explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2929: Good and Bad Ideas

2024-05-09T04:43:09Z

172.71.178.168:

{{comic
| number = 2929
| date = May 6, 2024
| title = Good and Bad Ideas
| image = good_and_bad_ideas_2x.png
| imagesize = 595x522px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = While it seemed like a fun prank at the time, I realize my prank fire extinguishers full of leaded gasoline were a mistake.
}}

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

This is a scatter plot comparing how good an idea sounds to how good the idea is. For example, leaded gasoline sounded like a good idea due to its anti-knocking effects, but is a bad idea due to lead toxicity. Fake prank fire extinguishers both sound bad and ''are'' bad, as they can make a dangerous situation worse. Putting mold on infections sounds like a bad idea, but some molds, like ones containing penicillin, have helpful antibiotic effects.

The title text combines leaded gasoline and a fake prank fire extinguisher into something worse than either. The fire extinguisher is fake and releases flammable material onto the fire, and there is additional lead toxicity.

===Table of the entries===
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Idea !! What it means !! How good it sounds !! How good it actually is !! Explanation
|-
|{{w|Leaded gasoline}}||Adding {{w|Tetraethyllead|tetraethyl lead}} as an antiknocking agent to allow for increased performance||++||---||Leaded gasoline was introduced in the early 1920s to allow higher pressures and temperatures in an engine without causing {{w|Engine_knocking|detonation (knocking)}}, allowing for increased fuel efficiency and engine performance; it also works to prevent engine valve wear. In essence, it artificially raises the {{w|octane rating}} of the fuel, reducing the need for fuel refinement, thus reducing waste and/or expense. Lead, however, is both toxic and bioaccumulative, meaning that lead released into the air over decades built up to harmful levels in people (as well as other animals) and almost certainly contributed to a host of health issues. Some scientists even suppose that {{w|Lead–crime hypothesis|crime levels are influenced by lead exposure}}. (It should be noted that this only "[sounded] like a good idea" due to deliberate campaigns to obscure the known dangers).
|-
|{{w|Bloodletting}}||Releasing "bad blood" from the veins||---||---||You need (most of) your blood. Losing [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK542273/ more than 15%] of a person's total blood volume results in adverse effects. Bloodletting was performed as a medical procedure for at least 2000 years until the 19th century. The idea was to withdraw blood to balance the body's "humors". Despite this long history, the notion that bleeding someone is bad now seems like basic common sense, and it's now well-understood that blood-letting (outside of {{what if|98|certain rare and specific cases}}) does no good, causes significant harm and quite certainly causes many deaths.
|-
|{{w|Asbestos}}||Mineral which does not burn, tolerates extremely high temperatures and forms small fibers. These qualities make it excellent for insulation and fire protection||+++||---||Asbestos was used extensively in ships and buildings throughout most of the 20th century. Unfortunately, the microscopic fibers that make up asbestos greatly increase the risk of {{w|Asbestosis|lung disease}} and cancer when inhaled, causing its use to be banned in most countries.
|-
|Extension cords with prongs on both ends||allows easy connection between 2 female connectors||0 (neutral)||---||Prongs on both ends would make it easier to plug the extension cord in on either side. But once plugged into an outlet, the other end becomes a serious shock hazard, as seen in [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L08LjkN1k70 this Backyard Scientist video]. Short circuits (both ends connected to outlets supplying power) would be much more likely, resulting in more sparks, fires and damage to wiring.
|-
|Stair kayaking||Riding down a flight of stairs in a {{w|kayak}}||--||---|| Stair kayaking is a stunt where a person positions a kayak at the top of a flight of stairs and then, using their paddle to push off, [https://youtu.be/46BjHAxgddU?t=154 rides the kayak down the stairs]. This poses significant easily foreseeable risks of injury or death, as well as being very bad for the kayak, which is designed to ride on {{w|Kayak|water}}, not stairs.{{Citation needed}}
|-
|Fake prank fire extinguishers||Intentionally placing empty or otherwise non-functional {{w|fire extinguisher|fire extinguishers}} as a {{w|practical joke}}.||---||---|| The idea of placing fake fire extinguishers as a prank, presumably so that a person who thinks they are grabbing a real fire extinguisher will instead find a decoy, sounds very dangerous and potentially life-threatening for many people, and it would be highly dangerous. In the United States, (and presumably most countries), this would also be a felony in most, if not all, jurisdictions. An example of a similar situation, although not intended as a prank, can be found [https://twitter.com/ThatSamWinkler/status/1657154071051239424 here].
The title text expands this idea by having the prank fire extinguishers filled with (leaded) gasoline. This is literally adding fuel to the fire.
|-
|Always saying what you think||...regardless of the feelings of others or other considerations||++||--||Openness and honesty are seen as positive character traits in people. However, taking it to the extreme of ''always'' telling people what you think, can lead to awkward, unpleasant or dangerous situations. It may harm your relationship with the other person if they don't like what you think, or they may reply without concern for ''your'' feelings or other considerations. Keeping negative thoughts to yourself or telling "white lies" can be considered a better alternative in some situations.
Untestrictively saying what you think to somebody in power (a boss, soldier, dictator, drunk) can negatively impact your earning potential, health or freedom, even if you have a point. Or else, on the offchance that your (first) thoughts are less correct, [https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/17/remain-silent/ "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt."]
|-
|Replying to spammers||Clicking on the "Reply" button from {{w|spam email}}s and writing (and sending) a reply (or worse, clicking on the links in these emails)||--||--||At best, you confirm your email address and identify yourself as someone likely to respond to such messages and so encourage the spammers to deluge you with more messages. At worst, the spammer may extract sensitive information about you, make you a victim of a scam or gain control of your computer.
|-
|{{w|Solar car}}s||Having {{w|Solar panel|solar panels}} on the car's surface (mostly hood and roof) for power generation||+++||-||Powering electric vehicles with solar panels seems like an excellent idea: it would provide power with no increased land use, and theoretically could allow a vehicle to operate indefinitely without being fueled or charged. However, such vehicles would require power storage (due to power requirements, weather conditions, shade from roadside features and nighttime driving), adding significant weight. Adding solar panels to a plug-in or hybrid vehicle would add cost, weight, manufacturing complexity and maintenance requirements. Solar panels on moving cars are less efficient than in stationary installations, where they can be aimed at the Sun, and subject to damage from both collisions and road debris; even without these problems, the size of automobiles relative to their power requirements would sharply limit the car's range (unless it was a normal electric vehicle with supplemental solar panels). Solar cars do exist (the {{w|World Solar Challenge}} is a competition for such cars), but as a practical form of transportation, the negatives likely outweigh the positives.
|-
|{{w|Heelys|Heelies}}||Heelys are shoes with an inline skate wheel built in to the sole, at the heel. ||+||-||Heelys allow the wearer (usually children) to shift between normal walking and rolling like being on skates. This sounds like fun but [https://abcnews.go.com/Health/Exercise/story?id=3242181&page=1 has been suggested] to be a potentially significant injury risk.
|-
|{{w|Prequel|Prequels}}||A work of fiction (often a movie) telling the "story before the story" of another work.||+++||-||More of a good story sounds great on the surface, and audiences who are invested in a set of characters and/or a setting often love the idea of finding out what led up to certain events. But there are several pitfalls. Spin-offs of a popular property are often low-quality cash grabs. Prequels, specifically, are constrained by the fact that they have to lead to the story that's already been released, which can lead to contrived storytelling. There's less room for suspense, since the future of the storyline has already been established. There's a tendency to invent or fill in detailed backstories, which can undermine character arcs and/or destroy the mystery and nuance of certain characters. And, since they tend only to be made where the original is already well-received, regression to the mean tends to mean they are more likely than not to fail to live up to expectations. Prequels can be good, but there are a lot of ways they can go wrong.
|-
|Transitions® lenses||A brand name for {{w|Photochromic_lens|photochromic lenses}} in glasses or contacts, which get darker (like sunglasses) in bright light.||+||-||Photochromic lenses are clear lenses that darken when exposed to UV light, then turn clear again when the UV is removed. The advantage is that wearers of glasses don't need to have separate (prescription) sunglasses or contacts. However, the process is relatively slow (about a minute) so not so useful when there is a quick succession of shade and bright light, as in a forest or when driving. If used in a car, the windscreen filters out UV light to some degree, which prevents the glasses from darkening as required. Finally, the process is temperature dependent, so in hot weather the glasses don't become as dark, and in cold weather they might stay dark for too long.
|-
|Cutting pizza in squares||Cutting (a presumably round) pizza in squares||-||-||Most people cut pizza into wedges and hold it by the crust. Cutting it into squares could allow for more pieces to be shared, if the resulting wedges would be too thin to be practical. However, pieces near the center will have no crust to hold it by, getting cheese and sauce all over your fingers. Cuts around the edge will probably leave smaller leftover scraps which are mostly crust. While hardly a disaster like the other items in its quadrant, square pizza pieces are just not very useful and rather inefficient. Cutting a rectangular pizza into squares might not suffer from the problems above, but, unless the pizza itself is square and cut only into four squares, some people will end up with a higher crust-to-topping ratio than others. Cutting a round pizza into squares is popular in Chicago and is sometimes called tavern-style or party-cut and some<sup><nowiki>[</nowiki>''{{w|Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Words_to_watch#Unsupported_attributions|who?}}''<nowiki>]</nowiki></sup> [https://www.bonappetit.com/story/real-chicago-pizza-tavern-style consider it the real Chicago style pizza] [https://destinationeatdrink.com/the-real-chicago-style-pizza-isnt-deep-dish/ rather than deep dish pizza].{{Dubious}}
|-
|{{w|Project Orion (nuclear propulsion)|Project Orion}}||Study by the U.S. government looking into nuclear pulse propulsion for spacecraft.||---||-||Using repeated nuclear explosions to generate motion sounds bad for both the spacecraft and everything else, especially with a ground launch, but there are ways to address a lot of the concerns, so it isn't as bad as it sounds. Project Orion's theorized specific impulse and thrust would also be far higher than anything chemical rockets can accomplish. The efficiency of Project Orion is extremely low, however, and the {{w|ablation}} issues are extremely difficult to overcome.

See also [[2423: Project Orion]].
|-
|{{w|Soup}}||Soup||0 (neutral)||0 (neutral)||Soup is probably one of the oldest foods created by prehistoric cooks. Many people enjoy it, though some consider many soups somewhat lacking as a meal on their own, or boring.
|-
|{{w|Washer-dryer|Combo washer dryers}}||A device that combines a washing machine and laundry dryer||+++||+||Better at space efficiency, but worse at each task than separate devices and unable to do both tasks in parallel (useful when you have more than one batch of laundry).
|-
|Cutting sandwiches diagonally||Cutting sandwiches made with rectangular sliced bread diagonally||+||+||[https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/math/a32690399/triangles-rectangles-best-way-cut-sandwich-math/ Generally] [https://www.npr.org/2009/11/28/120914097/rectangles-vs-triangles-the-great-sandwich-debate regarded] as the superior way to slice a sandwich, providing more aesthetically pleasing display of the contents, better support in the hand and fewer all-crust bites. Required in the assembly of a club sandwich,{{actual citation needed}} where the diagonal components are stacked again.
|-
|{{w|Diverging diamond interchange}}s||Road junction where the two (sets of) lanes cross over to switch sides (so if you normally drive on the right, now you drive on the left), then switch back to normal after the junction||-||+||Highway engineers believe the shape improves safety and traffic flow through the interchange because switching to the other side facilitates merging to and from the other road in the junction. However, the shape appears to be insanity to an unfamiliar driver, so where they are rare, driver confusion may lead to increased accidents.
|-
|Toasting sandwiches||Making a sandwich first and then cooking it, as in a dedicated {{w|Pie_iron|sandwich toaster}}, a {{w|toaster oven|toaster oven}}, frying pan or under a grill.||++||++||The grilled cheese sandwich is a familiar form to most people, and many other sandwiches are improved by toasting as a final step. Others, such as the {{w|western sandwich|Western}} or {{w|club sandwich|club}} are prepared using toast. The {{w|peanut butter, banana and bacon sandwich|Elvis}} is a specific case of a sandwich that normally wouldn't be toasted, but is improved by it - peanut butter, bacon, banana and jelly, with the assembly lightly fried.
|-
|{{w|Crumple zone}}s||Areas of a car that are designed to deform in a controlled way in case of a crash. ||--||++||Most people's intuition would be that stronger cars are safer, and intending parts of a vehicle to collapse ''by design'' might seem crazy. But engineered crumple zones are designed to gradually absorb the kinetic energy in a vehicle collision and protect the passenger cabin. The result is that the occupants experience less intense deceleration and ideally without the damage significantly compressing the shell around them. This significantly reduces the danger of injury or death from higher speed crashes.
|-
|{{w|Sliced bread}}||Bread, sliced by the baker before packaging for sale||+++||++||It's far more convenient for making sandwiches or toast, but unfortunately pre-sliced bread will go stale faster and some applications may be better off thicker or thinner than the slices provided. Sliced bread is often used as a comparator for how good something is, using the phrase 'the best thing since sliced bread'.
|-
|{{w|Pizza}}||Pizza - a toasted sandwich made on thin bread, so doesn't need slicing, usually cut diagonally||++||++||Pizza is a widely popular dish throughout much of the world, uncontroversial {{w|Anchovies_as_food|except}} {{w|Pineapple|certain}} [https://www.taste.com.au/recipes/nutty-choc-pizza-fresh-berries/2c0220a4-8463-45ff-b2ba-ac7e5012a006 toppings].
|-
|Eating citrus fruit while at sea||Having a supply of {{w|citrus fruit}} on long sea journeys, especially during the {{w|Age of Sail}} ||0 (neutral)||+++||For a long time, {{w|Scurvy|scurvy}} was a danger to sailors, who generally subsisted on a monotonous diet of shelf-stable foods with low vitamin content while on long voyages. Most citrus fruits are rich in vitamin C, which prevents scurvy. Eating orange or lemons doesn't seem like a significant activity one way or the other, but it's an easy way to prevent a disease that causes serious ill-health and possibly a painful death.
|-
|Putting mold on infections||Seemingly a reference to the ancient practice of pressing moldy bread against infected wounds||---||++||While this sounds like a good way to get a fungal infection, with the correct mold this is a primitive way to obtain an antibiotic. Certain fungi naturally produce antibiotic substances, and this is where humans discovered {{w|penicillin}}.
|-
|Wheels on luggage||Some luggage bags have small wheels inset on their frame and a carrying handle.||+++||+++||A relatively simple fitting for rigid or semi-rigid luggage that substantially eases its transport over long distances on flat surfaces such as travel terminals.
|-
|{{w|Heat pump}}s||A technology that moves heat energy from a cold area to a warm area, most familiar as the technology that keeps a refrigerator cold. It can be used to heat a home interior in winter or cool it in summer.||++||+++||Unlike traditional furnaces, heat pumps do not generate heat (beyond a small overhead). Instead, they move existing thermal energy from a coolable environment across to a warmable one. This allows a space to be heated with significantly less energy use than a furnace or resistance heater that generates heat directly from chemical or electrical energy. Because these units are usually operated by electricity, they can provide heating with renewable energy (potentially using {{w|thermal energy storage}} for load-shifting), reduce or eliminate the need for natural gas connections and prevent several risks that come with traditional furnaces (such a carbon monoxide leaks and fires). In addition, heat pumps can operate in the reverse direction as air conditioners, so a single unit can be designed to both heat and cool a building. It sounds like a good idea and works out better than expected in real life.
According to [https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/02/14/1068582/everything-you-need-to-know-about-heat-pumps/ MIT Technology review]:
<blockquote>Heat pumps today can reach 300% to 400% efficiency or even higher, meaning they’re putting out three to four times as much energy in the form of heat as they’re using in electricity. For a space heater, the theoretical maximum would be 100% efficiency, and the best models today reach around 95% efficiency.</blockquote>

See also [[2790: Heat Pump]].
|-
|{{w|Laser eye surgery}}||Surgical techniques using lasers for precision cutting in the eyeball.||-||+++||In the popular imagination, lasers are often thought of as something used for destroying their target. Firing them into people's eyes, then, does not sound like a great idea. However. this technology has substantially improved the eyesight of millions of people worldwide by allowing the treatment of eye problems otherwise only corrected by lenses or entirely untreatable. Randall has previously commented on laser eye surgery, amongst other ideas both good and bad, in [[1681: Laser Products]].
|-
|{{w|Fecal transplant}}s||Transfer of portions of the {{w|Gut microbiota|gut microbiome}} of a healthy person to the sterilized gut of an ill person.||---||+++||The gut microbiome is a collection of organisms that lives in our guts. It can influence our health. It is responsible for the last stages of digesting our food. It can also produce neurotransmitters that are carried by blood to our brain influencing our behavior. A healthy microbiome can be destroyed by bad eating habits, unhealthy lifestyles, infections or the use of antibiotics. Sometimes it may be beneficial to completely sterilize the gut and then take a sample of a healthy biome from another person. A sample is enough, as the organisms will multiply. As long as the patient eats correctly, the microbiome after transplant should develop correctly.

It sounds bad because we tend to think of our feces as something gross, to be discarded, and other people's bacteria as infectious. It is called fecal transplant as our feces contain about 50% of gut bacteria, but nowadays the sample usually takes the form of a coated pill that is applied rectally.
|-
|}

==Transcript==
:[Two axes with double arrows cross each other in the middle. At the end of each arrow, there are labels. Scattered over the chart are 28 entries. Below these entries are given for each of the four quadrants, plus three that are on the Y-axis. For each quadrant the entries are listed in reading order, top to bottom left to right.]

:[X axis from left to right:]
:Sounds like a good idea
:Sounds like a bad idea

:[Y axis from top to bottom:]
:Actually a bad idea
:Actually a good idea

:[Top left quadrant (sounds like a good idea, actually a bad idea):]
:Leaded gasoline
:Asbestos
:Always saying what you think
:Solar cars
:Heelies
:Prequels
:Transitions® lenses

:[Top middle (actually a bad idea):]
:Extension cords with prongs on both ends

:[Top right quadrant (sounds like a bad idea, actually a bad idea):]
:Bloodletting
:Fake prank fire extinguishers
:Stair kayaking
:Replying to spammers
:Cutting pizza in squares
:Project Orion

:[Center (neutral):]
:Soup

:[Bottom left quadrant (sounds like a good idea, actually a good idea):]
:Combo washer dryers
:Cutting sandwiches diagonally
:Toasting sandwiches
:Sliced bread
:Pizza
:Wheels on luggage
:Heat pumps

:[Bottom middle (actually a good idea):]
:Eating citrus fruit while at sea

:[Bottom right quadrant (sounds like a bad idea, actually a good idea):]
:Diverging diamond interchanges
:Crumple zones
:Putting mold on infections
:Laser eye surgery
:Fecal transplants

==Trivia==
*A much leaner version of this comic appeared in the first [[What If? (book) | "What If?" book]], chapter "Weird (and Worrying) Questions from the What If? Inbox, #9".

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Scatter plots]]
[[Category:Rankings]]
[[Category:Food]]

2164: Glacier

2023-11-28T21:05:24Z

172.71.178.168: /* Explanation */ ...he also did a different take in https://wiki.lspace.org/Short_Story:Once_And_Future (no spoilers!)

{{comic
| number = 2164
| date = June 17, 2019
| title = Glacier
| image = glacier.png
| titletext = The Norwegian adaptation of The Sword in the Stone takes things in a weird direction.
}}

==Explanation==

A {{w|glacier}} is a wall of dense ice. Though glaciers tend to appear still, they are actually slowly moving, typically by around 10 inches (25 cm)/day. 

[[Beret Guy]] and [[Knit Cap]] are facing the forward edge of a glacier. [[Knit Cap]] wearing a knit cap remarks that glaciers are amazing, mentioning the fact that though we can't see it, the ice is slowly advancing. After considering this, Beret Guy leaves, then returns with two {{w|sabre (fencing)|sabres}} and a hairdryer. He uses the (apparently battery-powered) hairdryer to melt a small cavity into the glacier, which he then lodges the sabre into. The melted pocket then freezes over the sabre; Beret Guy then takes a defensive position. {{w|Glossary of fencing|"Advancing"}} is a basic forward movement in fencing, and Beret Guy appears to feel it is unfair for the glacier not to have a weapon.

The title text refers to {{w|Excalibur|The Sword in the Stone}}, a famous sword in the legends of King Arthur, and {{w|Norway}}, a country known for its glaciers. In the original legend, the sword is set into solid rock, and enchanted so that only the true King could draw it out. The legend has been alluded to in a [[1521|previous comic]]. The title text might be making any of several implications about a Norwegian adaptation, including:
* The sword would be set into ice, a much less reliable and more easily-bypassed substance than stone.
* The sword would be set in the stone (or ice) hilt-first, meaning the true King would need to pull it out by the blade.
* The true King would not remove the sword, but rather would embed it into the stone (or ice) as Beret Guy has done here. – As {w|Terry Pratchett}} wrote: "What’s so hard about pulling a sword out of a stone? The real work’s already been done. You ought to make yourself useful and find the man who put the sword in the stone in the first place, eh?"

==Transcript==

:[Knit Cap and Beret Guy are standing to the left of a glacier.]
:Knit cap person: Glaciers are so neat. You can't see it, but this ice is slowly advancing.

:[Zoom in on Beret Guy, who has his hand to his mouth, thinking.]

:[Zoomed in, Beret Guy exits to the left of the panel.]

:[Beret Guy enters the panel from the left, carrying two fencing sabres.]

:[Beret Guy uses a blow dryer to attach one of the sabres to the glacier.]
:''Whirrrr''
:[Beret Guy is holding the blow dryer and looks at the sabre that is attached to the glacier.]

:[Beret Guy stands in a defensive position with sabre in hand, ready to defend against the "advancing" glacier.]

==Trivia==
The author of ''The Sword in the Stone'', T. H. White, was mentioned two comics ago in [[2162: Literary Opinions]].

[[Category:Comics featuring Knit Cap]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
{{comic discussion}}

Talk:835: Tree

2023-09-06T17:41:14Z

172.71.178.168:

I didn't really look too closely, but it seems to be based on Red-Black trees (Red Green in the case of Christmas): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_black_tree

: Nope. For a Red-Black tree, all the leaves have to be the same color as the root, and no red nodes can have a red parent. The root here is a yellow star, the leaves are mixed colors, and both colors have instances of a node with a color that matches it's parent, so nether red nor green can be the "Red" for the algorithm. {{unsigned ip|108.162.221.58}}

Then again it could just be a color scheme. [[Special:Contributions/132.3.25.79|132.3.25.79]] 12:35, 23 April 2013 (UTC)Tyler

:: I am forced to conclude, by this and the problem with the heaps, that Randall has forgotten his data structures. Putting a red-black tree on the wall would be so extremely xkcd-typical that missing it suggests having forgotten they are a thing. [[User:Singlelinelabyrinth|Singlelinelabyrinth]] ([[User talk:Singlelinelabyrinth|talk]]) 05:32, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

The title text doesn't really make sense - removing the root of a heap is a very common practice for a variety of applications. In fact, you almost always want to process heaps by removing the root. [[User:Ciotog|Ciotog]] ([[User talk:Ciotog|talk]]) 14:05, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
: It is common, ok. And, in fact, Billy WILL process the heap by removing the root. It makes however sense, since all heaps must be "refreshed" after you remove the root. While it takes small time for a computer, it can be lengthy for a human. And it would be probably better an unsorted array of presents, so Billy can open any present without effecting any effect (see Comic 326) --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.42|108.162.229.42]] 14:10, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Hmmm... The heap seems sketchy. Note the second and third levels. Not a heap by C++ standards.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.218|108.162.245.218]] 22:08, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

The heap doesnt look like a heap to me (or at least not a common binary heap): the root has 4 children for a start, and it is not balanced, for seconds. {{unsigned ip|108.162.250.163}}

As a matter of fact, there's a structure that is a combination of a tree and a heap: it's called a "Treap". {{unsigned ip|162.158.89.205|19:11, 9 December 2017}}

argh that pun is awfully bad

also my post has nothing to do with the treap one [[User:An user who has no account yet|An user who has no account yet]] ([[User talk:An user who has no account yet|talk]]) 10:48, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
:I added in the relevent 'missing signature' to the Treap comment, which helps delineate that comment from what your addition is. As you may have seen with some of your pre-username contributions, it's something that passing editors do, but we'd of course prefer not to have to. And it can be left that way by accident, as well as not even knowing. But we have both {{template|unsigned ip}}, used above, and {{template|unsigned}}, for those who 'should know better'... ;)
:Anyway, convention is that you add a ":" to your reply if you were replying off a prior comment (or add one more ":" than was there ahead of the thing you're replying to). That nests indents. Your reply (to the comic) isn't indented, so would be assumed to be a brand new comment, not a comment-reply. If you see what I mean.
:(Though I know from your prior messages that you also reply (to indented replies to you) with no indenting at all. But if you take a look at how cascades of replies are shown, in a heavy and complicated discussion, you should see how it helps work out who is replying to what, a little bit.)
:Another advantage to ":"ed replies is that line-breaks (starting again on the next line with another ":"ed beginning) get honoured, rather than the whitespace being folded into merely a space and continuation. With the break, you get it like you see here (now I'm on the fourth distinct paragraph) without having to double-space between them in the edit text ''or'' insert actual HTML line-break tags to make it come out how you'd wish it to.
:But these are all little tricks and techniques that you'll pick up, I'm sure. Just thought I'd mention these things, in passing, as I was 'fixing' the original problem. I could talk to you more on your User Talk page, but the way you're using it makes me feel as if I'd be intruding on your own monologues (on top of the User namespace, which I wouldn't dream of editing). [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.168|172.71.178.168]] 17:41, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

2822: *@gmail.com

2023-09-01T03:22:43Z

172.71.178.168: /* Explanation */ Revert "introduce" back to "induce". I can see why changed: it is potentially 'introducing' every gmail user to every other, but it is doing this by inducing (making it more likely...) the cascading Reply-All phenomenon. Or so I read it.

{{comic
| number = 2822
| date = August 30, 2023
| title = *@gmail.com
| image = gmail_com_2x.png
| imagesize = 305x269px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Hi all, just replying to loop in *@outlook.com and *@yahoo.com.
}}

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

When performing operations on computer files using a command prompt, the asterisk (*) may be used to represent a collection of items whose names match a particular format. For example, "*.txt" denotes all files whose names end in ".txt". This is called a wildcard. Similarly, the e-mail address *@gmail.com, as illustrated in the comic, is a proposed feature from Randall that would send an email to ''every'' {{w|Gmail}} user, without having each and every valid Gmail address at hand (of which there are about 1.8 billion). For obvious reasons, this is not actually a feature, but Randall suggests that if Google ever wanted to shut Gmail down, they could do either do it this way (possibly causing a service-ending overload of resources) ''or'' allow someone this one last boon (as a farewell gift, knowing that there would be relatively few additional repercussions to deal with).

Reply-all is a sometimes useful feature of email that nonetheless commonly causes headaches and annoyances for both users and administrators. By allowing users to simply reply to everyone copied on the email, it encourages users to do this rather than think carefully about which people their response should be addressed to. This causes lots of users to receive irrelevant emails, and email servers to have to process and store a lot of unnecessary data. Randall's email is essentially designed to induce every Gmail user to email every other Gmail user, generating an excessively large number of emails.

A recurring phenomenon for email users, especially in the early Internet days of the 1990s and 2000s, was a reply all storm – someone would start a message to a very large group, perhaps hundreds, and even if only 5% of recipients replied to say something like “take me off this list“, a storm of dozens of replies would soon follow. Inevitably, new replies to everyone would start saying things like, “stop Replying All!” If this were done with millions of Gmail users instead of just dozens or hundreds, their result would be apocalyptic.

In reality, the asterisk wildcard is not generally usable via email servers, although email ''clients'' may sometimes implement such a function, internally, perhaps to support mailing-list functions (though more commonly this is done via named address-book 'groups'). That said, the asterisk ''character'' is a valid one that may form part of the name of a mailbox, including group-boxes that might facilitate server-side distribution.

The title text suggests the possibility of a similar iteration over {{w|Outlook.com}} (formerly Hotmail) and {{w|Yahoo! Mail}}, two further well-known mail services with similarly large userbases, but this time attempting to expand the resulting lists within the mail body of the above email, which would make the broadcast message much, ''much'' larger than the simple broadcast 'spam' that the originally illustrated email would be. It's likely this would annoy a few more people than the original message did.{{Citation needed}} This also alludes to an occurrence in email chains where a user replies to simply add another user into the chain, which doesn't add much information to the group.

==Transcript==

:[A typical gmail UI]
:To: *@gmail.com (+expand)
:Cc: [Empty field]
:Bcc: [Empty field]
:Subj: New Friends

:Hey all! Go ahead and introduce yourself!

:[Caption:] If Google ever decides to shut down Gmail, they should let one user trigger a global reply-all apocalypse.

==Trivia==

The number of this comic (2822) is the same as the number of [https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2822 RFC 2822], which is the 2001 version of the email specification (it was replaced in 2008 by RFC 5322).

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Email]]
[[Category:Google]]

1144: Tags

2023-08-09T21:36:45Z

172.71.178.168: Undo revision 320629 by ConscriptGuide (talk) Modified revert. It was technically ok as it was (and with) code-tag giving it a non-proportional look. And you didn't remove the closer.

{{comic
| number = 1144
| date = December 7, 2012
| title = Tags
| image = tags.png
| titletext = <A>: Like </a>this.&nbsp;
}}

==Explanation==
First of all this comic clearly annoyed enough web developers to get them to write this long explanation about this comic.

{{w|HTML}} is a markup language used in web development, and is the subject of this comic. The comic employs multiple poor HTML practices while asking the rhetorical question of how best to annoy web developers, effectively answering the question that it poses.

In HTML, all elements (except self-closing elements like <code><img></code>) should consist of an open and close tag of the same type <code><div>Like this</div></code>.

HTML (except in its formulation as an XML language—XHTML) has never been case-sensitive, but the practice of using uppercase tags for readability is long outmoded, and the mixing of cases in this example would definitely annoy a developer.

Another basic idea of HTML is that all elements should be properly nested. That is, any element whose open tag occurs inside a div must be closed before the div is closed.

NB: In practice, web browsers will error-correct nearly all these problems.

{| class="wikitable" |
! Correct
! Incorrect
|-
|
<div>
<ol>
<li>Correctly nested</li>
</ol>
</div>
|
<div>
<ol>
<li>Incorrectly nested</li>
</div>
</ol>
|-
|}
The rules of proper nesting also put restrictions on which tags can be placed where — "block" elements, such as <code><div></code> cannot be placed inside "inline" elements, such as <code><span></code>, and inline elements must be placed inside a block element of some kind. Thus, <code><span><div></code> is forbidden, even if the tags are closed in the proper order.

Further, web developers make a distinction between ''semantic'' and ''structural'' elements. Semantic elements contain a clue in their name as to what kind of an element they are — for example, an <code><article></code> tag contains an article, such as a blog post or news article, while an <code><ol></code> tag contains an '''o'''rdered '''l'''ist. (It's wise to note that this is not an absolute rule; it's ''possible'' to put non-article content in an <code><article></code>, it's just not recommended.) Semantic tags do not, however, indicate how their contents are to be displayed; your browser might display an <code><article></code> in the default font, layout, and placement, while mine, a {{w|screen reader}}, might ignore everything on the page except <code><article></code>s.

Structural tags, on the other hand, give no clues as to what they contain; they just indicate how a web page is to be laid out. <code><span></code> and <code><div></code> are structural tags; they can contain anything. Their definitions in HTML simply indicate that <code><div></code> is a block tag (it can affect both what the text looks like and where it is on the page; by default, it is displayed in a separate block from the rest of the text in the page, and has at least one line break before and after its display) and <code><span></code> is an inline tag: it affects what its text looks like, but not where it is on the page. Without additional attributes, it's impossible for a browser to tell what's supposed to be inside a <code><div></code> or a <code><span></code>, which means that my screen reader can't just pluck out the blog posts and read those.

Currently, the standard of usage is shifting toward using semantic tags over structural tags, since they provide more information to browsers and people reading the source code of web pages. HTML5, the most recent version of the standard web development markup language, is introducing many semantically meaningful tags that can be styled using {{w|Cascading Style Sheets|CSS}} to follow the same behavior as a div or span, but that are easier to understand when reading the markup or parsing it with a non-standard browser. For example, <span style="background: #eeeeee;">this is in a span</span> and <div style="background: #eeeeee;">this is in a div.</div>

The title text makes reference to <code>&nbsp;</code>, which is the {{w|HTML#Character and entity references|HTML escape code}} for {{w|non-breaking space}} which is a type of space that will keep two words together, and will not allow word wrapping to separate them. If the words come at the end of a displayed line, how this is handled depends on the browser and on the element's styling; some browsers and styles will force the connected words onto a new line, while others will "overflow" the edge of the container to accommodate the linked words. This is useful, for example, for keeping units with a number so it is easy to spot 100 km instead of needing to hunt for 100<br/>km. Using a non-breaking space at the end of a line, without another word on its trailing end, is only useful in extremely rare and limited circumstances, and does not generally have a purpose.

The title text also uses an <code><A></code> tag, seemingly to indicate an answer. In fact, <code><A></code> is an anchor tag, which creates {{w|hyperlink}}s. It is not an answer tag. This tag is generally used with either the <code>href=</code> (which creates a link to another URL) or <code>name=</code> (which creates a named anchor on the page that can be linked to with <code>href=#</code>) attribute (but not generally both at once). In addition, the placement of <code><A></code> and <code></a></code> (the capitalization here is also irritating to a web developer who values consistency) indicates that ": Like " should be a link or named anchor, but "this." should not. Whether or not to include punctuation in an anchor is a matter of some debate among developers, but including excessive whitespace is generally frowned upon, and the anchor ''should'' include all of the relevant text.

==Transcript==
:[The two tags are colored in grey.]
:<code><div>Q: How do you annoy a web developer?</span></code>

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:How to annoy]]

1113: Killed in Action

2023-07-25T19:22:27Z

172.71.178.168: /* Explanation */ Upon reflection... And, just before that, everyone will be mentoring/mentored by someone on the exact same day of their career, on their one and only active shift.

{{comic
| number = 1113
| date = September 26, 2012
| title = Killed in Action
| image = killed in action.png
| titletext = We can't let this happen again. We need to build a secure TWO-day-before-retirement safe room.
}}

==Explanation==
The comic plays with the TV and film trope of {{tvtropes|Retirony}}, in which a cop is killed in action only a short time before (often the day before) retirement, usually producing a sense of even greater tragedy in the timing of the death. The humor of this strip arises from the notion that, given so many policemen are killed the day before retirement, retiring cops could be sequestered in a secure facility on the day before their retirement to avoid retirony. Unfortunately this merely results in tragedy when a cop is killed the day before being sequestered.

The title text is a reference to the reactionary nature of security procedures often put in place in the aftermath of an incident, and how they typically fail to address the root cause of the problem. If the logic expressed in the title text was followed repeatedly, eventually the number of days police officers spent in the secure room would encompass their entire career. Perhaps even quicker, if combined with another expandable scheme designed to protect rookie cops from similar {{tvtropes|FirstDayFromHell|'first day accidents'}}.

A certain similarity could be drawn between this and the US Army's problematic policy of only having combat troops serve for a single year in combat during the Vietnam war (unlike during WWII, when combat units were put into the front line and left there until the war was over, with losses being made up with a constant flow of individual replacements, which was even more problematic). Having troops only serve for a single year led to a far lower rate of troops "broken" from constant combat stress, but it also led to soldiers increasingly avoiding risk once the halfway point of their year was passed and their time to go home got closer; not only that, but the stress of the last few months, knowing one was almost "home safe", yet forced into danger repeatedly could also psychologically damage men. It also created an incentive to just make it alive through the war, no matter what it took, unlike a situation where a soldier knows they are stuck there until the war is over; this can be a great incentive to fight harder, or at least to just give up any real hope that you'll live long enough to see the end anyway. They later revisited this "combat year" approach also, and tried yet another new idea.

See also the {{w|Unexpected hanging paradox|paradox of the "unexpected hanging"}}.

==Transcript==
:([[Hairbun]], [[Danish]] and [[Cueball]] are standing in the background by a coffin. A second Cueball, as the policeman and [[Ponytail]], as the policewoman, are standing in the foreground.)
:Ponytail: Good cop. It's a real shame—
:Ponytail: He was just one day away from getting put in the locked, heavily guarded room where all cops stay for the last day before they retire.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]

2803: Geohydrotypography

2023-07-18T04:36:43Z

172.71.178.168: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2803
| date = July 17, 2023
| title = Geohydrotypography
| image = geohydrotypography_2x.png
| imagesize = 339x389px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The Atlantic is expanding at about 10 ppm (points per month).
}}

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

This comic is another entry in the "[[:Category:My_Hobby|My Hobby]]" series of comics.

{{w|Plate tectonics}} is the understanding that the Earth's lithosphere is divided up into separate 'plates', which carry the continents and (in the case of the Atlantic) are slowly moving apart under geological action that mostly drives the respective coastlines away from the deep centre of the ocean. Here, Randall explains that if the surface of the Atlantic Ocean were covered in a certain size of printed text (as if its surface were a giant sheet of printed paper, which it is not{{citation needed}}), the shifting of the continents would increase the amount of text by about 100 words per second.

[[Randall]] says that his hobby is geohydrotypography, which is a portmanteau of {{w|geology}}, {{w|hydrology}}, and {{w|typography}}. Basically, it means that his hobby is typing on rocks and ocean.

The title text reports the rate of the ocean's expansion, about 40 millimeters per year, in points per month. A point in typography is 0.3528 millimeters. The expansion sideways would steadily allow more characters on the first line (and thus intermittently more words, 'unwrapping' the first word seen on the next line) and cascading this effect onto every subsequent line spread out vertically along the roughly 13,000km (depending upon your choice of limits) North/South 'height' of the writing medium.

The exact calculation needs various assumptions. Font families of a given well-defined vertical size/seleration can have varying general width of character, and be subject to various possible degrees of [[1015: Kerning]] depending upon what precise choice of text is made (unless using a strictly a fixed-width font). Similarly, the word that does (or does not) have to be wrapped at the first line-break can effect which groups of words may (or may not) need to wrap on subsequent lines. The exact extent of the Atlantic Ocean can also be differently interpretted: where it meets the Southern and Arctic oceans, whether to include bordering 'seas', what to do where the 'text' may have to cross/break-across islands (e.g. the Bahamas, Azores, etc, some of these being treated as Atlantic boundaries with the comic's relatively much larger size of "ocean text"), possibly even whether to track the precise tidal inundations at the coastlines at any particular moment (though they should even out, on their twice daily cycle, and high-/low-water marks could be chosen as the standard). All these factors, and more, make it difficult to precisely define how many characters(/words) would 'fit', though the approximate annual increase in the approximate area of the ocean could be approximately assumed to allow an approximately greater number of characters (based upon an approximation of their average page-area requirements) which could be divided by the approximate number needed for a general corpus of words (and its spacing) to determine the approximate additional text that could now be added for any given span of time. Knowing Randall, he has used the best approximations that he could find and determined that the possible cumulative errors were not unacceptable.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[A depiction primarily of the Atlantic Ocean and the surrounding land-masses. The land is black, leaving the oceans and seas white except for the following words written in sixteen lines of text (from just below the tip of Greenland/Arctic Ocean down to slightly above the Falkland Islands/Southern Ocean) that are, for the most part, wrapped between the Atlantic coastline 'margins' (as defined by the Americas on the left and Europe/Africa on the right, or significant island groups:]

:If you covered the surface of the Atlantic Ocean with twelve-point printed text, with the lines wrapping at the coasts, the expansion of the ocean basin due to plate tectonics would increase your word count by about 100 words per second.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:My hobby: Geohydrotypography

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:My Hobby]]

Category:Deleted comics

2023-07-03T13:30:52Z

172.71.178.168: Undo revision 316811 by FaviFake (talk) I would have expected you to give reasoning. Personally, I think it could be rewritten as "For example..." to explain the possible circumstances...

*A few times a comic has been released on xkcd by then later deleted.
**In [[Disappearing Sunday Update]] it was mentioned to begin with, that it was a one day only comic.
**With [[No One Was Hurt]] it was a choice made based on the fact that someone got hurt, on the day the comic referred. And was then removed as it could be seen as bad taste.
**[[Five-Minute Comics: Part 4]] seemed to have been uploaded by mistake, but before it was removed it had been saved for posterity, and can now be seen here.

[[Category:Distinctive comics]]
[[Category:Extra comics]]

2790: Heat Pump

2023-06-16T23:24:28Z

172.71.178.168: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2790
| date = June 16, 2023
| title = Heat Pump
| image = heat_pump_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x400px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = If I'm not going to upgrade to a powered one, I should at LEAST stop leaving the door open so often.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BIG CHUNGUS HEAT PUMPER - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
A {{w|heat pump}} is a system which applies the {{w|ideal gas law}} to transfer heat from a relatively cold area to a relatively hot area, i.e. to heat an insufficiently warm room/building or to cool an insufficiently chilled room/building, even if the outside air is at the opposite heat-gradient for the purpose. The extra energy used to achieve this prevents the {{w|second law of thermodynamics}} from being violated, and is usually assumed to be added to the warmer side of the system. This is why the back of a refrigerator will feel hot, as it maintains the cooler internal temperature (and why leaving its door open does not cool the room that it is in down, just heats it up as it fruitlessly attempts to both heat and cool the same air-mass).

In this comic, [[Cueball]] has a ''manual'' heat pump, and he is manually heating an area by walking from the warm area (colored in ''red'') to a colder area (colored in ''blue''), and "drawing" residual heat into the "bellows" / accordion-shaped device by expanding them to cool them below the outside air temperature (more intense blue). He then returns back to the warm area and compresses the bellows to concentrate heat above the sustained room-temperature (more intense red), then letting it radiate away and increasing room temperature before going back outside to repeat the process of drawing heat out of the cooler air. As expected, this is a laborious process, as captioned in the text below the panel. Manual heat pumps of this kind do not exist in real life, but are partly emulated by devices such as {{w|fire piston}}s. The {{w|air source heat pump}} effectively does the same thing as this comic, but by using components installed across a wall (letting fluids/vapors flow between the two sides) rather than moving physical components through doors.

The title text refers to the problem of having to open the door to carry the device and out. This would let the warmed air flow out, and cool air flow in, to undo some of the effort used to attempt to increase the difference.

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

:[Cueball indoors (light red background) holding an accordion-shaped device in his hands and walking towards an open door.]

:[Cueball outdoors (light blue background) with the door closed, the device is still light red.]

:[Cueball extends the device and it turns blue.]
:''Release''

:[Cueball looks behind while the device has turned light blue.]

:[Cueball walking back inside through an open door, the device is still light blue.]

:[Cueball indoors with the door closed. He squeezes the device and it turns red.]
:''Squeeze''

:[Cueball looks at the door while the device is glowing in bright red.]
:''Radiate''

:[Cueball is leaving the indoors area (now a slightly darker red background) through an open door.]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Manual heat pumps are such a pain.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Physics]]

708: Sex Dice

2023-05-24T11:31:14Z

172.71.178.168: Undo revision 314054 by GetPunnedOn (talk) No reason to believe that this is a "to breast" action. And we see that the Fondle action has made its way to the kids' game.

{{comic
| number = 708
| date = March 1, 2010
| title = Sex Dice
| image = sex dice.png
| titletext = You roll for initiative, and... [roll]... wow, do you ever take it.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Sex dice}} consist of two dice, one listing various actions, and one listing various body parts ([https://i.imgur.com/2ryEaPV.jpg sometimes] a third specifying a manner in which the action should be done). Roll the dice, do the specified action to the specified body part, repeat as necessary.

Because most games require the same dice, in many peoples' game collections, the dice get mixed around between games. Unfortunately it seems [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] have accidentally exchanged one of their sex dice (the one that contains actions) with a normal six-sided die; as a result, the people playing a {{w|role-playing game}} in the last panel find themselves doing unusual actions.

Given the situation, it's likely the player who fondled the guard was supposed to roll 2 or 3 six-sided dice to determine the damage of his attack. The sex die came up as "fondle," while the other dice added up to six; hence, he fondled the guard for 6 damage.

The title text is another possible situation that might arise: "rolling for {{w|Initiative (role-playing games)|initiative}}" in role-playing games is how the players determine who attacks in what order during combat. Here, the player rolled the sex die as part of his initiative roll, and therefore "took initiative" in an entirely different way.

Typically the missing sex dice will show different actions like these: Blow, bite, nip, lick, pat or suck (from a set that did not include fondle). The other dice with places on the body like breasts might also have these options: Ass, thigh, ear, navel or lips. Other dice may show positions to use, like doggy style, or places in the house on which to perform these, as in the kitchen. It is a little difficult to imagine any of the actions mentioned above resulting in the response in the title text: ''Wow, do you ever take it.'' Maybe there are other types of dice, but they are not easily found with a Google search...

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan kneel on a bed, Cueball, on the foot of the bed, is shaking a cup of dice. Behind Megan is a pillow and the bed poles.]
:Cueball: All right, baby. Get ready for...
:''Shake shake shake roll''

:[There is no frame around the next drawing of the two dice that have been rolled. The first is a regular five (seen almost from the top, but the sides with one and three can be seen). The second die has text written on it:]
:Breasts

:[Cueball and Megan are bent over the dice lying on the bed staring at them. Beat panel.]

:[Cueball leans back on one hand while taking the other to his chin while Megan sits straighter.]
:Cueball: I really need to organize the game cupboard.
:Megan: Wait, so where's the other sex die?

:[A Cueball-like guy lies on his stomach, and another Cueball-like guy sits to the left. Hairbun is sitting and Ponytail also lying on her stomach, hands beneath her chin. They are sitting/lying down around a game board. On the board is what appears to be two dice.]
:Guy lying: I... ''fondle'' the castle guard? That doesn't seem right.
:Hairbun: It did 6 damage, though.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Sex]]
[[Category:Board games]]

Talk:2778: Cuisine

2023-05-23T10:54:45Z

172.71.178.168:

I’m surprised it’s not Beret guy at the stove… [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.186|108.162.245.186]] 03:33, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
: Yup, you have a point... [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:17, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Well, here "'''''very''''' high heat" is millions of degrees (any kind), yes? [[User:GcGYSF(asterisk)P(vertical line)e|GcGYSF(asterisk)P(vertical line)e]] ([[User talk:GcGYSF(asterisk)P(vertical line)e|talk]]) 04:13, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Is the title text that stupid American thing where people consider themselves some nationality despite no cultural exposure because one of eight great-grandparents was?
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.2.77|162.158.2.77]] 04:26, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
: Taken to the extreme, to the time when galaxies were first starting to condense out of vast hydrogen clouds and form the first generation of stars and black holes. [[User:Nutster|Nutster]] ([[User talk:Nutster|talk]]) 04:33, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
: I wouldn't say that, no... It's trying to boast long experience. Sounds to me like instead of going back in his life to, say, his childhood, he's taking humankind - LIFE - to back before human beings, back to cells in primordial ooze. Before even the formation of Earth, I think? Judging from mentioning space... [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:17, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
::The title text says "collapsing in the darkness of space" which I take as a reference to before 'first light', that is before ANY fusion had occurred. [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 18:56, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

I’m curious who it is who added “exciting new forms of matter” with a citation to randall’s use of the same phrase earlier. This is a common way of talking for the comic demographic, although maybe a little immature as the decades pass. It’s different to see it cited, and I wonder if the editor was from a different culture or young or a bot, or maybe I am just going crazy. My name is karl i have usernames like baffo32 or xloem, i’ve been mentally ill for a decade or so but used to be a nerd. There seem to be fewer nerds here. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.131|162.158.159.131]] 12:45, 20 May 2023 (UTC) I’m thinking the citation is for completeness and apologize for my craziness. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.131|162.158.159.131]] 12:46, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Can someone provide the chain of reactions that lead from water to iron? I think the first step from water to helium might sound familiar to people, since that's the "classic" example for nuclear fusion. But how do we get from there to iron? [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 12:31, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_nucleosynthesis [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.16|172.69.22.16]] 13:19, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
::It is not water to Iron but Hydrogen to Helium. Of course the oxygen can also be part of the process. But not the water molecule, only its individual atoms. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 07:16, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
:::At the temperatures being hinted at, there's really no such things as molecules as we see them. (It'd be interesting to know if High Temperature Physics has an equivalent 'molecular' system, as it might hint at "life, but not as we know it" just sitting within stars, based upon some sort of plasmoid-magnetic 'structure' that can hold and reproduce some persistence of form that we'd recognise as at least a ''primitive'' form of life. But that's different.)
:::And nucleosynthesis goes all the way up to Iron (under 'normal' conditions) and beyond (when it becomes that little more exciting!), with 78 to 92 of the surrounding elements being easily part of the process. Depending on whether you count neutron-star fun, and other surprisinglg common edge-conditions. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.168|172.71.178.168]] 10:54, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

If Chef Cueball isn't very careful, by reducing his heavy water sauce all the way down to iron he risks his fusion pot undergoing core collapse and exploding in a supernova. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.12|172.70.126.12]] 22:39, 22 May 2023 (UTC)