explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2932: Driving PSA

2024-05-14T14:36:40Z

172.70.91.146:

Did the best I could on the explanation, even if it's a bit clunky. [[User:Trogdor147|Trogdor147]] ([[User_talk:Trogdor147|talk]]) 03:59, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Pretty lame strategy. Even with someone waving me on, when I get past them I'll look to the right to make sure. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 04:22, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
: Right? Just pull into the median in front of the left-turners, then re-assess the situation. --[[User:Coconut Galaxy|Coconut Galaxy]] ([[User talk:Coconut Galaxy|talk]]) 12:59, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Maybe they're not trying to kill Randall, but the person in the other lane. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.225|172.71.154.225]] 05:00, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
:It doesn't even need to be a fatal crash. Maybe the person in the other lane is an obstetrician who will intercede in a complex childbirth, and this "accident" will be major enough that that no longer happens, and the child dies... [[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 06:55, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
::Or possibly the aim is actually to engineer a meet-cute between Randall and the driver of the other car, so that a critical birth can (eventually) take place...[[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.249|172.70.160.249]] 08:24, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Just curious, as I'm from Germany - does the USA have no traffic lights? [[Special:Contributions/198.41.242.210|198.41.242.210]] 07:15, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
: They do, and they are placed where you can actually see them --[[User:Coconut Galaxy|Coconut Galaxy]] ([[User talk:Coconut Galaxy|talk]]) 12:59, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
: They do, and they're placed where they can be used for Captcha challenges.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.81|172.70.86.81]] 14:28, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Uncontrolled intersection with a left turn onto a 4-lane road? US road design, combined with US car-centric settlement planning, must have been made by those more clever, trying-harder assassins that Randall mentions in the title text, and it looks like they've got a lot of people on their list. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.229.131|162.158.229.131]] 07:20, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

: If it was a single lane street, and not three-lane road (or stroad), then accepting granting the right of way / waving in would be perfectly safe (assuming that you watch left). --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 07:23, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Ok, but... time traveller asassins don't get sent for random harmless people? Getting not one, but MULTIPLE asassins hell-bent on offing him suggests he's going to do something incredibly bad for the world that they're trying to prevent?? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.103.68|162.158.103.68]] 08:35, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
: Randall isn't random and it's not entirely clear that he's harmless either.{{unsigned ip|172.70.91.146}}

Oh boy, a comic about my second-greatest pet peeve on the road! Now if only we could have an xkcd guide to using the acceleration lane. [[User:Phil Srobeighn|Phil Srobeighn]] ([[User talk:Phil Srobeighn|talk]]) 09:51, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
:...and turning signals... [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 09:53, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

A corollary PSA would be to ignore the gestures of any passengers in the other car. I've seen passengers in the front seat wave people to go ahead, without the agreement of the person actually driving the car.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.45|172.70.178.45]] 10:29, 14 May 2024 (UTC)Pat

I don't even drive and I hate these people lmao [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 12:40, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

==Churchill's Law==
Just to reframe "''Car that they are waving you into the path of''" into an awkaward phrase NOT ending in a preposition: "''Car into the path of which they are waving you''". (The Churchill thing is a myth, though <https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/07/04/churchill-preposition/> .)
: Yuck - that construction needs waving into the path of an oncoming car. Or possibly it already has been.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.183|172.69.43.183]] 14:31, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2932: Driving PSA

2024-05-14T13:48:41Z

172.70.91.146:

Did the best I could on the explanation, even if it's a bit clunky. [[User:Trogdor147|Trogdor147]] ([[User_talk:Trogdor147|talk]]) 03:59, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Pretty lame strategy. Even with someone waving me on, when I get past them I'll look to the right to make sure. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 04:22, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
: Right? Just pull into the median in front of the left-turners, then re-assess the situation. --[[User:Coconut Galaxy|Coconut Galaxy]] ([[User talk:Coconut Galaxy|talk]]) 12:59, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Maybe they're not trying to kill Randall, but the person in the other lane. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.225|172.71.154.225]] 05:00, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
:It doesn't even need to be a fatal crash. Maybe the person in the other lane is an obstetrician who will intercede in a complex childbirth, and this "accident" will be major enough that that no longer happens, and the child dies... [[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 06:55, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
::Or possibly the aim is actually to engineer a meet-cute between Randall and the driver of the other car, so that a critical birth can (eventually) take place...[[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.249|172.70.160.249]] 08:24, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Just curious, as I'm from Germany - does the USA have no traffic lights? [[Special:Contributions/198.41.242.210|198.41.242.210]] 07:15, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
: They do, and they are placed where you can actually see them --[[User:Coconut Galaxy|Coconut Galaxy]] ([[User talk:Coconut Galaxy|talk]]) 12:59, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Uncontrolled intersection with a left turn onto a 4-lane road? US road design, combined with US car-centric settlement planning, must have been made by those more clever, trying-harder assassins that Randall mentions in the title text, and it looks like they've got a lot of people on their list. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.229.131|162.158.229.131]] 07:20, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

: If it was a single lane street, and not three-lane road (or stroad), then accepting granting the right of way / waving in would be perfectly safe (assuming that you watch left). --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 07:23, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Ok, but... time traveller asassins don't get sent for random harmless people? Getting not one, but MULTIPLE asassins hell-bent on offing him suggests he's going to do something incredibly bad for the world that they're trying to prevent?? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.103.68|162.158.103.68]] 08:35, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
: Randall isn't random and it's not entirely clear that he's harmless either.

Oh boy, a comic about my second-greatest pet peeve on the road! Now if only we could have an xkcd guide to using the acceleration lane. [[User:Phil Srobeighn|Phil Srobeighn]] ([[User talk:Phil Srobeighn|talk]]) 09:51, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
:...and turning signals... [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 09:53, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

A corollary PSA would be to ignore the gestures of any passengers in the other car. I've seen passengers in the front seat wave people to go ahead, without the agreement of the person actually driving the car.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.45|172.70.178.45]] 10:29, 14 May 2024 (UTC)Pat

I don't even drive and I hate these people lmao [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 12:40, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

==Churchill's Law==
Just to reframe "''Car that they are waving you into the path of''" into an awkaward phrase NOT ending in a preposition: "''Car into the path of which they are waving you''". (The Churchill thing is a myth, though <https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/07/04/churchill-preposition/> .)

Talk:2916: Machine

2024-04-24T11:57:25Z

172.70.91.146:

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)
Mine are "Balancing Act" and "100% Success Rate" [[Special:Contributions/172.71.146.14|172.71.146.14]] 21:11, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
[[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)

:Re. X1, I'm pretty sure (but don't have evidence, that the answer is 'no - a bad ball reduces it by more than a good ball increases it'. I can also think of an X3 - Does a good ball always increase the counter by the same amount; does this vary by colour or anything else? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.229|172.69.195.229]] 08:47, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

: E1: In the machine there is a value called ms_per_ball. Its value is 1000. Ie, a ball should be spawned every 1 second into the overall machine per entry. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.111.212|162.158.111.212]] 18:56, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
: K1: There are 3 collision zones defined for the cat swat: The head, its butt & a zone in front of it ("swat sensor"). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.111.212|162.158.111.212]] 18:56, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
: K2: Yes. There is in fact a hidden property called catMass. Its value is 2. I am not aware of any machines which submitted a different value. I have submitted my own (sadly not accepted) with stronger cats (a higher catMass value). [https://incredible.xkcd.com/folio/02092fc5-9e23-5468-990e-fba7d67d82c6 Here's an example]. This value is multiplied by 8 and then divided by the minimum of inverse mass of the ball or JS' Number.MIN_VALUE. So to answer your question: yes, it is the same, unless this value got altered (through external methods) and depending on the ball type. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.111.212|162.158.111.212]] 18:56, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
: K4: A cat will at the fastest swat every 200 ms. However up to another 400 ms are added by random. So the limit is a range from 200 to 600 ms. (Simplified, there is a period called "baby jail" where the cat has stopped the 'swat' animation but still cannot swat a new ball. This time is included in the previous calculation.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.111.212|162.158.111.212]] 18:56, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

== Submission Rules ==

Has anyone had any luck determining what the rules for submission are? Like many others, I've submitted a few that I've taken painstaking care to get right only to have them disappear after the refresh, never to be seen again. At first I assumed it was first come, first served, with the first submission getting included, but I'm not so sure.

I took a look at the "[https://pastebin.com/jN5MP2za first 42]" versions that someone provided above, and noticed:
* The very first submission, "Pretty Bad" at (0,0) is still there.
* The second submission is "Don't Forget to Switch Your Fans" which is actually (7,0). It's also still there.
* These are followed by "sword" at (2,0) and "Fred" at (1,0), also still there.
* Next is "Pinball Bouncer" which is actually (0,1).
* Next is "undercomplicated". However this is then replaced by "OnlyFans" which is then replaced by "popcorn". "popcorn" appears at (3,0) and is still there.

What caused these to be added, then removed/replaced if it's first come, first served?

I also noticed over the weekend that I was getting assigned blocks that weren't even in the machine yet. I had rows 67 and 68, and the machine was only on row 65.

Also, I did two on row 68, then one on row 67.

None of these got added, which I assume means that someone else completed them before me, BUT that I started before they finished, otherwise I would hope I wouldn't have been assigned one that was already done.

Just now, I created one for a simple red-in, red-out at (7,73). I completed and submitted it. Then I refreshed and hit the edit button a few times and after a few tries I got another red-in, red-out with the input and output at the exact same place. I threw a couple of boards into it and submitted it and it showed it at the exact same spot, (7,73). So I was able to create a new one for the same spot I had already submitted one. I feel like this implied it's not first come, first served, as if so, why would it allow more people to submit for the same spot that someone had already successfully submitted? FWIW, the lowest row on the actual machine at this point is 70. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.134.54|172.70.134.54]] 15:16, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
:: The criteria is not known yet. But it seems you are supposed to be able to make multiple submissions per specific cell / puzzle type (there is a list of puzzles sent to the client, when you submit one, the server picks a position which fits that puzzle.). Then one seems to be chosen manually for a specific cell. There are times of day when the machine is being updated very often, and other times when nothing happens for a while, indicating it is likely a manual process. When a puzzle is added to the grid, the value `snapshot` is populated under its corresponding /folio/ URL. Otherwise it is null. The submission time does not seem to have an effect on if your machine would be accepted. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.195.183|172.68.195.183]] 18:29, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

man I love messing with the hinges lol [[Special:Contributions/172.70.54.165|172.70.54.165]] 18:49, 18 April 2024 (UTC)Maxalon

==Is the Machine now 'complete'?==

For the first time, I'm seeing a machine with no 'under construction' cells. Do we think it has now stopped processing new submissions (despite still having the option to build them)? [NB - even with all the bottom row cells providing balls to the chambers, the Bouyancy is still only reaching the side of the pit and then sinking.][[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.146|172.70.91.146]] 11:57, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

2919: Sitting in a Tree

2024-04-15T16:33:33Z

172.70.91.146: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2919
| date = April 12, 2024
| title = Sitting in a Tree
| image = sitting_in_a_tree_2x.png
| imagesize = 591x320px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = First comes blood / Then we perish / Then comes Death in his Eternity Carriage.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a PAIR OF BOTS SITTING IN A TREE E-D-I-T-I-N-G - ♫First come comments, ♫Then these made neat, ♫But ONLY when it's accurate, then should you the tag delete!♫}}

“[Name] and [name], sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G” is the start of a common US schoolyard taunt to tease others' about their alleged romance. As the comic notes, there are a range of normal seven-letter gerunds - nouns made by ending a verb in “ing" - that may be used in the rhyme.

Like other schoolyard taunts, the goal may be to elicit a reaction of frustration, anger or embrassment. It may also just be chanted at a random set of two kids, such as part of a {{w|counting-out game}}.

This comic lists a variety of seven-letter gerunds which Cueball and Megan could be accused of perfroming in a tree, and organizes them into three categories: Normal, Slightly Worrying and Very Alarming. Each list of gerunds has an illustration of its last one: kissing, ironing and smiting.

Normal:
:{{w|Reading|'''Reading'''}}
:{{w|Singing|'''Singing'''}}
:{{w|Playing|'''Playing'''}}
:{{w|Sharing|'''Sharing'''}}
:{{w|Hugging|'''Hugging'''}}
:{{w|Kissing|'''Kissing'''}}

Slightly worrying:
:{{w|Sobbing|'''Sobbing'''}} is an act of crying or weeping, e.g. due to a setback in one's relationship.
:{{w|Itching|'''Itching'''}} is feeling a sensation on one's skin that makes one want to scratch or rub it, and may happen due to mosquito bites or other bugs.
:{{w|Pruning|'''Pruning'''}} is cutting off the branches of a tree, which is very dangerous if one is sitting on said branch.{{Citation needed}}
:{{w|Banking|'''Banking'''}} is conducting financial business with a bank.
:{{w|Post#Communications|'''Posting'''}} is to publish posts on social media, which is probably what most teens do when they're together nowadays.{{Citation needed}} This might also refer to {{w|Mail|mailing}} by using a postal service.
:{{w|Ironing|'''Ironing'''}} is smoothing their clothes with an iron and ironing board. This is the activity illustrated in the panel.

Very alarming:
:{{w|Molting|'''Molting'''}} is shedding one's skin.
:{{w|Whaling|'''Whaling'''}} is hunting whales, which has been outlawed since the 1980s. Whales aren't usually found in trees.<sup>[''{{w|List of cetaceans|cetacean needed}}'']</sup>
:{{w|E-filing|'''E-filing'''}}, not to be confused with defiling, is submitting one's tax returns online. This comic was published a few days before the US tax deadline. This could quite reasonably be done from a tree using a laptop or other portable computing device.
:{{w|Melting|'''Melting'''}} is turning from a solid state to a liquid state, which is usually fatal.{{Citation needed}}
:{{w|Radiography|'''X-raying'''}} is emitting or receiving {{w|X-ray}} radiation. With enough radiation, the X-rays could be fatal.
:[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/smite#English '''Smiting'''] is striking down their enemies with the divine power called from a god. This is the activity illustrated in the panel.

The title text parodies a traditional {{w|Children's song#Game songs|continuation of the chant}}, which is normally something like
"...first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a baby carriage" (which reflects the common social expectations that any kissers might follow the path of), but instead appears to be a more dark prophecy about death that therefore probably befits the last frame's focus. The last line may be an allusion to the Emily Dickinson poem "Because I Could Not Stop For Death", which refers to Eternity as well as Death riding in a carriage.

==Transcript==
:[Three children are singing. A kid with a bowl cut and a young Hairy are pointing with their fingers, while Jill stands in the middle. A pair of connected eighth notes and a detached eighth note are shown.]
:Kid with a bowl cut, Jill and Hairy: [Name] and [Name], sitting in a tree...

:[Label above the panel:]
:Normal
:[Cueball and Megan are sitting on a tree branch holding hands and kissing, with a heart above them.]
:R-E-A-D-I-N-G
:S-I-N-G-I-N-G
:P-L-A-Y-I-N-G
:S-H-A-R-I-N-G
:H-U-G-G-I-N-G
:K-I-S-S-I-N-G

:[Label above the panel:]
:Slightly worrying
:[Cueball and Megan are sitting on a tree branch each ironing a cloth on an ironing board, with steam arising from the irons.]
:S-O-B-B-I-N-G
:I-T-C-H-I-N-G
:P-R-U-N-I-N-G
:B-A-N-K-I-N-G
:P-O-S-T-I-N-G
:I-R-O-N-I-N-G

:[Label above the panel:]
:Very alarming
:[Cueball and Megan, her hair being {{tvtropes|MadnessMakeover|uncharacteristically wild}}, sitting on a tree branch smiting with glowing hands, with two falling fireballs and fire below them. Cueball's hands are raised up, while Megan has her left hand up and her right hand pointing to her right.]
:M-O-L-T-I-N-G
:W-H-A-L-I-N-G
:E-F-I-L-I-N-G
:M-E-L-T-I-N-G
:X-R-A-Y-I-N-G
:S-M-I-T-I-N-G

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Kids]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Jill]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Songs]]

Talk:2918: Tick Marks

2024-04-11T09:28:37Z

172.70.91.146:

The ticks on the y axis conceal the area of the graph between them. Why didn't Randall just build his graph so that the x axis did similar? Then he could keep up a continuous level of activity equal to the size of the ticks, rather than just doing short bursts to coincide with them.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.146|172.70.91.146]] 09:28, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

859: (

2024-03-10T06:23:09Z

172.70.91.146: /* Explanation */ I'm not OCD about missing punctuation... Though I might be CDO. Which is *like* OCD, but in strict alphabetical order!

{{comic
| number = 859
| date = February 11, 2011
| title = (
| image = (.png
| titletext = Brains aside, I wonder how many poorly-written xkcd.com-parsing scripts will break on this title (or ;;"'<nowiki/>'{<<[' this mouseover text."
}}

== Explanation ==

)))))). Okay, with that out of the way, let the explanation begin.

In programming, punctuation is often used to mark sections of code. Paired punctuation marks must always be matched up with a corresponding closing mark, otherwise a so-called {{w|syntax error}} occurs. The programming language {{w|Lisp_(programming_language)|Lisp}} (also featured in [[224: Lisp]] is known for large numbers of nested/paired parentheses. Even in literary works intended only for human consumption, the absence of a matching closing parenthesis as appears in this sentence or other "balanced" punctuation sets creates a mental expectation of eventual closure and completion that remains unfulfilled even long after the unmatched mark is encountered.

There is also a reference to [[312: With Apologies to Robert Frost]] which could contain the missing parentheses.

It can also be interpreted as a {{w|metaphor}}, which compares the reader with a Lisp {{w|Interpreter (Computing)|interpreter}}. The interpreter looks for the parenthesis until the end of the file, where it eventually halts, and prints out the error. The comic claims that if you read an unmatched parenthesis, you will look for it for the rest of the day too.

It also refers to an awkward feeling when you see something out of place in a piece of literary text (like unmatched parentheses, spellying error or a randomly-plac,ed comma..

Also, it may refer to {{w|OCD}}.

Finally, some countries (Russia in particular) use just parentheses instead of text smileys so that <code>:)</code> turns into <code>)</code> and <code>:(</code> becomes <code>(</code>. Hence those readers can magically resist the unresolved tension of the comic but may feel a bit sad instead as a side effect.

The title text refers to the same issue as already highlighted in [[327: Exploits of a Mom]]: if your scripts trust external input, you sometimes will be surprised. At the time of this comic, there were quite a few websites that would grab the xkcd comic three times a week and publish them on their own site. This comic likely broke at least some of the websites because of either the unmatched paren or the extra unmatched markup that is in the title text.

==Transcript==
:[Caption inside an oblong panel:]
:(An unmatched left parenthesis creates an unresolved tension that will stay with you all day.

==Trivia==

* There are other comics with unpaired parentheses (not counting emoticons): [[19]], [[850]], [[1079|1079 (in "Colorado")]], [[1960]] This list is incomplete. Please expand it.
** By contrast, [[312]] has an unpaired close parenthesis.
* The well-known "helper website" [http://gChq.github.io/CyberChef/# CyberChef] has a text on its loading page that is a reference to this comic, probably as a joke.

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

2902: Ice Core

2024-03-05T15:32:42Z

172.70.91.146: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2902
| date = March 4, 2024
| title = Ice Core
| image = ice_core_2x.png
| imagesize = 318x333px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = If you find an ash deposition layer from a year in which an eruption destroyed an island that had Camellia sinensis growing on it, you can make a Gone Island Ice_τ.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a PALEOCLIMATOLOGIST CELEBRATING HIS 21st BIRTHDAY - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Some people may like to taste a wine dated to the year they were born, or perhaps are subject to it as a family tradition, This would more typically be for a special occasion such as a milestone birthday than because it happens to be a 'good year' for the wine(s) they favor (unless they were particularly fortunate). Reaching the legal drinking age would be an appropriate opportunity to partake in a wine that is the same age as themselves. This comic extends this practice into a joke that paleoclimatologists, who study the climate, use dated ice instead of dated wine, drilling into the ground to find the layer of ice matching the birth year of the recipient, either to drink 'neat' (once sufficiently melted) or as the '{{w|Bartending terminology#On the rocks|on the rocks}}' part of another drink, perhaps a cocktail.

[[Megan]], a {{w|paleoclimatologist}}, decides to make a cocktail with the ice from the icesheets (present in the Arctic and Antarctic, for example). Normally, scientists would try to date the ice and then use it to describe the state of the climate when these icesheets formed. Here, Megan tries to find the ice layer corresponding to [[Knit Cap]]'s birth year with the intent of using the ice for the chosen drink. The caption asserts that this method of creating drinks is “traditional” for paleoclimatologists. She then asks if Knit Cap has the cocktail shaker that they presumably brought to the site ready. Cocktail shakers are used in the preparation of many mixed drinks, which often contain ice (usually produced by refrigeration, rather than harvested from natural sources).

The title text says that if they manage to find some ice with ash coming from an eruption which destroyed an island with {{w|Camellia sinensis}} growing on it, they'll be able to make a cocktail called a 'Gone Island Ice_τ', which is a punning reference to the cocktail known as a {{w|Long Island iced tea}}. Camellia sinensis (common name, "tea plant") is generally used for making tea, so this cocktail would have tea infused into the ice. The Greek letter tau is used in place of "tea". The joke here may be that this character is used in various fields to denote time, and presumably in this case refers to the time the ice deposit in question dates to. Or it may be a reference to the [https://icecube.wisc.edu/news/research/2023/01/icecube-reports-first-detection-of-candidate-astrophysical-tau-neutrinos/ IceCube Collaboration's] "reported two candidate events for the final unobserved Standard Model cosmic messenger: astrophysical tau neutrinos". Who knew that the rapper and actor was also an astrophysics stud?

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

:[Knit Cap and Megan both wearing knit caps and scarves in a snowy environment taking a look at an ice drill. There is a helicopter on the ground in the background, with their footprints between them and the helicopter. Knit Cap is holding a small container between her hands while Megan is holding the middle of the drill.]
:Megan: Next, we'll identify the ice core layer matching your birth year. Do you have the shaker ready?

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Making the traditional paleoclimatologist cocktail

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Knit Cap]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Characters with hats]]
[[Category:Geology]]
[[Category:Food]]

2899: Goodhart's Law

2024-02-27T13:55:53Z

172.70.91.146: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2899
| date = February 26, 2024
| title = Goodhart's Law
| image = goodharts_law_2x.png
| imagesize = 295x321px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = [later] I'm pleased to report we're now identifying and replacing hundreds of outdated metrics per hour.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a METRIC OF METRICS PER METRIC METRIC (IN <s>IMPERIAL</s> US CUSTOMARY UNITS) - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

In this comic, [[White Hat]] suggests creating a metric, "number-of-metrics-that-have-become-targets," and making it a target.

First, the comic introduces and defines {{w|Goodhart's Law}}, which is the observation that when a metric — a {{w|performance indicator|measure of performance}} — becomes a goal, efforts will be unhelpfully directed to improving that ''metric'' at the expense of systemic objectives.

For example, imagine a scenario in which a car dealership is looking to grow profits, and its managers decide to focus on increasing a component metric of profit: how many cars it sells. So they offer a bonus to their salespeople to sell more cars. But then the salespeople offer deep discounts to rack up sales, rendering the car sales unprofitable. This example shows how a ''metric'' (cars sold) can become the ''target'', replacing the real target, profit growth, if individual incentives are not properly managed.

White Hat's suggestion could be a good or a bad idea. It all depends on how the incentive is implemented:

* A '''good implementation''' would award bonuses only for finding metrics which truly aren't serving their purpose, so the organization's managers could fix the measurement issues. If bonuses are awarded only for approved submissions and the identifications result in real improvements, the organization will benefit from each misaligned incentive that is removed.

* A '''bad implementation''' would offer a bonus to every identification — regardless of quality.

The title text imagines this '''bad implemention''', leading to the creation of a new metric (metric changes per hour) and the organization identifying — and ''replacing'' — hundreds of metrics per hour, crowding out actual focus on the organization's true goals. It's the ultimate example of "change for change's sake."
* Ironically, none of the replaced metrics seem to be the one causing the issue — White Hat's original suggestion.

This comic illustrates that the thoughtless combination of Goodhart's Law and poorly designed incentives can have ruinous results for an organization.

The proper usage of organizational metrics and incentives is the focus of {{w|managerial accounting}}, a field within organizational management.

===Additional examples of Goodhart's Law===
* A school's exam results may ''suggest'' how well the school works with its pupils, but may lead to rigidly "teaching to the exams" and lead to less enjoyment and ability of life-long learning, or even flexibility in non-academic activities.
* A hospital measures inpatient ''Length of Stay'' because shorter stays save money and also free up beds for any admitted patients waiting in the ER. But if improperly incentivized, doctors may discharge inpatients too early, causing some to "bounce back" to the hospital as a costly readmission.
* A call center measures the number of calls handled per hour, but poorly decides to overly incentivize this metric to make the workers more productive; that leads workers to cut calls short, frustrating customers.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and White Hat are standing and talking, White Hat with hand on his chin.]
:Cueball: When a metric becomes a target, it ceases to be a good metric.
:White Hat: Sounds bad. Let's offer a bonus to anyone who identifies a metric that has become a target.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Statistics]]

721: Flatland

2024-01-24T11:55:55Z

172.70.91.146: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 721
| date = March 31, 2010
| title = Flatland
| image = flatland.png
| titletext = Also, I apologize for the time I climbed down into your world and everyone freaked out about the lesbian orgy overseen by a priest.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a reference to the satirical novel ''{{w|Flatland|Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions}}'', in which a society of flat shapes live in a {{w|Two-dimensional space|2D}} world -- a recurring reference in XKCD comics. Half the book is a direct satire of {{w|Victorian era|Victorian}} society, and the other half explores the experience of discovering a new dimension, where a sphere introduces a square (named A. Square) to {{w|Three-dimensional space|3D}}. [[Cueball]] appears to have taken the place of this sphere, and the comic takes place after the square knows the third dimension exists.

Humans will never fully be able to fully grasp the concept of a fourth spatial dimension (at least not in the foreseeable future), but there are ways of squashing or slicing four dimensions to create partial visualizations of 4D space. ''{{w|Miegakure}}'' is a yet-to-be-released 4D game that uses cross-sections of 4D space. Cueball attempted to play a pre-release version of it, but after having his "mind blown", he gained more sympathy for A. Square, who'd had similar trouble understanding 3D. A. Square accepts his apology.

The joke here is that Cueball was being silly and drew lines on A. Square to make him look like {{w|SpongeBob SquarePants (character)|SpongeBob}}, which did not make the square happy. Cueball apologizes again.

The title text is a third apology for when Cueball crawled down into the second dimension. Being a stick figure, he is composed of a circle and straight lines.{{Citation needed}} In Flatland, circles are priests (Flatland's highest social level. Actually, the highest aren't circles; in fact they are actually many-sided polygons that look identical to a true circle in Flatland.), and all women are lines; thus, to a watcher in Flatland, Cueball would look very much like a priest above many connected women, which may look like a lesbian orgy.

Also worth mentioning is the pun in the greetings: A. Square - being on ground level - asks Cueball above him how he's doing by asking what's up.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball talks to a square on the ground.]
:Cueball: Hey, A. Square. How's Flatland?
:A. Square: Still flat. What's up?
:Cueball: I just spent an hour playing a demo of this 4D game called Miegakure.

:[In a frameless panel, a character in Miegakure jumps around the 4D landscape.]
:Caption above the panel: Trying to jump from block to block in four dimensions hurt my brain.

:[Cueball continues talking to A. Square on the ground.]
:Cueball: So I apologize for giving you a hard time when you were slow to understand 3D space. I sympathize now.
:A. Square: It's okay.

:[Zoom in on Cueball's head]
:Cueball: Also, I apologize for drawing arms, legs, and eyes on you to make you look like SpongeBob. That was out of line.
:A. Square: Yes, it was.

==Trivia==
*There is actually a SpongeBob episode featuring a flat creature that resembles a crude drawing of SpongeBob.

===UniXKCD===
*This comic was released on March 31, 2010 and was still up on April 1st, 2010.
**On {{w|April_Fools%27_Day|April Fools' Day}} in 2010 [[Randall]] altered the website to mimic a {{w|Unix}} command line interface.
**This interface is still available on [https://uni.xkcd.com uni.xkcd.com] and the source code is available on [https://github.com/chromakode/xkcdfools GitHub].
**See more on the [[UniXKCD]] April Fools' Day joke.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Geometry]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Homosexuality]]
[[Category:Sex]]
[[Category:Flatland]]

721: Flatland

2024-01-24T11:54:26Z

172.70.91.146: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 721
| date = March 31, 2010
| title = Flatland
| image = flatland.png
| titletext = Also, I apologize for the time I climbed down into your world and everyone freaked out about the lesbian orgy overseen by a priest.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a reference to the satirical novel ''{{w|Flatland|Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions}}'', in which a society of flat shapes live in a {{w|Two-dimensional space|2D}} world -- a recurring reference in XKCD comics. Half the book is a direct satire of {{w|Victorian era|Victorian}} society, and the other half explores the experience of discovering a new dimension, where a sphere introduces a square (named A. Square) to {{w|Three-dimensional space|3D}}. [[Cueball]] appears to have taken the place of this sphere, and the comic takes place after the square knows the third dimension exists.

Humans will never fully be able to fully grasp the concept of a fourth spatial dimension (at least not in the foreseeable future), but there are ways of squashing or slicing four dimensions to create partial visualizations of 4D space. ''{{w|Miegakure}}'' is a yet-to-be-released 4D game that uses cross-sections of 4D space. Cueball attempted to play a pre-release version of it, but after having his "mind blown", he gained more sympathy for A. Square, who'd had similar trouble understanding 3D. A. Square accepts his apology.

The joke here is that Cueball was being silly and drew lines on A. Square to make him look like {{w|SpongeBob SquarePants (character)|SpongeBob}}, which did not make the square happy. Cueball apologizes again.

The title text is a third apology for when Cueball crawled down into the second dimension. Being a stick figure, he is composed of a circle and straight lines.{{2D Citation needed}} In Flatland, circles are priests (Flatland's highest social level. Actually, the highest aren't circles; in fact they are actually many-sided polygons that look identical to a true circle.), and all women are lines; thus, to a watcher in Flatland, Cueball would look very much like a priest above many connected women, which may look like a lesbian orgy.

Also worth mentioning is the pun in the greetings: A. Square - being on ground level - asks Cueball above him how he's doing by asking what's up.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball talks to a square on the ground.]
:Cueball: Hey, A. Square. How's Flatland?
:A. Square: Still flat. What's up?
:Cueball: I just spent an hour playing a demo of this 4D game called Miegakure.

:[In a frameless panel, a character in Miegakure jumps around the 4D landscape.]
:Caption above the panel: Trying to jump from block to block in four dimensions hurt my brain.

:[Cueball continues talking to A. Square on the ground.]
:Cueball: So I apologize for giving you a hard time when you were slow to understand 3D space. I sympathize now.
:A. Square: It's okay.

:[Zoom in on Cueball's head]
:Cueball: Also, I apologize for drawing arms, legs, and eyes on you to make you look like SpongeBob. That was out of line.
:A. Square: Yes, it was.

==Trivia==
*There is actually a SpongeBob episode featuring a flat creature that resembles a crude drawing of SpongeBob.

===UniXKCD===
*This comic was released on March 31, 2010 and was still up on April 1st, 2010.
**On {{w|April_Fools%27_Day|April Fools' Day}} in 2010 [[Randall]] altered the website to mimic a {{w|Unix}} command line interface.
**This interface is still available on [https://uni.xkcd.com uni.xkcd.com] and the source code is available on [https://github.com/chromakode/xkcdfools GitHub].
**See more on the [[UniXKCD]] April Fools' Day joke.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Geometry]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Homosexuality]]
[[Category:Sex]]
[[Category:Flatland]]

2781: The Six Platonic Solids

2024-01-24T11:48:28Z

172.70.91.146:

{{comic
| number = 2781
| date = May 26, 2023
| title = The Six Platonic Solids
| image = the_six_platonic_solids_2x.png
| imagesize = 368x370px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Plato made the solids, and five were gifted to the mathematicians. But in secret Plato forged a sixth solid to rule over all the others.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic imagines an alternate reality where mathematicians discover a new {{w|Platonic solid}} beyond the [https://sites.math.washington.edu/~julia/teaching/445_Spring2013/Paper_Euler.pdf five proven to exist in three-dimensional space.] In three dimensions there are 9 {{w|Regular polyhedra}}. A regular polyhedron is a solid figure with all faces being congruent regular polygons with the same number of alike faces arranged around each vertex. While the most familiar, Platonic solids, are referenced in the comic, there are also 4 {{w|Kepler–Poinsot polyhedra}}. In four dimensions, there are six {{w|regular polytope}}s, five of which are analogous to the five Platonic solids in 3-D space, and a sixth which is analogous to the {{w|rhombic dodecahedron}}.

In the comic, [[Randall]] reveals the discovery of a new Platonic solid, called the "jorb", which appears to be a roughly conical shape with a round base, a triangular tip, and a rectangular extension at the bottom. One of its surfaces also seems to have parallel grooves or ribs, which may indicate curvature. The jorb does not meet the criteria for a Platonic solid, in that the faces must all be {{w|regular polygon}}s of the same shape, and each vertex must join the same number of edges. Also, Platonic solids were discovered by Plato, who they are named after. A new-found regular polyhedra would not be called a Platonic Solid because it was not discovered by him{{citation needed}}. This could be a reference to the fact that [https://youtube.com/watch?v=_hjRvZYkAgA many regular polyhedra have only been discovered recently], most of which do not fit the naive understanding of a {{w|regular polyhedron}}, having irregular concave external faces, or being infinite or self-intersecting.

The title text references the ''{{w|Lord of The Rings}},'' in which the "One Ring to Rule Them All" was forged in secret by {{w|Sauron}} to control the wearers of three magic rings given earlier to elves, seven given to dwarves, and nine given to humans, primarily by allowing him to know their location, letting him visualize the wearers and their surroundings, and by allowing him to impose his will on the wearers (which for arcane reasons only worked reliably on the rings given to humans, worn by the nine {{w|Nazgûl}}.[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OuGOf_IGLA]) The joke is that {{w|Plato}} forged a sixth Platonic solid, the jorb, to rule the five he "gifted" to mathematicians, similarly to how Sauron tried to rule the other magic rings' wearers in Middle-earth with his One Ring.

==Transcript==
:[Six geometrical shapes are shown. All have gray surface areas with different shading to reflect their orientation. There is one shape in the middle with the other five arranged around it roughly in a pentagon. With two at the top, two just below the central and one directly below the central shape. Each shape has a label. The five above the bottom one are names after the platonic solids, and are drawn to look like them. The last one at the bottom has a roughly conical shape with a round base, a triangular tip, and a rectangular extension at the bottom. It surface also seems to have parallel grooves or ribs. Here the labels in reading order with the four rows mentioned above used.]
:Cube
:Dodecahedron
:Icosahedron
:Octahedron
:Tetrahedron
:Jorb

:[Caption below the comic:]
:Mathematicians long believed there were only five platonic solids, all regular polyhedra, until this year's discovery of the Jorb.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Geometry]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:LOTR]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]

2882: Net Rotations

2024-01-18T03:28:22Z

172.70.91.146: Undo revision 333106 by 172.69.23.22 (talk) Punctuated wrong. And not funny enough anyway.

{{comic
| number = 2882
| date = January 17, 2024
| title = Net Rotations
| image = net_rotations_2x.png
| imagesize = 318x477px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = For decades I've been working off the accumulated rotation from one long afternoon on a merry-go-round when I was eight.
}}

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

This comic may refer to a thing that some people with {{w|OCD}} do, which is to spin around to get rid of "net rotations," hence the title of this comic. [[Cueball]] (perhaps representing [[Randall]]?) takes this one step beyond the typical person with OCD - he calculates the net rotations each day and spins around at the end of the day to cancel this out.

The caption at the bottom of the comic suggests that it is another one of Randall’s [[Category:Tips]] and says that it is healthy and necessary/highly recommended to do this. However, most people don’t, and most people are still ok. In fact, xkcd's own characters are perfectly ok with [[162: Angular Momentum|accumulating net rotations]] and [[2679: Quantified Self|similar topological excesses]].

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

:[Cueball is standing on one leg in front of a whiteboard with his arms crossed, thinking to himself. There are circular curves around Cueball indicating rotary motion. The whiteboard contains two vertical helix-like curves crossing over each other at multiple points and other notes shown as rows of illegible scribbles, the bottom one of which is circled. There is a thought bubble over Cueball.]
:Cueball (thinking): ...and three lefts for going down the stairwell at work, two rights from cloverleaf interchanges, minus one for the Earth's rotation...
:Cueball (thinking): Okay, that's a net of 17 right.

:[Caption below the comic:]
:Spacetime health tip: Remember to cancel out your accumulated turns at the end of each day to avoid worldline torsion.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Tips]]

Talk:2866: Snow

2023-12-17T15:59:30Z

172.70.91.146:

"This comic is a interesting comic about how most people get childishly excited about snow, including Randall." Really, that's the best you can come up with? Can we all please either try a little harder than that or leave the explanation for others? [[User:Darkwolf0218|Darkwolf0218]] ([[User talk:Darkwolf0218|talk]]) 04:39, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
:But it's snow. SNOW.

I don't think the graph actually plateaus, to me it still seems to be (very slightly) rising at the end. I expect Cueball's "apparent age" is asymptotically approaching the original value. [[User:MAP|MAP]] ([[User talk:MAP|talk]]) 06:28, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
:I superimposed the portions of the graph in question in image-processing software. The result is ambiguous ... this <i>is</i> a cartoon, after all, not a scientifically-rigorous depiction. The asymptotic approach hypothesis is reasonable, especially if "t" is as short (days? hours?) as it appears to be. Also reasonable is the hypothesis below, in which "apparent age" approaches the original value episodically, via events inverse to the original. An earlier version of the explanation mentioned these points, but these explanations have been edited out; indeed, the entire paragraph in question has been replaced. I suppose they can be put back. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.247|172.70.210.247]] 17:03, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Regarding the lower plateau, what isn't shown is the negative effects of having to go and shovel the drive or the disappointment when the snow melts. These will reset his age and may overshoot the other way :'( [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 08:40, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
:Furthermore, if the recovery state were lower after every snowfall, and he's seen hundreds, then he should be like a baby now. Wouldn't it be cool if snowstorms were the cause of Benjamin Buttons Disease? [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 17:11, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Is it worth noting that it [https://boston25news.com/news/local/massachusetts-snow-totals-so-far-dec-6-2023/UYUUDAZQGNE3JAOBKPIQVWCOKI/ snowed in Boston on December 6]? [[User:Nedlum|Nedlum]] ([[User talk:Nedlum|talk]]) 21:46, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

:I thought of this as well. I live a little North and West of Randall (the nearest corner of Vermont) and had a few earlier snow falls this year, but the December 6 snowfall may have been the first this year for Randall. [[User:MAP|MAP]] ([[User talk:MAP|talk]]) 22:02, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

If there were a cat in the show, I would expect IQ to plummet into negative values. {{unsigned|Cavaler|10:25, 14 December 2023}}
:I had planned to reply to your comment, but there was a cat in the snow outside, & I felt compelled to go tell it "You're a kitty!" & "It's cold and snowy outside, kitty!" & I fear my senses have just recently returned enough for me to return here.
:Sorry I'm a bit late.
:[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 02:43, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

I really appreciate that somehow, despite panels 1 and 4 being practically identical, we can tell that panel 4 Cueball is staring out the window at the snow... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.174.128|162.158.174.128]] 03:26, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
:I know right? One of my Facebook Memories is a similarly drawn comic which says that guy did it in elementary school, shows two beans, one makes a bean pun, and we can just SEE the look of exasperation on the other bean despite having no face. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:32, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

:I have a car and stumble around on a prosthetic leg. My graph goes the other way, I turn 80, LOL! [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:32, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

is the mention of refreshing package tracking software a reference to santa tracker? i dont think its old enough to be part of randall's childhood. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.236.189|198.41.236.189]] 07:35, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
:Well, I recall the end-of-news TV weather report on Christmas Eve giving a 'Father Christmas progress/ETA to arrive over the UK' (and perhaps how he'd dodge the rain!), and I'm older than Randall. But I think it's actually just a reference (as is linked) to the "Still in Memphis... Still in Memphis..." and Odyssey-based comics that have come before. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.146|172.70.91.146]] 15:59, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

2865: The Wrong Stuff

2023-12-12T12:26:52Z

172.70.91.146: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2865
| date = December 8, 2023
| title = The Wrong Stuff
| image = the_wrong_stuff_2x.png
| imagesize = 351x513px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The phantom found Edward Everett Hale a century too early; by the time we invented satellites, the specifics of his 'brick moon' proposal were dismissed as science fiction.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a TRAIN MADE OF 1977 SOVIET URANIUM - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Multiple times in history, there have been incidents where companies, governments, and engineers have proposed or developed plans for large vehicles composed of unconventional materials. One example is {{w|Project Habakkuk}} (mentioned in the comic), an aircraft carrier which was to be composed of pykrete, a mixture of wood pulp and ice. The comic imagines that all of these proposals are linked together by a single "Material Phantom," a ghost which haunts engineers and convinces them to design giant vehicles made of impractical materials.

The three "wrong material vehicles" mentioned in the comic are:

*{{w|The Spruce Goose}} - An actual {{w|flying boat}} made almost entirely out of wood (specifically {{w|birch}} wood, despite the word "{{w|spruce}}" in its name). Most modern planes are constructed out of aluminum, some other metal/alloy or (partially) out of carbon / glass fibre composites (CFRC / GFRC). Notably, despite being built out of the "wrong" material (due to wartime restrictions on aluminum usage, the use of birch wood was the next best option) the plane did make a single 26-second flight in 1947 before production halted due to the end of the war. The plane is currently on display at the {{w|Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum}} in {{w|McMinnville, Oregon}}, {{w|United States}}. More notably, other wooden aircraft of that era, such as the {{w|De_Havilland_Mosquito|De Havilland Mosquito}}, were wildly successful, strongly indicating that the Goose's problem was not that it was made of wood. Many early planes made use of wood in their construction, and the skills and knowledge to build an airframe of that kind were still readily available in that era, in a way that they might not be today.
*{{w|Project Habakkuk}} - A proposed aircraft carrier whose hull was to be made out of pykrete (a mixture of wood pulp and ice). It would have had several advantages had it been built when it was supposed to be (1943): it would have been able to guard the vital wartime North Atlantic supply routes between the USA and United Kingdom, as it would have been a base for fighter and reconnaissance missions; it would have been able to be easily camouflaged as an innocuous iceberg, and it was both stronger than steel (which the Mythbusters proved in a 2008 episode) and did not require voids between the structural elements in order to be buoyant (so could absorb a lot of damage and cannot spring leaks). The reason it was never fully built was because incredibly high requirements were placed on the project far exceeding the original concept, causing expense and engineering challenges to mount until it wasn't much cheaper than traditional steel-alloy hulls, from which ships continue to be built today, given that large quantities of metal were pulled in to prevent the ship from warping under its own mass via extra cooling and structure (although the abandoned prototype itself lasted for several years before it finally melted). There were also now airfields available to use in various Atlantic islands that could close the air-gap in coverage without having to (effectively) build their own floating island from scratch.
*{{w|Trojan Horse}} - A mythological, giant wooden horse, supposedly used by {{w|Ancient Greece|the Greeks}} to invade the city of {{w|Troy}}. Actual horses are composed, like any other animal, out of meat, bone, and other tissues and bodily fluids.{{citation needed}} In addition, the interior of the Trojan Horse was composed of Greek warriors rather than horse innards.

The title text references 19th-century author {{w|Edward Everett Hale|Edward Everett Hale}} and his science fiction novella ''{{w|The Brick Moon}},'' the earliest known depiction of an artificial satellite and a scientifically-accurate GPS system in fiction. The novella is, of course, just a sci-fi story, but the title text states that Hale was actually approached by the Material Phantom, and the novella was a serious proposal for a moon made out of bricks.

The title "the Wrong Stuff" may be a play on {{w|The Right Stuff}}, a book/movie/TV series about the pilots engaged in U.S. postwar research with experimental rocket-powered, high-speed aircraft and the astronauts of {{w|Project Mercury}}. In that title, "the right stuff" refers to the figurative material that these men were made of which gave them the bravery to embark on these missions.

==Trivia==
This comic was uploaded with the "the" in "the Wrong Stuff" being entirely lowercase, breaking the normal title case used for XKCD comic titles. Possibly another word was initially intended to come before "the", in which case lowercasing "the" would be correct. xkcd displays lowercase letters in titles with {{w|small caps}}, making the lowercase "the" less obvious than it is in the true lowercase used on explainxkcd.

However, it's worth noting that the comic title has since been changed to "The Wrong Stuff," with "the" capitalized as per standard title case.

Every September, Adult Fans of Lego who like spaceships have a month long build event called SHIPtember (SHIP stands for Seriously Huge Investment in Parts) where spaceships are actually built out of bricks: Lego bricks!

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[A ghost is approaching Cueball in a workshop. They are surrounded by shop equipment, such as a table with a press on it, and a small pile of what appears to be lumber. Cueball is backing away from the ghost, holding his hands up defensively.]
:Ghost: oooOOOOOOoooo
:[The "ooooo"s of the ghost are written in wavy letters of varying sizes]
:Ghost: ''Build a spaceship out of bricks!''
:Ghost: oooooOOOOOOOOoo
:Cueball: No! Go away!

:[Caption below the panel:]
:The Spruce Goose, the Project Habakkuk Ice Ship, and the Trojan Horse were all work of the Material Phantom, a ghost that wanders the Earth convincing engineers to make giant vehicles out of the wrong stuff.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Engineering]]