, an entertaining, yet intellectually unprovoking sequel in a popular film franchise, which is aimed at teenagers and young adults, prompting the blunt response from the stickman. The fact that Steve would use such a cliché {{w|2000s (decade)|noughties}} movie term in such an intense moment, and the subsequent curse, is the joke in this comic.

Location: short version — iPhone 5c Safari browser in Texas, iPhone 5 Chrome Browser in Minnesota, long version - Google Chrome browser in Indiana, Windows 8 Laptop

===Pond===
[[File:umwelt pond mobile.png]][[File:umwelt pond wide.png]]

Two different versions showed, the narrower version for mobile devices.

Location: The Netherlands and various other countries.

===Galaxies===
[[File:umwelt galaxies 1024.jpg]]
[[:File:umwelt galaxies.jpg|Full size]]

Megan is distracted from her conversation with [[Cueball]] by realizing that the space behind his head, from her vantage point, contains millions of galaxies. This is similar to an [https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/image/astro/hst_deep_field.jpg incredible photograph] taken by the Hubble Telescope, in which a tiny dark area of space in fact contained numerous galaxies.

The title text is an imaginative leap from this scenario: that the galaxies would be up to no good once Cueball is turned away from them. This is presumably a reference to [https://www.mariowiki.com/boo Boo], an enemy from certain Mario games who moves toward Mario only when Mario is facing away from Boo.

This comic was only reported once... the intended environmental context is a mystery.

Location: Sagittarius A*

===xkcd Gold===
[[File:umwelt xkcd gold.png]]

This is probably a reference to the 4chan Gold Account, an implementation on 4chan that does not actually exist, and is usually used to trick newcomers into revealing their credit card numbers. The joke is that "Gold Account" users can supposedly block other users from viewing images they have posted. The fifth panel is probably a reference to Beecock, a notorious set of shocker images. 4chan's moderators have been known to give out "beecock bans" or "/z/ bans" to particularly annoying users, which redirect the user to a page containing beecock and the text "OH NO THE BOARD IS GONE".

Referrer: 4chan

===Yo Mama===
[[File:umwelt dog ballast.png]]

Possible reference to Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s "{{w|Harrison Bergeron}}."

The joke is that people's different experiences shape how they perceive the world in that the people who live in this world would perceive the joke as funny, while people in our world would not get it. This is the idea of umwelt mentioned at the top of the context where different individuals perceive the world differently.

Refer: Facebook

===Reddit===
[[File:umwelt reddit.png]]

Reference to referencing, because Reddit, as a referring site, likes references to its referencing in its references.

This comic also features recursive imagery similar to [[688: Self-Description]] where the second panel embeds the entire comic within itself. (Except, conspicuously, the arrow indicating that it is "You" in the first panel.)

One of the browser tabs visible in the center panel is {{w|Elk}} on Wikipedia.

Referrer: Reddit

===Buns and Hot dogs===
[[File:umwelt somethingawful.jpg]]

This is a reference to the question "Why do hot dogs come in packages of 6 while buns come in packages of 8?"

Another, more sexual reference to this question can be found in [[1641: Hot Dogs]].

Referrer: SomethingAwful, Questionable Content, & MetaFilter

===Twitter===
[[File:umwelt twitter.jpg]]

A summary of the "content" typically found on Twitter.

In the tweet feed, there are three tweets about some podcast on the top, followed by the tweet containing link they clicked on to get to the comic, tweets about Rob Delaney, unspecified passive-aggressive tweets, and a tweet from {{w|Horse_ebooks}} retweeted by one of the users the reader follows.

On the left, the topmost dialog, with profile information, shows that the user has posted 1,302 tweets, but only follows 171 people and has even fewer followers, at a measly 48. This is marked with a sad face, implying that the user wants more followers.

Below that is the "who to follow" dialog, which is written up as consisting of "assholes".

Below that is the "trending tags" dialog for the United States. It is full of tags about word games, tags about misogyny, and tags about Justin Bieber.

Below that is an unidentified dialog full of "stuff your eyes automatically ignore". And finally, on the bottom is the background color, which is "a really pleasant blue".

Referrer: Twitter

===Wikipedia===
[[File:umwelt wikipedia wide.jpg]]
[[File:umwelt wikipedia mobile.png]]

The term {{w|Mile High Club}} (or MHC) is a slang term applied collectively to individuals who have had sexual intercourse while on board an aircraft. Randall says that reading the news articles on it has distracted him from making that comic.

Two different versions shown, the narrower version (the single panel with all the text) for mobile devices.

Referrer: Wikipedia

===Google Chrome===
[[File:umwelt chrome1.jpg]]

{{w|Sergey Brin}} (born August 21, 1973) is an American computer scientist and Internet entrepreneur who, with Larry Page, co-founded Google, one of the most profitable Internet companies. As of 2013, his personal wealth was estimated to be $24.4 billion. Randall makes the joke that as the founder of Google, Brin's permission would be needed to use Google Chrome. Because there are millions of people who use Google, it is likely that at least some of the time Brin would be asleep, thus he would need to be woken.

Browser: Chrome

===Chrome/Firefox===
[[File:umwelt chrome2.png]]

Mozilla {{w|Firefox}} is a free and open-source web browser developed for Windows, OS X, and Linux, with a mobile version for Android and iOS, by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. Cueball is complaining about {{w|Google Chrome}}, to which [[Ponytail]] replies that there is an {{w|add-on}} that fixes what he is complaining about. When questioned, she replies that the add-on is Firefox, which isn't an add-on at all and is instead a different browser.

Browser: Chrome

===Google Chrome-2===
[[File:umwelt chrome3.png]]

This panel references Google Chrome's error screen, which shows a puzzle piece. The comic humorously implies that Chrome is looking for that piece. When completing jigsaw puzzles, a common strategy is to figure out where the pieces must be from their geometry rather than from the picture they create. In this case, the text suggests that Chrome believes the puzzle piece connects to the pieces which form one of the corners of the puzzle, which may seem impossible because any piece that links up to a corner would usually have at least one flat edge, which this piece has none. However, more complicated puzzles have complex shapes and are not always simply approximate squares with tabs and blanks.

Browser: Chrome or silk on desktop view

===Mozilla Firefox Private Browsing===
[[File:umwelt firefox incognito.png]]

Another reference to crashing web browsers.
Firefox shows the history when it crashes.
Browser: Firefox (Incognito only?)

===Internet Explorer===
[[File:umwelt ie.png]]

Yet another reference to crashing web browsers that use Windows.

Browser: Internet Explorer

===Maxthon===
[[File:umwelt maxthon.png]]

Browser: Maxthon

===Netscape Navigator===
[[File:umwelt netscape womanoctopus.png]]

[[File:umwelt netscape man.png]]

{{w|Netscape Navigator}} was a web browser popular in the 1990s.

Browser: Netscape

===Rockmelt===
[[File:umwelt rockmelt.png]]

{{w|Rockmelt}} is a social-media-based browser.

Reference to the gospel song {{w|Longing for Old Virginia: Their Complete Victor Recordings (1934)|"There's no hiding place down here" by The Carter Family}}, later covered by Stephen Stills.

:I run to the rock just to hide my face
:And the rocks cried out, no hiding place
:There's no hiding place down here

It may additionally be a reference to the ''Babylon 5'' episode "And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place," which featured the song.

Browser: Rockmelt

===Plugin Disabled===
[[File:umwelt plugin disabled.png]]

When the Google Chrome web browser does not have the required software (called a plug-in) to display a web page's content, it displays a puzzle piece icon and an error message. In this case, Chrome informs the user that the content is impossible to display.

Browser: Plugin (?) Disabled, Safari Desktop

===Corporate Networks===
[[File:umwelt corporate general.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate amazon chrome.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate amazon firefox.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate amazon other.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate google chrome.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate microsoft chrome.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate microsoft firefox.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate microsoft other.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate nytimes chrome.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate nytimes other.png]]

These error messages appear if the user is on a network owned by one of the corporations noted. The error message includes a warning against speaking on the company's behalf.

ISP: Corporate networks of Amazon, Google, Microsoft, NY Times

===Military===
[[File:umwelt military.png]]

[[Cueball]] assumes that anyone using a military network has an important job like watching for incoming missiles. He includes a thank-you to the user for their military service.

ISP: Military networks

===T-Mobile===
[[File:umwelt tmobile.png]]

Reference to T-Mobile's distinguishing feature (at the time it was written) of weaker coverage, in relation to other major providers.

ISP: T-Mobile

===Verizon and AT&T===
[[File:umwelt verizon.png]]

[[File:umwelt att.png]]

Reference to Verizon and AT&T's scandals/controversy regarding implementation of bandwidth caps.

ISP: Verizon and AT&T

===France===
[[File:umwelt france.jpg]]

A common joke about France is that the nation does not win wars. This originated from France's annexation by Germany during World War II, and America's late entry into the war, which is sometimes portrayed humorously as a case of America 'saving' Europe, in this joke particularly France (the role of the French resistance is usually not mentioned), leading to a common American joke at the expense of France's military prowess [https://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/victories.html][https://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blpic-frenchmilitaryvictories.htm][https://politicalhumor.about.com/library/jokes/bljokefrenchmilitaryhistory.htm]. When France did not form part of the coalition that invaded Iraq in 2003, aligning with the many countries that condemned U.S. action, the joke was revived.

A Google search of "French Military Victories" + 'I'm feeling lucky' used to direct to "did you mean: french military defeats" (due to a {{w|Google bomb}}). Cueball is trying to show this to his friend, who is French. However, his joke backfires, as his friend immediately points out that the stereotype of France not having military victories is undercut by the fact that one of the most innovative military commanders in history, Napoleon, was French by citizenship (though Italian/Corsican by culture, as the French annexed Corsica a few months before his birth to an Italian noble family), and in fact conquered much of Europe.

Following the theme of umwelt, the comic highlights the two characters' differing perspectives: The American thinks that France is a military failure, while the Frenchman thinks of Napoleon.

The last line of the comic further implies that Cueball is not as smart as he thinks he is in regards to anything French, as he mispronounces the French loan word "{{w|Touché (fencing)|touché}}".

Locations: France & Quebec

===Germany===
[[File:umwelt germany.png]]

This comic references the {{w|Berlin airlift#The start of the Berlin Airlift|Berlin Airlift}}, a relief measure for citizens in West Berlin (surrounded by East Germany) instituted by the Western Allies after World War II. In reality, the Western Allies flew a grand total of 500,000 tons of food over the Soviet blockade in planes. Randall puts a twist on this event by making it more fun: dropping supplies from a grand chairlift. The play on words is that "chairlift" rhymes with "airlift" and thus makes an easy substitution. The chair force is also a name that other service branches use to make fun of the air force.

Location: Germany

===Israel===
[[File:umwelt israel.png]]

Translation: Mom, I met a great guy! But he's not Jewish. ...Wait, what do you mean "neither are we"? I'm completely confused.

A reference to the multiple use of the word Jewish to denote both a {{w|Judaism|religious group}} and a {{w|Jews|nationality/ethnicity}}, as well as the stereotype of Jews holding low opinions of interfaith marriage.

A side note: Randall accidentally drew an apostrophe instead of the similar-looking Hebrew letter י everywhere that letter should appear.

Location: Israel

===Carnot Cycle===
[[File:umwelt japan.png]]

A pun on "cycle"; a "{{w|Carnot cycle}}" is a thermodynamic cycle (e.g. refrigeration). Its efficiency depends on the temperature of the hot and cold 'reservoirs' in which it is operating. The icon on the side of the motorcycle resembles a [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/06/Carnot_cycle_p-V_diagram.svg/1000px-Carnot_cycle_p-V_diagram.svg.png graph of the Carnot cycle.]

Location: Japan

===UK===
[[File:umwelt uk.jpg]]

He worded this as though to imply that the UK is a state of the U.S., and an unimportant one at that, which pokes fun at the UK, creating a paradox (sort of).

Location: UK

===Blizzard===
[[File:umwelt disasters blizzard.png]]

This comic is aimed at the debate over whether earthquakes or blizzards are harsher conditions to live under. In keeping with the theme of umwelt, the comic demonstrates that the two people perceive the world in two different ways due to their different experiences: The Californian perceives a mild earthquake and a severe blizzard, while the Northeasterner perceives a severe earthquake and a mild blizzard.

For each location this displayed in, the state name was substituted in the third panel.

Locations: Alabama, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Georgia, Halifax, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, the Northeast, Ohio, Oklahoma, Ottawa, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Texas, Toronto, Tennessee, New York, Wisconsin

===Tornado===
[[File:umwelt disasters tornado.png]]

This comic is aimed at the debate over whether earthquakes or tornadoes are harsher conditions to live under. In keeping with the theme of umwelt, the comic demonstrates that the two people perceive the world in two different ways due to their different experiences: The California perceives a mild earthquake and a severe tornado, while the Midwesterner perceives a severe earthquake and a mild tornado. It's similar to [[#Blizzard|Blizzard]].

For each location this displayed in the state name was substituted in the third panel.

Locations: Alabama, Dallas, Illinois, Georgia, The Midwest, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Ottawa, Tennessee, Texas (and Virginia, but it used Ohio in the third panel)

Tornadoes are a [[:Category:Tornadoes|recurring subject]] on xkcd. The picture used in [[1754: Tornado Safety Tips]] very reminiscent of the one from this version of Umwelt. [[Category:Tornadoes]]

===Hurricane===
[[File:umwelt disasters hurricane.png]]

This comic is aimed at the debate over whether earthquakes or hurricanes are harsher conditions to live under. In keeping with the theme of umwelt, the comic demonstrates that the two people perceive the world in two different ways due to their different experiences: The Californian perceives a mild earthquake and a severe hurricane, while the Easterner perceives a severe earthquake and a mild hurricane. It's similar to [[#Blizzard|Blizzard]] and [[#Tornado|Tornado]].

For each location this displayed in the state name was substituted in the third panel.

Locations: D.C, Florida, Georgia, Houston, Miami, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia

===Lake Diver Killer===
[[File:umwelt lake diver.png]]

This comic shows a news reporter standing in front of a lake. She is reporting on a serial killer who targets divers. As more divers are sent in to investigate and/or search for bodies, more divers go missing, the implication being that they were also murdered. The more likely reason is the lake itself is dangerous for diving, and the divers probably drowned from natural hazards (undercurrents, entanglement, running out of oxygen in tanks, etc.) instead of a malicious assailant. Also, this is a sort of loop, where each time a diver gets killed, the investigative team goes and investigates, causing more divers to get killed, causing more deaths, and so on.

Location: Bay Areas, Metro Detroit, Vermont showed an image specifically referencing Lake Champlain

===Lincoln Memorial===
[[File:umwelt lincoln memorial.png]]

{{w|Abraham Lincoln}}, the 16th president of the United States of America, was not an entity composed wholly of nanobots that attempted to consume the entire nation to then be imprisoned within the {{w|Lincoln Memorial}}.{{Citation needed}} The inscription references the epitaph at the actual Lincoln Memorial, which reads "In this temple, as in the hearts of the people for whom he saved the union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever".

Locations: Illinois & Washington, D.C.

===Helicopter Hunting===
[[File:umwelt helicoptor.png]]

In Alaska, governments and individuals have {{w|Wolf hunting#North America 2|shot wolves en masse from helicopters}} in an attempt to artificially inflate populations of game, such as moose and caribou, to make hunting them easier. This is opposed by many, as the game populations are not endangered (thus, this threatens ecological balance); wolves are a small threat to livestock in North America; most of the wolf body —including meat and bones— goes wasted as they are sought mainly for their pelts.

Location: Alaska

===Newspaper===
[[File:umwelt life scientists.png]][[File:umwelt life rit.png]][[File:umwelt life umass.png]]

Creating new life has long been a well understood process, in a lab or otherwise.

This comic is likely a reference to the title text of [[983: Privacy]]

Location: Various

Specific versions appeared for RIT and UMass Amherst

===Robot Paul Revere===
[[File:umwelt paul revere.png]]

Combination of the legend of {{w|Paul Revere#"Midnight Ride"|Paul Revere}} and a computer bit that differentiates between two situations by indicating a zero or a one.

Location: Boston

===Counting Cards===

All four colleges in this series are in Massachusetts and, being similar, in pairs, rival each other to some extent (Harvard-MIT, and Smith-Wellesley). The comic contains a reference to the {{w|MIT Blackjack Team}}, which entered popular culture via the {{w|21 (2008 film)|film 21}}, and a possible reference to Orwell's book '1984' and/or {{w|Chain of Command (Star Trek: The Next Generation)|popular homage to it via Star Trek}}: "There are four lights."[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChYIm6MW39k]

Bonus: The thought-gears in panel 3 are spinning against each other.

Location: Harvard

[[File:umwelt counting cards harvard.png]]

Location: MIT

[[File:umwelt counting cards mit.png]]

"Course 15s" at MIT are the business major students, often mocked for taking a less-rigorous program. The different interpretation for why the MIT students could not count cards compared to Harvard may be a reference to the theme of umwelt.

Location: Smith

[[File:umwelt counting cards smith.png]]

Location: Wellesley

[[File:umwelt counting cards wellesley.png]]

Both Wellesley and Smith are all-women colleges in Massachusetts.

===Giant Box Trap===
[[File:umwelt box trap.png]]

Randall got his undergrad in Physics at the {{w|Christopher Newport University}}, and was scheduled to return shortly to give a talk. The "Trible" figure on the right is Paul Trible, the then-president of CNU. This comic depicts a classic trap, where an upside-down box is propped up with a stick. When the stick is removed, by pulling a string, the box falls and traps whatever is underneath it. Aside from the joke of the obvious trap, there's also the fact that the president would not be responsible for revoking unearned diplomas.

Location: Christopher Newport University

===Chemo Support===
[[File:umwelt chemo.jpg]]

[[Cueball]] has shaved his head in support of people going through {{w|chemotherapy}} but, as he is always depicted as a stick figure with no hair, no one can tell.

Randall's now-wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, and apparently DFCI is where they've been spending much of their time.

Location: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

===Reviews===
[[File:reviews.png]]

The previous strip appears twice when using [[wikipedia:Tor (anonymity network)|Tor]].

Browser: Any using Tor, xkcd API (JSON, RSS, Atom), w3m, and reports of seeing it on a Kindle Fire HD; also happens if visiting with a browser that does not support JavaScript (such as Firefox with NoScript)

===Nothing===

[[File:Umwelt blank.jpg]]

In some cases, the comic can be completely absent, with only the top and bottom buttons visible. On most newer browsers, this is caused by a script loading part of the comic via a HTTP request while the rest of the webpage is delivered over HTTPS. This is referred to as [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Security/Mixed_content mixed content] and is blocked on modern browsers by default due to security concerns. This version of the comic is therefore likely not an intended outcome, but rather an unintended consequence of how this comic was implemented. [https://mastodon.social/@chromakode/109531309722997557 It was been confirmed] that this was not intentional and will be fixed. Since this comic's release, all devices viewing it have returned two rows of navigation buttons if near IP address 69.114.249.104.

The http(s) issue seems to have been fixed.

==Transcript==
:'''[This section only covers the first three comics. For the transcript of the entire comic, go to the [[1037: Umwelt/Transcript|full transcript page]].]'''

===The Void===
:[An epic void with a bright light shining right on you.]

===Aurora===
:[Cueball heading out past Megan comfortably sitting in front of a desk.]
:Cueball: Apparently there's a solar flare that's causing some Great Aurorae. CBC says they may even be visible here! Wanna drive out to see?
:Megan: Hockey's on.
:Cueball: Ok. Later.

:[An expansive, marvelous image of emerald green northern lights, floating down through the sky.]

:Megan: See anything?
:Cueball: No, just clouds.
:Megan: Not surprised.

===Aurora-US===
:[Cueball heading out past Megan comfortably sitting in front of a desk.]
:Cueball: Apparently there's a solar storm causing northern lights over Canada. CNN say they might even be visible {Options: "As Far South As Us", "Here in Boston", "Maine", "Ohio", "Oregon", "New York"}! Wanna drive out to see?
:Megan: It's cold out.
:Cueball: Ok. Later.

:[An expansive, marvelous image of emerald green northern lights, floating down through the sky.]

:Megan: See anything?
:Cueball: No, just clouds.
:Megan: Not surprised.

===Snake===
:[Two people standing next to each other. Megan is holding the head end of a snake. Depending on the width of your browser, the snake is: three frames, the third of which has a little bit of a bump; the first frame has a human-size bump, the second has a third person looking at the snake, and the third has the snake going though two Portals; a squirrel and the human-size bump in the first frame, a ring next to the third person in the second frame, and Beret Guy riding the snake in front of the portal; or The squirrel, a fourth person within the snake being coiled, and the human bump in the first frame, the ring, a fifth person in love, and the third person in the second frame, Beret Guy and the portal in the third frame, and the same two people in the fourth frame.]

:Megan: I found a snake, but then I forgot to stop.

:'''[For the transcript of the entire comic, go to the [[1037: Umwelt/Transcript|full transcript page]].]'''

==Trivia==
* The Reddit user [https://www.reddit.com/user/SomePostMan SomePostMan] created a [https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/t6wmh/all_umwelt_1037_comics_in_two_imgur_albums/ post] that collected all of the Umwelt comics and added explanations. Much of his information is now included in this wiki.
* At the start of the [https://xkcd.com/1037/info.0.json official transcript of this comic], the writer added a note alluding to its extreme length:
:: <nowiki>[[Two people...]]</nowiki>
:: ((..wait.. <scrolls through a listing of everything> oh goddammit Randall. Thanks a bunch, dude. I better get a raise for typing out all this))
:: [[Two people standing next to each other.
* This comic was released on April 1 even though that was [[:Category:Sunday comics|a Sunday]] (only the third comic to be released on a Sunday). But it was only due to the April Fools' joke, as it did replace the comic that would have been scheduled for Monday, April 2nd. The next comic, [[1038: Fountain]], was first released on Wednesday, April 4th. This was the first that could be different for different readers.
* This comic displays the previous comic, Reviews (1036), when you try to view it on uni.xkcd.com.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:April fools' comics]]
[[Category:Dynamic comics]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Knit Cap]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Danish]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]
[[Category:Penis]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Velociraptors]]
[[Category:Your Mom]]
[[Category:Puns]]
[[Category:Squirrels]]
[[Category:Comics with blood]]
[[Category:Characters with hats]]

2897: Light Leap Years

2024-02-26T09:06:21Z

172.70.90.70: /* Explanation */ Doesn't actually change the distance - only the measurement

{{comic
| number = 2897
| date = February 21, 2024
| title = Light Leap Years
| image = light_leap_years_2x.png
| imagesize = 288x389px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = When Pope Gregory XIII briefly shortened the light-year in 1582, it led to navigational chaos and the loss of several Papal starships.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by A FLEET OF PAPAL STARSHIPS FROM ANNO DOMINI MDLXXXII - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The comic features [[Cueball]] and [[Ponytail]] updating astronomical distances in a database. The caption imagines a world in which {{w|leap year}}s, which add an extra day making the year 366 days long instead of 365, purportedly extend light-years by 0.27% due to the additional day (366/365 = 1.0027397...). This adjustment ostensibly reduces the number of light years to celestial bodies like Alpha Centauri by a corresponding percentage — a relatively small amount, but one that corresponds to approximately 730 times the average Earth-sun distance. The comic was released about a week before the leap day of 2024, a leap year.

The joke hinges on the fluidity of the term "year" throughout history, with the {{w|Gregorian calendar}}'s leap year system — adding a day every four years to align the calendar year with the astronomical year — being the current standard. A {{w|light year}}, defined in astronomy as the distance light travels in a vacuum over a Julian year (365.25 days), remains constant at 9,460,730,472,580.8 km, unaffected by the Gregorian calendar's leap years. However, the comic amusingly suggests that leap years lengthen light years, necessitating database updates for astronomical distances.

The title text imaginatively claims {{w|Pope Gregory XIII}}, who introduced the Gregorian calendar in 1582, inadvertently affected the length of the light-year. Not due to 1582 being a leap-year (it was not), but because of the calendar days that also had to be skipped to remove the timing error built up when using the less correct Julian method of leap-years. Those adopting that system in 1582 had to shorten this year by ten days. {{w|List of adoption dates of the Gregorian calendar by country|Later adopters}} may have had to shorten the year that they ''did'' change by up to 13 days, i.e. up to three extra days for every four whole centuries spent on the 'wrong' calendar.

A year of effectively 355 days, rather than 365, would therefore lead (by this comic's premise) to potential misunderstandings/misapplications of distance approaching 3%, leading to "navigational chaos" and the loss of "Papal starships." This satirizes the significant historical impact of calendar reforms on navigation and measurement, despite the anachronism, as the light-year wasn't defined until 1838 and the concept of a finite speed of light only emerged in 1676 with {{w|Rømer's determination of the speed of light}}, whilst practical starships (papal or otherwise) that would usefully rely upon light-year measurements, have yet to be developed. However, navigational chaos ''has'' been a cause of maritime shipwrecks, such as the notable {{w|Scilly naval disaster of 1707}} in which four ships were lost and over 1,400 sailors died due to navigational errors.

Alternatively, the title text could be interpreted as a joke about how the light-year in astronomy is based on the Julian year (365.25 days) rather than the mean Gregorian year (365.2425 days). The pope may have briefly changed that definition, leading to "navigational chaos". Although the difference between a Julian light-year and a Gregorian light-year is only about 20 parts per million, it still amounts to about 194 million km (121 million mi) per light year.

This is another comic, after the very recent [[2888: US Survey Foot]], about how differing interpretations of standard units could have absurd real-world implications.

===Discussion of the use of light year values in the comic===
The values given for Proxima Centauri's distance from the Sun, 4.2377 light-leap-years and 4.2493 light-nonleap-years, are consistent with a distance of 4.2464 actual light-years as described by the {{w|International Astronomical Union}}, which is only minutely different from 4.2465 light-years, the value given by {{w|Gaia catalogues|Gaia Data Release 3}} in 2020. Though tiny on an interstellar scale, the difference between 4.2377 and 4.2493 light-years, 0.0116 light years, equals 109.7 billion km (68.2 billion miles), about 730 times the average distance between the Earth and the sun (150 million km or 93 million miles).

Ironically, this kind of change would not actually bother astronomers in the slightest. Astronomical distances on scales larger than the solar system are universally (or rather, globally: we do not know how things are done in other parts of the universe) measured with the {{w|parsec}} ("''pc''", or useful multiples such as ''kpc'', ''Mpc'', or ''Gpc''). One of those is approximately 3.24 light years, so has a [[2205: Types of Approximation|similar astronomical magnitude]], but is founded upon common interpretations of distance and angle instead of time. (Both partly rely upon baselines measure that are complimentary aspects of Earth's orbit, i.e. its periodicity and radius, which theoretically make for a globally agreeable system; but highly unlikely to match whatever equivalent any non-terran scientists would independently develop.) While light-years, and {{w|Light-year#Related units|related units}}, are common in publications intended for non-astrophysicists and for the benefit of laypersons, they are generally considered as secondary usefulness to parsecs within the actual fields of astronomy and astrophysics research. As such, it is highly likely that the clearly exacting database that Cueball and Ponytail are in the process of modifying is not even keyed to any light-units, making leap-/non-leap-light-years already an automatic conversion that the system may pander for without such a direct interaction.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is sitting at a desk with a laptop on it and leaning to the back of his office chair, while having his other hand on the laptop. He is looking at Ponytail standing behind him. The text from the laptop screen is shown above it, indicated with a zigzag line.]
:Cueball: It took until February, but I finally got all the distances updated!
:Ponytail: I really wish we didn't have to do this.
:[Laptop screen:]
:Proxima Centauri
:Distance: [in red, crossed out] <s>4.2493 ly</s>
:[in green] 4.2377 ly

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Astronomers hate leap years because they make light-years 0.27% longer.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Time]]
[[Category:Calendar]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]

2898: Orbital Argument

2024-02-24T15:44:54Z

172.70.90.70: Undo revision 335667 by Ianrbibtitlht (talk) That was not a typo. Depending upon the choice of usage, has various non-overlapling synonyms. I don't care to choose any one over another.

{{comic
| number = 2898
| date = February 23, 2024
| title = Orbital Argument
| image = orbital_argument_2x.png
| imagesize = 448x323px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = "Some people say light is waves, and some say it's particles, so I bet light is some in-between thing that's both wave and particle depending on how you look at it. Am I right?" "YES, BUT YOU SHOULDN'T BE!"
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a LIGHT WAVE-EARTH BARYCENTER - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
In this comic, the person in the middle is using the {{w|Argument to moderation|middle ground fallacy}} to try to make a compromise between the two characters.

[[Cueball]] appears to be asserting a {{w|geocentric}} viewpoint, whilst [[Megan]] adheres to a {{w|heliocentric}} one, an argument that has actually long been settled in the latter's favor. [[White Hat]], however, considers it {{wiktionary|politic#Adjective|politic}} to 'split the difference' and declares his intention to compromise with a 'middle' option, to try to uncritically please both parties. (Though it's probable that he may instead just equally annoy them both!)

By one way of looking at it, it happens that he is also correct. Because the Earth and Sun exert equal but opposite gravitational forces on each other, the center of Earth's orbit is not at the center of the stationary Sun. The Earth-Sun {{w|Barycenter (astronomy)|barycenter}} is slightly different from the Sun's own true center, with the two bodies' distances from the barycenter being inversely proportional to their masses. It is around this which the Sun wobbles, in (effectively) direct opposition to the way the Earth rotates around this unequally proportioned midpoint. The equivalent Jupiter-Sun barycenter, meanwhile, is located just ''above'' the 'surface' of the Sun due to the masses involved being not so much different (but still significantly so), and the much greater distance between them.

As each of the planets and the Sun are simultaneously orbiting/'being orbited' (and every planet also measurably pulls on every other, etc, even discounting every smaller and/or more distant body in the universe), the combined solar-system's barycenter is a less simply-defined point (that being more likely to be within the Sun, at any given point of time), which can often be considered to more simply average out to "<each planet> orbits the Sun" for most purposes, and Cueball is therefore ''least'' correct, and it would be a false solution to give his worldview an equivalence of validity.

That White Hat has worded his compromise solution in a way that (arguably) encompasses the deeper truth of the barycentric viewpoint is not treated as justifying his mediating approach. It is clearly understood (by someone who seems to understand the complexities, e.g. a {{w|Randall Munroe#NASA|NASA physicist}}) that White Hat's 'successful' conclusion is just accidental. Which is vexatious.

The title text extends the principle of the comic's astronomical viewpoint down to the correspondingly opposing 'quantum world'. For various well-studied reasons, light is often described ''either'' as particles ''or'' as waves. White Hat's approach would be to give both viewpoints equal credit and suggest a compromising middle-ground explanation. In this case, also, he would have the {{w|Wave–particle duality|correct answer}} but, in the continuing view of an increasingly exasperated witness to his chronic {{w|False balance|"half-and-half"ism}}, not through actually correct reasoning.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[From left to right, Cueball, White Hat and Megan standing. Cueball and Megan are arguing. Cueball is raising a finger while Megan's arms are outstretched. White Hat stands between them, both hands out in an equivocal gesture.]
:Cueball: The sun orbits the earth!
:Megan: The earth orbits the sun!
:White Hat: When two people disagree, the truth is always somewhere in the middle. Maybe the earth and the sun orbit a common center!

:[Caption below the panel:]
:It's annoying when people are right by accident.
{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Physics]]

Talk:2892: Banana Prices

2024-02-12T09:25:22Z

172.70.90.70:

Is it a linear extrapolation? Or does it only appear so because the Y axis is logarithmic? Inflation is logarithmic, since it's expressed in percentages. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 17:04, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
:Well, the lines of extrapolation are (invoked as) linear, by dint of the height above the baseline being preconverted to a logarithmic function of the represented axial value. Rather than taking exponential-style extrapolation of data and 'happening' to linearise it through the subsequent transformation, it is almost certainly going to have been merely establishing some trend point(s) through which such an exponential would pass and using that to directly guide the linear plot that (on the converted scale) is the functionally equivalent result to doing it with ''every'' point. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.77|172.71.178.77]] 17:26, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

OK, so... my reading of the comic after studying it for a while is that Randall is making a sophisticated meta-joke about 'lying with data" and unreliable precision and how easy it is to be fooled. He knows, of course, that this graph's "prediction" is completely arbitrary and is likely to be VERY wrong. He is intentionally breaking a whole set of statistical best practices in this graph. If so, I think this comic is one of the most-layerd and subtle he's ever done. You have to know a lot about statistical best practices to see what he's really doing here. .. What's so interesting to me is him using the voice of the caption-writer -- usually good ol' reliable Randall -- to actually be the butt of the joke. ... If someone wants to claim that this is more sarcasm than "unreliable narrator," I guess that's a reasonable interpreation, but the use of the word "probably" in the caption makes me think we're supposed to take the caption-writer seriously. [[User:Laser813|Laser813]] ([[User talk:Laser813|talk]]) 18:38, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
:I don't know, I think meta-humor is typically reserved for the title text. I think the comic is a cheap gag about bananas and that the line will eventually become outdated, and and it's oversimplified so that the logic of his joke is clear. The caption is written in a similar speech style to the quote, and I think the title text is Randall's admission that the graph isn't the best. I don't think flaws in the graph are intentional as part of some humor on graph design, just a consequence of making the graph clear enough to not be distracting from the joke. [[User:Kittyabbygirl|Kittyabbygirl]] ([[User talk:Kittyabbygirl|talk]]) 21:04, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
:I think the comic is about how obvious it is that wealthy people are influencing our societies, because they know nothing about our lives, and then kind of how you can comment on that without as much lashback if you criticize yourself as well. Or course, people are getting less and less skilled as we more and more do what we are told and influenced instead of what we would find on our own. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.168|108.162.245.168]] 01:25, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Bananas are a special case: Basically we have a monoculture. With no genetic variations, bananas are highly vulnerable to the emergence of specialized pathogens and currently Panama 4 is threatening the Cavendish banana: https://www.theguardian.com/food/ng-interactive/2022/apr/14/climate-crisis-food-systems-not-ready-biodiversity So trying to fit this question of "will it go extinct soon?" into a smooth inflation price increase might be another butt of the joke

[[Special:Contributions/172.71.246.88|172.71.246.88]] 18:49, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Randall is way off-base here, by about an order of magnitude. The episode is about Bluth frozen bananas, which require refrigeration, chocolate, and custom labor; they also do not have the economies of scale of fresh bananas. The AD wiki says the prices are >$1; in "Top Banana," Maeby says they cost at least $1. In real life, frozen bananas cost $5 in LA, $8 at ice cream shops on LA-area beaches. This is a joke similar to the Pulp Fiction $5 milkshake; milkshakes have been much more expensive than that for years. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.207.149|172.70.207.149]] 19:12, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
: Randall sometimes ignores basic elements about how the real world works in order to make a nerdy joke or point. The comic last week about Black Hat being tracked 8,000 miles away by NIST is a good example of that. The whole thing rests on us entering into his (slightly) alternate universe with him. [[User:Laser813|Laser813]] ([[User talk:Laser813|talk]]) 20:37, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
: The joke set up in the original TV show ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl_Qyk9DSUw|see here]) I think was about the wholesale price of bananas; Lucille says, "What could a banana cost? Ten dollars?". Then Michael replies, "you've never actually set foot in a supermarket, have you?" so certainly he thought she was talking about the banana stand's wholesale input cost rather than what they retail a frozen banana for [[User:NZUlysses|NZUlysses]] ([[User talk:NZUlysses|talk]]) 17:53, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

:Given that these are a Bluth product, I'd be dubious about how much actual banana is involved in the first place.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.70|172.70.90.70]] 09:25, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

I am tempted to say "Keep the change." "What from a fiver." "Yes the world is going to end."
At the time of the radio series, it would have been an excessive amount of change to give away.
They did not keep it for the film, when a fiver would barely pay for one of the six beers. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.23|172.69.195.23]] 19:38, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Using log scale here is not a joke. It's perfectly legit. Constant inflation is actually an exponential relation. For example, if prices go 10% up every year, in two years they won't be 20% higher but 21% because 1.10*1.10=1.21. And such an exponential relation becomes linear when plotted using a logarithmic y axis.--[[User:Pere prlpz|Pere prlpz]] ([[User talk:Pere prlpz|talk]]) 21:57, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

With 34 Trillion debt I would not expect a US dollar to be worth a tenth of a banana in a time frame of hundreds of years - How far they can kick the can is unknown but I would guess years or at best decades over centuries. "what can not be paid back will not be paid back" A banana is worth a banana - it is the money that is losing value and to sustain this circus that must accelerate. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.216|108.162.241.216]] 22:33, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

As Pere points out, the logarithmic scale is in fact the correct scale for estimating the uncorrected price of an item, such as a banana. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.103.214|172.71.103.214]] 22:40, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

The explanation is needlessly long and on occasion wrong. Some one tried to fix it by adding paragraphs in parentheses. If something is confusingly written or wrong it's generally best to rewrite instead of adding a paragraph.
In my eyes the comic is Randall's comment on the fact that agricultural products have become relatively cheaper by having price increases below the inflation rate. This is a long sgandingytrend since the beginning of industrialization and the only reason we can afford new other things than food. --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.160.24|172.71.160.24]] 07:56, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

"That line probably has another century or so left." There seems to me to be a pun here - 'that line' could refer to either the line(s) on the graph, which cross the $10 threshhold in a bit over century AND to the "how much could it cost" line of dialogue. In a century that line (of dialogue) won't be amusing any more since by that point - assuming the projection is correct - bananas WILL cost about $10, so the irony and humour will become lost.

== Bad stats? ==

Are these really 'statistical sins'?

Hot take but I agree with comments that it's reading too much into this comic to call it "a meta-joke about lying with data". Here are the supposed "sins" listed:

# false precision
# extrapolating an order of magnitude deeper into the future than is advisable
# assuming that a non-exponential quantity - prices - will grow exponentially
# referring to a logarithmic extrapolation as linear
# ignoring historical norms and high variability in making future predictions
# articulating multiple potential scenarios that are actually highly correlated with each other.

Taking them one by one:

> 1. false precision

Projecting prices hundreds of years into the future is farcical, for sure, but I'm not sure that's "false precision". "False precision" would be saying "on January 6 2254 this joke will finally be stale". But the comic gives a very imprecise (and wrong!) range "another century or so". If anything the precision of the projection is downplayed.

> 2. extrapolating an order of magnitude deeper into the future than is advisable

This one is true, and is the source of the humor.

> 3. assuming that a non-exponential quantity - prices - will grow exponentially

Inflation _is_ an exponential process, _by design_. Monetary policy holds the explicit aim--more or less upheld since the 1980s--to keep long-range inflation within a low and positive percentage around the 2% mark. That is the aim. There are periods of higher (and lower!) inflation but overall, the Fed has been successful at keeping long-run inflation within the target range for the last 40 years or so in which inflation targeting has been the dominant monetary policy paradigm. And growth on a constant percentage rate in a series just _is_ exponential growth; that's what exponential means.

> 4. referring to a logarithmic extrapolation as linear

idk maybe. The graph is on a log scale but a log scale has the quality of allowing us to visualize an exponential trend on a straight (linear) line. That's the beauty of it. I don't think there's a "sin" here.

> 5. ignoring historical norms and high variability in making future predictions

What historical norms are being ignored here exactly? Long-run inflation is fairly stable. To the degree there's a sin here, it's already covered by (2).

> 6. articulating multiple potential scenarios that are actually highly correlated with each other.

idk can anyone find a quote from their preferred statistical Bible to support the idea this is a sin? To my mind, showing that multiple distinct models converge on an approximate answer is a very good way to test convergent validity of a prediction. There are problems with presenting models as independent when they are not in order to give a false impression of a consensus. I don't think using three different inflation series as alternative models is doing that.

So maybe 1 or 2 of the sins alleged are real, imo. [[User:NZUlysses|NZUlysses]] ([[User talk:NZUlysses|talk]]) 17:22, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

It looks like parts of this explanation were written by ChatGPT. The unnecessary bulleted list, "looks like a wry observation", "using the ignorant tone [...] to wryly acknowledge", "overall", "in truth". This is an unusual tone for this wiki but not unusual for a chatbot.

Its kind of hilarious. Maybe we should keep it. [[User:Ystem|Ystem]] ([[User talk:Ystem|talk]]) 18:26, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

The explanation (as of this writing) is wildly overcomplicating things. The simple, straightforward idea that it will probably take a century for Lucille to be correct is the most likely intent of the comic. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.174.225|172.71.174.225]] 15:04, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

I disagree that correlations of projections are a problem. Often the future projections are "best case, worst case, most probable case", or at least 25th/50th/75th percentiles of a whole glob of simulated predictions, and will be highly correlated (but divergent, thus representing a potential uncertainty or highlighting when actuality confounds even the edge conditions). 
In this graph, those are three trends that ''might'' (in different amounts of specificity) direct the onward trend of the actual figure, depending upon what factors dominate. Bananas might be 'less price-rising than fruit', which in turn might be 'less price-rising than the general economy' (taking the projections at face value), but if the relative inexpensiveness of bananas hits a 'floor' (by general fruit terms or the wider economic issues) and fails to be disproportionately discounted as it clearly(!) has been then it would be forced to 'jump tracks' to a similarly (but more so) rising cost now parallel to where the successor projection was leading. (That's before other price-shocks like Banana Extinction or Inflationary Recession make the naïve trends of any or all of the lines completely wrong.) 
An example of an actually uncorrelated trend would be something Moore's Law-related, which would apparently be allowed here (by the "sin" objections), though it's difficult to say how that would be any more relevent than what actually is there. Of course, understanding (or explanation) of the potentially confounding (and hopefully relevent) co-dependent extrapolations plays a part in this. But this isn't even a significant "bad graph, just for the sake of laughs" element, IMO. If anything, it's the very squiggly nature of the historic data being projected off into 'likely directions' (dominated by the most recent true-instantaneous-gradient, which is clearly curved upards from any historic rolling average) without any consideration that the future-line might turn out to be just as 'squiggly' (except that it might be mostly rattling around between the upper and lower 'estimates', even as ''their'' true paths also rattle around... the most litteral 'banana price' trend obviously rewriting itself ''as'' the actual banana-price line). [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.20|172.69.194.20]] 16:23, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the commenters above, and I removed all the “unreliable narrator” and bad stats stuff. I was assuming he was being “Bluthian” about the whole graph, but now I realize there’s not much evidence for that. Hopefully it’s better now. [[User:Laser813|Laser813]] ([[User talk:Laser813|talk]]) 21:06, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Separately: Can non-hyphen-dash editors [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2892:_Banana_Prices&diff=334823&oldid=334816 consider this edit reason] as a suggestion. If I see two words separated by just a line, it litterally screams of being a hyphen (even when it is typographically different). I will gladly dash (or even "&mdash;") an inadvertent hyphen-as-a-dash (or a two-hyphens-as-a-dash!), but to have no spacing makes it then tend towards dash-as-a-hyphen. And unnecessary when, as in these cases, sometimes a simple commaing will serve the same purpose. And parentheses can also be used when already there's too much commaing to be easily read in, out and across the various commas that might be there, with the advantage of clarifying the ins-and-outs of the rhetorical flourishes. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.20|172.69.194.20]] 16:23, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Talk:368: Bass

2024-02-06T23:04:52Z

172.70.90.70:

Okay, I have to ask this, and this as good a place as any. Am I the only one who reads Black Hat (and Danish) with an affected English accent? Anonymous 21:04, 3 December 2013 (UTC) {{unsigned ip|173.245.54.91}}
:Talk to someone in Scotland, and then some Australian, South African and finally compare Texas with LA and NY, or the London suburbs. English is still not easy, especially for non native speakers. But Black Hat and Danish are quite sure talking at some American English slangs. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 23:25, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Firstly, is this destructive resonance thing actually possible for car speakers? (note: don't worry, I'm not going to try this myself, just wondering)... secondly, I hadn't thought about accents before. I'm English but all the characters have my own internal voice... maybe I should put some effort in and give them all different accents (wouldn't know which accents but the aforementioned affected-english for Black Hat doesn't work in my head, as good as that suggestion was). [[User:Squirreltape|Squirreltape]] ([[User talk:Squirreltape|talk]]) 14:38, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

:This is more of a theoretical scenario I guess. Fatal resonances usually builds up on a naturally repeating signal. Most music isn't that repetitive, but maybe the bass line is, which carries some momentum. If the loudspeaker elements are pushed close to their max, adding to their energy might be enough, but this energy doesn't get time to build up so it can't really be called resonance IMO. [[User:Todor|Todor]] ([[User talk:Todor|talk]]) 19:11, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

::Would this actually work though? I'm wondering what the phase-shift would have to be for the resonance to blow out the speakers, or could you just play a song with inverse sound waves in order to cancel them out?[[Special:Contributions/162.158.202.196|162.158.202.196]] 17:16, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Maybe I should clarify: I am American and, in my part at least, British accents are considered "snooty" and "superior", a trope Black Hat would gladly take advantage of, as would Danish, for they do consider themselves vastly superior the "commoners" and "plebs" around them (why else would they be so casually sadistic?) YMMV on the stereotypes, but that is the one I am familiar with and the one I assume they use. That said I, personally, do not think the British themselves are "snooty", but am guilty of affecting such an accent when feeling snootily sarcastic. Anonymous 08:02, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

I didnt have an accent in my head for these stick figures, but now i have them talking like the people from "i love lucy," with black sounding like fred mertz.{{unsigned ip|173.245.54.167}}

Okej, he says to throw the switch labelled "Macarina", but it doesn't say that that's actually what it does. This is Black Hat we're talking about. I wouldn't trust his labeling if I were you.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.9|108.162.221.9]] 00:59, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

How would the machine work against the loud girlfriend/elliptical dish? It seems to me that creating a phase-shifted replica of her moans would be pretty much impossible. If it were, what would the resonance do, blow out the girlfriend's lungs? How would that feel to her? --[[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.85|199.27.128.85]] 21:37, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

:Possibly for destroying the elliptical dish. The problem this machine would not resonate with the elliptical but the GF as you stated. Maybe he just uses it to play annoying songs at them. {{unsigned|Flewk}}

:It would also have to be positioned perfectly in the elliptical dish' focal point to even work reflecting sounds back to her. [[User:Todor|Todor]] ([[User talk:Todor|talk]]) 19:11, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

I can’t help but wonder, why is Cueball so willingly helping Black Hat to accomplish his diabolical scheme? And then he follows up by commenting on how horrifying Black Hat’s actions are. So is it just because he’s so annoyed by the car speakers, or is Black Hat somehow coercing him into doing his bidding?
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.246|162.158.106.246]] 20:41, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

i dont understand how this works and its scaring me a lot. can someone please explain what all this stuff in the comic means? i dont want my speakers to break. [[User:Squishmallow fan|Squishmallow fan]] ([[User talk:Squishmallow fan|talk]]) 22:41, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
:Step 1: Don't annoy Black Hat.
:Step 2: ...
:Step 3: Profit!? (Or at least have less chance of your speakers breaking.)
:(As to ''how'' it works... Well, it needs technical cleverness at Black Hat level.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.70|172.70.90.70]] 23:04, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

2888: US Survey Foot

2024-02-01T09:27:58Z

172.70.90.70: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2888
| date = January 31, 2024
| title = US Survey Foot
| image = us_survey_foot_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x606px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Subway refuses to answer my questions about whether it's an International Footlong or a US Survey Footlong. A milligram of sandwich is at stake!
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a 610 US-SURVEY-NANOMETER MONKEY - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic pokes fun at a difference in length of the {{w|Foot_(unit)#U.S._survey_foot|US Survey Foot}} and the {{w|Foot_(unit)|International Foot}}. After Carl Edvard Johansson's {{w|Carl_Edvard_Johansson#Johansson_and_the_inch|gauge blocks}} in 1912 led to {{w|International_yard_and_pound|an international agreement}} in 1959, the foot has been defined to be exactly 0.3048 metres, whilst the US survey foot is defined as 1200/3937 meters, making it a bit longer than the international foot. However, the difference between the two is proportionately too small for most purposes, as they only differ by 2 parts per million. At foot-length scales, the difference is a fraction of a millimetre, with longer measures (where the error grows to a notable degree) requiring an already excessive implied precision likely to mismatch its true accuracy. Some engineering or scientific applications ''may'' involve such tolerances, but would be expected to consistently use some more modern standard of measurement to {{w|Mars Climate Orbiter|avoid such confusion}}.

In the fourth panel, Cueball says that [[Black Hat]] is drawing the world 610nm closer to madness, which is about the difference between the two measures (per foot). Cueball, outraged, then tells that the {{w|National Institute of Standards and Technology}} has been authorized to capture Black Hat to stop him from using the US survey foot. The joke here is that his coordinates show that he is 8,000 miles away, but since he is using the US survey foot, he is 0.016 miles away from the search team, making them unable to find him.

Note – 0.016 miles is about 28.16 yards (84.48 feet), or 25.749 metres.

Randall is playing a bit fast-and-loose here. To make this joke work implies a rather absurd situation: that both Black Hat and the searchers would need to have set their devices to measure location ''in reference to'' NIST headquarters and not just use GPS and lat/long. That's where we get the 8,000 miles from to make the joke. So even in the unlikely event that the searchers' phones measure location like this because they're from NIST, it's very unlikely that Black Hat would override his device's in-built GPS to report its location in reference to NIST headquarters – unless he knew that NIST searchers also did this and knew they wouldn't find it suspicious for him to do it too.

The title text references a {{w|Subway (restaurant)#Sandwich_size|2013 lawsuit}} over the length of a "Footlong" sandwich sold by Subway fast food chain. However – in contrast to the issue at stake in that lawsuit – the difference in length between an 'international footlong' sandwich and a 'US survey footlong' sandwich is way below the precision ''or'' accuracy by which sandwiches are usually produced – making it understandable that Subway would not think it necessary to clarify which definition of 'foot' they use for their products.

There is no U.S. territory which is [https://www.mapdevelopers.com/draw-circle-tool.php?circles=%5B%5B12874687.81%2C39.1450494%2C-77.2161307%2C%22%23AAAAAA%22%2C%22%23000000%22%2C0%5D%5D exactly 8,000 miles from NIST headquarters in Gaithersburg, Maryland] (regardless of which foot is used), so it's not clear how the NIST strike team would have jurisdiction over Black Hat. The closest U.S. territory would probably be Cocos Island, Guam, 7923.92 miles away from Gaithersburg; the closest U.S. jurisdiction is probably the U.S. Embassy in Dhaka, Bangladesh, at 8015.14 miles. However, there is nothing in the comic saying that Cueball et. al. are at NIST HQ, nor that the measurement is from there. The "8,000 miles away" is likely referring to the distance from wherever Cueball is.

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

:[Closeup on Cueball.]
:Cueball: We thought it was over. After 60 years of struggle, the US survey foot was dead, deprecated by NIST in 2023.

:[Cueball is shown to be talking to Ponytail, Hairy, and Megan. He has a presentation behind him.]
:Cueball: We thought architects and engineers could rest east, free of the headaches of having two conflicting definitions of the foot that differ by 610 nanometers.
:International foot: 0.304 800 000 m
:US survey foot [crossed over in gray] R.I.P.: 0.304 800 609... m

:[Cueball points at an image of Black Hat]
:Cueball: But I bring dire news:
:Cueball: ''Someone has started using the US survey foot again.''

:[Closeup on Cueball again.]
:Off-panel voice: Why!?
:Cueball: We don't know.
:Cueball: Some people just want to drag the world 610nm closer to madness.

:[Farther view of Cueball only. He clenches a fist.]
:Off-panel voice: What can we do!?
:Cueball: A NIST team is already in the air. We will capture the scofflaw and end this nightmare.

:[Two helicopters flying, with mountains in the background.]

:Caption: 8,000 miles away
:[Two operatives in a forest with "NIST" helmets. One talks on a walkie-talkie.]
:Operative: We've reached the coordinates of the target's device. There's no one here.
:Voice from walkie-talkie: How!?

:Caption: 8,000.016 miles away
:[Black Hat walking elsewhere in the forest, very close by.]
:Black Hat: ♫ ♪

==Trivia==

The number of miles in the last panel was [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/archive/5/5f/20240131173446%21us_survey_foot_2x.png originally] 8,000.014, but was changed to 8,000.016. The latter matches the 2 ppm difference between the international foot and the US survey foot.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Characters with hats]]
[[Category:Geography]]
[[Category:Food]]

2880: Sheet Bend

2024-01-16T09:19:30Z

172.70.90.70: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2880
| date = January 12, 2024
| title = Sheet Bend
| image = sheet_bend_2x.png
| imagesize = 317x244px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = A left-handed sheet bend creates a much weaker connection, especially under moderate loads.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SHEET BOND - Seems like there are way too much about the security problems with this connector and less about explaining the comic. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This is the seventh installment in the series of [[:Category:Cursed Connectors|Cursed Connectors]] and presents Cursed Connectors #46: The Sheet Bend. At the time of release this was the lowest number used for a cursed connector, replacing [[2495: Universal Seat Belt|#65: Universal Seat Belt]] (with [[2507: USV-C|#286: USV-C]] being the one with the highest number).

This comic shows two double-core cables being joined in a knot to make an electrical connection. The knot used to tie the two halves of the cable is a {{w|sheet bend}}, which is often used to join two ropes of different thicknesses, and explains the name for this type of cursed connector, which seems to be made by ensuring each cable end is terminated with identical electrical connections to the outer sleeving in a manner similar to various 'ring' connections in {{w|Phone connector (audio)|'phone' connectors}}, but as significantly longer and more separated sleeves.



In contrast to more normal methods, [[Randall]] has proposed yet another of his 'cursed' connectors. This one requires ''no'' additional plugs, sockets, enclosures or even tools to use. Any two cables with such ends can be brought together and simply knotted together. This particular knot, and the specific spacing of its two external conductors, appears to be chosen in order to rather elegantly create consistent connections between the respective contacts, with a minimum of fuss.

However, there are potentially many unaddressed but conspicuous problems with this connection method, thus rendering it a 'cursed' connector. Among the issues are:
* The need to have suitable ends to any cables, which would involve issues in the manufacture (and the materials used) as cable's cores must be separately tapped and reliably connected to an external length of conductive sleeving.
* The consistent ability of a cabler to tie the correct knot, which is a skill that will need practice. Done wrongly the electrical connections may not be made correctly, or at all (including as discussed in the title text).
* Even if initially tied correctly, knots can slip or distort when subsequently pulled more taught.
* Even if the user is a competent and consistent knot-tier, this is inherently more effort, and therefore less convenient, than the more usual practice of simply pushing two connectors together.
* The external conducting patches of the cable are an uncommon feature of electrical junctions, with issues in both high-power and low-power situations.
** If the cables are supposed to carry high voltages, any bare conductors ought to be safely isolated from easy contact with equipment/people. In particular, plugs and sockets that carry anything approaching mains-voltages have active and passive elements integrated which protect the person connecting or disconnecting the equipment. There is no physical precaution visible to protect the person tying or untying the cable from potential shock. Instead, they must rely upon the ''other'' end of the potentially 'live' cable being disconnected. And, when left unattended, there would continue to be a high risk of injury (including death), fire or more basic damage due to the lack of any proper physical isolation.
** Low-voltage cables that pass signals between equipment (e.g. networking data or audio signals) are susceptible to external contact disrupting the flow. Random static charges, built up and transfered into the connector, instead make other equipment or people the potential threat to the cabled-up equipment, causing disruption to the normal purpose of the cable, where a more standard plug-and-socket/hard-wired connection would not.
* The bending, twisting and rubbing of the cables each time the cables are connected and disconnected will very likely cause wear and damage over time.

The title text says that a left-handed sheet bend would provide a weaker connection. The difference between a left-handed and right-handed sheet knot is that the two free ends of the knotted 'cords' are in the same orientation for a right-handed sheet knot (here, both on the lower side of the image), but on opposite sides for a left-handed sheet knot. A left-handed sheet bend provides less strength to the knot, due to the possibility of distorting (e.g. {{w|Knot#Capsizing|''capsizing''}}) and/or allowing one or both cables to pull through the knot.

This makes the title text a pun on the double meaning of "moderate load", which could be a moderate amount of physical tension applied through the cables ''or'' a moderate amount of electrical current passing through them. Together, it would be expected that tension drawing two conductive surfaces together would create less resistance between them, strengthening the electrical connection as well, but only if the knot holds as expected.

Knots was also the subject of the relatively recent [[2738: Omniknot]].

==Transcript==
:[Above the drawing there is a header. Below the header there is a double-core wire going in from the left and stopping just past the middle of the picture. It shows how the inside of the wire looks and how the silver and golden wires inside are connected to two rectangular pieces of silver and golden material respectively. The golden piece is to the left and the silver piece to the right, closest to the end of the wire. Beneath this wire is shown two double-core wires forming a knot of the sheet bend type. Here it becomes clear that the silver and golden pieces are on the outside of the wires (but connected to the wires running inside the wires). In the knotted part of the wires gold touches gold and silver touches silver, without them touching the other color. Beneath this knot there is a label for the connector.]
:Cursed Connectors #46:
:The Sheet Bend

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Cursed Connectors]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

Talk:2867: DateTime

2024-01-03T11:53:40Z

172.70.90.70:

Comics like this are why this wiki exists. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.100.172|172.70.100.172]] 23:30, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
:The time falsehoods gist linked above is a really good explanation about why a programmer might panic about calculating time. Especially the ones about calling "getCurrentTime()" twice in a row doesn't always mean the results are in the order you think they were called, or even different values. t2 might very well be the same or less than t1. It can be maddening. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.197.149|162.158.197.149]] 23:40, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
::The last item is the most important to me: ''Users prefer to use the local timezone.'' This causes so much frustration while browsing the web! [[File:PissedOff.gif]] --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.110.68|162.158.110.68]] 00:26, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
::Worth noting that events can take place over long periods. A sunspot or an illness or a relationship doesn't happen at a single point in time, it takes place over days or weeks or longer. When did it "start"? Who knows? Also I miss calling TI4-1212 here in DC. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.175.27|172.70.175.27]] 01:39, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
::Out of curiosity, could someone explain the item in that time falsehoods list that says "Months have either 28, 29, 30, or 31 days"? My guess is that it's a reference to their being more calendars in the world than Gregorian? But I'm not sure if there's more than that going on, there.[[User:ModelD|ModelD]] ([[User talk:ModelD|talk]]) 18:18, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
:::Isn't that true of Gregorian calendars? February has 28 or 29 depending on the year, AJSN have 30 and JMMJAOD have 31.[[User:Gavin|Gavin]] ([[User talk:Gavin|talk]]) 18:33, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
::::It's saying that "months have either 28, 29, 30, or 31 days" is a falsehood. The first one that comes to mind is the [https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/julian-gregorian-switch.html switch from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar]: "In North America, for example, the month of September 1752 had only 19 days, as the day count went straight from September 2 to September 14". [[Special:Contributions/172.70.43.108|172.70.43.108]] 21:03, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
:::: (Ninjaed, with an actual example! But retrying reply anyway as it had other details.) But how many days had <insert your choice of month(s) during which a given system changed from Julian to Gregorian>? I think possibly, without looking up when each and every transition occured, below 20 days is possible. (As in the ''n''th of one month to the ''n''th of the next is less than 20 days, for the right month and a number of ''n''s. For other ''n''s, you can only actually count from the month before to the month ''after'' (two full calendar months), the daycount for that being below the typical bimonthly stretch of 59, 60, 61 or 62 days (under more standard conditions)... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.48|172.70.90.48]] 21:07, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Related insanity on Computerphile with Tom Scott: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-5wpm-gesOY [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 03:54, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Even with just Special Relativity, the question doesn't really make sense, because the answer will depend on the inertial reference frame. "Impossible to know and a sin to ask" is not a bad way to describe questions about non-invariants. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.189|162.158.154.189]] 08:09, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
:Is it even ''possible'' for two observers to agree on the answer and be sure that it's correct for both of them? [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 16:53, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
::In order to know if the answer to T2 - T1 is correct, you'd first have to know if T1 and T2 are correct. I'd say that's already impossible. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.99.134|172.71.99.134]] 11:53, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

I can see Randall's point, so for your average everyday programming I'd say "please use a library function instead of trying to do it yourself, or you'll end up like the guy in the lower frame..." --[[User:IByte|IByte]] ([[User talk:IByte|talk]]) 11:02, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

When I googled "DateTime" all I came up with was Python libraries, nothing about relativity or other effects. Is that what Randall's talking about? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.125|172.69.22.125]] 22:03, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
:Ideally, the standard library functions for a language would cover many of the "quirks" without the programmer having to worry about remembering the details. The required inputs for the functions would be sufficient to determine the necessary offsets. But programmers still have to be careful about some of the issues, and not all languages (and their libraries) are sufficient for all situations. When things like relativistic effects have to be taken into account, the usual languages (and their libraries) don't have the needed flexibility/complexity and precision. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 00:18, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
::I should clarify, I'm not saying the Python library doesn't have functions for those quirks. I'm just asking: what does Randall mean when he says "DateTime" (two capital letters, no space, as per the comic title)? Is he talking about the Python library? Or something else I didn't find yet?[[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.163|172.69.134.163]] 02:51, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
:::Doesn't matter. For one the usage of CamelCase in such cases is pretty much standard regardless of language and besides of that the problems he's talking about/implying are pretty much true for every language. [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 10:58, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
::::OP, I suspect your Google cookies/whatever are just too used to serving you answers to Python questions, as being the answers you most like to visit. I just added to the "it's definitely Python" explanation another three more (of an easy dozen or so, before I gave up) links that I found from searches for "DateTime library <language>", or equivalent. And even those that didn't give that exact wording in their actual modules tended to have "What's the standard DateTime library for <foo>..?" as an FAQ (including LISP, Forth, COBOL, even a few for one or other Assembler variant, which I tried just for laughs) because the concept of "DateTime" record is just too ubiquitous (whether stored as "seconds since epoch" a distillation of an ISO format or just "[yy]yymmddHHMMSS[.###]" pseudo-value/string) and goes way back before Python (1991+) as you can find mentions of one kind or other in my old Ada (c1980) and Pascal (c1970) manuals/references. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.206|172.70.162.206]] 15:47, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

:::The majority of libraries that provide time-calculation services call it something along the lines of DateTime. The reason you're getting Python results is because Python is currently the most popular programming language, especially for people learning to program. --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.150.154|172.71.150.154]] 19:51, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

The recently-added link for "hyperbolic" goes to a W'pedia page for "Hyperbolic motion (relativity)". This is obviously intended as a joke, but I'm not convinced that an unmarked joke like this is appropriate. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 16:04, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
:I highly doubt this was meant as a joke, I'm quite convinced this was genuinely added to be helpful and fail to see how this COULD be a joke. ??? If it's not the correct concept it's too subtle to be a joke. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:46, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
::It quite definitely was a joke. I will take the badges of 'too subtle' and 'inappropriate' and wear them both with pride. ;o) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.70|172.70.90.70]] 11:53, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

My first impression of the comic was that Randal was talking about romantic dates, and that participants may be too distracted to accurately recall when specific events occurred during them. [[User:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For]] ([[User talk:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|talk]]) 02:22, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

2867: DateTime

2023-12-14T11:40:45Z

172.70.90.70: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2867
| date = December 13, 2023
| title = DateTime
| image = datetime_2x.png
| imagesize = 679x478px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = It's not just time zones and leap seconds. SI seconds on Earth are slower because of relativity, so there are time standards for space stuff (TCB, TGC) that use faster SI seconds than UTC/Unix time. T2 - T1 = [God doesn't know and the Devil isn't telling.]
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a DATETIME SYSTEM BETWEEN T1 AND T2 - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

[[Ponytail]] asks [[Cueball]] how to calculate the time elapsed between two instants. A Cueball not intimately familiar with the complexities of the way humans measure time naively assumes that this is given by the difference of the timestamps. A Cueball who is familiar panics and states that it is impossible to know, and further that it is forbidden to even ask the question.

Some of these complexities include time zones (and changes to time zones), the international date line, daylight savings time and differing observation (or nonobservation) thereof in different areas (and changes to the observation of daylight savings time over time), leap days and leap seconds, etc. Another complexity is found in relativistic effects, in which the flow of time varies depending on on how deep in a gravity well one is; {{w|Barycentric Coordinate Time}} and {{w|Geocentric Coordinate Time}} (in French, TCB and TCG respectively - the reference to TGC in the title text appears to be a typo) are time systems used for space missions and orbit calculations that handle this. A partial list of such minutia may be found at [https://gist.github.com/timvisee/fcda9bbdff88d45cc9061606b4b923ca Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Time]. The title text of the comic also references some of them.

The statement that it is impossible to know and a sin to ask is obviously hyperbolic; it's an expression of the fact that determining the answer accurately can be complicated and programming systems that attempt to do this can be frustrating.

"T2 - T1 = [God doesn't know and the Devil isn't telling.]": This is a colloquial expression that riffs on the more common "God only knows", to suggest that the thing in question is even more unknowable that the usual type of unknowable thing, to the point where it may be an evil invention of the Devil designed to cause complexity and frustration for the people having to deal with it.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Ponytail is talking to Cueball.]
:Ponytail: Event #1 happened at time T1.
:Cueball: Okay.

:Ponytail: Then event #2 happened at time T2.
:Cueball: Mhmm.

:Ponytail: How would you calculate how much time elapsed between T1 and T2?

:[The comic splits into two paths, each with a caption at the top.]

:[Path 1, upper right panel]
:Caption: Normal person:
:Cueball: T2 minus T1.

:[Path 2, lower right panel]
:Caption: Anyone who's worked on datetime systems:
:[Cueball has his arms raised.]
:Cueball: '''''It is impossible to know and a sin to ask!'''''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Time]]