explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2790: Heat Pump

2023-07-09T11:35:09Z

172.71.178.65:

woah! an xkcd with color what was the last one with color? (im kinda new to xkcd) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.122.48|172.71.122.48]] 21:17, 16 June 2023 (UTC)Erfaniom
:I guess the last one with a lot of color was [[2750]]. More at [[:Category:Comics with color]]. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.167.11|162.158.167.11]] 17:29, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

I suppose color was needed to show the air temperature. Odd, though, that in summer (in the northern hemisphere), the character is trying to increase the indoor temperature. [[User:Davidhbrown|Davidhbrown]] ([[User talk:Davidhbrown|talk]]) 21:27, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
:He's not. He's moving the hot air from inside to the cooler outside. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 22:18, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
::I actully think he's warming the inside, already warmer than outside, by effectively (and literally!) squeezing the heat out of the cooler outdoors air.
::By compressing the cool outdoor air, he increases its temperature (p1v1/t1=p2v2/t2) to warmer than the warm indoor air, creating a squeezebox->room flow of heat energy, then returns to the outside before decompressing and lowering the temperature in his squeezebox below the cool-air temperature in order to create an outdoors->squeezebox flow of energy and repeat. (The comic has the cycle start at roughly half-way through that, and wraps round, but the heat-to-room seemed the most obvious starting place here.)
::Right now, I'd not wish to heat my indoors up (even at 11:30pm, like now), so I agree that it's a funny time of year show heat-adding (rather than heat removing), but it definitely is that. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.154|172.70.86.154]] 22:31, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
:::Assumption(?): Indoors is on the LHS and higher, outdoors on the RHS and lower, door opens outwards and steps down to "outside". He COULD instead be cooling a basement apartment with a door that opens inwards (like mine)... however he seems to make a noticeable difference to the red, not the blue, so... probably not. :-/ [[Special:Contributions/172.70.34.160|172.70.34.160]] 02:36, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
:::: I don't think that's right... Homes rarely are a few steps lower than outside (half a flight for a basement apartment, but not 2 or 3 steps), and steps are rarely if ever just inside the door. However, it is extremely common for indoors to be 2 or 3 steps up (as a wheelchair user, let me assure you of this fact, LOL!), and steps are often right up to the door like this. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:50, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
::: Since panel 3 shows it at its widest and bluest with "Release", I understand that to mean he's releasing the heat outside from inside - like an A/C does. The weird thing is then showing the reddest/smallest with "Radiate", that word means "make and release heat" to me. The thing is, past experience tells me Randall lives in roughly the same part of the world as me, same climate. That he's in the northern states (like, within a day's drive of the Canadian border), and the Eastern time zone, and it's summer for us. Only heat pumping people should want is pumping heat OUT of the house... [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:16, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
::::Releasing the spring. At that point, there's the same amount of heat within the device, but it's spread out more so that the temperature is lower (than it was, but also than the surrounding air, which is also ''negligibly'' compressed outwards of course). NB, it does ''not'' draw air into it.
::::Now he has a cool device, heat naturally flows into it until (sufficiently) equalised after a small wait. Take the outside-cool (and expanded) device inside and compress it (it does not expel air!) to have that amount of heat be in a smaller space and thus a higher temperature. High enough to (quite naturally) flow into the room. Thus low-temperature heat taken from outside and used to increase the higher-temperature heat inside, which is different to what happens if you trap and move cold ''air'' into a warm room. Though perhaps it looks like that on first appearance, except for the colour-cues going all screwy. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.96|162.158.74.96]] 09:55, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
::::This all rather assumes that Randall came up with the comic in response to his immediate situation, rather than just musing generally and abstractly on heat pumps and the way they work.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.51|172.71.178.51]] 10:20, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
:he's actually heating it, the comic is set in winter. It's a reference to the discussion about regulating heating systems in Germany. I added something about that in the explanation, but I don't think I made the citation right [[User:Marta]] ([[User talk:Marta|talk]]) 05:25, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
::The citation does not appear to strongly relate to the comic to me. I might be curious if Randall had a lot of comics queued and actually published a winter one in the summer, for example. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.59.112|172.69.59.112]] 00:19, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
:::I agree, I think the Germany thing might probably be coincidental. Randall lives in North-Eastern America. It's unlikely, though quite possible, he was inspired enough by such foreign matters to base a comic on it. Still, you never know from whence inspiration may strike, in which case he published when he thought of it instead of when it'd be relevant... [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:40, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
::::News of this had not otherwise reached me over the German Ocean (i.e. North Sea), never mind where Randall is, way over the Pond (i.e. Atlantic). Not saying it wasn't a prominant bit of news, in his media feeds, but usually the problem is that something 'popularly heard about' state-side confuzzles anyone in (say) Europe/ex-Europe when used as inspiration for a comic without enough setup to it. Now, ''if'' say Penn./Mass. state legislature were being similarly proactive on such matters, I'd say it might be the cue for this. Otherwise, it might be better as an afterthough/Trivia instead of the lead-on paragraph. But I also don't know enough to know that it ''isn't'' worthy of such prominance, so this is just my thoughts, leaving others to alter it if they so wish... Anybody can do it, after all... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.96|162.158.74.96]] 09:55, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
:(I'm not to editing wikis) [[User:Marta]] ([[User talk:Marta|talk]]) 05:25, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
::Nearly right. Simple "insert URL" as a 'number' is single []s, or [<url><space>some text] to have it given linking text (preferable).
::Plus you seem to have not used the four tildes, i.e. <code><nowiki>~~~~</nowiki></code> to sign the above comment (made it correct, for you), plus confusingly replied ''before'' another reply (so I ''originally'' indented you a bit more, as well as it now having that timestamp to make precedence clear, but as soneone disliked the indentatiom I'm rearranging in 'threaded'-order).
::But these are all things you'll pick up, I'm sure, if you're going to be getting [used] to wikis... Welcome! [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.139|172.71.178.139]] 05:35, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Wasnt there a "My hobby is to open my refrigerator and when people tell me that doesnt help, I sneak into their house and use their AC?" Comic? I cant find it, but we should link it in the "how leaving a fridge open doesnt help" section [[Special:Contributions/172.71.142.158|172.71.142.158]] 23:36, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
:Sounds like Steven Wright, he has lots of those "my hobby is" jokes. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 13:29, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

I think it's talking about leaving the door open in general i.e. forgetting to close it when getting groceries, not specifically when he's moving the heat pump [[User:Firestar233|Firestar233]] ([[User talk:Firestar233|talk]]) 23:40, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

I can't think of a good reason to say this, but my new fridge doesn't warm up on the back. It warms on the sides. A bad (and quite a PITA reason) is I had to get a new fridge. Protip: don't panic, and do put the sacks of ice into something that won't leak. First time I've met a fridge that doesn't warm on the back.
Btw, red hot blue cold. Pink? Light blue? A light blue a pink? Shrug. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.43.31|172.70.43.31]] 23:57, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

How many trips would this take? I'll leave the exact parameters of the calculation up to you. (Nerd sniping attempt.) ~ Megan she/her [[user talk:megan|talk]]/[[special:contribs/megan|contribs]] 00:20, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
: 42. But stick figures are just lines and have no surface area for heat transfer.
[[Special:Contributions/172.70.134.236|172.70.134.236]] 01:02, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Currently, the explanation says you use a heat pump to "transfer heat from a relatively cold area to a relatively hot area". I don't know anything about the named "ideal gas law" in order to be sure enough to change this, but isn't that the wrong way around? If an area is ALREADY cold, why would anybody transfer heat FROM it? [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:49, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
:Let's say it's winter, and it's cold outside. It's warmer inside, but not as warm as you'd like it to be, so you need to warm it up. Where are you going to get the heat from? Traditionally you'd use a boiler to heat up water or electric coils, but these use lots of energy. A heat pump is more efficient, it moves some of the heat from the cold air outside to the inside. You need a pump because it won't move spontaneously -- heat always goes from warmer to colder areas. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 09:49, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
:: Let's NOT say it's winter, because it's summer. :) It seems horribly unlikely he'd publish a winter-themed comic in the summer (the BEGINNING of summer, when everyone in our region - mine and Randall's - has been patiently waiting for the summer weather). Anyways, it really DOESN'T make sense, being a cold area means there's a lack of heat, none to transfer. I would think a temperature pump/device that absorbs temperature can't pick and choose WHAT to absorb, if there's cold it would absorb cold. Like in a 10° environment it'll absorb 10° temperature, in 30° it'll get 30°, and it's combining it with the target area which will determine the effect it'll have. It being summer suggests this was meant the other way. Perhaps the person who was convinced this was related to the Germany thing swapped it, but the person who removed the Germany connection didn't notice to swap it back? [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:41, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
:::"... being a cold area means there's a lack of heat, none to transfer." - Only true if you're talking about O°K(/0°Ra). Otherwise what you have is less heat, but can still technically remove some of that heat to make it even lower. (By manipulating a substance though P1V1/T1=P2V2/T2 to make something with the same general heat have a reduced T2 so that Texternal will warm it/be cooled by it, before you bring it into a new environment and then make it revert to the new T1 that is warmer than Tinternal... for example.)
:::Assuming you're using Fahrenheit for 10° and 30°, how about I reframe your other bit in °C? "Like in a -12° environment it'll absorb -12° temperature, in -1° it'll get -1°" ... Temperature doesn't know where you're (semi-arbitrarily) setting your zero-mark. A device that can extract 10F° of 'temperature' from a 10°F atmosphere in the US would find itself forced only to ''add'' (approx) 12C° of 'temperature' from an otherwise identical atmosphere if operating in the UK/EU/most other places? No, it'll have the same warming/cooling power in both scenarios. It'll vary by what the temperature differential is (and where on the scale, as a change of 10 degrees (whatever scale) is not the same difference of energy as a subsequent onward change of 10 degrees (same scale), and a 4:9ish ratio of how you'd enumerate it in F or C (or Rankine or Kelvin), but it'll make unpleasant temperatures pleasant (or vice-versa) or store/cook your food at the right practical temperature in exactly the same way whether the thermostat displays in Celsius, Fahrenheit, Kelvin, Rankine, Réaumur, Rømer, Delisle or whatever unit...
:::As to whether he posted a winter-appropriate comic at (nearly) the peak of summer..? Confusing, but not necessarily a deal-breaker.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.44|141.101.98.44]] 13:40, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
::::You assumed incorrectly, as I would think you could guess by the numbers chosen. :) In actual fact I was talking Celsius, but avoiding specifying and trying to use numbers that would still make sense in Fahrenheit/both in case I'm talking to an American (I missed, really, as I'm pretty sure 30°F is still cold, with 10°C being chilly and 30°C is DAMN hot). The thing is, I don't know how Cueball's device works, it looks like it absorbs temperature HERE so he can release it THERE. For all I know it absorbs whatever temperature, hot OR cold. If he absorbs in a winter freezing storm and releases in a heated room, it seems like the temperatures would combine to result in the destination being cooler (in that case), which is all I was saying. True, scientifically the only lack of heat is 0K. You seem too focused on numbers, like you think I'm focusing on numbers. I'm not, I'm focusing on heat/cold, independent of what scale is being used to measure. I'm only using the numbers to communicate. I'm not talking scientific terms, I'm talking reality/effectively. If you bring a source of cold into a warm environment, it will get less warm (and the cold thing will warm, the temperature will equalize). The thing is, does this heat pump magically find heat to absorb in a cold environment, or is it (I feel more logically) absorbing the ambient temperature, no matter what it is?
::::Also, in all my experience with XKCD, it seems Randall usually sticks with his current situation. His random musings generally are on timeless subjects (the previous comic on messing with music has nothing to do with season or American events at this time, for example). If he gets specific, it's about the time and events around him and the release date. Like, I'd be equally confused about this being a winter comic or by him doing an eclipse comic when there are none approaching or recently. There's usually a connection. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:09, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
:::It would be correct if the device simply moved air from each side to the other, like a ventilation fan. Then the hot side cools down and the cold side heats up. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.118.110|172.68.118.110]] 18:08, 2 July 2023 (UTC)
:[edit conflict with the above reply, thus repetition, but as I was adding other stuff too...] It's fridge-logic! i.e., that's what fridges do... and if you're living in a cool climate, you can potentially heat your house above "too cold for indoors" temperatures by extracting heat from the "far too cold for indoors" air that is outside. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.96|162.158.74.96]] 09:55, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
:: I've always understood that fridges - refrigerators - applied refrigeration, as in applied cold to make it cold. Like keeping a powered ice cube in there. And the heat exuded out the back is a byproduct of all the power powering that cold takes. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:55, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
:::"Cold" is not a thing. It's a lack (or, rather, reduction) of heat. It was often considered a thing (because cold hard stuff like ice is more 'obviously a thing' than slippery water or frankly intangible stuff like steam) or looked at how things expanded/contracted against other things in a contrary direction to how they really related to each other. Early attempts to measure temperature used that assumption (prior to 1743, water boiled at 0°C, froze at 100°C, before they switched the defined limits; the archaic Delisle unit [i]still[/i] 'measures backwards') but then understanding dawned and hascsince been improved upon. Something at Absolute Zero is (rare/more a theoretical state than a lractical one! ...but, apart from that) not a source of cold but a sink to any nearby heat that happens to be currently radiating/conducting towards it.
:::Fridges move heat energy, as do all heat-pumps. In the fridge's case, you're interested in moving heat to cool one place (not too fussed about where the heat moves to, just outside the refrigerator/its freezer compartment). In an air/water/ground-source heat-pump used to warm an internal space you're bothered about where the heat goes far more than where it comes from (except for if you start to get ice on the cold end of the device, which reduces the efficiency in leaching the regular air/water/whatever) but very similar processes are used to do the basic movement (and the actual work needed to power the change adds a net energy output, in extra heat/noise/airflow/etc). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.44|141.101.98.44]] 13:40, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
::::As I said, I've been unaware fridges work by way of heat pumps, that there is ANY heat pumping going on. It has always seemed like they work by making the surfaces (back wall, top, maybe sides) cold, to cool the enclosed environment. I haven't studied fridges, so all I have is logic and observation. As for "Cold" not being a thing, in scientific terms you are correct. In practical terms (which is what I'm using) you are incorrect. If I pour a room-temperature drink over a pile of ice cubes, it will get colder. Scientifically what's happening is something like heat being dissipated or some such, but practically what happened is that cold was applied, bringing the drink's temperature down. THIS is what I'm saying I understood what happens in fridges (except that being electrically powered means the warm thing isn't also warming up the cold thing. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:09, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
:::::Pour room-temperature drink on ice-cubes, the ice-cubes are warmed (at the expense of the drink, which is now correspondingly less warm). Of course, an ice-cube that goes from -5°C to -1°C is still "a cold ice-cube", and there's specific heat capacity which varies according to the state of the matter (plus the whole enthalpy of fusion needing energy to cross over 0°C and melt them), but the lukewarm drink is more notably cool than the ice is warm because it's what is directly experienced by the drinker (as no longer being tepid, but potentially refreshing).
:::::The difference between ice-cooling and heat-pump cooling is that ice (outwith the freezer that created it) is a one-shot thing. It can equalise then does nothing more (you've just got a watery whisky, and personally I prefer it neat/as-poured anyway). The heat-pump uses a solid-state (peltier?) or closed-loop (refrigerant) mechanism to make one end of it cooler than the cool environment (heat energy goes towards that) and the warm end warmer than the warm environment (heat energy moves on out of that) without breaking the law that sould otherwise never allow the cool end to ''spontsneously'' give more jeat to the hot end than the hot would like to give to the cool end. Compression of a gas warms it (same heat, less volume, higher temperature), expansion of a gas cools it (same heat, more volume, lower temperature). Add the forcing of phase-change to the mix, in just the right way, and heat energy is made even more mobile (drawn in, radiated out, and transferable betwixt the two sides by advection/otherwise). [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.30|172.71.178.30]] 11:18, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
::::::Looks like you used a lot of words to say in detail the same thing I did, LOL! The thing is, my ice cube comparison isn't perfect, it was simply to illustrate what I was speaking of: the equalization of temperature by application of a source of cold. You mentioning watery drinks is rather off-topic, that's not actually a part of the temperature transfer, it's merely a side-effect of it, it's what happens when ice warms up. My point is that I was describing a "powered ice cube", i.e. one which remains immune to the temperature change, it doesn't get warmer, DOESN'T result in water, etc. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 03:53, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
:::::::"Powered Ice Cubes" do get warmer. You push power into them and the hot end (technically still part of the PIC) has to dissipate that power. As well as the heat equivalent to that absorbed by the cold end. If you assess the whole system, though, it's either a system of closed entropy where it stays the same on average (whilst shuffling the temperature gradients around 'internally') or the power you push into it from outside, to do the job of cooling some bits, ultimately has to come back out as extra heat/etc that the system never would have had otherwise. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.65|172.71.178.65]] 11:35, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Technically, it's not the ''ideal'' gas law in play, since air isn't an ideal gas, and the system would behave similarly for closer-to-reality gas behaviour models. But I can't think of a good way of modifying the article to reflect that. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 16:04, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Noting you could make hand-crank manual heatpumps that are much easier to use than the one depicted. If it’s doable it’s of meaning because a heatpump can be a big electricity draw, and sometimes electricity is not available. You could also connect a horse, waterwheel, or windmill to it. Making homemade windmills out of bicycle parts is a thing. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.59.147|172.69.59.147]] 20:03, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
:You can make a [https://hackaday.com/2016/08/25/a-refrigerator-cooled-by-rubber-bands/ rubber band heatpump] which works the exact opposite: rubber bands ''heat'' when stretched and ''cool'' when the force is released. This seems counterintuitive, but stretching is adding entropy (as is compressing a gas) and releasing the tension is bringing the entropy back to normal levels again (as is relasing the gas pressure). [[User:IIVQ|IIVQ]] ([[User talk:IIVQ|talk]]) 05:04, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
::The link is to a hand-crank fridge. The rubber bands are on a wheel, and get stretched/released depending on whether they are inside or outside of the fridge. The construction is quite similar to the comic. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.255.21|172.71.255.21]] 13:39, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Folks seem to be assuming that the red side is "indoors", and the blue side is "outdoors", but in my experience exterior doors tend to swing in, not out. The hinge pins on an outwards-swinging door can more easily be accessed, which makes an out-swinging door a poor choice as an exterior door. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.100.224|172.70.100.224]] 20:26, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
:But why would you have steps leading up to the door from the inside? [[User:Firestar233|Firestar233]] ([[User talk:Firestar233|talk]]) 21:55, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
:Many exterior doors open outwards as a matter of safety, especially emergency exits. It's not a big deal if only one or two people are expected to try to exit in event of an emergency, since whoever opens the door can probably take a step backwards to make way for the door. But if there's likely to be crowding at the door, there isn't room for it to swing inwards. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 22:28, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
::For sure he is trying to heat up his house. And yes many places doors open in, but not always, and specifically not in public buildings for safety as just mentioned. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:34, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
:::Given his obvious lack of grasp of the impracticality of the solution, maybe he's actually trying to cool down the outside.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.229|172.70.162.229]] 13:34, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
: Outward doors exist, though inward is most common. Basically, an outward door is more common than an indoors that is 2 steps down, and more common than an indoors that has steps right at the door. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:03, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Maybe not the intent of the comic, but it's interesting how the red/blue for temperature are also the political colors of the united states. After recent schisms, I imagine many people feel like they are walking between huge crowds of red->blue or blue->red slowly trying to build communication like an ant building an anthill grain by grain. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.255.21|172.71.255.21]] 13:39, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
:Interesting to note that Blue and Red are UK political colours (as they are elsewhere), but that here it is Labour (left-leaning, occasionally ''very'' left leaning) as red, Conservatives (right-leaning, occasionally ''very'' right leaning) as blue. Which always amuses me when I see Democrats (right of centre) and Republicans (so right of right of centre that it's not really funny any more) coloured how they are. Also, Libertarians aren't Liberals (UK: yellow, centre-ground fence-sitters), despite the similarity of name. About the only close match are the Greens (green!), but I think your lot might tend to being more militant than ours, at least the politically-inclined ones.
: Anyway, the colours are the usual colours. At least it's less confusing than taps labelled C(old) and H(ot) in the UK, but ''F(roid) et C(haud)'' in France, at least when you see only the "C" first. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.85|141.101.99.85]] 14:55, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
::Heh, that reminds me of my confusion as a kid when sometimes bathrooms would be labelled D and H (Damer/Herrer = ladies/gentlemen), and sometimes P and D (Piger/Drenge = girls/boys). [[User:Villemoes|Villemoes]] ([[User talk:Villemoes|talk]]) 12:12, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
::What you say is odd... As a Canadian AND someone uninterested in politics, I never know what Republicans and Democrats believe, and I never know what the hell "left" and "right" means - save for being opposite beliefs - or who is what. But I DO know Republicans and Democrats, one is "left" and one is "right", I just don't know which is which. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:26, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
:: Also, I'm born and raised in Quebec, where the H/C / C/F problem is worse: If the taps were made locally, they've been C/F, but if they're from the rest of North America (VERY common), they're H/C. LOL! It's STILL quite easy to get English ones at the renovation stores, AFAIK, I think it boils down to what language the decision-maker primarily speaks. AND! I've seen ones where they swapped sides - my shower for most of the 2000s, for example - so you can't even truly count on Cold being the one on the right, you need the letters. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:02, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Your parlance vary but to me a heat pump is a device that can heat or cool. (strangely, this would be easier to explain if I spoke of 'caloric' and coolth.' A heatpump is not an air conditioner except that it actually is when it wants to be: it can both move energy into a space and out of the space. Refrigerators only move energy out. Air conditioners only move energy out, (for the standard way to install them) the argue about summer and winter? Stop being silly. Here the outdoor temp has varied a lil in the past ten days. I think from a low of 45F (light jacket weather) to a high of 92 (uncomfortably warm). Here, to keep it comfortable inside at this time and (similar weather in the fall) I need to cool from about 3-7 pm and heat from about 3-9 am. If you live in a country that has rationing, my sympathies. "But apartment manager!! the toilet is frozen over!" "Yeah, doesn't matter. I can't turn the heat on until December 15." Sort of thing.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.130.86|172.70.130.86]] 00:17, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
:¿Que? You sound confused. And pumps (heat- or otherwise) needn't be bidirectional. Perhaps it's easier, even, with something slightly different like a peltier-effect system (with switchable power-flow) than to make a fully reversible source/sink set of radiators and compression/expansion chambers, on top of whatever you do to thaw frosting over of the cool-side, etc. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.25|172.70.86.25]] 01:04, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

1788: Barge

2023-06-22T18:55:28Z

172.71.178.65: Looks like it should have been a Talk addition, but also seems not worthwhile copying it back in there after I remove it from here...

{{comic
| number = 1788
| date = January 20, 2017
| title = Barge
| image = barge.png
| titletext = My life goal is to launch a barge into the air and have it land on one of Elon Musk's rockets.
}}

==Explanation==
This is another one of the "[[My Hobby]]" series, where [[Randall]] tells about a strange hobby. This one is depicted with three drawings illustrating the core concept, and explained in details in the caption.

The launch company {{w|SpaceX}} has developed a reusable rocket system, where the {{w|multi-stage rocket|first rocket stage}} is capable of landing back on either the launch pad or an {{w|autonomous spaceport drone ship}} after launch (See [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEr9cPpuAx8 this video] displaying both types of landing, from when the sea landing was successful the first time). The landing pads and ships are decorated with a "X" symbol from the SpaceX logo, with the center of the X being the desired landing spot.{{Citation needed}}

Randall imagines creating a similar-looking barge and placing it near the intended landing site, except his barge's platform would be hollow in the middle with only a sheet of paper supporting the part where the rocket would land. Since the paper is painted to look just like the real landing platform, the goal of this setup is presumably to trick a returning first stage rocket into falling into the sea. This is the same concept as the old {{w|trapping pit}}. If a rocket attempts to land on Randall's barge, it will quickly burn through the paper and fall through the hole.

There are several reasons why this setup would not work in real life. First, the rocket actually navigates to the landing site using GPS coordinates shared with the real barge. It does not use cameras to identify its landing site and will not recognize another barge based solely on a painted logo. Also, a wide area around the rocket's flight path would be restricted around the launch window due to safety concerns. Vessels that are not part of the official launch plan would not be allowed in the area. Even if the fake barge manages to enter the area and does not get removed by authorities, at most it will cause the launch to be canceled for the day.

This "my hobby" is probably the most destructive one so far, as it would result in the total loss of the first stage containing nine space rocket engines. The costs associated with buying and remodeling a barge would also likely make this the most expensive hobby, even disregarding the costs to others, though it could potentially be reused if it did not get destroyed by the falling rocket. This hobby seems more appropriate for [[Black Hat]], considering that he is a real [[classhole]], and goes to show that Black Hat is as much part of Randall's personality as [[Cueball]].

The title text plays on the incredible difficulty of landing a rocket on a barge. Reusing rockets like this is a feat that has only recently become possible, some 60 years after the launch of the first satellite {{w|Sputnik 1}}. SpaceX, founded by {{w|Elon Musk}}, was the first (and so far only) organization to do so successfully. {{w|Blue Origin}} is also currently testing reusable rockets and achieved [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNRs2gMyLLk landing their first stage] before SpaceX, albeit [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8c7RUjNFDo only on land and only with a sub-orbital rocket].

Thus Randall imagines an even more implausible idea of turning the scenario upside down and getting a barge to land on one of Elon Musk's rockets. That would be a spectacular feat of engineering, and the challenges it presents as well as its inherent irony appear to satisfy Randall so much that he would make it into one of his life goals. Launching a barge in the first place would be tremendously difficult - they are big, heavy and not very {{w|aerodynamic}}. Maneuvering it through the air precisely enough to come down on top of a rocket would be difficult as well. The barge (and probably the rocket) would have to be redesigned if the goal is a soft landing, otherwise the falling barge would certainly destroy the rocket and possibly itself.

This comic was published on the week following SpaceX's {{w|List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_Heavy_launches#2017|Iridium 1 mission}}, where the first stage of the rocket which delivered 10 satellites into orbit successfully landed on a barge near California. This was [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLz-M7pki7U filmed from the returning stage 1] and also [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78AxtAyW4Vo from further away]. More details of the launch are available [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8wy5sQ2JDE here]. It marked the seventh time SpaceX successfully landed and recovered its booster on a commercial mission.

==Transcript==
:[There is one panel in this comic with the main drawing at the bottom. Two smaller drawings are inserted above this drawing to explain the idea.]

:[The first insert shows a barge with no center and a large piece of paper with the SpaceX logo above the barge.]

:[The second insert shows the paper stretched over the hole.]

:[The main drawing at the bottom shows a cross-section of the barge in water, showing there is only water below the paper. Above the paper the large first stage, without the top part with the payload, of a reusable rocket is attempting to land on the paper on the SpaceX logo (not visible in this view). It is still so high above the fake barge that the exhaust fire below the rocket is nowhere near the paper.]

:[Caption below the panels:]
:My hobby: Hollowing out the center of a barge, stretching paper over the hole painted with the SpaceX logo, and leaving it floating offshore near launch sites.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:My Hobby]]
[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Elon Musk]]

2792: Summer Solstice

2023-06-22T00:51:14Z

172.71.178.65: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2792
| date = June 21, 2023
| title = Summer Solstice
| image = summer_solstice_2x.png
| imagesize = 238x373px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Then I'll start work on my lunar engines to line the Moon up with the ecliptic so we can have a solar eclipse every month (with a little wobble so they're not always on the equator.)
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE ENJOYER- Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT look directly at the sun, unless there's a total solar eclipse.}}

The {{w|summer solstice}} occurs when one of Earth's poles has its maximum tilt toward the Sun. Although the summer solstice is the longest day of the year for that hemisphere, the dates of earliest sunrise and latest sunset vary by a few days. This is because Earth orbits the Sun in an ellipse, and its orbital speed varies slightly during the year.

The caption says that Randall is working on a giant machine capable of adjusting the Earth's orbit. Either making it circular, or making the solstices match the days of closest or furthest distance from the Sun (perihelion or aphelion), would "fix" this so it wouldn't be so confusing.

The title text discusses {{w|solar eclipses}}, which occur when the Moon is directly between the Sun and Earth. Because of the tilt of the Moon's orbit to the {{w|ecliptic}} (the plane of the Earth's orbit, as ''sort of'' [[1878: Earth Orbital Diagram|demonstrated here]]), most of the times when it's in-between they're not in direct alignment, so the Moon's shadow misses the Earth and we don't get an eclipse. Randall's next project is an engine that will shift the Moon's orbit so it's not tilted so far and we get eclipses every month. But if it were exactly aligned with the ecliptic, eclipses would always be near the equator, so he'll leave a little wobbling so other areas will get eclipses too. Randall thinks solar eclipses are extremely cool, as noted in [[1880: Eclipse Review]].

==Transcript==

:[Cueball, Megan and White Hat are standing. Cueball and Megan have their arms raised.]
:Cueball: Happy summer solstice!
:Megan: Only six days until the latest sunset of the year!
:White Hat: ...Wait, what?

:[Caption below the panel:]
:When I finally finish building my giant engine capable of shifting the Earth's orbit, this is the first thing I'm fixing.

{{comic discussion}}

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

929: Speculation

2023-05-31T19:25:15Z

172.71.178.65: /* Explanation */ ...misedited that out of prior post.

{{comic
| number = 929
| date = July 25, 2011
| title = Speculation
| image = speculation.png
| titletext = 'I was pretty good at skeet shooting, but was eventually kicked off the range for catching the clay pigeons in a net and dispatching them execution-style.'
}}

==Explanation==
During a {{w|basketball}} game, the players discuss the nature of universal conformity. {{w|Facebook}} and {{w|Google+}} are competing {{w|social networks}}; at the time of this comic many people were switching to Plus over Facebook leading many to speculate that Facebook was in decline and that Plus would soon be the dominant social network. As of 2019, it seems that Facebook has successfully held its position as the Default Social Network™, while Google Plus was a colossal blunder for Google and was finally sunset for consumers in April 2019.
The two players seem to have a disagreement over this. One player states that it would be ridiculous to expect everyone to move to Plus. The other player denies the notion that they have to, stating that he values his personal preference over conformity. He supports this idea by saying that his mother still uses {{w|AOL}} and other people continue using {{w|IRC}} and that if each time a new dominant social network emerged and everyone switched to it, neither of these things would stick around.

They are interrupted when they pass the ball to [[Black Hat]], who immediately shoots it with a crossbow bolt. Their arguments and rather intelligent discussion are derailed by the absurdity of Black Hat's reaction, which is both humorous and puts the issue in stark contrast.

Black Hat neither joins in the discussion nor does he participate in the game. It seems that any offer to participate in either is met with a blunt and clear denial. He is simply not a conformist.

A possible explanation for the joke is that while tech geeks or Google enthusiasts might discuss whether the world will move from Facebook to Plus, a number of people might simply ignore the debate and "shoot" the discussion dead by just ignoring the existence of anything that isn't Facebook. Or even that of Facebook itself; Blackhat's attention appears to be on a phone, at least before and after having loosed the crossbow bolt, but there's no obvious clue here as to what he actually uses it for/with, at the time of this comic.

In the title text, Black Hat continues to provide an example of his tendency to play by his own rules. A clay pigeon is a clay disc that is thrown into the air and serves as a target on a {{w|skeet shooting}} range. Participants are expected to shoot the pigeons with a shotgun but Black Hat would rather capture the clay pigeons and shoot them from a very close range. (This is made even more humorous by the excellent crossbow skills he shows in the comic.) This practice eventually got him expelled from the shooting range. It is unclear whether Black Hat was good at shooting clay pigeons from farther away.

==Transcript==
:[Two Cueball-like guys are playing basketball. The right guy (Cueball) attempts to throw the basketball through the hoop, but it bounces off down to his friend. To the right Black Hat has his back to the other two while he is looking at his phone.]
:Friend: Do you seriously think ''everyone'' will move to Plus? It was hard enough getting them on Facebook.

:[The friend has caught the rebound and now passes the basketball back to Cueball. Black Hat is not shown.]
:Cueball: Do they have to?
:Cueball: My mom still uses AOL—it doesn't mean my social life has to happen there.

:[Only Cueball is shown. He passes the basketball to the right towards the off-panel Black Hat.]
:Cueball: Universal adoption isn't everything. I mean, IRC is still—

:[Zoom in on the basketball as a crossbow bolt pierces the ball, forming a slight depression.]
:''Thunk''

:[Cueball looks to Black Hat who has a crossbow in one hand, he is still looking at the phone in his other hand. The ball with the arrow lies between them.]
:Cueball: You're not really the "catch" type, are you?
:Black Hat: I am not.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Social networking]]
[[Category:Basketball]]
[[Category:Crossbows]]
[[Category:Sport]]

2772: Commemorative Plaque

2023-05-06T08:29:36Z

172.71.178.65: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2772
| date = May 5, 2023
| title = Commemorative Plaque
| image = commemorative_plaque_2x.png
| imagesize = 422x282px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = [Below] On this site on May 12th, 2023, I finally learned how to use the masonry bit for my drill.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a MASONRY BIT DONE BY DRILL - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
The narrator discovered that it is simple and inexpensive to have a commemorative plaque made, and so had a commemorative plaque made to record that event. This comic is similar to previous comics, such as [[2682: Easy Or Hard]]. The comic both indicates the lack of knowledge many people have about how simple or difficult it is to do a certain thing, and the over-the-top response a person might have to a relatively mundane discovery.

The comic was published on May 5, the holiday of {{w|Cinco de Mayo}}. The comic subverts an expectation that a plaque about May 5 would be to commemorate either the 1862 {{w|Battle of Puebla}}, which took place on May 5 and inspired the holiday, or, after the reader notices the year on the plaque, some 2023 event related to the holiday.

The hover text tells us that it was a week later when they learned out how to use a {{w|Drill_bit#Masonry_drill_bit|masonry bit}} to mount the plaque, there being some small but useful points of technique to be learnt when drilling into one or other of stone, brick, concrete or cement. It equates it being almost exactly as much deserving of a plaque as the very act of obtaining a plaque, and now a second one, to also have finally been able to properly attach it (them) to the chosen wall.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[A brick wall with a plaque on it.]

Plaque: On this site on May 5th, 2023, I realized that you could order custom commemorative plaques online that say whatever you want and it's not that expensive.
{{comic discussion}}

User talk:Unreliable Connection

2023-04-27T09:11:25Z

172.71.178.65: Remove 'spam?' and make all that came before as it should be, including de-unsigneding.

Do you want me to create your sandbox? [[User:ColorfulGalaxy|ColorfulGalaxy]] ([[User talk:ColorfulGalaxy|talk]]) 20:11, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

:Please create my user page and sandbox, and don't forget [[User:Memo Spike Connector]]. [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 23:43, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

::I've created them both. Anyway, thanks for your kind reminder. [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 09:42, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

:The page that you're in charge of got spam edits again. [[User:ColorfulGalaxy|ColorfulGalaxy]] ([[User talk:ColorfulGalaxy|talk]]) 21:12, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

:Uh, They seem to know when I'm usually active, and spammed when I'm inactive, maybe just to annoy others. I always worked late. [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 23:54, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
::Look guy(s), the spammers have been spamming long before you "took charge". Your work-hours matter not one jot, even if we knew your timezone, and the community handles it as it always tries to. I will deal with anything I see 'spammed', if not dealt with by others before I get there, and you can deal with anything that you see before anyone else gets there. Whether UC, CG, OMG or any other 'normal'. (Though OMG is clearly the same person as CG. If, by some remote chance, they are not, one of them is also UC; but very probably both are.) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.86|172.71.242.86]] 11:37, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
:::And Look ''guy(s)''. You Have Already Been Tricked. Did you know about the email with CG's name on it? Y'no, I'm jealous of him, so I was gonna do a trick. [[User:Omg Oriental Music Group|Omg Oriental Music Group]] ([[User talk:Omg Oriental Music Group|talk]]) 23:03, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

'''DELETED COMMENT''' [[User:ColorfulGalaxy|ColorfulGalaxy]] ([[User talk:ColorfulGalaxy|talk]]) 21:26, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

:Thanks for encouraging. I will do better. [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 23:52, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Could you create my user page? [[User:Omg Oriental Music Group|Omg Oriental Music Group]] ([[User talk:Omg Oriental Music Group|talk]]) 09:34, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

:What are you going to do? [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 09:35, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

I want to put the lyrics in the sandbox into my user page sandbox. By the way, could you contact the author for the minor fix to the lyrics? [[User:Omg Oriental Music Group|Omg Oriental Music Group]] ([[User talk:Omg Oriental Music Group|talk]]) 09:36, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

:There is a lot of discussion about the lyrics going on in the portal. That's the place where I posted a math problem (sadly they removed it). Some people said that the lyrics were lousy. There are a lot of obscure words. I'm no linguist, really. I hope that the debate won't continue here. [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 09:42, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

::See what the "author" said: http://puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/120234/a-message-of-encouragement --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.158.231|172.71.158.231]] 09:44, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

:::So this means that the only one left would be "Donald ATG Trump", which isn't active at all. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.228|172.71.154.228]] 09:47, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

== Predict the next comic ==

Let's try to predict what will come next on the xkcd comics. [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 23:53, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

:What about music staff?

==Lyrics==

You're not going to create a sandbox for me, so I'll temporarily put it here.

? — [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 03:43, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

You made the page almost take forever to load. [[User:ClassicalGames|ClassicalGames]] ([[User talk:ClassicalGames|talk]]) 08:51, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Please stop talking about the lyrics. Several other people has gotten angry. I can't trust you, because you kept doing something suspicious and you sound like a scammer. [[User:Memo Spike Connector|2503: Memo Spike Connector]] ([[User talk:Memo Spike Connector|talk]]) 00:51, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

== When the bot failed ==

Please read [[User:DgbrtBOT|this page]] before creating a new comic page. Your edit had puzzled the bot too much. [[User:ClassicalGames|ClassicalGames]] ([[User talk:ClassicalGames|talk]]) 08:51, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Thank you very much. [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 09:00, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

== Birthday ==
It happened that my birthday is the day immediately after yours. And our last names are almost spelled the same. [[User:Memo Spike Connector|2503: Memo Spike Connector]] ([[User talk:Memo Spike Connector|talk]]) 06:12, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

It seems that we have a lot in common. [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 09:06, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

:Our birthdays all fall in the same month. [[User:Missed Connections|935: Missed Connections]] ([[User talk:Missed Connections|talk]]) 23:43, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
::You're not fooling anyone and, with messages like the above, it seems you don't care. Do what you do, and if it's not contrary to the site ethos/good practice then it's tolerable (whether or not it's annoying). But there's really no need to 'fake' different personæ. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.161|172.70.162.161]]
::PS. "Blanked the page", as an edit explanation, is not only inaccurate but it's also your attempt to hide awkward details from the more casual viewer. Surely you're not brazen enough to make it obvious, yet shy enough as to really not want to be called out on it? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.191|172.71.242.191]] 11:06, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
::PPS. Don't try to comment this out, either, you who are sometimes needlessly pretending to be the personification of various comics. I will not accept your authority on this matter. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.67|172.70.85.67]] 09:16, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
::The comic will come back and swear at you if you keep skepticizing. There is too much skepticism. It looks like few people believe in fictions. {{unsigned ip|172.69.22.213|22:54, 26 April 2023})

== Transcript ==
If this page was copied did you not remove the incomplete transcript tag? Its complete! Do your part!

:Thanks for reminding. [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 07:13, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

2766: Helium Reserve

2023-04-24T18:03:21Z

172.71.178.65: /* Explanation */ Neatening up an already extensive side-note, in leiu of a complete re-write.

{{comic
| number = 2766
| date = April 21, 2023
| title = Helium Reserve
| image = helium_reserve_2x.png
| imagesize = 347x253px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The government has been trying to sell off the Federal Helium Reserve for a few years now, but the sale has been on hold while they try to figure out how to explain this situation to buyers.
}}

==Explanation==

The {{w|National Helium Reserve|Strategic National Helium Reserve}} is a reserve of helium in the United States, which holds more than 1 billion cubic meters of helium. Apparently, in this comic, [[Cueball]] was hired to manage the Reserve, and due to the fact that the caption says that he can not explain anything out loud, it can be inferred that he used all of it by repeatedly inhaling the helium supply, so speaking would instantly give away where the helium has gone since the helium would make his voice squeaky.

Another much more realistic but admittedly less funny explanation is that Cueball didn't use up all the helium frivolously: helium is lighter than air, and once released into the atmosphere, it escapes into space and can never be recovered. A major leak in the Reserve would simply mean that all the helium is lost, and if it happened under Cueball's watch, he'd have to be held responsible -and it is hard to find materials Helium doesn't leak through at an astonishing rate. Firms that try to earn money by transporting heavy cargo using dirigibiles (the successful transportion of an aeroplane wing, a wind turbine or any other large item where the roads are too narrow might be worth considerable amounts of money to those with the means to do so) often fail due to the costs associated with of helium leakage.

The title text addresses the real-world privatization of the Reserve, first selling off the helium itself and then the sale of the storage facility. This has been a drawn out process because of political disagreements, however the title text implies the simpler explanation that the government has also been inhaling the helium.

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

:[An officer wearing a peaked cap is talking to Cueball. There is a "National Strategic Helium Reserve" building in the background.]
:Officer: You were in charge of guarding the national helium reserve. So where did it go?!

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Unfortunately, there's no good way for me to answer this question out loud.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Characters with hats]]

2765: Escape Speed/Transcript

2023-04-24T14:49:18Z

172.71.178.65: Caveat. At least in my experience (unnecessary on my large tablet, but far too awkward to avoid happening automatically)

Below, you will find a '''complete transcript''' for [[2765: Escape Speed]].

:[An interactive comic featuring a large space with many planets and objects, navigable by a small spaceship. The ship is affected by the gravity of the planets and objects, and controllable by arrow keys. The up arrow activates the main engine, adding forward speed; the down arrow activates reverse (bow) trusters. Left and right arrows activate trusters which rotate the spaceship. The playing field features collectible items (small gray circles) and powerups (grey star-shaped items). After picking up most collectibles, its name is added to the "You've found" list below the playing field; unless you are viewing a mobile-device version, where the playing area is optimised to full-screen. The player can return to the starting position (keeping all powerups and collected items) by clicking the Home button in the bottom right of the playing field.]

*Starting planet

:[A tiny grassy planet with a few trees and bushes and four collectibles. Cueball and Megan are standing together. Beret Guy points his arm up.]
:Beret Guy: WOW!
:[There's a collectible right up from the starting position (shows a message only and is not reflected in the "You've found" list)]
:WHEEEE!
:[A collectible in the grass clockwise from the starting position]
:You've found a cool bug!
:[A collectible up a tree]
:You've found a pretty leaf!
:[Another collectible just off the surface]
:You've found a rock with neat stripes!

*Origin planet

:[The planet has vegetation and features several people, landscape objects and collectibles, and it has a shaft through the center. The planet is hard to leave without any powerups, unless one uses the shaft to gain more momentum by thrusting while moving through the center. The features of the planet include (clockwise):]
:[A billboard]
:Welcome to Origin! You can never leave™

:[A rollercoaster with a duck sitting on it. At the middle of it there's a (hidden) entrance to the shaft. There's a collectible item above.]
:Be careful; this roller coaster can be disorienting! ''(message only)''
:[A billboard to the right of the rollercoaster]
:Caution: Long vertical drop

:[A spider figure; going straight up from there you can reach the Giant Spider planet]

:[A radiotelescope; going up you can reach Voyager 1(?)]
:Receiving transmission

:[Cueball and White Hat]
:White Hat: I bet the voyager spacecraft could teach you a thing or two about speed. Of course, you'd have to catch up to them first...

:[A cell tower with 5G antennas and the satellite from xkcd comic 1992: Safety sat on top. There's a collectible next to it.]
:You've found a 5G seagull!

:[A tyrannosaurus, Ponytail and Cueball standing next to a St. Louis Arch-shaped hole in the ground]
:[A strange object]
:[A pyramid with a football on top; leads to the Space Soccer Game planet]
:[Ponytail sitting on top of a pyramid, Megan standing at the base of it]
:Ponytail: If you want a better spaceship, you need to visit another planet.

:Megan: But if I want to visit another planet, I need a better spaceship!

:[A pyramid with Saturn on top; leads to the Saturn]
:[Cueball and White Hat]
:Cueball: I can't believe the Air and Space Museum's new exhibit has a real black hole!
:White Hat: Is that... safe?
:Cueball: It's OK, they've got a protective case around it.

:[A few clouds]
:[A recess in the ground with a monument shaped as Earth continents in a hyperelliptical projection. Hairy is standing next to it.]
:Hairy: Even if you did find a crack in the crystal sphere, there's no way you'd be able to escape its gravitational pull. You'd need some kind of a hyperdrive for that.

:[A spaceship from xkcd comic 2630: Shuttle Skeleton. Going up from there you can reach Shuttle Skeleton planet.]
:[St. Louis Arch. There's a hidden entrance to the tunnel under it; launching from the tunnel you can reach the Hollow planet. An intelligible sign is posted next to it. To the right Ponytail stands with three kids looking like Hairy, Megan and Cueball.]
:Ponytail: The St. Louis Arch is also known as the gateway to space.

:[A strange object (possibly marking direction to the Roche Lobe Earth)]
:[A small building and a strange tower with a spiked orb on top and two collectibles next to it, one close to the tower top, another one hidden at the base on the right side.]
:You've found an orb wren!
:You've found 11 squares packed into a larger square!

:[Hairbun and another person; launching from there you can reach the What if? planet]
:Hairbun: Boston? That's in North America, on the Subway planet. It's straight up from the secret glade, you can't miss it.

:[A grassy area with two collectibles]
:You've found a tumbleweed!
:You've found a marsh wren!

:[A quintet of hairy and bearded people playing and singing]
:It's more than a feeling 
:More than a feeling

:[A collectible high off the surface right to the band]
:You've found a tiny meteorite! ''(message only)''

:[Another collectible higher off (reachable only after you visit another planet and find engine pwoerup)]
:You've found a single grain of salt!

:[A spiral on a pedestal; going straight up from there leads you to the Uzumaki aka the Spiral planet]
:[A radiotelescope; going up you can reach Voyager 2(?)]
:Receiving transmission

:[Cueball and Megan]
:Megan: it's like my astronomy teacher always said: "Shoot for the Moon -- even if you miss, you might make a crack in the crystal sphere that imprisons us all in this universe."

:[A collectible clockwise from Megan]
:You've found a holographic Charizard business card!

:[A patch of trees and bushes]
:A bush: SHHH.

:[A collectible between two lower trees next to the talking bush; launching from there you can reach the Subway planet.]
:You've found a secret glade!
:[Another collectible hidden up a large tree next to the secret glade]
:You've found a normal-looking leaf!

:[In the center of the planet there's a round hollow with a collectible in the exact middle]
:Welcome to liminal space! ''(message only)''
:[Next to the hollow there's a cave with another collectible]
:You've found a DVD of The Core (2003)!
:[In the cave there's Megan, her hair flying around her head in the microgravity]
:Megan: The Oberth effect states that firing thrusters deeper in a gravity well adds more kinetic energy.

:[Applying the above hint from Megan, you can launch high above the St. Luis Arch to reach a star-shaped powerup]
:Nice flying! Your tanks recharge faster now.

:[Launching like that you can reach the Hollow planet]

*Hollow planet

:[The planet is just a crust with a few holes through which you can fall into the center. Near the center, Ponytail and White Hat fly in micorgravity.]
:White Hat: It's weird how a hollow shell doesn't exert gravitational force on objects inside it.
:Ponytail: Oh, so '''that's''' why we don't feel a pull from the crystal sphere.

:[Next to White Hat and Ponytail there's a powerup]
:You've found a sixth Lagrange point! Your thrusters are more efficient now.

:[On the surface of the Hollow planet there's a bunch of signs with arrows pointing up and the names of the planet which lay in this direction. These are (clockwise):]
:Origin and Subway
:Earth (compromise projection)
:Round planet
:Exit
:Uzumaki

:[There's a powerup between "Round planet" and "Exit" signs]
:You've found a glass of heavy water! Your engine gets a bit more powerful.

*Round planet

:[A planet without any vegetation but with some architecture and people on it. It's features are (clockwise):]
:[The Great Wall of China]
:[Two small figures of Megan and Cueball on the Great Wall]
:Cueball: The Great Wall of China is the only Human-made structure toy can see space from.

:[A few stones with a collectible and powerup above them]
:You've found a sensible cheese platter. Your tanks recharge a bit faster now.

:[The Stonehenge with a collectible between megaliths and Cueball standing next to it]
:You've found a swatch pop-out wristwatch!

:[Hairbun walking on absurdly high stilts]

:[Three spaceships flying just above the surface. The leading one transmits a message:]
:Rogue group, use your harpoons and tow cables! Go for the legs!

:[A powerup just above the middle ship]
:Your engine gets a bit more powerful.

:[A volleyball net. Cueball is jumping in the air to hit a volleyball on the right side on the net while Ponytail is juggling three bowling pins on the left side.]

:[An airplane towing a long, narrow banner with a message printed across]
:Does any one know how to get this thing to print in land scape mode?

:[Beret Guy climbing a 5G tower with some fruit(?) hanging off the antennas. Cueball is standing next to it.]

:[A small volcano cone]

:[Huge gallows with a large flag on a pole hanging on it. The pole of the flag is twisted into a shape partly resembling an infinity sign; the loose and of the pole pierces the flag. A relatively large Cueball figure stand next to it.]

*Shuttle Skeleton planet

:[A small planet shaped like a spaceship from xkcd comic 2630: Shuttle Skeleton]
:[A powerup next to left-hand engine]
:A little upgrade works wonders on fuel efficiency. Your thrusters are more efficient now.
:[A collectible at the tip of the ship's bow]
:You've found a piece of space shuttle food!

{{DEFAULTSORT:2765}}
[[Category:Comic subpages]]

2761: 1-to-1 Scale

2023-04-12T10:52:18Z

172.71.178.65: /* Explanation */ Best summary I can make.

{{comic
| number = 2761
| date = April 10, 2023
| title = 1-to-1 Scale
| image = 1_to_1_scale_2x.png
| imagesize = 444x281px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = There's a version that shows the planets with no cropping, but it's hard to find a display that supports it.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a DISPLAY THAT SUPPORTS THE PLANETS WITH NO CROPPING - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic supposedly shows what each planet would look like at 1:1 scale, which would mean at real size. However, because a minuscule portion of each planet is visible on the page at that scale, it becomes comically useless at distinguishing the size or relative size of each planet, and each planet is just a differently textured straight line.

To understand the diagram, imagine that all eight planets have been drawn close to each other with just a tiny spot of the sky visible between them. The planets have been drawn so it is possible in this small 1:1 image to see all eight planets edges. Space is the black polygon in the center, with Earth the top white segment. The reason why each planet is so smooth is because it's such a small area of each planet: you're only seeing a couple of square inches of the surface of each of the planets, and even though they are all round, the curvature would be invisible on this scale. The four Gas giants are completely flat, whereas the four rocky planets display features, most notably on Earth where grass is visible.

That it cannot have been an image of the real planets aligning is clear, as Mercury can be shown to be in front of Jupiter (implying that the latter is in the part of its orbit beyond the Sun), yet Jupiter obscures Earth (which necessitates that it be in the arc of orbit ''nearest'' any given observer). In the title text it is made clear that this is just a small part of a larger drawing, so this is not an image taking from far away – they are only placed this way for scale.

The title text remarks that it is hard to find a display that supports a version of the image without cropping. This is because a true 1:1 scale image showing each of the planets would be ridiculously large[https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/1164/how-big-is-the-solar-system/], larger than any monitor or display currently available on Earth (since it would be much larger than Earth, in fact it would would have to be larger than Jupiter, to depict 1:1).

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|The main panel itself is missing explanation. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[A frame with a central area of black 'space', bounded at various intersecting angles by eight 'straight lines' representing planetary surfaces, originating from various out-of-frame angles of 'down' and the white of some bodies obscuring some part of the others.]
:[There are labels indicating which line represents each planet.]
:[The four gas-giants' lines are simply drawn, near straight and featureless.]
:[The lines for the rocky inner-planets have variations to them, stereotypical of some part of their surface.]
:[The "Earth" line ('down' being out the top of the frame) has a profile indicating various small-scale vegetation and also features the white sillouette of an ant that may be of a realistic size for your display.]
:[Caption below the panel:]
:The solar system's planets at 1:1 scale

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category: Space]]
[[Category:Comics_with_inverted_brightness]]

Talk:2759: Easily Confused Acronyms

2023-04-06T09:49:09Z

172.71.178.65:

Comic 1937 also features misinterpretation of acronyms. [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 03:59, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

.... i am gonna need a cetation on that bit about Archimedes. Does anyone have one? I don't doubt the veracity of the statement, but we have standards around here! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.143|162.158.154.143]] 06:14, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

: ''On the Equilibrium of Planes'' (Ancient Greek: Περὶ ἐπιπέδων ἱσορροπιῶν, romanized: perí epipédōn isorropiôn) is a treatise by Archimedes in two volumes. The first book contains a proof of the law of the lever ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Equilibrium_of_Planes ) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.246.60|172.71.246.60]] 07:05, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

The wikipedia page for LEVER is not working. I think it's case sensitive. [[User:N-eh|N-eh]] ([[User talk:N-eh|talk]]) 06:31, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

: fixed. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.86.200|162.158.86.200]] 07:15, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Somebody posted a link to Comic 1937 by mistake and I made an edit to the page about San Diego and The Scrabble. Coincidentally, The new comic was also about acronyms. Incredible. [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 09:10, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Do we need a category about acronyms? There's [[1341: Types of Editors]], [[1460: SMFW]], and today's comic, and there may be more. [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 09:22, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

xkcd = '''X'''ight '''K'''mplification by the '''C'''imulated '''D'''mission of radiation --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.140|162.158.154.140]] 09:29, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

LEVER is an acronym - Light Electric Vehicle Education and Research, [https://www.micromobilityresearch.com apparently].[[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.65|172.71.178.65]] 09:49, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

2754: Relative Terms

2023-04-03T13:26:26Z

172.71.178.65: /* Explanation */ Reference size as variety (and age)

{{comic
| number = 2754
| date = March 24, 2023
| title = Relative Terms
| image = relative_terms_2x.png
| imagesize = 425x442px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Small sewing machines are sewing machines that are smaller than a sewing machine. A sewing machine is larger than a small sewing machine, but quieter than a loud sewing machine.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT THAT IS LARGER THAN A BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
The terms "small" and "big" are used to refer to size; the terms "loud" and "quiet" are used to refer to (audial) volume. While these terms are relative, they are often used even when there is nothing obvious being compared against (e.g. "A windmill is a big thing" or "An ant is a small thing").

This comic humorously suggests that the item defined to be in the middle of all four terms ("neither small nor big; neither quiet nor loud") is a sewing machine, as a sewing machine seems (at least in comparison to the other items on the graph) to be neither particularly big nor particularly small; neither particularly quiet nor particularly loud. A standard sewing machine is roughly 60dB in volume and approximately 42” X 21”, although this is for industrial machines, and those in the home (table-top electric models) would be both smaller and quieter. More antique treadle-powered sewing machines might include the treadle-table, as an integral part of its size, but could be even quieter if kept well-maintained.

As the reference point, the sewing machine is placed in the center of the chart, while a selection of other example objects are located in the four quadrants around it, based on whether they are considered to be small or big, and loud or quiet. Many of the items might appear to have been placed in the wrong quadrant for their actual attributes; locations may reflect more how Randall generally thinks of these things, as opposed to others' subjective ideas of their real-life relationship to a sewing machine.

Other references that could be placed in the center, from everyday life, could be the average adult human (the perspective from which people might measure other things), a bread-bin/box (a popular comparison {{w|breadbox#As a saying|in certain situations}}) or even something like "the size of a large/small/medium-sized dog" (which highly depends upon a shared reference of which breeds are commonly encountered), all things that are often encountered. A sewing machine may once have been found in many homes, but some of the comic's comedic value may arise from the relative rarity in modern times.

The title text is humorously tautological because it compares the standard against those things that are themselves defined against the standard.

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Small and quiet (upper left)
|-
! Item !! Description
|-
| Ant || Randall has used ants as a small comparator in [[2733:_Size_Comparisons|a previous comic]] on the topic of comparisons.
|-
| Balloon || A party balloon is quite loud when it pops, or if someone 'squeaks' it by rubbing; a hot-air balloon is big enough to carry a few humans, and the burner can be surprisingly loud.
|-
| Book || Books are typically sized to be handheld, and thus smaller than a sewing machine, though some very large books do exist.[https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/longest-book-in-the-world-impossible-to-read-180980814/#:~:text=At%2021%2C450%20Pages%2C%20the%20Longest,World%20Is%20Impossible%20to%20Read&text=Artist%20Ilan%20Manouach%20bound%20together,the%20commodification%20of%20comic%20books.] Similarly, books are associated with quiet activity, making no more sound than a quiet turning of a page in typical use, but could make a very loud bang if slammed shut on thrown forcefully on to a hard surface.
|-
| Bun (rabbit or pastry) || "Bun" is an informal term for a rabbit and a loaf of bread; a comparison between the two was made in [[1871: Bun Alert]]. While {{w|Flemish_Giant_rabbit|some rabbits}} may reach the size of a small dog or a child, and specially baked items for promotional activity or record attempts may exceed the size of a sewing machine, both would typically be smaller. However, while bread, even when being eaten, is usually very quiet, rabbits can make a large amount of noise that is at odds with their common image.
|-
| Butterfly || Butterflies are used as an exemplar of something small, unnoticeable and seemingly insignificant in the metaphor of the Butterfly Effect.
|-
| Hat ||
|-
| Mouse || A mouse is a very small, quiet animal. This might also be a reference to the expression "quiet as a mouse", meaning very quietly.
|-
| Newt ||
|-
| Pin drop || The expression "hear a pin drop" is used to indicate that an area is exceptionally quiet; the idea is that the space is so silent that even something as insubstantial and tiny as a pin can be heard hitting the ground.
|-
| Snow globe || A {{w|snow globe}} is much smaller than a sewing machine. Some snow globes have a small music box that can be wound up to play a melody. Snow globes without a music box are silent.
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Small and loud (upper right)
|-
! Item !! Description
|-
| Baby || Babies are usually considered small, and can be quite loud when they cry.
|-
| Blender || Blenders make a lot of noise when in use. Most household blenders are smaller than a sewing machine.
|-
| Cricket || Given that it is in the small/loud quadrant, this would refer to the insect, which is pretty small and can be quite loud; the sport of cricket or a cricket game would be much larger (though potentially much louder).
|-
| Fire alarm || The primary purpose of a fire alarm is to notify people of fire, so fire alarms are usually very loud, but ideally take up little space.
|-
| Firecracker || A {{w|Firecracker}} is a small explosive firework that makes a very loud bang when lit.
|-
| Flute || An example of a small musical instrument that can nevertheless be audibly quite dominant.
|-
| Harmonica || See Flute.
|-
| Popcorn || A snack that is known for being annoyingly loud in a cinema setting. However, this is largely due to the otherwise low volume environment, and arguably a sewing machine might be equally or more annoying. Also, some helpings of popcorn in some cinemas may actually be larger than a sewing machine.
|-
| Songbird ||
|-
| Whistle || This is of course a device known as a whistle, as these are small. The human act of whistling, or a whistle produced by, for example, a kettle, has no size (other than that of the whistler or whistling object). A whistle is used as an alert or signal, or could be another musical instrument (see Flute). The loudest human whistle ever recorded was 8372 Hz and roughly 110 DB, which is a C9 in the standard musical scale and is roughly as loud as a jackhammer[https://www.vnews.com/West-Lebanon-man-sets-a-world-record-for-whistling-24480844#:~:text=Guinness'%20website%20says%20Stanford%20reached,in%20the%20standard%20musical%20notation.]. Since a whistle should be able to beat this it must be seen as loud.
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Big and quiet (lower left)
|-
|-
! Item !! Description
|-
| Anaconda ||
|-
| Giraffe || Giraffes can be quite loud, but they usually vocalise using frequencies well below the range of human hearing. So, to a human, giraffes are quiet.
|-
| Northern lights || "In 2016, a Finnish study confirmed that the Aurora Borealis does produce a sound that can be heard" [https://www.techexplorist.com/listen-sound-aurora-borealis/47421/]
|-
| Shark || When people think of sharks, they typically envisage something large and dangerous, yet eerily silent as they swim (up until entering a feeding frenzy), like a {{w|Great_white_shark|great white}}. However, sharks come in a large variety of sizes, often {{w|Dwarf_lanternshark|considerably smaller}} than a sewing machine.
|-
| Statue || A stereotypical statue is a large piece of public art, intended to be viewed from afar, which would be larger than a sewing machine – even discounting the plinth or {{w|Statue of Abraham Lincoln (Lincoln Memorial)|other}} {{w|Nelson's Column|bases}}; however, there is no easily agreed lower size limit for when a statue becomes a statuette, figurine, bust or merely a carved/cast ornament, as any smaller examples of figurative art could be considered statues in a given situation. Famous and major examples do tend to be life-sized (or larger-than-life-sized) depictions of people, sometimes even depicted atop horses, making them significantly larger; even fractional-scale depictions could be easily of greater size than this comic's reference item.
Most statues are silent, but some may be plumbed in as fountains. Or occasionally equipped with other devices that make sound. There is also "musical statues" being a {{w|party game}}, that can be intermittently loud and quite large.
|-
| The Moon || The Moon is very, very big{{fact}}, but it is also completely silent{{fact}} from the perspective of most humans, since sound cannot travel through the vacuum of space.
|-
| Tree ||
|-
| Windmill || Windmills need to have significant height in order to catch enough air movement to drive them. They are thought of as quiet, relative to other forms of power generation; in reality, though, the passage of the blades through the air can cause considerable noise, as can [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzwqBgWKalI the machinery that they drive].
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Big and loud (lower right)
|-
! Item !! Description
|-
| Airplane ||
|-
| Cannon ||
|-
| Riding mower ||
|-
| [[wikipedia:Calliope_(music)|Steam calliope]] || A large musical device which functions by sending steam (or more recently compressed air) through attached whistles.
|-
| Train ||
|-
| Tuba ||
|-
| Volcano || Lower right corner. Volcanic eruptions can be extremely loud. The {{w|1883 eruption of Krakatoa}} made a pressure wave of 180 dB, the loudest sound ever recorded.
|-
| Waterfall ||
|-
| Whale ||
|}

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

:[A chart, with "Quiet" to "Loud" on the X-axis, and "Small" to "Big" on the Y-axis. It is split into four quarters, with "Sewing machine" in the center.]

:[Upper left quadrant (Small & Quiet items):] Butterfly, Pin drop, Mouse, Ant, Bun (rabbit or pastry), Snow globe, Newt, Balloon, Book, Hat

:[Upper right quadrant (Small & Loud items):] Popcorn, Cricket, Songbird, Whistle, Baby, Harmonica, Flute, Fire alarm, Blender, Firecracker

:[Lower left quadrant (Big & Quiet items):] Shark, Tree, Anaconda, Giraffe, Statue, Windmill, Northern lights, The Moon

:[Lower right quadrant (Big & Loud items):] Tuba, Riding mower, Cannon, Airplane, Train, Waterfall, Steam calliope, Whale, Volcano

:[Caption below the panel:]
:''Big'', ''Small'', ''Loud'', and ''Quiet'' are relative terms. The thing they're relative to is a sewing machine.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Aviation]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Buns]]
[[Category:Sharks]]
[[Category:Music]]
[[Category:Volcanoes]]
[[Category:Food]]

Talk:118: 50 Ways

2023-03-21T09:42:20Z

172.71.178.65: Edits for the sake of edits? Problematically named 'new user' followed by an anon-IP trying to justify itself?

Might there also be a cultural reference to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? In the books, characters can learn to hover or fly by perfecting the art of managing to miss the ground when falling.
[[User:Gleyshon|Gleyshon]] ([[User talk:Gleyshon|talk]]) 01:04, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
: You are so right, perhaps the key is 42, lets try to use it to figure out ultimate questions around us, such as what doesn't make since to us as society as a whole? - [[Special:Contributions/98.211.199.84|98.211.199.84]] 13:58, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

The date of this one seems to be wrong. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.80.120|141.101.80.120]] 12:01, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
:It is right now. (Not by me). [[User:Beanie|Beanie]] ([[User talk:Beanie|talk]]) 20:55, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Talk:2749: Lymphocytes

2023-03-16T12:40:35Z

172.71.178.65:

Battery cells have nothing to do with cell phones. The "cell" in cell phone is short for "cellular" and refers to the communication cells around each tower. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 03:09, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

: And that's short for "sell you our phone" where the contract lets you buy it over an extended time that ends about the same time the spiffier replacement model is available. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.209|172.69.70.209]] 10:42, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

I was originally thinking the CD4+ would be a reference to ''Call of Duty 4'' and onwards, in which players scream (insults?) at each other while playing. But the feeling has subsided, after considering it. Mentioning it here, though, in leiu of adding it as 'factual'. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.47|172.70.162.47]] 06:06, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

It should have bee Natural Born Killer Cells, but some opportunities were always going to be missed... --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.187|172.71.178.187]] 07:16, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

"Gamma-Delta T cells" being "unknown/unclassified" could be a reference to Star Trek, which has the galaxy divided into 4 quadrants: Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta. The Delta Quadrant (setting of Start Trek Voyager) and the Gamma Quadrant (seen in Start Trek Deep Space Nine) are unexplored and uncharted from the Federation's point of view. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.129.51|162.158.129.51]] 09:23, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
:Doesn't say "unclassified" but "classified". I don't think the Star Trek quadrants are referred to as "classified". [[User:Inquirer|Inquirer]] ([[User talk:Inquirer|talk]]) 02:29, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
:I had in mind just general "above Top Secret" classifications (or reputed ones) like "Omega Level, Burn before reading" or somesuch. Either that or perhaps 'Greek system' fraternities/sororities and secret societies in general (perhaps there's a Gamma-Delta-Tau, or similar, out there) which seem to be a US cultural thing that seems ripe for Randall to spoof about.
:Bear in mind that he's taking (mostly) real naming conventions and just explaining them funnily (hence why not "Natural Born Killer" cells, mentioned above, which was my first thoughts on reading as well), so shoehorning a Trek reference in without making it more explicitly Trekkie in the 'free description' bit seems a bit like it wasn't even the point.
:My money's on the security level, as an intention. At least until someone comes up with a better cultural reference that fits better but that I hadn't known/remembered on the initial reading. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.57|172.70.85.57]] 13:33, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

So who is/are "the world's coolest immunologist(s)," who got to name Natural Killer cells (NK cells)? Doctoral student Rolf Kiessling and postdoctoral fellow Hugh Pross may have found them, but did they get to name them?
Likewise, who is/are the "significantly less cool immunologist(s)" who named ILC1, ILC2, and ILC3 cells? [[User:TCMits|TCMits]] ([[User talk:TCMits|talk]]) 15:20, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
:Their original paper describing them referred to them as "natural" killer cells, so their use of quotes implies that it was a new title they had come up with. [[User:Ahecht|Ahecht]] ([[User talk:Ahecht|talk]]) 16:13, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Definitely the "coolness" factor is in the naming, not in the discovering. All the discoverers are equally "cool". But coming up with the name "Natural Killer Cells" is orders of magnitude cooler than ILC1, ILC2, and ILC3 (blaaah). [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 16:11, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Regarding the Gamma-Delta cells being "unknown/classified" seems to be a reference to US Army Delta force commandos who are tasked with top-secret highly classified missions that would be unknown even to other military or political officials.(corrected thanks to Ahecht) [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 16:11, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
:The comic says "unknown/classified", not "unknown/unclassified". [[User:Ahecht|Ahecht]] ([[User talk:Ahecht|talk]]) 16:16, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Coincidentally on the same day this comic was released two immunologists received the [https://aktuelles.uni-frankfurt.de/english/paul-ehrlich-and-ludwig-darmstaedter-prize-insights-into-the-origin-evolution-and-development-of-our-immune-system/ Paul Ehrlich Prize] for their work on the evolution of the "learning" immune system. No clue if this is relevant, not my field of expertise. ;-) --[[Special:Contributions/198.41.242.166|198.41.242.166]] 05:29, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Whoever added the D&D references to D8 and D4, thank you. Was totally unexpected, and as a DM, I laughed so hard I cried. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.232|172.70.126.232]] 13:54, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
::Team effort. When I found it, it just referenced tabletop games in general. I changed it to D&D specific, because that's really what it is. Most games use d8 for damage like most sports only allow goalies to touch the ball with their hands. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.174.43|172.70.174.43]] 05:58, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
:::Pedancy: "...allow only goalies...", as goalies generally ''are'' allowed to kick/head/etc, in such sports where others can't handball. Ignoring the "most sports" bit altogether, as I don't know how what your scope is (only those ''with'' goalkeeping-roles, by whatever name?), how you're tallying it up (by basic list? Participation-weighted? Spectator-weighted?) and the rest... ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.65|172.71.178.65]] 12:40, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

"[https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2749:_Lymphocytes&diff=next&oldid=308593 Vandalism?]" - Yes, certainly, and you got there just before I undid it. And probably the usual suspect. '''Mods: please continue to do the necessary...''' The idiot concerned probably won't stop, but it'd be nice to tidy away some of the more obvious garbage they're littering up the system with. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.57|172.70.85.57]] 15:08, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Talk:1275: int(pi)

2023-03-15T03:42:27Z

172.71.178.65:

The math part of it went way over my head (Thank you Explain xkcd for clarifying.) The only thing I really laughed at was "floor pie". Although I didn't think of Homer Simpson.[[Special:Contributions/72.193.171.120|72.193.171.120]] 14:55, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, I get the int(Pi) thing, but what's with avoiding 3's? [[Special:Contributions/95.35.58.168|95.35.58.168]] 05:10, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

What is "''floor pie''"? --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 05:31, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
: reminds me of weebl‘s „hmm pie!“, but I think the homer-thing is correct. --[[User:Quoti|Quoti]] ([[User talk:Quoti|talk]]) 18:42, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

I thought this was a reference to [http://www.strangehorizons.com/2000/20001120/secret_number.shtml Bleem] and reminds me of comic [[899]]. Saibot84 06:17, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

:So is bleem related to (the same as) ''umpt''? Umpt being a number between 3 and 4, found by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bursar#Bursar The Bursar] in ''Science of the Discworld'', it is much more frequently used in the form where ten is added to the number, i.e. umpteen. [[Special:Contributions/64.40.54.39|64.40.54.39]] 18:11, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Prudent mathematicians just refer to it as "The Scottish Number". [[User:Dr Pepper|Dr Pepper]] ([[User talk:Dr Pepper|talk]]) 06:58, 9 October 2013 (UTC) Dr Pepper
: Ha! Now I understand the ''real'' reason for the subtitle to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._3_%28Mendelssohn%29 Mendelssohn's third symphony.] [[User:Opusthepenguin|Opusthepenguin]] ([[User talk:Opusthepenguin|talk]]) 16:30, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

I can give you one '''rational''' reason for spelling out things like INT(PI) in programming. Back in the ancient times, there was a piece of electronics dubbed then a ''personal computer'' with an NSA code name of ZXSPECTRUM. It had a built-in interpreter of the ancient language codenamed BASIC. Memory was very precious in those times, every single byte counted. The creators of the interpreter did a (somewhat) clever thing - all keywords of this particular dialect of the BASIC language were stored in memory as single-byte codes, and were only spelled out by text display routines. On the other hand, CPU cycles were precious, too, so they did another (not so) clever thing by storing number constants (like the cursed number mentioned above) twofold - both in an ASCII decimal form for display purposes and in a 6-byte internal binary form for computing purposes. Therefore each number occupied the space of six bytes plus the number of digits (or other characters like sign, decimal point, etc.) BASIC hackers exploited this (mis)features to save a few bytes on some commonly-used constants by saying INT PI (parentheses were not needed), NOT PI (to get 0) or SGN PI (to get 1), thus using only 2 bytes of memory instead of 7 if the numbers were used directly. Another trick to use with larger numbers was VAL "12345", which saved 3 bytes for each number spelled this way (number of digits plus three bytes for the VAL keyword and two quote marks instead of number of digits plus six bytes of internal representation). [[Special:Contributions/89.174.214.74|89.174.214.74]] 08:43, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
: Actually the internal binary form of the number was 5 bytes, but there was a special prefix byte used for two purposes, a) when listing the program the text display routines would simply skip the six bytes b) when a digit character was encountered at run time, the prefix byte was located instead of parsing the number again. It was even possible to patch the source code to replace all the digits with a single decimal point because the syntax wasn't checked at runtime. Also the trick was originally used with the ZX81 as it was slower and had less memory. I don't think the sign was stored with the number though, as that would have caused confusion with the unary minus operator. (All of the space-saving tricks mentioned above would slow the program down, of course. Even PI had to be calculated as internally the ZX81/Spectrum only knew the value of π/2.) --[[Special:Contributions/81.138.95.57|81.138.95.57]] 10:43, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
: Actual line of code from a commercially released ZX Spectrum game: (''Cricket Captain'', D&H Games, 1988)

1426 PRINT AT VAL "21",NOT PI;"Your bid has been accepted": LET YP=YP+SGN PI: LET Y$(YP)=P$(SC,N(M(SC,KK))): LET RZ=N(M(SC,KK)): FOR Z=SGN PI TO INT PI: GO SUB VAL "9002"+Z:LET Y(YP,Z)=BZ: NEXT Z: FOR Z=VAL "4" TO VAL "6": GO SUB VAL "8996"+Z: LET Y(YP,Z)=BZ: NEXT Z: LET MO=MO-VAL Z$: GO SUB VAL "995"

: '''shudder''' [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.202|141.101.98.202]] 21:28, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

I suspect in many languages 4/INT(pi) is 1 (as it does integer division) [[Special:Contributions/193.34.186.165|193.34.186.165]] 08:51, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
:This is true in C and python and many others. I think it is standard.[[Special:Contributions/96.251.85.48|96.251.85.48]] 18:18, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
::It's not true in Python. If you want integer division, you have to use //. With just a single slash, you get float division in 3.0 and later, and whether you get integer or float division in 2.7 depends on the state of a __future__ flag. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.180|199.27.130.180]] 17:34, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Why is the number 3 cursed? [[Special:Contributions/109.90.202.41|109.90.202.41]] 18:15, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
:I don't remember all the details, but it involves Alan Turing and an ancient vampire.[[Special:Contributions/96.251.85.48|96.251.85.48]] 18:18, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
::Randall is just joking about the rule that values used often should be defined as a constant. So he just shows us how to use the constant Pi. In general you would define a constant THREE=3 instead of this Pi calculations.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:44, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
:::Instead of adding a constant you could just redifine Pi. [[Special:Contributions/46.122.128.93|46.122.128.93]] 00:03, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm surprised the equation doesn't use getRandomNumber(), since it is guaranteed to be 4 in comic #[[221]] [[Special:Contributions/108.252.249.9|108.252.249.9]] 19:24, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Can anyone identify the programming language? It appears to be a function, but in programming, integers divide with integer division, which would make the 4/3 a 1. Also, the ^ character often doesn't usually do exponents. Usually it's the XOR command.[[Special:Contributions/75.69.96.225|75.69.96.225]] 21:29, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
: That's also how I understood the joke. The (newbie) programmer noticed that the code didn't work when 4/3 was used in the code (because that returns an integer division), so he/she tried replacing it by floor(PI) which returns a double and generates slightly better solutions. He doesn't understand why it would make a difference, so he concludes the number 3 must be cursed or something. Since the code still doesn't work, he desperately tries changing 4 by ceil(PI) as well, but the real problem is ^ which doesn't mean power but xor. The code he or she is working on is most likely C++ or Java. Frankly, I don't think magic numbers have anything to do with the joke. [[Special:Contributions/213.251.189.203|213.251.189.203]] 22:10, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
:(Edit conflict? But the conflicted code's timestamp indicates ''somebody's'' clock is wrong. Anyhoo...) It's one of those programming languages from the XKCD universe, where reserved words and functions are overwhelmingly defined in ALLCAPS rather than alllower (or possibly one or other camelCase variations) that we'd expect to see almost anywhere in code or pseudo-code, this side of the hay-day for either BASIC or COBOL.
:(Actually... oooh, it's been a while, but add a "DEFFN" in front of it and maybe it ''could'' actually be one or other flavour of BASIC, from the early eighties, what with the function-name and "one parameter, which is 'R'" feature to the code-snippet. I'm sure "^" was used for power (rather than "**" or a "POWER(x%,y%)" function) and "XOR" for both actual bitwise and logical 'xor'ing, in BBC BASIC... BICBW.) [[Special:Contributions/178.98.212.190|178.98.212.190]] 22:26, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
Anybody want to clarify the "because it is used more than one time" bit? There needn't be a reason for 3 to be cursed, nor the 4, and a few lines later we are told that new programmers are told to do things without being told the reason. [[User:Gardnertoo|Gardnertoo]] ([[User talk:Gardnertoo|talk]]) 12:29, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
:I did some rework, and I think "without being told the reason" rules belong to many other parts in education.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 18:15, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Are we sure that explanation is correct? I think the reason is because 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 does not equal 1 thanks to the poor implementation of programming languages. Thus using 3 in math operations usually ends with different results that expected. {{unsigned ip|173.245.53.145}}

:1/9=0.111... -> so 9x1/9=9x0.111... -> and finally we have 1=0.999... See more here: {{w|0.999...}}--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 23:31, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I've rewritten and hacked about quite a large part of the explanation, for the following reasons:
*Grammar and sentence readability was lacking
*Claiming that the number 3 was cursed "because it is used more than one time at the original equation", when there is no reason given for the number 3 being cursed
*Said that instead there "should be a constant defined like "THREE=3"", which isn't the workaround used in the comic (And violates the 'don't use 3' rule at least once)
I hope the resulting explanation is a little more closely linked to the actual comic, and makes a bit more sense --[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 11:18, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

I have heard that in several placed the number three is unlucky. Firstly, the number of the beast - 666 - is three sixes and a multiple of three. Secondly the superstition of [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_on_a_match_%28superstition%29 Three on a Match]. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.237|141.101.98.237]] 18:34, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Could have something to do with 0,1,n... though i suppose that would make the forbidden number '2'. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.172|108.162.216.172]] 06:19, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

In CLC-INTERCAL, if you use the default/example library, 3 is the only constant you can't overload (unless you first redefine or abstain various seemingly unrelated things). Also, the slat operator is for operand overloading, and the sharkfin operator is for unary add without carry; I don't know why anyone would think they're for division and power or xor. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.180|199.27.130.180]] 17:59, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

What programming language is it? {{unsigned ip|172.71.158.230|00:53, 15 March 2023}}
:Might be pseudocode. But I imagine there are a number of possible 'real' codings it could be.
:Ignore case restraints, it being xkcd all-uppercase (whether Caps or SmallCaps). Much of the statement is typical of most languages with 'normal' mathematical operands (rule out LISP and Forth, for Polish/Reverse Polish notation). There are many computer languages that assign values with "=" (as opposed to ":=", e.g. those in the Pascal family), so only partly helps. Though it looks a bit like a function-definition such as found in BASIC (should have DEFFN keyword, in the version I used), perhaps it's assigning the calculation to array-item 'R' in a language that uses ()s for array-indexing. Or it ''could'' even be a Fortran-dialect masked array on the LHS of the assignment.
:Easier to say what it isn't, I suspect. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.65|172.71.178.65]] 03:42, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

2747: Presents for Biologists

2023-03-09T00:43:58Z

172.71.178.65: /* Explanation */ Rationalising Hairy/Bond link, in the narrative.

{{comic
| number = 2747
| date = March 8, 2023
| title = Presents for Biologists
| image = presents_for_biologists_2x.png
| imagesize = 396x353px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = A lot of these are actually non-venomous, but I can see which species you mistook them for. If you pause the crane for a sec I can give you some ID pointers for next time!
}}

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

In this strip, [[Black Hat]] is a supervillain subjecting 'James Bond' (portrayed by [[Hairy]], or very like him) to a death trap, similar to [[123: Centrifugal Force]] (presumably Mr. Bond managed to escape in that instance). This time, however, he also has another victim, [[Hairbun]], being subjected to the same device – a pit full of snakes, into which the victims are slowly lowered (upside-down and suspended by just one ankle) entirely at the whim or mercy of the antagonist.

While Bond voices typical defiance at Black Hat's scheme, Hairbun instead gushes over the sight of an unfamiliar snake species within the pit, asking Black Hat to lower her faster before that creature either escapes (there seemingly being very little to prevent any snake escaping the pit) or just moves to the other end of the pit.

The caption reveals that Hairbun is a biologist. For her, the contents of this death trap would be happily considered a suitable birthday present, and apparently even these circumstances don't dampen the experience sufficiently to reduce her interest.

The title text explains how Hairbun has expertly spotted how the supervillain has included some less dangerous snakes, probably {{w|Coral snake#North American coloration patterns|in error}}. Ever the professional, she suggests the possibility of her advice to help him avoid these errors in the future. She would need a short stay of execution, to do so, but is apparently not particularly fazed by how things end up immediately afterwards.

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

:[Hairy and Hairbun are hanging upside down from ropes attached to their feet. Underneath them, there is a pit with many snakes. Black Hat to the left is operating a lever.]
:Hairy: You won't get away with this!
:Hairbun: Ooh! Ooh! That one is a new species for me!
:Hairbun: Hey, can you lower me faster? It's getting away!

:[Caption below the panel:]
:There's a surprising amount of overlap between "Good presents for biologists" and "Things villains want to do to James Bond."

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Animals]]

2746: Launch Window

2023-03-07T16:27:47Z

172.71.178.65: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2746
| date = March 6, 2023
| title = Launch Window
| image = launch_window_2x.png
| imagesize = 501x256px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = "Confirmed, we have to scrub." "Ugh, okay. I'll get the bucket and sponge."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a WINDEX-SCRUBBED LAUNCH WINDOW - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
A {{w|launch window}} is a brief period of time in which a spacecraft can be launched from Earth's surface such that the spacecraft can reach its destination with the minimal amount (or an amount lower than a threshold of acceptance) of energy expenditure.

This comic takes the concept of a "launch window" in a more literal direction, implying that they have an actual physical window that is only open at certain times, and through which the rocket presumably has to be launched. One character suggests moving the rocket outside in order to avoid issues that arise from dealing with the window, but gets pushback because moving the rocket outside would cause them to have to deal with more (again, literal) bugs.

The title text is a play on the two meanings of ''scrub'': to rub with a (usually wet) sponge or brush to clean, or to cancel (here: the launch of the rocket). This continues the comic’s theme of taking aerospace terms literally.

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

[First panel: Ponytail and Hairy can be seen sitting behind a console]

Ponytail: The launch window will only be open for another 90 minutes. We may have to scrub.

[Second panel: Slightly zoomed out, left from Ponytail and Hairy, Cueball can be seen behind a console as well]

Cueball: You know, given all our issues with the launch window,

[Third panel: Cueball turns around, facing the others]

Cueball: Have we thought about moving the rocket outside?

Ponytail: Ugh, no. It's so sunny out.

Hairy: And there are bugs.

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

Talk:2743: Hand Dryers

2023-02-28T10:42:09Z

172.71.178.65:

The mouseover text is trolling, since that would be impossible. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.200.140|172.70.200.140]] 16:23, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
:Indeed, Randall wrote about that in ''How To 2''. [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 03:49, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

The Pratt & Whitney J58 is capable of producing exhaust velocities exceeding that of Mach 2 at ground level. It would be possible (though extremely inadvisable) to dry one's hands in the exhaust, at least for the brief period where one still has hands. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.115.72|172.70.115.72]] 16:44, 27 February 2023 (UTC) J. Kupec

:There are hand-sized supersonic blowers used to clean and dry train tracks. https://www.ge.com/news/reports/this-software-guided-supersonic-air-blower-sweeps They are very dangerous to exposed skin even several feet away. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.142.21|172.71.142.21]] 06:52, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

::You are supposed to dry your hands with them, not your feet. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.203.55|162.158.203.55]] 08:50, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

With a low enough vacuum in the surrounding area, a supersonic hand dryer should be able to apply drying without enough energy dissipation to damage the skin. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.65.184|172.69.65.184]] 17:27, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

As far as I understand it, the low velocity dryers heat the air, the high velocity ones don't, but rely on the air being compressed and air speed is of the essence. The other problem with the idea of very high speed is that 'stuff' could penetrate the skin (there is a type of needle-less vaccination gun on that principle).[[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 19:31, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

That matches my memory, the first ones I remember were fairly low airspeed and had a data tag "1500 watts" for the heating element. Has anyone tried one of these with *dry* hands, to see how long the element takes to get hot? I don't think they heat up instantly. They certainly get hot--motorcycling on cold days I've pointed the nozzle inside my clothing to warm up at a rest stop.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.111.76|172.70.111.76]] 19:40, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't think this effect fully explains observations. For example, the airflow feels warmer sooner when someone has used the dryer just before you. [[User:P1h3r1e3d13|P1h3r1e3d13]] ([[User talk:P1h3r1e3d13|talk]]) 21:10, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

"though this was first achieved many decades ago, in the 1950s" Yeager broke the sound barrier in level flight on Oct. 14, 1947, and planes had been doing it in dives for years. [[User:Cser|Cser]] ([[User talk:Cser|talk]]) 21:29, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
:Without reading your comment, I further changed the (as it was for me) "1940s" version of the statement to include the original "inadvertent" barrier-breaking (of prop-planes in almost always irrecoverable dives, without control surfaces that would work well in supersonic/transonic airflows) and included the developments made, which these days are somewhat more trivial than having to sit on a rocket that is released from a high-altitude bomber's wing, and fight to keep it flying straight and level. (We even had a supersonic airliner, for several decades!) There's a lot of interesting history to this, but not really the place to say it all. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.57|172.70.85.57]] 01:45, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Should we make an "airplane banner" category? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.111.76|172.70.111.76]] 02:31, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
:I was thinking the same thing, but I'm here about Covid (below). [[User:Bismuthfoot|Bismuthfoot]] ([[User talk:Bismuthfoot|talk]]) 04:16, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
::I agree to that. If we can find at least three others. Can see two are mentioned below. Are there more than those two and this one? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:14, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
:Previous usages of planes with banners: [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1965:_Background_Apps Background apps] and [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1355:_Airplane_Message Airplane Message], both of which's banners bore information and the first one commented on the cheapness of the banners. Maybe mention them in the explanation and/or add a category about them? [[User:Xkcdjerry|Xkcdjerry]] ([[User talk:Xkcdjerry|talk]]) 08:05, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
::Found one more [[2463: Astrophotography]]. I will make the category --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:17, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
:::Done. Please add more if you can find them: [[:Category:Airplane banner]] --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:25, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Hand dryers were disabled in the early days of Covid in 2020 before hand transmission was ruled out as significant. I still feel awkward using one in a bathroom with others. I'm old and still mask when indoors publicly more than briefly. In 2023, I submit that you risk appearing hypocritical with a mask and a hand air dryer. Thus, I saw this XKCD as a reminder that hand air dryers had nothing to do with Covid. Still, there seems to be a bunch of fuss about the dryers. Apparently, some use mechanical air force (jet air) more than warm air for drying, from respectable gavi.org and wired.org in 2021 (https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/we-know-hand-dryers-can-circulate-germs-through-air-why-are-they-still-used and https://www.wired.com/story/wash-your-hands-but-beware-the-electric-hand-dryer/). I'm just rambling here; I'm not ready to do any editing. [[User:Bismuthfoot|Bismuthfoot]] ([[User talk:Bismuthfoot|talk]]) 04:16, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
: The alternative to dryers was often a stack of paper towels. Always a 'contact threat', in my eyes (I never really like using a shop's communal hand-sanitiser bottles, on entry, for that very reason; I just didn't touch anything, that I wasn't already taking off the shelves to take with me, if I could help it), although thankfully that wasn't a great a problem as it was initially feared.
: Ditto, the precaution of taping off every other seat (or two out of every three, etc), in order to prevent congregation of people in public seating areas. This forced every new arrival to always choose from the more limited number of pre-touched seats, rather than just advising people to randomly choose to sit only in any non-neighboured seats and so diluting the hypothetical risk.
: (I still mask up for entry to supermarkets/shops/indoor places of similar kinds. I would for buses/trains, if I used them. I'm otherwise still mostly "bubbling" with close family, or only going to places where we're mostly/all going, together or separate, but that probably equally applied before 'things changed' as well.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.57|172.70.162.57]] 05:20, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

On the '30 or so seconds it takes for user's hands to be dried', at least for the Airblade style ones, the cycle is much shorter, they turn off after 12s. It just *feels* that long. There is one at the place where I do rock climbing (where you want your hands to be very dry) and I heard people complaining that they'd prefer paper towels (for dryness reasons and because that would be faster, not because the Airblades spew everything everywhere). So I started to actively take mental notes of the efficacy of each drying-mode. My conclusion: Yes, with towels you get the palm somewhat dry very quickly. However, forget about any water left between your fingers. If you want all around dry skin on your hands, the Airblade is just better and faster. If you just want dry enough hands to proceed in your normal day, towels are sufficient, convenient and silent. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.203.41|162.158.203.41]] 09:13, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
:Personally I find that it takes at least three cycles on the Airblade to actually get my hands dry (the between the fingers bit being a particular trouble spot), so it's still 30 or so seconds, just with the additional annoyance of having to pause a couple of times in the middle to wait for it to reset.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.135|172.70.162.135]] 10:40, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2741: Wish Interpretation

2023-02-23T15:21:22Z

172.71.178.65:

To all you people reading the discussion, why can't I add my own person page? I mean, is a year too new? I think I know, [[User:No Idea If There's A Character Limit LMAO|(but I'm not completely sure.)]] ([[User talk:No Idea If There's A Character Limit LMAO|talk]]) 23:29, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

:Oh, you have to have an old enough account to make one? I had been wondering how to. [[User:Thexkcdnerd|Thexkcdnerd]] ([[User talk:Thexkcdnerd|talk]]) 00:02, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Ironically, a banknote created by a genie would be counterfeit, although the odds of legal trouble over $20 are nonetheless low. 23:43, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
:It doesn't have to be. The genie could take one away from someone, or just get one that's been lost. Also, the sentence for counterfeiting is the same regardless of the denomination. [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 00:31, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
:The sentence for counterfeiting may be the same but the probability someone would actually go through the trouble of prosecuting you for $20 is much less than say $10,000 [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.151|172.70.214.151]] 03:04, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
::The US Treasury Dept. prosecutes every case it can prove. [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 04:06, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
:::So 2 things: First of all they need to prove it. For that someone has to notice. Not every 20-Dollar-note will be scanned, and I guess the genie could make a pretty good copy (if he needs to copy it). Also noone said US-Dollar. The Genie could make a twist and use one of over 20 other currencies called dollar. Not sure if US Treasury Dept. would be interested in that :D by the way, the eastern caribean dollar has the short "XCD" - does anyone think that a thousand of those would be labeled XkCD? --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 13:13, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
::::Or he could use Monopoly money. Or Geniedollars. He never said it would be legal tender, after all.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.148|172.70.86.148]] 14:42, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

That's cool. Try https://what-if.xkcd.com/23/. Part 1. I need a new signature. [[User:No Idea If There's A Character Limit LMAO|(but I'm not completely sure.)]] ([[User talk:No Idea If There's A Character Limit LMAO|talk]]) 23:46, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

I would (as the genie) just teleport Black Hat to the desert. No other trickery or devastation needed. [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 00:34, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

The oldest "Wish that I wish I didn't wish" I am personally aware of is Midas turning everything he touched into gold, including the food he tried to eat and his beloved daughter. Personally, I'd wish that the genie teach me a lesson. [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 03:16, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

It's kinda funny how a citation is needed for claiming that wishing rain doesn't exist is bad because Randall will just cover it in "What If 3" 20:59, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
:He already replaced the rain with candy in What If 2. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.129.151|162.158.129.151]] 07:28, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

The proper way of teaching Black Hat a lesson would be twisting his wish to make it beneficial to humanity. [[User:Tkopec|Tkopec]] ([[User talk:Tkopec|talk]]) 08:20, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

"And I want you to put it in my house." / [POOF!] - "Here, I turned your house into a Klein bottle."
[[Special:Contributions/172.71.160.39|172.71.160.39]] 08:25, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
:That would better satisfy "And I want my house to contain it", from one single-step literalist perspective... Wishes-gone-strange ''usually'' work on the basis of the 'laziest' misinterpretation (with or without the intention of mallice) that doesn't require too much reinterpretation.
:But how to misinterpret "put it in my house"? Hmmm... Nothing to suggest that it must stay there. Perhaps everything is going to be squeezed in through the front door and (Niagra Straw-like) eventually pushes most out of the back door. The house structure (but not fixtures and fittings) magically strengthened to continue being houselike, even as whatever the back yard is like (before it gets its own turn of being sequentially transported through) fills up with mountains (literally!) of the resulting wreckage/mishmash.
:But not sure if the house itself is not already "in the house", i.e. its structure, to be exempt by prior "in"ness (if not ownership)... I'm not a genie, and have not gone through the rather extensive training/job-orientation that they clearly go through. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.34|172.70.90.34]] 14:56, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

I had a good laugh when I saw [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2741:_Wish_Interpretation&diff=prev&oldid=306692 one of these 'corrections']. US English mandates "fulfill", where the UK/etc English version is "fulfil", yet it also goes the other way and uses words like "reveler" where most (all?) other versions of English would prefer "reveller".
 And would hope that, whenever words get USified, the editor involved realises (or "realizes", yet surprisingly not ever "realizez"!) that they aren't actually correcting typos (like they sometimes comment), merely relocalising the wordz.. sorry.. ''words''! :P [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.65|172.71.178.65]] 15:21, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2739: Data Quality

2023-02-22T11:23:41Z

172.71.178.65:

Hash tables aren't lossy, maybe Randall means hash functions? [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 17:06, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
:I was thinking more a (subset of) a {{w|Rainbow table}}, than an associative array... Although such things tend not to preserve/respect item order (in reading, writing and altering in general), which is potentially information-lossy. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.185|172.69.79.185]] 18:50, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
::Hash tables have an ultra-low collision rate, as compared to the transforms used in packetwise error-correction... Since the comic is primarily focused on contrasting media fidelity with direct alteration of the content, ciphers seem a less direct association than content distribution networks? Given the context presented, my immediate association was the use of both piece & whole-pack hash verification, which has a collision rate so low terms like "number of particles in the universe" start entering the conversation. Upon further consideration, I wonder if Randall is referring to plain old CRC32 hash checking? Or the SHA hashes commonly used to verify disc downloads? (If it passes SHA *and* torrent content checking, I'd say you've probably got better chances of 1:1 integrity, than any original medium has of retaining it?)
::[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 22:51, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
: Maybe it was to be about '''cuckoo filters''', which are probabilistic data structure alternative to classic Bloom filter, which are based on space-efficient variants of cuckoo hashing? --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 14:05, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
::Hash tables don't have to store the original data at all, technically; they are commonly done as hash table->KEY:DATA or hash table->KEY:Pointer to data (or suchlike), but hash table->present is a valid hashing scheme, which results in a likely verification that you have the right data (but not guarunteed because collisions) but no way of reconstructing the data itself. [[User:Mneme|Mneme]] ([[User talk:Mneme|talk]]) 02:25, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

GIF's aren't lossy either, though often other formats can't be converted to GIF without discarding information. [[User:Bemasher|Bemasher]] ([[User talk:Bemasher|talk]]) 18:27, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
:I think that's the point. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.50.203|172.68.50.203]] 20:12, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
:GIFs are lossy in the very act of creating them: the actual colors of the real object have to be smashed down into (I think it’s) 256 different colors, resulting in an image that even human perception recognizes as crappy. Even the so-called ‘lossless’ formats such as PNG are lossy in the act of creation, just not as drastically as GIFs. A truly ‘lossless’ format would have to specify the exact intensity of every wavelength of electromagnetic radiation emanating from every atom of the original object. Good luck with that. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.151.99|172.71.151.99]] 01:00, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
::It's subjective whether formats (even .gif) can be recognised as 'crappy'. The display format may further tune down everything so that something defined with 65536 colours is more like 256, or it could work well with any given stippling/halftoning/dithering to produce something more like the better original than the file data strictly allows (even from 6bits-per-pixel, or 3) when viewed at sufficient remove. And a .gif of a block-coloured diagram is notably better than a typical .jpg of one, despite the technically superior palette the later has. (Nobody says that an image has to be from a real-life subject, with all kinds of missing data, such as photons thst happen to hit the gap between CCD pixels but might be considered important and might well have been captured with the Mk 1 Eyeball and significantly 'noticed' by the nerves and ultimately the respective processing usters of the brain behind it... Which has a complete set of 'analogue lossiness' to it, anyway.) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.203|172.71.242.203]] 16:37, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Someone needs to add a table describing all the formats in the chart. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 19:29, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
:Yep. It needs a description of each point on the graph. I'm on my phone though... and feeling lazy after shoveling snow.
:[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 22:54, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
::I'm tempted, but it would require learning how to MAKE a table, and my ideal table would be 5 columns, '''''TOO WIDE!''''', LOL! Table label, what scale (data quality or item quality), a description (the main thing needed), the cat version from the Title Text, and finally how the cat example applies/parallels the comic version. I could lose the "what scale" as only one isn't data quality, and I guess I could see two tables, Comic and Title/Cat (adding to cat also the Table Label column).[[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:38, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
:::Tables are actually [https://mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Tables quite easy to do] (if you don't intend to do much complex stuff), but also very easy to slightly mess up (temporarily - Preview is your friend, especially if you need to rowspan/colspan at all). For this purpose, nothing fancy. Header row, other rows, nothing particar special in alignment, sorting, colour (foreground and/or background), etc. It'll be fairly intelligently fitted to the browser window, according to the contents.
:::However, here (when you might have large amounts of narrative in one column), perhaps just ";"-prefix a mini-header (can include "(in Title text)" or other shorthand details) and then have ":"-prefixed 'definition' prose that rambles on about each item in freehand text. I would suggest that's as complicated as you need it, no real need for tabling at all. (But, without wanting to show you how to use a hammer, then making every problem now look like a nail to you, I think you could handle ''learning'' the basic table-markup/learning where to get the more complex stuff. So there you are.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.197|172.70.91.197]] 16:54, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
::::Oh, I've done tables in HTML many times, I'm perfectly comfortable tackling it. It's just that I'd have to take the time to look up the wiki syntax. :) Additional effort, you see. And now someone has already done it. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 15:41, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

It seems there are two definitions of data quality that Randall is juxtaposing for comic effect: in one, quality data is data that represents the original phenomenon without error or degradation. In the other, he's applying the concept of quality to the phenomenon itself – data is better if it describes a better phenomenon. My cat is better than your cat, therefore data about my cat is better than data about your cat. I'd like to see this concept in the explanation of the page but don't know how to add into the flow of the current text.[[User:K95|K95]] ([[User talk:K95|talk]]) 19:33, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
:I already put that in earlier. See the second sentence of the second paragraph, I called it "general excellence". [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 21:45, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

"Data are transferred in bits"...Hear, hear. I'm over 60, I still remember of stuff that is called "analog" ;-) {{unsigned|172.71.160.37|20:07, 17 February 2023 (UTC)}}
:Note, however, that we are transferring data digitally for over four thousand years. That's how long is technically possible to make a lossless copy of written story. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:19, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
::That's only if you're lucky enough to be still reading it in the original <s>Klingon</s> language, etc... [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.184|172.69.79.184]] 22:53, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
:::'''"It is a Klingon name!"''' 😾
:::Transcription definitely suffers from a Darmok & Jalad type contextual dependency.
::: [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 22:59, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

I think that "Better data" is a reference to gainful compression, and that "my better cat" doesn't specifically refer to the author but to the lyrical subject (as in poems). [[Special:Contributions/172.68.50.203|172.68.50.203]] 20:12, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

TIFF can contain a JPEG, which makes it technically a lossy format. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.109.33|172.69.109.33]] 23:26, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
:And an actual JPEG ''may'' be {{w|Lossless JPEG|lossless}}. (I still remember JPEG2000 being 'a thing', amongst the other situations mentioned there, but that wasn't even what I was thinking of whn I started this reply!) Yet, I think we're talking broad sweeps here. Not strict accuracy. There's Randall's trolling of us with GIF as 'lossy', frexample... [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.159|172.69.79.159]]

The opening sentence of the explanation, about data loss in transit, seems a bit irrelevant to the comic, which is only concerned with lossiness in information due to format. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.197|172.70.91.197]] 10:40, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
:''Very'' relevent to the parity ones. (Leads me to believe it's a scale of "amount of provided data to represent original data". You send less than you really ought to, the more left you go, you send more than you should ''technically'' need to as you go to the right. Checksums add a little bit extra, once you get to them, and ''correcting'' checksums (hamming bits, etc) are significantly extra overhead. The whole 'better data' is basically "send a similar amount of newer information, or even more, on top of the original".) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.71|162.158.34.71]] 12:55, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
:: But that's about adding information to the file (which happens to be mitigation against the potential future loss of data) - not directly about the loss of data itself. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.65|172.71.178.65]] 11:23, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Since when is CRC-32 obsolete? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.238.6|162.158.238.6]] 08:24, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

2740: Square Packing

2023-02-21T17:26:56Z

172.71.178.65: /* Explanation */ It isn't the *same* joke, given the multiple contrasts, but I wouldn't be surprised if both were indeed directly inspired by a related general topic of thought...

{{comic
| number = 2740
| date = February 20, 2023
| title = Square Packing
| image = square_packing_2x.png
| imagesize = 326x295px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = I also managed to improve the solution for n=1 to s<0.97, and with some upgrades I think I can hit 0.96.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a HYDRAULIC PRESSED SQUARE - This appears to be referring to a specific puzzle that merits explanation before going into description of the comic. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
The {{w|Square packing in a square|square packing problem}} is a type of geometry problem. The goal is to find the smallest possible "outer square" that will fit N "inner squares" that are each 1 unit wide and 1 unit tall. In the comic N=11, leading to its name of "The N=11 Square Packing Problem," and s is the length of the outer square's sides.

A few days before this comic's post, a web page [https://erich-friedman.github.io/packing/squinsqu/ ''Squares in squares''] gained interest on social media platforms such as [https://twitter.com/KangarooPhysics/status/1625436240412540928 Twitter] and [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34809023 Hacker News]. For many values of N, that page depicts the best known solutions, some of them known to be optimum. The one for N=11 (best known but not proven to be optimum) is shown on the left here; its general arrangement was found by Trump in 1979 and slightly improved by Gensane et al. in 2004.<ref>Gensane, T., Ryckelynck, P. – ''Improved dense packings of congruent squares in a square''. Discrete Comput Geom 34, pages 97–109 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00454-004-1129-z</ref>

Munroe claims to have found a more efficient solution for this N=11 case, by physically deforming the squares involved in the best-known solution with a hydraulic press. The size of the resulting bounding square is indeed smaller, but the "solution" isn't actually one because the inner shapes have countless wrinkles and are no longer squares. Geometrical shapes in packing problems are not conventionally assumed to be deformable in this manner.{{citation needed}}

The title text mentions the same approach "improved" the solution for 1 unit square, whose optimum solution is obviously that unit square itself with s=1. Munroe remarks that if he had "some upgrades", presumably a more powerful hydraulic press, he could get the resulting square to be even smaller.

This is perhaps a related joke to [[2706: Bendy]], but now with squares and compressed areas instead of triangles and extended lengths.

‎<references />

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[11 squares optimally packed inside a square arrangement]
:Previous best
:s<3.877084
:(Gensane, 2004)

:[11 deformed squares crushed together to pack them into a smaller square arrangement]
:New record
:s<3.40

:[Caption below the panel:]
:I've significantly improved on the solution to the n=11 square packing problem by using a hydraulic press.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Geometry]]

2733: Size Comparisons

2023-02-04T17:46:06Z

172.71.178.65: /* Explanation */ edits, etc

{{comic
| number = 2733
| date = February 3, 2023
| title = Size Comparisons
| image = size_comparisons_2x.png
| imagesize = 238x373px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = If you shrank the Solar System to the size of Texas, the Houston metro area would be smaller than a grasshopper in Dallas.
}}

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

[[Cueball]] attempts to emphasize to [[Ponytail]] what {{w|Texas}}'s size is (as the largest state in the {{w|contiguous US}}), by making a size comparison. He states that with Texas expanded to the size of the {{w|Solar System}}, the {{w|ant}}s in Texas will be as large as {{w|Rhode Island}} (the smallest US state). However, Cueball on purpose (according to the caption) just proves how small Texas actually is compared to the Solar System (which is a lot larger{{Citation needed}}).

There are a lot of definitions for how large the Solar System is, but one that is used (and easily agreed upon) is based upon {{w|Neptune}}'s {{w|Apsis#Perihelion and aphelion|aphelion}} (the farthest point from Sun of the outermost planet). Using the {{w|Area of a circle|circle area equation}}, we might say that the 'area' of the solar system is 6.49x1019 square kilometers, which is a lot, with Texas's area being in turn measured as 696,241 km². The difference in size is the huge factor of 9.32x1013 (not a [[2707: Astronomy Numbers|simple number]]). Ants, unfortunately for the calculations, vary vastly in size, but Rhode Island's area is known to be 3,144 km². We can therefore back-calculate that Randall's average "ant" would occupy 33.73 square millimeters. Roughly measured, an ant has an "aspect ratio" of 1:2 (width to length), and such an assumption leads to a length of 8.21mm, which falls easily into the range of 2–25mm for various possible species and types of ants. Therefore, Randall's calculated comparison indeed holds up as valid.

The title text refers to the opposite, with the entire Solar system being scaled down to the size of Texas. {{w|Houston}} (a city in Texas) has a {{w|Greater Houston|metropolitan area}} (an area extending a bit beyond the city itself) that, if ''shrunk'' by the same factor as before, would be smaller than a grasshopper in {{w|Dallas}}, another city in Texas. (This, of course, only works if Houston's environs are part of what is shrunk, yet the grasshopper – and perhaps at least part of its apparent home town of Dallas – remains unchanged.) The calculations to verify this hinge upon Houston's metro area normally being considered to be 26,061 km², and hence becoming 279.6 square millimeters. A grasshopper may be considered thinner than an ant, so we shall use the aspect ratio of 1:3 instead, to give a length of 28.96 mm, or almost 3 centimeters and approximately an inch. This falls within the range of 1–7cm range, that may be found [https://animalcorner.org/animals/grasshopper/ quoted in some places], but is significantly smaller than [https://a-z-animals.com/blog/the-10-largest-grasshoppers-in-the-world/ notably large species]. Whether the Dallas grasshopper is any particular variety (or even a native, rather than an exotic pet) is not expounded upon.

A common trope in explaining the sizes of unfamiliar things is to compare that thing to some other reference that people are likely to already have an idea about, if only through past comparisons. For instance, it is said that a human-sized {{w|flea}} could jump the equivalent height of the {{w|Eiffel Tower}} (if jumping ability scaled with animal size; which it does not, due to how some of the different numbers involved will scale to the square or cube of the linear factor, so such aspects as power-to-weight ratios and sheer biomechanical strengths cannot be maintained). In this case, Randall is comparing objects that are extremely different in scale (the state of Texas and a small insect), but then blowing Texas up to yet another size that's many orders of magnitude larger, with the result that the comparison is of no value in understanding how big Texas is (which could be supposed to be the point). The only message you get in the end is that "Texas is much bigger than an ant". And most people happen to be aware of that.{{Citation needed}}

On the other hand, the comparison would be meaningful the other way around : "The Solar System is so big that if you shrink it to the size of Texas, (the shrunken) Rhode Island would now be as small as (unshrunken) ants".

This is another comic in the series of [[My Hobby|Randall's Hobbies]].

==Transcript==

:[Cueball speaking to Ponytail.]
:Cueball: Texas is so big that if you expanded it to the size of the Solar System, the ants there would be as big as Rhode Island.
:Ponytail: Wow!
:Ponytail: ...Wait.

:[Caption below panel]
:My hobby: Unhelpful size comparisons

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:My Hobby]]

Talk:618: Asteroid

2023-01-29T11:25:41Z

172.71.178.65: Undo seemingly accidental (and incidental) linefeed.

:Could someone please help me with the picture, I don't know how to get it to display right...--[[User:7OO Tnega Terces|7OO Tnega Terces]] ([[User talk:7OO Tnega Terces|talk]]) 08:24, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
::Fix'd. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:44, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
:::THANKS!--[[User:7OO Tnega Terces|7OO Tnega Terces]] ([[User talk:7OO Tnega Terces|talk]]) 07:00, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
My Deep Impact/Little Prince crossover fanfic has been poorly received by the community.
I think that is because nobody wants to believe NASA would design the spacecraft upside-down.

[[User:Weatherlawyer| I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait]] ([[User talk:Weatherlawyer|talk]]) 08:22, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Wouldn't the Little Prince be killed by the impact anyway? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.187|108.162.238.187]] 00:30, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
:Yes if NASA did nothing he would also die. But would you be happy seeing a movie where we choose a solution that saves us and kills the little prince? Could they not have deflected the asteroid instead? ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 09:46, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

That one question in What If 2 about the earth spinning like a basketball could be a reference to this comic. (asteroid with the little prince colliding with earth.) [[User:IJustWantToEditStuff|IJustWantToEditStuff]] ([[User talk:IJustWantToEditStuff|talk]]) 07:01, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2728: Lane Change Highway

2023-01-24T13:12:56Z

172.71.178.65:

There's a section of the M25 motorway around London which does this... Never did like it. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.201|172.70.85.201]] 07:14, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
:I hope you are kidding ;-) Although there are some funny histories about that road. For instance Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. (Now a series - see [https://youtu.be/M0S3a32RzEo?t=112 Crowley Creates (and Destroys) The M25 - Good Omens]. :-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:25, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

:A lot of highways in France do something similar. At every ascend, the ascending traffic gets its own new lane, presumably to keep ascending cars from doing merging manouevres. To keep the same number of lanes, the leftmost lane merges into the adjacent lane before the ascend. So if you simply stay on your lane, you kind of drift to the left with every ascend. I am not sure if this really helps to cut accidents, but I think it is a clever solution at least for some accident-prone ascends. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.160.36|172.71.160.36]] 08:32, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
Saved the image to the wayback machine here https://web.archive.org/web/20230124073752/https://xkcd.com/ [[User:Mushrooms|Mushrooms]] ([[User talk:Mushrooms|talk]]) 07:41, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
:Doesn't that happen automatically? I like they are there, but do webcrawlers not manage that on a dayli basis? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:17, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
::Huh, didn't know that. Better safe than sorry! [[User:Mushrooms|Mushrooms]] ([[User talk:Mushrooms|talk]]) 08:33, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
It's really a very wide single-lane road. The left lanes originate from the edge of the road so no cars feed into them, and on the right side once you merge there is no where to go except to merge into the next right-hand side, so the net effect is that the road is 4 lanes wide, but is functioning as a single-lane road. That assumes everyone is entering from the right side. But I guess they could be entering from the left but still in a very short time all cars are on the right. [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 12:24, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

This is very similar to major roundabouts, in the UK at least, that have a spiral outwards. If entering a four-way junction (and there can be more feed-offs than that) , you may be invited to assume one of three entry lanes (as soon as the feed-in is wide enough to accomodate them) for left (the side of the road upon which we drive), forward or right that lead onto one of three lanes going clockwise round the island.
 (Sometimes the left-lane becomes marking- or even curb-separated from the island lanes, effectively skirting the island so there's no waiting for traffic on the island to pass. It merges with the feed-out lane, or becomes a two-lane carriageway direction, some useful distance from the junction.)
 On safely entering the junction (by giving way to anything already on it ''or'' being filtered by traffic signals, the semi-perpendicular lane markings (crosses at the lane-edge intersections guide you to the outer/inner or any median encircling lane which, as each outlet is passed, shifts over by one with a new 'inner' lane for that latest input road's "(almost) all the way round" traffic. (For some junctions, 180 degree change of travel is also a necessity, e.g. due to no cross-traffic (right-hand turning) possible on the lead up to the island, but a sub-junction comes off it anyway.)
 It tends to work best on the rounder roundabouts with periodic entry/exit points, or on the truly huge ones that act like a town-centre one-way inner ringroad, only without the town. When there's a large complex with straights and curves, the guiding lines (epecially across the 'crosses' might not be so obvious (if they are for the first car on the road, the one immediately behind might not have sufficient sight of the outward jinks in the indicated path and lose track of which path they should be on (especially if it is their first use of the junction) and the cross-overs can get worn and/or dirtied to make it less obvious), so inevitably there's lane-drift (and ''more'' wear/obscuration of the lane-guides).
 But, in general, with only accidental merging needed ("no, not this exit, it's the next one... there's nothing behind, so quickly...") and continuous lane-generation (to which the rarer all-the-way-round traffic can shift over into), I think there's a parallel. But this not being the inspiration or reference. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.65|172.71.178.65]] 13:12, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

2696: Precision vs Accuracy

2023-01-24T12:38:04Z

172.71.178.65: /* Explanation */ If you must, the correct side of the punctuation

{{comic
| number = 2696
| date = November 9, 2022
| title = Precision vs Accuracy
| image = precision_vs_accuracy_2x.png
| imagesize = 501x462px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = 'Barack Obama is much less likely than the average cat to jump in and out of cardboard boxes for fun' is low precision, but I'm not sure about the accuracy.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by BARACK OBAMA IN A CARDBOARD BOX. Further detail, sortable table? - PLEASE CHANGE THIS COMMENT WHEN EDITING THIS PAGE. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic parodies the difference between 'accuracy' and 'precision' with a table. {{w|Accuracy and precision}} are common concepts to be encountered in the scientific field and often students have issues with the differences between them. Accuracy concerns whether a statement is true, while precision concerns how detailed it is; it is possible for a statement to be one but not the other. The comic explores this concept by comparing {{w|Barack Obama}}, former President of the United States, with {{w|cat}}s. Confusingly, he measures different statistics of both Barack Obama and cats (sometimes measuring them in terms of cats) leaving the unwary reader even more confused.

Being precise is typical of calculations that roll out an excess of significant digits, often in the form of trailing decimals. Precision is lowered by using more rounded figures, or merely being comparative, but largely unaffected by whether the original values used were accurate or even correct. Accuracy is a cumulative function of the accuracy given to the intermediate values used for any calculation, and can be degraded by using figures that are themselves in some way inaccurate or imprecise. One part of confusion between the two is because being too precise usually decreases accuracy.

The numbers mentioned in the top row (high precision) of the table all use exactly the same digits, dictating that a full five digits of ''precision'' are used in them all. The most "valid" or correct value is a number that's very accurate and precise (see table). For the medium accuracy the number is an anagram of the 1st entry, giving a value that is reasonable but would be overly exact, whilst the low accuracy number is just a repeat of the first entry's digits with a shifted decimal but clearly at the wrong scale, as Randall could have shifted the decimal point one further place to the left to be closest to the true measurement. Instead, he replaces the thousands separator with the decimal point, perhaps for the visual pun.

The title text compares Obama's and cats' enjoyment of playing with cardboard boxes. While cats are known to do this,{{citation needed}} we don't know whether Obama does.

The day prior to the publication of this comic (November 8, 2022) was election day in the United States, so Randall may have been remembering Barack Obama's presidency at this time.

{| class="wikitable"
!Precision
!Accuracy
!Statement
!Explanation
|-
|High
|High
|Barack Obama was president for 70,128 hours
|This is the official length in hours of {{w|Barack Obama}}'s 8-year presidency, including 2 {{w|leap year|leap days}}. Obama served from January 20, 2009 through January 20, 2017, and his term officially began and ended at noon on those days. (There were three {{w|leap second|leap seconds}} during his presidency, though.)
|-
|High
|Medium
|Barack Obama weighs as much as 17.082 cats
|The accuracy would depend on the mass of the cats in question. Also a human's mass can vary by a few pounds in a small amount of time as meals are consumed, resources are used in metabolism and wastes are eliminated, and thus this may be overly precise due the margin of error in both the mass of cats and the mass of Mr. Obama. In 2016, Obama was [https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/08/politics/obama-medical-exam-loses-weight officially reported] to weigh 175 lb (79.3787 kg). [https://www.google.com/search?q=how+heavy+is+an+average+cat Google claims that an average cat weighs between 8.8 and 11 lbs], so this statement may be close to accurate.
|-
|High
|Low
|Barack Obama is 70.128 feet tall
|A highly precise (5 significant digits) measurement, but far from his actual height, published as 6'1".
The given value is more than an order of magnitude different from both him and {{w|Robert Wadlow|almost}} any other known human, whilst one of 7.0128 would ''only'' be about 15% off – still a low accuracy, but not outside the realms of possibility for an otherwise unknown person.
Coincidentally, Barack Obama is approximately 70 ''cat'' feet tall, using the paw size of a house cat to measure his height. Given the number of cat-related facts in the rest of the chart, this could be seen as rather appropriate.
|-
|Medium
|High
|Most cats have 4 legs
|Like many mammals, cats are quadrupeds, which means "four feet". Unless there is a genetic or other developmental issue, or an an injury that causes the loss of a limb, then cats generally have 4 legs.
|-
|Medium
|Medium
|Barack Obama is 6'1"
|While only as precise as the nearest inch, a common degree of rounding in that scale of measurement, that is the former president's published height.
[https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/08/politics/obama-medical-exam-loses-weight In 2016], Obama was said to have "grown" 0.5 inches in height, so there is a definite lack of consistency of exactly how tall he is. The examinations may have been made at different times of their respective days, with some spinal compression occurring all the time not laid in bed, and his current height is also not publicly recorded; several years of gradual aging could also reduce his posture slightly, or sustaining his fitness (since experiencing the travails of office) may counteract this to a greater or lesser effect.
|-
|Medium
|Low
|Barack Obama has 4 legs
|Barack Obama, being a mammal, does qualify as a {{w|tetrapod}}, but as a primate, his ancestors' forelimbs evolved into arms and hands. Like other humans, he does not generally use them for locomotion,{{citation needed}} but to manipulate his environment. Thus calling these limbs "legs" runs counter to normal definitions, and is inaccurate.

|-
|Low
|High
|Most cats have legs
|A true (high accuracy) statement without much information (low precision).
|-
|Low
|Medium
|Barack Obama has fewer legs than your cat
|Again, this will depend on the cat (not to mention whether or not you actually have a cat), but in general, true.
|-
|Low
|Low
|Barack Obama's cat has hundreds of legs
|This statement has low accuracy, as Barack Obama owns a four-legged dog named Sunny, but is not known to have owned a cat, much less one with more legs than normal. And cats tend not to have hundreds of legs.{{Citation needed}} It also has low precision, as "hundreds" could reasonably range from 200 to 900. (From a strict logician's point of view, this could however be considered a vacuously true statement.)
|-
|Low
|Unsure
|Barack Obama is much less likely than the average cat to jump in and out of cardboard boxes for fun
|Barack Obama has never publicly jumped in and out of cardboard boxes for fun,{{Citation needed}} but the possibility exists that he does so in private. Cats, on the other hand, are commonly known for jumping in and out of cardboard boxes for fun.
|}

==Transcript==
:[The comic shows a table with 3 rows and 3 columns. Each row and column has a label, and then nine statements are given for the 3x3 grid.]
:{| class="wikitable"
|-
| || High accuracy || Medium accuracy || Low accuracy
|-
| High precision
|Barack Obama was president for 70,128 hours||Barack Obama weighs as much as 17.082 cats||Barack Obama is 70.128 feet tall
|-
| Medium precision
|Most cats have 4 legs||Barack Obama is 6'1"||Barack Obama has 4 legs
|-
| Low precision
|Most cats have legs||Barack Obama has fewer legs than your cat||Barack Obama's cat has hundreds of legs
|}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Statistics]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Cats]]

Talk:610: Sheeple

2023-01-18T14:58:42Z

172.71.178.65:

So, I'm a high schooler. I recently found out most people my age don't care about outside politics and stuff like that. On the other hand, I always think that they do. But now I'm actually starting to believe this. I mean, what do people care about, then?

Which one is Paul Ryan?[[Special:Contributions/138.162.140.55|138.162.140.55]] 00:44, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

tsk tsk tsk... somebody has been watching too much of the msnbc propaganda... [[User:Douglasadams472|Douglasadams472]] 20:56, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Probably the one with the briefcase full of money. :P [[User:Hogtree Octovish|Hogtree Octovish]] ([[User talk:Hogtree Octovish|talk]]) 09:25, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
:Beret guy?

[[User:Weatherlawyer| I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait]] ([[User talk:Weatherlawyer|talk]]) 09:11, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

I find another possible humor in tile text: Ironically, Rand fans would find the concept of a collective rather revolting. A convention is in essence a gathering of everyone who has an interest in a subject, and is thus an "average of averages" (to quote Rand herself) on the respective subject. Fans who take Rand's philosophy as intended would probably find amassing themselves with others in a social hodge-podge of people without much function, mindless discussion, and re-iterating the ideas of someone else, to be against Rand's theory of Objectivism... Unless their Libertarians, of course. [[User:Jinx|Jinx]] 20:31, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

I wonder if this was the same train that blew the Taggart tunnel... [[User: Nemo|Nemo]] 14:46, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

There is a [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Proposals#Merge_Cueball_.26_Rob|community portal discussion]] of what to call Cueball and what to do in case with more than one Cueball. I have added this comic to the new Category:Multiple Cueballs. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 15:06, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Be different: conform.

-- Fortune

"If we're going to wear uniforms, let's all wear something different"; Tommy Chong [[User:The Cat Lady|-- The Cat Lady]] ([[User talk:The Cat Lady|talk]]) 15:40, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

another smbc parallel (smbc coming later) in [https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2011-05-23 this comic] --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.35.70|172.70.35.70]] 02:18, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

A subtle version of {{w|Monty Python's Life of Brian}}'s crowd's in-unison parroting of "Yes, We Are All Individuals!"... And hopefully as good a lesson to be learnt from. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.65|172.71.178.65]] 14:58, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2722: Etymonline

2023-01-10T09:09:22Z

172.71.178.65:

Random fact: I recently finished reading etymonline.com from beginning to end. It taught me things about the English language that I didn't know that I didn't know. [[User:Darthpoppins|Darthpoppins]] ([[User talk:Darthpoppins|talk]]) 00:46, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
:Nice. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.167.235|172.71.167.235]] 04:16, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Dear whomever wrote the current explanation, please take an English composition course. It's clear you mean well, but it's really hard to read your work. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.158.216|172.71.158.216]] 04:44, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

In the comic, french word "étymologie" is incorrectly spelled "ethimologie" which is referred to as "Old French". I wonder whether that mistake was done on purpose ?
[[Special:Contributions/141.101.68.222|141.101.68.222]] 08:12, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
: Given that it's over 350 years from now, it really ought to say 'from Old English etymology', with what we currently call Old English now being known as Really Old English.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.65|172.71.178.65]] 09:09, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

1818: Rayleigh Scattering

2023-01-10T01:24:53Z

172.71.178.65: /* Explanation */ The solution to the link breaking was just not to capitalise the final word.

{{comic
| number = 1818
| date = March 31, 2017
| title = Rayleigh Scattering
| image = rayleigh_scattering.png
| titletext = If you ask "why are leaves green?" the usual answer is "because they're full of chlorophyll, and chlorophyll is green," even though "why does chlorophyll scatter green light?" is a great question too.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic suggests it is better to explain things in an easy-to-understand and intuitive manner, even if such explanations may not capture all of the scientific detail involved. This is especially the case for children whose ability to grasp abstract physics has not yet fully developed. Giving the most complete and physically accurate explanation would make the concepts much more elaborate than necessary, and would cause major confusion in inexperienced listeners (as described explicitly in the article on {{w|Ignotum per ignotius}}).

The principle is demonstrated by the explanation on {{w|Diffuse sky radiation|why the sky is blue}}. The commonly given explanation for this is, as the comic title says, {{w|Rayleigh scattering}}. However, in order to understand how Rayleigh scattering works to produce a blue color, one must go into {{w|quantum mechanics}} and deal with properties of molecules in air and their effects on different wavelengths of light. Even then, one will also need to know about the inner workings of human visual perception to realize why the color we perceive isn't the wavelength that's being most strongly scattered (see [[1145: Sky Color]]). The child is not likely to understand this kind of explanation.

On the other hand, a much simpler explanation, such as "because air is blue" — that is, air molecules reflect blue light, in the same way blue paint reflects blue light — also adequately explains the phenomenon, and is much more understandable to less physically inclined listeners. When [[Science Girl]] asks [[Blondie]] (possibly [[Miss Lenhart]]) why the sky is blue, [[Megan]] walks in and starts to explain in a very scientific way involving quantum mechanics. This is criticized by Blondie, who then convinces her that the simpler explanation is sufficient, as there is a quantum mechanical explanation for every color, there is no need to elaborate on the sky's color any more than any other object's color.

Megan implicitly accepts this, but then in the final panel, Science Girl asks another common question - how do planes fly? Megan starts again to give the traditional answer (airflow causing {{w|Lift_(force)|lift}}) but is interrupted by Blondie saying that it's because the wings of an airplane are full of small birds. While this might not be as ridiculous as it first seems (the child might later learn that the "tiny birds" are actually air molecules, and "flapping wings" are actually pressure differentials), it is certainly over-simplified to a staggering extent. Thus Megan and Blondie illustrate the two extremes of education philosophy: where one chooses to teach the complete truth with no regard for whether it's understandable, the other chooses to make up understandable explanations with no regard for whether it's true. Arguably, neither approach is in the student's best interest and a balance needs to be achieved.

When Science Girl reacts like she believes Blondie's last comment about the planes, she could almost have been called April Fool. Although this comic was released one day too early for that, this was also the only year between April 1st of 2011 and April 1st of 2018 where no such comic was released. See more about this in the [[#No April Fools' Day comic in 2017|trivia section]] below.

The title text refers to another common question as for why leaves are green. This is commonly explained by the fact that they are filled with {{w|chlorophyll}}, a chemical used by plants for photosynthesis. Randall points out that it would be an equally valid question to ask why chlorophyll is green. This poses an interesting contrast to the answer to the question about the color of the sky, since even physicists are usually satisfied with the general explanation for leaves and don't feel the need to jump into describing quantum phenomena that cause chlorophyll to reflect green light. Also, "Why does chlorophyll scatter green light" may be a great question because chlorophyll reflects, not scatters, light and this challenges Megan-types to coherently explain the difference before they go challenging little children with pedantry. Or because green light is less efficient during photosynthesis, and explaining that is similar to explaining Rayleigh Scattering.

[https://what-if.xkcd.com/141/ What-if 141] also mentions the simpler explanation to the original question: Sunbeam has this relevant text: "Normal light interacts with the atmosphere through Rayleigh scattering. You may have heard of Rayleigh scattering as the answer to 'why is the sky blue.' This is sort of true, but honestly, a better answer to this question might be 'because air is blue.' Sure, it appears blue for a bunch of physics reasons, but everything appears the color it is for a bunch of physics reasons." There is also a footnote in that comment with an additional example: "When you ask, 'Why is the {{w|Statue of Liberty|statue of liberty}} green?' the answer is something like, 'The outside of the statue is copper, so it used to be copper-colored. Over time, a layer of copper carbonate formed (through oxidation), and copper carbonate is green.' You don't say 'The statue is green because of frequency-specific absorption and scattering by surface molecules.' "

Randall himself has published [https://xkcd.com/thing-explainer/ Thing Explainer] which gives simplified descriptions of complex scientific and technological objects. Even in his book, some of the more advanced details have been simplified to a toy model (such as calling liquid oxygen "cold wet air" and a nuclear reactor "box of burning metal").

==Transcript==
:[Science Girl asks Blondie a question which she answers while lifting her arm towards Science Girl.]
:Science Girl: Why is the sky blue?
:Blondie: Because air is blue.

:[Megan walks in from behind Science Girl.]
:Megan: No, the sky is blue because of Rayleigh scattering–
:Blondie: Nah, it's because air is blue. Blue light bounces off it and hits our eyes. Same as why anything is any color.

:[Zoom in on Blondie's face.]
:Blondie: It's why far-off mountains look blue – because of all the blue air in the way.

:[Zoom out to Megan standing longer from Science Girl than Blondie who has thrown her arms out. Science Girl is facing directly out towards the reader.]
:Megan: There's a specific quantum mechanism by which–
:Blondie: Yeah but there's a physics mechanism for ''every'' color. You don't have to get all quantum right away.

:[Frameless panel with Science Girl looking up at Blondie who stands holding her hands on her sides. Megan speaks from off-panel.]
:Megan (off-panel): ...OK, I guess.
:Blondie: Any other questions?
:Science Girl: How do planes stay up?

:[Blondie holds a finger up in front of Science Girl while Megan now is the one to throw out her arms.]
:Megan: Well, the airflow–
:Blondie: Tiny birds in the wings. Thousands. Flapping hard.
:Science Girl: WOW!
:Megan: ''NO!''

==Trivia==
===No April Fools' Day comic in 2017===
*This comic was released the day before {{w|April Fools' day}}, but even though it could be said that Blondie makes up tales about physics that could cause her to call Science Girl an April Fool for believing her, this is definitely not one of [[Randall|Randall's]] [[:Category:April fools' comics|April fools' comics]].
**The reason for this trivia is that this year, 2017, was the first since 2011 that Randall did not release a comic on April 1st, and neither this Friday comic from the end of March, or the first comic in April, [[1819: Sweet 16]] from Monday April 3rd, could be said to have any relation to such a joke.
**As Randall took up the trend again in 2018 with [[1975: Right Click]], released on Sunday April 1st 2018, it showed that it was not because he just stopped with the April Fools' Day jokes.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Science Girl]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Blondie]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

2722: Etymonline

2023-01-10T01:14:59Z

172.71.178.65: /* Explanation */ linkified and rearranged

{{comic
| number = 2722
| date = January 9, 2023
| title = Etymonline
| image = etymonline_2x.png
| imagesize = 458x280px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = NOTE TO FUTURE ETYMONLINGUISTS: Our best guess is that 'blimp' is onomatopoeia. The 'B-Limp' thing is a folk etymology.
}}

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

This comic appears to be an entry from a dictionary posted in the far future (at least the year 2384 based on the textual reference). The entry defines the term "etymonline" in a way that makes it clear that it has simply supplanted the word "etymology" in the intervening centuries. This is a reference to the internet service known as [https://www.etymonline.com/ Etymonline] or the Online Etymology Dictionary, and implies that Etymonline as a source became synonymous with the concept of etymology. This may have been because Etymonline grew into such a comprehensive and reputable source that it truly deserved the all-encompassing identification with the concept of etymology; alternatively, humans' efficiency of language removed the original term in favor of the name for the tool they used when they needed to learn a word's origin. All we know is that the origin of the "modern" term is simply cited as a modification of a more archaic English form, without any mention of the digital resource. This is a mild failure on the part of the dictionary entry, since the suffix "online" should at least have been noted as the modifier resulting in the current form, even if a discussion of the specific internet service was not relevant in the entry, unless the very concept of "online" has been so superceded by whatever its successors or usurpers might have become that it has been even more lost to common, or indeed academic, knowledge.

The title text plays with this (replacing "etymologist" with the derived term "etymonlinguist"). It is a comment from some present-day scholar attempting to communicate with the author of the futuristic entry by clarifying what they know about the etymology of the word "blimp". The comment references two theories of the etymology (that it is simply onomatopoeia or that it was constructed from the phrase "Type B - Limp") and rejects the latter as a folk etymology (consistent with the {{wiktionary|blimp|the explanation}} on Wiktionary). It is interesting to note that the current [https://www.etymonline.com/word/blimp Etymonline entry] only lists the B-Limp origin and does not mention onomatopoeia, though it does at least acknowledge that the origin is "obscure".

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

[picture of what appears to be a dictionary definition, askew in the frame to imply that it is printed on physical paper rather than a digital resource. The text reads as follows]

'''etymonline''' [pronunciation guide]
The history and derivation of a word. Altered form of English ''etymology'', from Old French ''ethimologie'', from Latin ''etymologia''. Quotation: "Before it came to refer to Jupiter's sky-cities, the term 'blimp' was used for 20th century Earth airships, but its etymonline before that is unknown." –''Jovian Blimps: A History'' (2384)

[Caption below comic]
Ironically, the popularity of Etymonline eventually caused the loss of the word "etymology" from English

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

Talk:1138: Heatmap

2023-01-02T13:53:52Z

172.71.178.65:

So does this mean... that all the subscribers to Martha Stweart Living are secretly furries? *gasp* [[Special:Contributions/129.97.124.23|129.97.124.23]] 23:00, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

No. It means that to people who give motivational talks to people who want to sell you things, all the people included in such maps are called prospects or prospective customers. It is a good explanation for spam.[[User:Weatherlawyer| I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait]] ([[User talk:Weatherlawyer|talk]]) 07:13, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Clearly it means that the furries are, in general, Martha Stewart fans, not the reverse. Are you mad? {{unsigned|174.125.142.147}}

:It's a subtle hint that xkcd will be transitioning into Martha Stewart furry porn.[[Special:Contributions/76.20.159.250|76.20.159.250]] 05:05, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

I thought that it was implied that if they switched to furry advertising/content, they could be as successful as Marth Stewart... not that they should combine marth stewart and furry content into their site. {{unsigned|109.65.32.63}}

I was expecting some reference to George Lucas' ''THX 1138'' for this comics.

But then, it is not George Lucas who's editing Xkcd...

Paulo Sedrez [[Special:Contributions/139.82.111.111|139.82.111.111]] 18:39, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

There is an additional pun, and I do not know if it was intended. One adult furry publication is called Heat. A map of where furry porn is appreciated would therefore also be a Heat map. {{unsigned|Godel Fishbreath| 15:14, 17 May 2013‎ (UTC)}}
:I'm a little weirded out by the fact that our resident expert on the titles of adult furry publications has the name of "Fishbreath." Makes one wonder where his mouth has been. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.210|173.245.55.210]] 17:24, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
:: '''Godel''' Fishbreath. Obviously the answer to your question is undecidable. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.163|173.245.52.163]] 01:41, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
:It's remarkable the places I sometimes see your messages, Godel Fishbreath. Best of wishes mate. [[User:Thisfox|Thisfox]] ([[User talk:Thisfox|talk]]) 06:51, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

The 'incomplete' tag refers to the title text. I'm not sure if this refers to the actual title text (which has been explained in the comic), or the title "Heatmap" (which I just added an explanation for). Either way, I think it's covered; I intend to remove the incomplete tag in a few days, if nobody objects. [[User:Cosmogoblin|Cosmogoblin]] ([[User talk:Cosmogoblin|talk]]) 22:54, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Could someone please do some photoshop magic and show the actual difference between the 3 maps please? I would, but I don't know how to use Photoshop. [[User:SqueakSquawk4|SqueakSquawk4]] ([[User talk:SqueakSquawk4|talk]]) 10:20, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
:In what way show the difference? Overlaying is easy enough (for two maps cut rectangles, paste as new layers moved atop the third (use transparency as a guide), then either twiddle the transparencies to make it look informative whilst static or make them all backbto opaque but use layers as animated .gif frames, suggesting 1000ms rate or thereabouts), or at least it is in GIMP - not used Photoshop for years... Maybe a decade, but I bet it's almost the same.
:Alternately, slightly more complicated is to translate the white-to-red colours to some monochrome shade (white-as-#000, red as #FFF, which can probably be done by isolating a given RGB component; but preserve/extract the black lines as a separate overlay for later) and then use them to govern R, B and G channels (again, easy in GIMP), combining them together to give greyshades where equal or colours where the intermediate levels 'disagree' either in one (vs the other two) or even across all three.
:Would try either, myself, but I don't have upload ability and it also needs me to be on my desktop instead of this tablet. So I'm giving you (anyone) my likely methods. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.65|172.71.178.65]] 13:53, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

2696: Precision vs Accuracy

2022-11-15T01:32:36Z

172.71.178.65: /* Explanation */ Not "regularly", as it implies strict periodicity. (And "frequently" sounded too extreme.) Also moved the chosen replacement to fix the flow/sense of the sentence.

{{comic
| number = 2696
| date = November 9, 2022
| title = Precision vs Accuracy
| image = precision_vs_accuracy_2x.png
| imagesize = 501x462px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = 'Barack Obama is much less likely than the average cat to jump in and out of cardboard boxes for fun' is low precision, but I'm not sure about the accuracy.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by BARACK OBAMA IN A CARDBOARD BOX. Further detail, sortable table? - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic parodies the difference between 'accuracy' and 'precision' with a table. {{w|Accuracy and precision}} are common concepts to be encountered in the scientific field and often students have issues with the differences between them. Accuracy concerns whether a statement is true, while precision concerns how detailed it is; it is possible for a statement to be one but not the other. The comic explores this concept by comparing {{w|Barack Obama}}, former President of the United States, with {{w|cat}}s. Confusingly, he measures different statistics of both Barack Obama and cats (sometimes measuring them in terms of cats) leaving the unwary reader even more confused.

Being precise is typical of calculations that roll out an excess of significant digits, often in the form of trailing decimals. Precision is lowered by using more rounded figures, or merely being comparative, but largely unaffected by whether the original values used were accurate or even correct. Accuracy is a cumulative function of the accuracy given to the intermediate values used for any calculation, and can be degraded by using figures that are themselves in some way inaccurate or imprecise. One part of confusion between the two is because being too precise usually decreases accuracy.

The numbers mentioned in the top row (high precision) of the table all use exactly the same digits, dictating that a full five digits of ''precision'' are used in them all. The most "valid" or correct value is a number that's very accurate and precise (see table). For the medium accuracy the number is an anagram of the 1st entry, giving a value that is reasonable but would be overly exact, whilst the low accuracy number is just a repeat of the first entry's digits with a shifted decimal but clearly at the wrong scale, as Randall could have shifted the decimal point one further place to the left to be closest to the true measurement. Instead, he replaces the thousands separator with the decimal point, perhaps for the visual pun.

The title text compares Obama's and cats' enjoyment of playing with cardboard boxes. While cats are known to do this,{{citation needed}} we don't know whether Obama does.

The day prior to the publication of this comic (November 8, 2022) was election day in the United States, so Randall may have been remembering Barack Obama's presidency at this time.

{| class="wikitable"
!Precision
!Accuracy
!Statement
!Explanation
|-
|High
|High
|Barack Obama was president for 70,128 hours
|This is the official length in hours of {{w|Barack Obama}}'s 8-year presidency, including 2 {{w|leap year|leap days}}. Obama served from January 20, 2009 through January 20, 2017, and his term officially began and ended at noon on those days. (There were three {{w|leap second|leap seconds}} during his presidency, though.)
|-
|High
|Medium
|Barack Obama weighs as much as 17.082 cats
|The accuracy would depend on the mass of the cats in question. Also a human's mass can vary by a few pounds in a small amount of time as meals are consumed, resources are used in metabolism and wastes are eliminated, and thus this may be overly precise due the margin of error in both the mass of cats and the mass of Mr. Obama. In 2016, Obama was [https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/08/politics/obama-medical-exam-loses-weight officially reported] to weigh 175 lb (79.3787 kg). [https://www.google.com/search?q=how+heavy+is+an+average+cat Google claims that an average cat weighs between 8.8 and 11 lbs], so this statement may be close to accurate.
|-
|High
|Low
|Barack Obama is 70.128 feet tall
|A highly precise (5 significant digits) measurement, but far from his actual height, published as 6'1".
The given value is more than an order of magnitude different from both him and {{w|Robert Wadlow|almost}} any other known human, whilst one of 7.0128 would ''only'' be about 15% off – still a low accuracy, but not outside the realms of possibility for an otherwise unknown person.
Coincidentally, Barack Obama is approximately 70 ''cat'' feet tall, using the paw size of a house cat to measure his height. Given the number of cat-related facts in the rest of the chart, this could be seen as rather appropriate.
|-
|Medium
|High
|Most cats have 4 legs
|Like many mammals, cats are quadrupeds, which means "four feet". Unless there is a genetic or other developmental issue, or an an injury that causes the loss of a limb, then cats generally have 4 legs.
|-
|Medium
|Medium
|Barack Obama is 6'1"
|While only as precise as the nearest inch, a common degree of rounding in that scale of measurement, that is the former president's published height.
[https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/08/politics/obama-medical-exam-loses-weight In 2016], Obama was said to have "grown" 0.5 inches in height, so there is a definite lack of consistency of exactly how tall he is. The examinations may have been made at different times of their respective days, with some spinal compression occurring all the time not laid in bed, and his current height is also not publicly recorded; several years of gradual aging could also reduce his posture slightly, or sustaining his fitness (since experiencing the travails of office) may counteract this to a greater or lesser effect.
|-
|Medium
|Low
|Barack Obama has 4 legs
|Barack Obama, being a mammal, does qualify as a {{w|tetrapod}}, but as a primate, his ancestors' forelimbs evolved into arms and hands. Like other humans, he does not generally use them for locomotion, but to manipulate his environment. Thus calling these limbs "legs" runs counter to normal definitions, and is highly ''in''accurate.

|-
|Low
|High
|Most cats have legs
|A true (high accuracy) statement without much information (low precision).
|-
|Low
|Medium
|Barack Obama has fewer legs than your cat
|Again, this will depend on the cat (not to mention whether or not you actually have a cat), but in general, true.
|-
|Low
|Low
|Barack Obama's cat has hundreds of legs
|This statement has low accuracy, as Barack Obama owns a four-legged dog named Sunny, but is not known to have owned a cat, much less one with more legs than normal. It also has low precision, as "hundreds" could reasonably range from 200 to 900. (From a strict logician's point of view, this could however be considered a vacuously true statement.)
|-
|Low
|Unsure
|Barack Obama is much less likely than the average cat to jump in and out of cardboard boxes for fun
|Barack Obama has never publicly jumped in and out of cardboard boxes for fun, but the possibility exists that he does so in private. Cats, meanwhile, are commonly known for jumping in and out of cardboard boxes for fun.
|}

==Transcript==
:[The comic shows a table with 3 rows and 3 columns. Each row and column has a label, and then nine statements are given for the 3x3 grid.]
:{| class="wikitable"
|-
| || High accuracy || Medium accuracy || Low accuracy
|-
| High precision
|Barack Obama was president for 70,128 hours||Barack Obama weighs as much as 17.082 cats||Barack Obama is 70.128 feet tall
|-
| Medium precision
|Most cats have 4 legs||Barack Obama is 6'1"||Barack Obama has 4 legs
|-
| Low precision
|Most cats have legs||Barack Obama has fewer legs than your cat||Barack Obama's cat has hundreds of legs
|}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Statistics]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Cats]]

Talk:2693: Wirecutter Recommendation

2022-11-07T11:13:44Z

172.71.178.65:

I'm glad the explanation (as of reading, at least) lept straight into reminding me about the website. I initially read the first panel as Cueball looking for a {{w|Diagonal pliers|specific item}} recomendation... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.12|172.70.86.12]] 18:42, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Soooo.... what sort of dreams would these be? Is Randal talking about the invasive "we control you while you sleep" dystopia, or is he referring to life goals? [[User:Cwallenpoole|Cwallenpoole]] ([[User talk:Cwallenpoole|talk]]) 18:44, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
:I'm pretty sure he means life aspirations -- even if you could rate sleeping dreams ("Flying -- 5 stars"), how would you make use of them? There are some people who claim to be able to control their dreams, it's not something most people can do. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 23:01, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Is this fitting for [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Category:Rankings Category:Rankings]? —[[User:While False|While False]] ([[User:While False/explain xkcd museum|'''museum''']] | [[User talk:While False|talk]] | [[special:Contributions/While_False|contributions]] | [[special:Log/While_False|logs]] | [[Special:UserRights/While_False|rights]]) 21:07, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

I totally misunderstood the first panel as "I just went with the one wirecutter *which was* recommended". Like, there was a comparison of different wire cutters, but only one of them was recommended, and that's the one Cueball went with. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.16|172.69.22.16]] 21:52, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
: As did I. I had never, in fact, heard of the Wirecutter review website until I came here looking for an explanation.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.196|172.69.79.196]] 22:22, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
::Ditto. I initially thought it might be another 1036-type idea.[[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 22:55, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
::Me too, but when I went to panel 2 I realized it must be a recommendation site that I hadn't heard of. Then I came here and got the confirmation. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 22:58, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
::One of most confusing strips to date. Spent good couple minutes thinking just how applying wire cutters to your pet is merely weird but to a site for product recommendations is very bad. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.51.52|172.68.51.52]] 10:48, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
:::Agreed. If "WIRECUTTER" was in italics, then it would have easier to understand it was a proper noun and not "wirecutter". [[Special:Contributions/172.68.70.108|172.68.70.108]] 18:59, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Blood-type [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.237|172.70.110.237]] 23:11, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

This was pretty confusing because being outside the US, I had never heard of wirecutter :P [[Special:Contributions/172.68.210.41|172.68.210.41]] 23:54, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Specifically for neighborhoods, beyond the easy to compare numbers like property values and crime rates, there are websites that "review" them for less quantitative things like access to community services, traffic and noise, and reputation of nearby schools. It is still normally too complex a decision to reduce to "whichever the website recommends". [[Special:Contributions/172.70.134.13|172.70.134.13]] 00:48, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

The title text could be a reference to the regress argument. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.222.239|162.158.222.239]] 10:39, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

"Your college major will determine the rest of your life significantly." <- Clearly written by someone who has not gone through college. {{unsigned|172.70.131.85}}
:Or someone who went to a college which taught in a language other than English, or who isn’t very careful when they write on Explain xkcd compared to when they wrote essays in college. In short: Please don’t be rude. —[[User:While False|While False]] ([[User:While False/explain xkcd museum|'''museum''']] | [[User talk:While False|talk]] | [[special:Contributions/While_False|contributions]] | [[special:Log/While_False|logs]] | [[Special:UserRights/While_False|rights]]) 17:39, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
::You call me rude, yet you're the one making assumptions about me, assuming that my native language is English, or that I went to an English-speaking college. I have been through college, specifically, university. It's a waste of money unless you're going into medicine or law. Other degrees are meaningless pieces of paper and the only things that actually matter in the job market are personal connections.
:::Well, I have assumed neither your language nor your college. To call someone uneducated is a common insult. —[[User:While False|While False]] ([[User:While False/explain xkcd museum|'''museum''']] | [[User talk:While False|talk]] | [[special:Contributions/While_False|contributions]] | [[special:Log/While_False|logs]] | [[Special:UserRights/While_False|rights]]) 19:03, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
::::I think you're a bit off base here - pretty sure they weren't seriously calling anyone uneducated - simply making a half-joking observation that a college degree isn't anywhere near as valuable as that statement suggested.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.64|172.71.178.64]] 11:13, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
:...regardless of all that, a Wirecutter review would be useless, because we already know that [[1052: Every Major's Terrible]]! [[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.166|141.101.76.166]] 21:36, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Had to come here to find out why in the world anyone would recommend using one wire cutter (as opposed to more?) on a vacuum cleaner, headphones, or scooter, let alone those other things. I supposed that if headphones stopped working, having one wire cutter might be useful. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.146.65|172.71.146.65]] 22:31, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

2693: Wirecutter Recommendation

2022-11-07T11:03:58Z

172.71.178.65: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2693
| date = November 2, 2022
| title = Wirecutter Recommendation
| image = wirecutter_recommendation_2x.png
| imagesize = 430x333px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Their 'best philosophy of epistemology' picks are great, but you can tell they're struggling a little in the 'why you should trust us' section.
}}

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

''[https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter Wirecutter]'' is a product review website, owned by ''The New York Times''. As such, ''Wirecutter'' is best used for comparing brands and models of consumer products. The comic, however, lists things that ''Wirecutter'' should ''not'' recommend, or that one should not choose based on ''Wirecutter'' reviews.

The first panel shows [[Cueball]] telling [[Ponytail]] that he decided to go with ''Wirecutter'''s recommendation when buying something unspecified. The second panel shows a list of different contexts for this conversation, ranking them from "Fine" to "Very Bad".

{| class="wikitable sortable"
!Thing Being Chosen!!Judgment!!Explanation
|-
|Vacuum cleaner||Fine||Vacuum cleaners are an everyday household item. Many brands and models are available offering a range of functionality at different prices. This is exactly the kind of thing where ''Wirecutter'''s reviews are helpful when deciding which kind to buy.
|-
|Headphones||Fine|||Headphones are also fairly ubiquitous, and ''Wirecutter'' would likewise be useful in such a scenario.
|-
|Electric scooter||Fine||While less common than the two above, electric scooters are still a popular electrical product, so ''Wirecutter'' is a decent choice for advice.
|-
|Favorite movie||Weird||Most people would say that your choice of favorite movie should be based on your own experiences, rather than someone else's opinions. Reviewing movies is a very different endeavor to reviewing products, and one would not expect ''Wirecutter'' to be particularly proficient with it. While a movie review website may be a reasonable source of recommendations on whether to see a particular movie at all, it would seem strange to choose one's own favorite movie based on a website's recommendation. In fact, though, precisely this kind of thing does happen, through mechanisms such as social proof and norm internalisation.
|-
|Personal style||Weird||Not only does the term "personal style" encompass a vast range of topics, it is also (predictably) a deeply personal thing. These two factors mean that not only will ''Wirecutter'''s recommended likely not fully discuss every factor of your personal style, it also isn't the kind of service you'd use to choose something as nebulous and personal as your "personal style."
|-
|Neighborhood||Weird||It can be assumed this means "the neighborhood one lives in." In this case, it is odd to rely on ''Wirecutter'' for recommendations on where to live, as it is a product review website and since a respectable portion of that decision is up to personal circumstances, preferences, and local conditions that a national newspaper (even one with the resources of the ''New York Times'') will not be able to see. In a best case scenario, ''Wirecutter'' is recommending neighborhoods based on empirical data, such as local economic growth. There are [https://www.businessinsider.com/us-news-best-places-to-live-in-america-2016-3 publications] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2022/07/28/the-best-and-most-affordable-places-to-live-in-america-in-2022/?sh=566a26ca6bbf that] [https://money.com/best-places-to-live/ rank] the "best cities to live in", which could relate to this topic.
|-
|Pet||Weird||While the ''type'' of pet may be more easy to rank on a website (especially with a pro/con system), picking an ''individual pet'' is an extremely personal decision that probably can't be considered covered by a product review website like ''Wirecutter''.
|-
|College major||Bad||Your college major will influence the rest of your life significantly, and your choice should depend on your prior personal experiences. Basing your choice on ''Wirecutter'', something completely unrelated to college, is likely a bad idea. As with "Neighborhood", any recommendations can only be based on empirical data like employment availability, tuition cost vs. expected salary, etc. [https://www.princetonreview.com/college-advice/top-ten-college-majors Rankings] [https://www.mydegreeguide.com/best-college-majors/ like] [https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/save-money/best-college-majors/ this] do exist, however, and are possibly used by prospective students.
|-
|Career||Bad||One's optimal career choice is subject to a wide range of highly personal factors, including your talents, ambitions, and capabilities. It is highly unlikely that a hardware review site like ''Wirecutter'' would be capable of accounting for every one of these factors for every conceivable viewer. Could be related to [https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/rankings/the-100-best-jobs rankings] [https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/the-best-jobs-in-america-in-2022-ranked/ like] [https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/12/these-are-10-best-us-jobs-of-2022-according-to-new-research.html this].
|-
|Religion||Bad||Do ''not'' base your religious worldview on the electronic device equivalent to Yelp. The idea of ''Wirecutter'' reviewing religion has appeared in a previous comic, [[2536: Wirecutter]].
|-
|Spouse||Very Bad|| In general, people pair off when choosing spouses. This would mean that ''Wirecutter'' would be required to either find one potential spouse for every reader (cumbersome, to say the least) or would recommend ''one'' spouse for multiple (possibly millions of) partners. Even assuming an accelerated divorce rate, it would be impossible for the choice spouse to actually accomplish the role.
Perhaps [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/24/wirecutter-recommends-the-best-partner this parody] by ''The New Yorker'' inspired this comic.
|-
|Dreams||Very Bad|| There are two possible definitions of "dream" that may be referred to here.
* When it comes to "the series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person's mind during sleep," most people cannot consciously control what they dream about, so recommending this sort of dream is somewhat pointless. Further, as this information is largely inaccessible outside of the mind of the dreamer, ''Wirecutter'' has limited ability to make meaningful suggestions.
* On the other hand, if Cueball is relying upon ''Wirecutter'' to recommend "a cherished aspiration, ambition, or ideal," he is allowing one of the most personal and individual aspects of his life — something which may give life itself a sense of meaning — to be dictated by a consumer product review site. As with many entries here, this is something that most people have to come up with or discover for themselves; relying on a third party to recommend one FOR him is deeply unlikely to bring about long-term satisfaction.
|-
|Favorite child||Very Bad|| Assuming this is a reference to the reader's own children, it can be difficult and furthermore bad practice for a parent to choose their "favorite" child, and using ''Wirecutter'' to do this analysis is near impossible. And a website that purports to know more about how to judge the relative merits of your own family than you would be... interesting.
The alternative interpretation of assuming that this is from "all children, everywhere" is more difficult. There are approximately 1.3 billion persons under the age of 18, most of whom have at least one good quality,{{citation needed}} and defining a useful ranking in such a situation is functionally impossible.
|-
|Site for product recommendations||Very Bad|| This is a topic of which the authors, editors, and publishers of ''Wirecutter'' have a vested interest and clear bias. This implies that the people at ''Wirecutter'' would be self-serving when it comes to recommending recommendations, specifically.

Alternatively, they could be recommending ''another'' review site, which could call into question their judgment and make you wonder why you should trust them at all.
|-
|}

The title text references {{w|epistemology}}, a branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of knowledge and truth, for which [[Randall]] says ''Wirecutter'''s recommendations are great. Broadly speaking, epistemology attempts to answer the question "how do I know that what I know is true?" He seems skeptical, however, of their reasons that their reviews should be trusted. Perhaps the great epistemological theories don't favor the accuracy of crowdsourced product reviews when manufacturers are eager to leverage such reviews to cast their products in the best possible light, including through unethical means such as {{w|astroturfing}}.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball and Ponytail standing next to each other. Cueball has his palm raised.]
:Cueball: I just went with the one Wirecutter recommended.

:[A panel of four categories with topics next to them]

:[Fine category]
:Vacuum cleaner
:Headphones
:Electric scooter

:[Weird category]
:Favorite movie
:Personal style
:Neighborhood
:Pet

:[Bad category]
:College major
:Career
:Religion

:[Very bad category]
:Spouse
:Dreams
:Favorite child
:Site for product recommendations

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

1737: Datacenter Scale

2022-10-11T00:46:31Z

172.71.178.65: /* Explanation */ Clear typo.

{{comic
| number = 1737
| date = September 23, 2016
| title = Datacenter Scale
| image = datacenter_scale.png
| titletext = Asimov's Cosmic AC was created by linking all datacenters through hyperspace, which explains a lot. It didn't reverse entropy--it just discarded the universe when it reached end-of-life and ordered a new one.
}}
==Explanation==

This comic expands, to the limit, the strategy that it's a net cost saving to allow cheap hardware to fail and simply replace it than to have robust but much more expensive systems to start with. The technique was made famous by [https://books.google.com/books?id=zdlZ2rrcZWEC&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19#v=onepage&q&f=false Google circa 1999,] when its successful cost-effective server designs were actually using sub-consumer, nearly junk, hardware.

{{w|RAID}} ("redundant array of independent disks") is a technology that splits data across several hard drives as if they were one. RAID comes in several levels (varieties) which have different applications, but one of the big applications of RAID is creating mirrored hard disks that back each other up. If one disk drive in such a RAID fails, no data is lost.

However, RAID is complicated to configure, so you don't want to be constantly setting it up. An alternative technique for data centers is, therefore, to simply send the data to several servers at once. This makes maintenance easier, but without RAID, one hard disk crash basically breaks the server. However, this is what the woman with a bun's (possibly an adult [[Science Girl]]) data center is doing since their scale is so large that fixing individual servers actually more expensive than simply buying a new one for replacement, and instead of fixing the drive they throw away the machine. (More about this approach will be explained later on)

From here, the comic starts to exaggerate. Nowadays, servers can be made extremely small ("{{w|Blade server}}s") and dozens of servers can be attached to one {{w|19-inch rack}} in a data center. Rather than going to the effort of unplugging and unscrewing one blade from the rack, when a blade fails at [[Cueball]]'s data center they just throw away the rack, and [[Ponytail]] agrees and mildly mocks the woman with a bun for replacing one server.

[[Hairy]]'s data center goes one step further - they have so many servers that they would constantly have to be throwing away and replacing racks, so instead they just build a new room when one rack fails. This would be currently possible with small modular data centers that are built in shipping containers for easy transport and can be linked together to expand capacity. Here the cargo-container "room" with the failure would be quickly swapped with a fresh one. Cueball adds "like Google!" - [[Randall]] previously mentioned {{w|Google|Google's}} approach to hard drive failures in the [[what if?]] ''{{what if|63|Google's Datacenters on Punch Cards}}''. Back in [http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/de//archive/disk_failures.pdf 2007] they had one failure every few minutes, which might have increased hugely since then.

Finally [[Megan]] appears and her company, of course, breaks the scale of silliness in exaggeration. She says that they don't have any fire extinguishers (neither {{w|Fire sprinkler system|regular sprinklers}} nor the systems that deploy gasses like FM-200 which alter the room air's ability to sustain a fire). Rather, they just rope the center off, thus letting the data center burn down. Then they simply move a town over and build a new one. This may indicate they are so big that the entire town will burn down if their center catches fire, or else they did not have to skip town. Alternatively, they just leave the center burning and this may cause problems in that town, so they simply flee the premises.

Most big internet companies do have multiple redundant data centers around the world, in order to increase speeds for users in different countries, but Megan's idea would be very expensive, result in increased {{w|Latency (engineering)|latency}}, possibly kill people (either in their company, or other people in the town, since they do not try to put out the fire), and cause severe destruction of properties in addition to their own. These last two items would result in additional litigation and fines, and potentially jail sentences for the people charged with implementing the policy. They may also result in other towns being unwilling to take their business, out of fear they will wind up burning too.

Hairy still thinks that it makes sense, while Cueball wonders what difference the roping off does. This could again be a reference to the fact that they just let the buildings burn without bothering about the local consequences, and the next step is just one more step towards the extreme of the title text.

This comic references how, as data requirements expand, the cost of time eventually outweighs the cost of hardware at ever increasing scales (drive, rack, room, building). While this comic takes this to the extreme, with whole buildings being destroyed for simple flaws, the concept is not as far-fetched as it seems if "thrown out" is taken to include being sold to equipment refurbishers. It could indeed be cost effective for a large data services provider to resell racks or even whole data center modules at some significant fraction of their "as new" price as opposed expending the time and effort to attempt a repair. The equipment refurbisher would then rely on a {{w|competitive advantage|cost advantage}} like cheaper labor to repair the flaw and sell it back to Google or another company with less demanding requirements. Equipment rental firms already operate on this model and with the added incentive customers preferring to rent newer models, this means that the equipment is often ''preemptively'' replaced before failures even occur.

The title text refers to {{w|Isaac Asimov}}'s science-fiction short story ''{{w|The Last Question}}'' ([http://imgur.com/gallery/9KWrH comic version]), where humanity asks, at different stages of its spatial and technological development, the same question to increasingly advanced computers: "How can the net amount of {{w|entropy}} of the universe be massively decreased?". At each point, the computer's answer is that it does not yet have sufficient data for a meaningful answer. Ultimately, the computers are all linked through hyperspace, outside the physical boundaries of the universe, and make up a single computing entity named AC which keeps pondering the question even as the {{w|heat death of the universe}} occurs and time and space cease to exist. When AC finally discovers the answer, since there is nobody left to report it to, it decides to demonstrate it and says "{{w|Let there be light|LET THERE BE LIGHT!}}", which are the first words said by God during the Creation, according to the {{w|Book of Genesis}}. Here, the title text implies that, as the universe died, AC no longer had a use for it as a physical support and, taking the comic's logic to the next extreme, chose to discard it and get a brand-new one instead of bothering to "fix" it by reversing its entropy. This short story was also referenced in [[1448: Question]].

This comic's concept of taking a real world phenomenon and exaggerating it to levels currently considered implausible for comic effect closely mimics an earlier comic which describes progressively more "hardcore" programmers in [[378: Real Programmers]]. This comic might be related to [[1567: Kitchen Tips]] which suggests not throwing away your dishes but washing them.

==Transcript==
:[Zoom in on a woman with a bun holding her hand palm up in front of her taking to people off-panel right.]
:Woman with a bun: RAID controllers don't make sense at our scale; everything is redundant at higher levels. When a drive fails, we just throw away the whole machine.

:[In this frame-less panel it is revealed that the woman with a bun talked to Cueball and Ponytail who is looking her way.]
:Cueball: Machine? We throw away whole racks at a time.
:Ponytail: Yeah, who replaces ''one server''?

:[Hairy has appeared from the left and holds one hand palm up towards the other three where also the woman with a bun has turned towards him.]
:Hairy: We just replace whole rooms at once. At our scale, messing with racks isn't economical.
:Woman with a bun: Wow.
:Cueball: Like Google!

:[Megan walks in from the left, and everyone including Hairy now looks towards her. Cueball has taken a hand up to his chin. The replies to Megan are written with clearly smaller font.]
:Megan: We don't have sprinklers or inert gas systems. When a datacenter catches fire, we just rope it off and rebuild one town over.
:Hairy: Makes sense.
:Cueball: I wonder if the rope is really necessary.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Science Girl]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Fiction]]

1176: Those Not Present

2022-10-07T10:27:46Z

172.71.178.65: /* Explanation */ Scoot scoot, Zooty! Scoot scoot!

{{comic
| number = 1176
| date = February 20, 2013
| title = Those Not Present
| image = those not present.png
| titletext = 'Yeah, that squid's a total asshole.' [scoot scoot]
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] (likely representing [[Randall]]), has decided to leave conversations deemed toxic, by scooting a little bit away any time somebody badmouths someone not present. In each panel, he scoots progressively further away until he reaches an area with [[Megan]], [[Hairy]], and [[Beret Guy]], discussing {{w|giant squids}}. He decides to join them, as this conversation is far more interesting to him than one criticizing people behind their backs.

The title text jokes that the second group, is, in fact, dissing the giant squid rather than discussing how cool it is. As the squid is not present,{{Citation needed}} Cueball scoots either back to where he came from (as having now at least a lesser toxicity) or even further onwards (to seek out a new and more palatable conversation).

==Transcript==
:Every time someone says something negative about a person who's not in the room, I scoot my chair back a few inches.
:[Cueball, Ponytail and two other people are sitting at a table drinking.]
:Person: ''He's'' not so bad, but his ''friends''...
:[Cueball scoots away from table.]
:''Scoot scoot''

:Ponytail: His band is never gonna take off if...
:[Cueball scoots further away.]
:''Scoot scoot''

:[Megan, Beret Guy, and Hairy come into view.]
:Off-screen: Yeah, his sister is even ''weirder''.
:Off-screen: Did you see she had...
:''Scoot scoot''
:Beret Guy: ...and there's a video, but it's blurry...

:[Cueball turns around and leans his arm on his chair.]
:Cueball: What're you talking about?
:Hairy: Giant squid!
:Cueball: Mind if I join you?

==Trivia==
*In the first panel, the word "friends" was originally misspelled as "frends".

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]

Talk:2680: Battery Life

2022-10-06T12:09:34Z

172.71.178.65: /* "Plugging my phone is a pain" as a modern problem */

I found a source saying phones need 1 kWh/year, to the closest 10 kWh. That's quite strange. Better source needed? --[[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|speak]]|[[User:While False/explain xkcd museum|museum]]) 04:32, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

/\--- The article cited is from 2013, so quite old, and within the article it even amends the tagline value to 2kWh. iPhone 12 would last about 47 days with a 12kWh battery based on specs (2,815mAh battery, nom voltage 3.8V) and assuming that a charge lasts a full day. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.161|108.162.221.161]] 15:44, 4 October 2022 (UTC) JourneymanWizard

An average iPhone has somewhere around [https://www.macworld.com/article/678413/iphone-battery-capacities-compared-all-iphones-battery-life-in-mah-and-wh.html 12 Wh of capacity], which at 1 kWh/year would imply only ~23% per day. Anecdotally, that's definitely not right. An [https://spectrum.ieee.org/your-phone-costs-energyeven-before-you-turn-it-on IEEE article] claims 4 kWh/year, but I don't have access and only see this in the Google snippet. --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.17|172.69.134.17]] 05:37, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

* What about my S series Samsung?
It has 5000mAh battery, 3,7V voltage, ergo (5 amper * 3,7 volt) = 18,5 watts/hour. It lasts for, roughly, 1 day of heavy use at work (camera, youtube etc., its was my media device) and 2 days of weekend use.

My phone has been in use for 4 years before an upgrade, which gives 366+365+365+365=731+730=1461 day. 1467/7*6 full recharges -- ~1253 recharges. 1253*18,5Wh gives ~18,5kWh*5/4 --- 23,09 kWh; 5,6 kWh per year. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.250.223|172.70.250.223]] 07:18, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Very old (1980s?) relevant joke preserved at https://www.ariel.com.au/jokes/The_Inventor.html Jake is struggling through a bus station with two huge and obviously heavy suitcases when a stranger walks up to him and asks "Have you got the time?" Jake sighs, puts down the suitcases and glances at his wrist. "It's a quarter to six," he says. "Hey, that's a pretty fancy watch!" exclaims the stranger. Jake brightens a little. 
"Yeah, it's not bad. Check this out" - and he shows him a time zone display not just for every time zone in the world, but for the 86 largest metropolises. He hits a few buttons and from somewhere on the watch a voice says "The time is eleven 'til six" in a very West Texas accent. A few more buttons and the same voice says something in Japanese. Jake continues "I've put in regional accents for each city". The display is unbelievably high quality and the voice is simply astounding. The stranger is struck dumb with admiration. "That's not all", says Jake. He pushes a few more buttons and a tiny but very high-resolution map of New York City appears on the display. "The flashing dot shows our location by satellite positioning," explains Jake. "View recede ten", Jake says, and the display changes to show eastern New York state. "I want to buy this watch!" says the stranger. "Oh, no, it's not ready for sale yet; I'm still working out the bugs", says the inventor. "But look at this", and he proceeds to demonstrate that the watch is also a very creditable little FM radio receiver with a digital tuner, a sonar device that can measure distances up to 125 meters, a printer with thermal paper printout and, most impressive of all, the capacity for voice recordings of up to 300 standard-size books, "though I only have 32 of my favorites in there so far" says Jake. "I've got to have this watch!", says the stranger. "No, you don't understand; it's not ready -" "I'll give you $1000 for it!" "Oh, no, I've already spent more than -" "I'll give you $5000 for it!" "But it's just not -" "I'll give you $15,000 for it!" And the stranger pulls out a checkbook. Jake stops to think. He's only put about $8500 into materials and development, and with $15,000 he can make another one and have it ready for merchandising in only six months. The stranger frantically finishes writing the check and waves it in front of him. "Here it is, ready to hand to you right here and now. $15,000. Take it or leave it." Jake abruptly makes his decision. "OK", he says, and peels off the watch. They make the exchange and the stranger starts happily away. "Hey, wait a minute", calls Jake after the stranger, who turns around warily. Jake points to the two suitcases he'd been trying to wrestle through the bus station. "Don't forget your batteries." [[User:Duard|Duard]] ([[User talk:Duard|talk]]) 02:34, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

== "Plugging my phone is a pain" as a modern problem ==

While some folks (like myself) use long (3m/10ft) cords, most people are stuck with 1m charging cables or less. That's indeed a pain if you use your phone a lot. It's also frustrating to deal with charging cables getting old while your phone's charging port is also getting old. However, Energizer's take on the problem (custom 18000mAh phone) doesn't feel good either: the resulting phone feels too heavy. A hefty brick of a ~18000mAh powerbank itself is already too heavy for many pockets, even outside of "skinny jeans" fashion. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.89.248|162.158.89.248]] 08:47, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
* Oh! By the way, last week, I almost got into a problem. I plugged my phone, went to sleep, woke up without an alarm and assumed it is too early to get out of bed. Then, the street noises made me realize it's actually 9AM already and I am late for work. "So much for XXI century smart devices", I thought. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.89.248|162.158.89.248]] 08:51, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
::In many ways, smart phones were step backward. My old Nokia phone is easier to hold in hand and can sound an alarm when TURNED OFF (obviously, there is separate circuit for counting time to alarm which remains powered). Granted, for playing games, I needed to buy a separate android game console which is sold as smartphone. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 12:13, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Out of interest, how many people replace their phone because of the battery? There are those who would replace their xkcdPhone3000aIII for an xkcdPhone3000aIV just because you only get the blue-anodised casing with the latter and the limited-edition red-anodised case of the former is ''so'' last week (actually, probably only out six days ago). There are those who will swap when the OS gets a new version (because they might be missing out). There are those who will have to swap because NewApp doesn't support "Pancake" or "Sausagedog" or whatever version of OS it is that's now a year or three behind the curve. There are those who will swap because OldApp is no longer supporting "DoritoSandwiches" (the 5yo OS on their ''very'' well-used device) and they actually don't like giving up on it. Then there are those who will just make do with a dwindling capability (various apps going inoperable, but those that aren't are still being used whilst the rest of the device still works!). And, by the end of that list, you can be sure a charger-plug and/or powerbank is an "Everyday Carry", possibly even an always plugged in essential because even phone/tablet repair places are starting to tell you that they couldn't guarantee to get a replacement battery of the right vintage, or you find out for yourself how hard it was to effect a full repair/transplant. — For the record, I'm definitely towards this end of that list (but get a newer device to run in parallel, to probably start to consider just as unretirable as ''its'' working life starts to be compromised, at various times having perhaps three 'working' generations of device, none of them the current bleeding-edge). [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.171|172.69.79.171]] 13:14, 4 October 2022 (UTC) — P.S.: And, so far, I have ''never'' continued the same (Android/Google) account over to a new device, or worked out how to migrate apps(+data) wholesale across devices, where not already designed with export/import facilities or just have to have the same non-device login details carried over to a sign-in/up dialogue. Must be possible/expected, but I've just never ever tried it. New device, new Gmail! [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.201|172.69.79.201]] 13:22, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
: I decided to upgrade my aforementioned 4 year old smartphone because it used to be a "flagship phone" and now it's a phone with OK perfomance, great display yet low battery life. So yes, it was the "cannot be bothered with the [somewhat degraded] battery" problem. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.86|172.70.211.86]] 14:18, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
:: In fact, my 2017 device initially got all those "charging problems" as well, due to playing too much Ingress on foot. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.141|172.70.210.141]] 14:20, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
:I did bought new phone when the old one not only wasn't able to run on "full" battery for longer than 20 seconds, but when the connected powerbank was not enough to keep it running. However, I suspect that the battery life was shortened by using it in winter(s) and that the powerbank itself had problem as well. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 12:02, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
:My old phone only got ditched because both the original battery and a spare had both got to the point of not holding more than a couple of hours' charge.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.65|172.71.178.65]] 12:09, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Anyone else notice that in the third image, Cueball is supporting a 100lb+ phone with one arm, while fiddling with the screen with his other hand? Impressive balance to be able to support a 100lb object with one arm while still standing fully upright. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.174.163|172.68.174.163]] 14:58, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

It was just a few years ago that the idea of replacing a failing battery was abandoned. With batteries lasting longer and phone generations being shorter, most users would see only a small reduction in time between charges by the time they would be upgrading anyway. I interpreted the comic as the logical next step in that evolution. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.82.65|172.71.82.65]] 19:45, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

I don't get what this one is supposed to be about. https://techxplore.com/news/2022-10-eu-lawmakers-impose-charger-smartphones.html ? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.17|172.69.134.17]] 01:40, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

2680: Battery Life

2022-10-06T11:58:59Z

172.71.178.65: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2680
| date = October 3, 2022
| title = Battery Life
| image = battery_life_2x.png
| imagesize = 264x251px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = It's okay, I'm at 10%, so I'm good for another month or two.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT WITH ONE MONTH OF BATTERY LIFE LEFT. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Smartphones run on batteries that require frequent charging; they may also be frequently replaced with a newer model by their user, though battery life is only one of several reasons why they may do this. In this comic, instead of charging his phone every day for a few years and then buying a new phone, [[Cueball]] has obtained a phone with a battery big enough to last supposedly until the phone will be replaced after a few years. This appears to make for a phone of cumbersome weight and size. According to the caption, 10% of battery life corresponds to 1–2 months; this suggests a total battery life and hence product life of 10–20 months, which is not a few years.{{Citation needed}} However, [https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2013/09/07/how-much-energy-does-your-iphone-and-other-devices-use-and-what-to-do-about-it/?sh=6f8e6fed2f70 a smartphone requires around 2 kWh per year], so this 12 kWh battery could have been expected to last longer. A 12 kWh battery weighing 100 pounds (45 kg) has an energy density of 264.6 Wh/kg, about equal to the high-estimate of the energy density of {{w|Lithium-ion battery|lithium-ion batteries}} of 100–265 Wh/kg. However, it is well below the practically achievable energy densities of (non-rechargeable, as befits the application) {{w|Zinc-air battery|zinc-air batteries}} at around 400 Wh/kg. Unfortunately, {{w|Self-discharge}} means that if this battery is lithium polymer, it will lose on average 5% of its charge per month, which totals to 46% lost each year. If this were a non rechargeable battery such a lithium metal, its battery life could be much longer.

This comic appeared on [https://techxplore.com/news/2022-10-eu-lawmakers-impose-charger-smartphones.html the same day that the European Union standardized charging adapters for mobile phones.]

This may be a commentary on very large external portable charging devices. At present (October, 2022) the largest cell-phone sized charging devices [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09H4GLZXT/ hold almost 40000mAh and can weigh almost a pound]. Even [https://www.amazon.com/Jackery-Explorer-Portable-capacity-Emergency/dp/B0B8ZLZ53M larger devices are available weighing over 40 lbs] in different form factors. We buy cell phones because of their small size and convenience,{{Citation needed}} and end up buying extra external battery power for them that adds significant extra weight and bulk.

[https://microgreen.ca/energypak-lithium-batteries Portable (on wheels) 12 kWh lithium-ion batteries] do exist but typically weigh over 250 lbs and tend to lack ports to plug a phone directly into. Roughly 100 lb portable power stations can have capacities as high as [https://www.goalzero.com/collections/portable-power-stations/products/goal-zero-yeti-6000x-portable-power-station 6 kWh] and can be used to charge a typical smartphone directly hundreds of times.

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Phones]]

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is seen carrying a large box. He is shown three times as he seems to turn and walk to the right in the same panel. He has trouble reaching around the box. In the first version a label can be seen at the bottom of the box, which indicated it is a huge battery. There are also unreadable text at the top. Cueball holds it in front of him, covering his torso and partly obscuring his head. In the second version he has turned to the right, and reveals that on the other side of the box there is a small phone in the middle with a keyboard. In the last version he has turned fully and it looks like he is walking to the right, but could also be that he is just leaning back to support the weight of the box. He is operating the phone with a free hand while he holds the box with the other hand, and are thus forced to lean it against his head for support.]
:Label: 12 kWh

:[Caption beneath the panel:]
:Plugging in my phone is a pain, so I got one with a 100lb battery, and when it runs out of charge every few years I just upgrade.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Smartphones]]

2680: Battery Life

2022-10-06T11:58:20Z

172.71.178.65: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2680
| date = October 3, 2022
| title = Battery Life
| image = battery_life_2x.png
| imagesize = 264x251px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = It's okay, I'm at 10%, so I'm good for another month or two.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT WITH ONE MONTH OF BATTERY LIFE LEFT. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Smartphones run on batteries that require frequent charging; they may also be frequently replaced with a newer model by their user, though battery life is only one of several reasons why they may do this. In this comic, instead of charging his phone every day for a few years and then buying a new phone, [[Cueball]] has obtained a phone with a battery big enough to last supposedly until the phone will be replaced after a few years. This appears to make for a phone of cumbersome weight and size. According to the caption, 10% of battery life correspondents to 1–2 months; this suggests a total battery life and hence product life of 10–20 months, which is not a few years.{{Citation needed}} However, [https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2013/09/07/how-much-energy-does-your-iphone-and-other-devices-use-and-what-to-do-about-it/?sh=6f8e6fed2f70 a smartphone requires around 2 kWh per year], so this 12 kWh battery could have been expected to last longer. A 12 kWh battery weighing 100 pounds (45 kg) has an energy density of 264.6 Wh/kg, about equal to the high-estimate of the energy density of {{w|Lithium-ion battery|lithium-ion batteries}} of 100–265 Wh/kg. However, it is well below the practically achievable energy densities of (non-rechargeable, as befits the application) {{w|Zinc-air battery|zinc-air batteries}} at around 400 Wh/kg. Unfortunately, {{w|Self-discharge}} means that if this battery is lithium polymer, it will lose on average 5% of its charge per month, which totals to 46% lost each year. If this were a non rechargeable battery such a lithium metal, its battery life could be much longer.

This comic appeared on [https://techxplore.com/news/2022-10-eu-lawmakers-impose-charger-smartphones.html the same day that the European Union standardized charging adapters for mobile phones.]

This may be a commentary on very large external portable charging devices. At present (October, 2022) the largest cell-phone sized charging devices [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09H4GLZXT/ hold almost 40000mAh and can weigh almost a pound]. Even [https://www.amazon.com/Jackery-Explorer-Portable-capacity-Emergency/dp/B0B8ZLZ53M larger devices are available weighing over 40 lbs] in different form factors. We buy cell phones because of their small size and convenience,{{Citation needed}} and end up buying extra external battery power for them that adds significant extra weight and bulk.

[https://microgreen.ca/energypak-lithium-batteries Portable (on wheels) 12 kWh lithium-ion batteries] do exist but typically weigh over 250 lbs and tend to lack ports to plug a phone directly into. Roughly 100 lb portable power stations can have capacities as high as [https://www.goalzero.com/collections/portable-power-stations/products/goal-zero-yeti-6000x-portable-power-station 6 kWh] and can be used to charge a typical smartphone directly hundreds of times.

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Phones]]

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is seen carrying a large box. He is shown three times as he seems to turn and walk to the right in the same panel. He has trouble reaching around the box. In the first version a label can be seen at the bottom of the box, which indicated it is a huge battery. There are also unreadable text at the top. Cueball holds it in front of him, covering his torso and partly obscuring his head. In the second version he has turned to the right, and reveals that on the other side of the box there is a small phone in the middle with a keyboard. In the last version he has turned fully and it looks like he is walking to the right, but could also be that he is just leaning back to support the weight of the box. He is operating the phone with a free hand while he holds the box with the other hand, and are thus forced to lean it against his head for support.]
:Label: 12 kWh

:[Caption beneath the panel:]
:Plugging in my phone is a pain, so I got one with a 100lb battery, and when it runs out of charge every few years I just upgrade.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Smartphones]]

2680: Battery Life

2022-10-05T09:35:19Z

172.71.178.65: /* Explanation */ punc

{{comic
| number = 2680
| date = October 3, 2022
| title = Battery Life
| image = battery_life_2x.png
| imagesize = 264x251px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = It's okay, I'm at 10%, so I'm good for another month or two.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT WITH ONE MONTH OF BATTERY LIFE LEFT. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Smartphones run on batteries that require frequent charging; they may also be frequently replaced with a newer model by their user, though for various reasons other than the battery life. In this comic, instead of charging his phone every day for a few years and then buying a new phone, [[Cueball]] has obtained a phone with a battery big enough to last supposedly until the phone will be replaced after a few years. This appears to make for a phone of cumbersome weight and size. According to the caption, 10% of battery life correspondents to 1–2 months; this suggests a total battery life and hence product life of 10–20 months, which is not a few years.{{Citation needed}} However, [https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2013/09/07/how-much-energy-does-your-iphone-and-other-devices-use-and-what-to-do-about-it/?sh=6f8e6fed2f70 a smartphone requires around 2 kWh per year], so this 12 kWh battery could have been expected to last longer. A 12 kWh battery weighing 100 pounds (45 kg) has an energy density of 264.6 Wh/kg, about equal to the high-estimate of the energy density of {{w|Lithium-ion battery|lithium-ion batteries}} of 100–265 Wh/kg. However, it is well below the practically achievable energy densities of (non-rechargeable, as befits the application) {{w|Zinc-air battery|zinc-air batteries}} at around 400 Wh/kg. Unfortunately, {{w|Self-discharge}} means that if this battery is lithium polymer, it will lose on average 5% of its charge per month, which totals to 46% lost each year. If this were a non rechargeable battery such a lithium metal, its battery life could be much longer.

This comic appeared on [https://techxplore.com/news/2022-10-eu-lawmakers-impose-charger-smartphones.html the same day that the European Union standardized charging adapters for mobile phones.]

This may be a commentary on very large external portable charging devices. At present (October, 2022) the largest cell-phone sized charging devices [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09H4GLZXT/ hold almost 40000mAh and can weigh almost a pound]. Even [https://www.amazon.com/Jackery-Explorer-Portable-capacity-Emergency/dp/B0B8ZLZ53M larger devices are available weighing over 40 lbs] in different form factors. We buy cell phones because of their small size and convenience,{{Citation needed}} and end up buying extra external battery power for them that adds significant extra weight and bulk.

[https://microgreen.ca/energypak-lithium-batteries Portable (on wheels) 12 kWh lithium-ion batteries] do exist but typically weigh over 250 lbs and tend to lack ports to plug a phone directly into. Roughly 100 lb portable power stations can have capacities as high as [https://www.goalzero.com/collections/portable-power-stations/products/goal-zero-yeti-6000x-portable-power-station 6 kWh] and can be used to charge a typical smartphone directly hundreds of times.

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Phones]]

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

:[Cueball carries a gigantic battery with a phone in it in three different positions in frame.]
:[Text on battery in first image:] 12 kWh
:[Caption:] Plugging in my phone is a pain, so I got one with a 100lb battery, and when it runs out of charge every few years I just upgrade.

{{comic discussion}}

2673: Cursed mRNA Cocktail

2022-09-17T00:57:50Z

172.71.178.65: /* Explanation */ Timing. Double dose of one vaccine is less efficaceous than two co-dosed vaccines (but then beware of combined reactions!).

{{comic
| number = 2673
| date = September 16, 2022
| title = Cursed mRNA Cocktail
| image = cursed_mrna_cocktail_2x.png
| imagesize = 331x513px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Serve one each to guests whose last cursed cocktail was more than 2 months ago.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a VACCINE DRINKER. Do NOT drink the mRNA Cocktail. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Approximately two dozenth in [[:Category:Comics featuring cursed items|the "cursed" series]], this comic describes a process to approximate the molecular composition of certain {{w|mRNA}}-based vaccines in drinkable form. It contains the variety and relative concentrations of the simple molecular constituents found within the injectable mixture. i.e. mostly water, some sugar, lipids (and an amino acid "or" biological and genetic material.)

Like much of what we eat or drink, the stomach and intestines will neutralise much of the complexity of either the vaccines or this ersatz replica of them, reducing them to simpler proteins of some slight nutritional value. For the vaccine to work, it has been designed to be injected into the body e.g. {{w|intramuscular}}ly to bypass the hostile environment of the human digestive system. While there are similar vaccines administered as a nasal spray, the fragility of mRNA in the human digestive system has curtailed the search for ingestible analogs. [[Randall]]'s replacement mixture '''might provoke generally unwise physiological reactions.''' This is funny because while very few people would find such a mixture palatable, it is likely nontoxic,{{cn}} and contains moisture, protein, and calories, all important if elementary nutritional components.

The title text suggests the mixture can be served as a "booster" to a prior dose or serving after an initial treatment. There is much study of vaccine efficacy relative to the timing of subsequent dosages. Too little time between makes the new dose not necessarily cause the immune system to react in the way that it should; however most pairs of distinct vaccines work well if delivered on the same day.{{Actual citation needed}} The comic recommends not redosing within two months of the last attempt.

The instruction to serve in {{w|shot glasses}} is a play on the actual vaccines being given as a {{w|Injection (medicine)|shot}} (U.K.: {{wiktionary|jab#Noun|jab}}; Scotland: {{wiktionary|jag#Noun|jag}}).

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:Ever wondered what it would be like to drink the new COVID booster?
:This recipe approximately recreates the taste and nutritional profile!
:''(Note: does not protect against COVID.)''

:[The following two testimonies are displayed in spiky bubbles.]
:"...What? Eww." -CDC spokesperson
:"Please stop." -Dr. Anthony Fauci

:Ingredients
:2 cups water
:3 tbsp mayonnaise
:¼ tsp MSG or nutritional yeast
:1 tbsp sugar

:Directions
:Pour 1 cup of water into a blender. Add the mayonnaise and MSG. Blend until smooth.
:Pour the other cup of water into a glass. Add the sugar and 1 tsp of the mixture from the blender. Stir well.
:Serve in shot glasses.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Comics featuring cursed items]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]

Talk:2671: Rotation

2022-09-15T10:57:55Z

172.71.178.65:

For extra credit: Waht is the resolution of the phone screen? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.94.135|172.71.94.135]] 18:59, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

:IMHO 400px. Note SMALLER. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 19:53, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

:From the image you can assume an 9/20 aspect ratio. Assuming each rotation reduces the image dimensions by that fraction after 9 rotations the dimensions would be reduced 1322 times so the resolution would be something between 1322x595 pixels (anything less than that would made it require 8 rotations or less) to 2935x1321 pixels (anything beyond that would require 10 rotations or more). 1600x720 or 2400x1080 maybe? Applying the same formula for the phone width and assuming atoms are typically around 100 picometers across then the phone width is close to 4.67 cm, too small, but maybe that's because rounding. In the other hand that formula does not work with Planck length at all: using it the phone width would be 1.69 meters. If you assume a width of 7 cm and 97 rotations you get pretty close to Planck length, but the comic says 101, not 97. Something is wrong with my calculations, I don't know what. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.63.160|162.158.63.160]] 21:03, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

::I took almost the reverse approach. Estimate phone height is 0.2 metres, Planck length is 1.6e-35 metres, ratio is 1.25e34, then take the 101th root. That would give about 2.176 as the reduction factor, which is also the screen aspect ratio. Then ask, "how far off might this be?" I assumed the 101th reduction is just barely smaller than the Planck length, it could be almost another reduction and still work. In other words, the aspect ratio is constrained to be between the 101th root and the 102nd root of the screen height in Planck units. With a 20 cm high screen, that puts the aspect ratio between 2.159 and 2.176 -- so the 9:20 aspect ratio (2.222) is completely ruled out. However <s>all the</s> [https://mediag.com/blog/popular-screen-resolutions-designing-for-all/ latest iPhone sizes] work just fine: 1792/828=2.164, <s>2436/1125=2.165, 2688/1242=2.164, 2436/1125=2.165</s>. I'll just guess that Randall has one of those. [[User:Mrob27|Mrob27]] ([[User talk:Mrob27|talk]]) 06:41, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
::Adding: I forgot to apply your method to constrain the width in pixels. 1125 and 1242 is ruled out because they are bigger than 2.159^9. In fact all the phone dimensions in that list I linked are ruled out except one: '''iPhone XR, 828x1792 pixels'''. [[User:Mrob27|Mrob27]] ([[User talk:Mrob27|talk]]) 07:01, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

: This question assumes it is the same phone screen being used for every screenshot. That seems to be unlikely to me. Wouldn't the reason for taking a screenshot be to share it with others? Also, my Samsung phone saves screenshots as JPEG images, which are lossy. Does the iPhone save screenshots lossless? I would love to see the image degradation caused by so many repeated lossy saves! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.222.211|162.158.222.211]] 07:40, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

This seems like it could actually be really cool. Can anyone do this and put the picture here as an example? Also, if possible, include an AI upscale of the one pixel. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.90.83|172.69.90.83]] 19:07, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

There's a '''minor''' counting error: instead of pointing to the 9th rotation, the 'nine rotations' statement points to the 8th as the first phone has no rotations.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.77|172.70.90.77]] 19:10, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
:That error is also on the 25 rotation, in both cases he counts the first screen with, and thus is one rotation behind. Also there are only 99 screens and thus 98 rotations so he missed the last 3 rotations, and screens, as there should have been 102 screens. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 09:06, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

Anyone getting a 404? Seems like the comic has disappeared. EDIT: ...aaaand it's back. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.100.54|172.70.100.54]] 19:34, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Just putting https://www.codeguru.com/multimedia/rotate-a-bitmap-image/ here. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.131|172.69.134.131]] 20:12, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
: Microsoft C#, and not the original HAKMEM or Smalltalk 80? Please! You might as well be using C++: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/wingdi/nf-wingdi-plgblt [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.173|162.158.166.173]] 20:21, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
:: I see your trivial software squabble, and raise one peer reviewed open access article citation: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10648-010-9144-5 [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.5|172.69.22.5]] 22:03, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
:::I'll see your humorously ambiguous reference, and raise you a slightly more on-topic chapter encompassing both: https://journalspress.com/LJRHSS_Volume17/208_The-Geometric-Progression.pdf [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.125|162.158.166.125]] 22:10, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Tiktok [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.68|108.162.246.68]] 20:40, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Where would the rotated photograph bar be on [[1909: Digital Resource Lifespan]]? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.50|172.70.211.50]] 22:14, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Doing this with an jpeg does the same. When rotating an image and saving it the lossy compression will lose more pixels. This makes it more blurry each step. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.203.38|162.158.203.38]] 22:41, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

:Who said it had to be something like JPEG? Since the information added at each step is known and finite, you could easily devise an iterated rotated image format that perfectly preserves the detail at every level down to the Planck length, and provide the possibility of zooming in on the screen all the way down. Of course you couldn't *display* all the detail at every level at the same time, but you could certainly store it in a hypothetical IRI (tm) format. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.147|172.70.162.147]] 16:00, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm skeptical of "details at a sub-pixel level but that would have been significant if recorded at a greater resolution ''cannot'' emerge" -- this is subjective at a couple levels, and not as entirely impossible as opposed to just vaguely unlikely as the italics imply. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.119|172.69.22.119]] 00:43, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
:Well, after finding the context... Using pixel-multiplying techniques on low-res pixels (either direct, a poor imaging source, or upon previously downsampled high-res one) will either never recreate features 'lost' in the lower resolution or will ''always'' do (or at least always in a given non-zero proportion of pixel-patternations indistinguishable from the more justified one) even in situations where there was no justification for such an algorithmically-invoked artefact.
:But I suppose the most perfect fractal-compression, if it matches 'reality' well enough, could be rediscovered by the statistical pixel analysis which then extrapolates (or interpolates) all kinds of image details that were never even present even in the rawest of raw digital images but were always there to be discovered in the real-world had only the correct zoom level and framing been used. And, if you've got something that can do that, I'll up the stakes with the Photo Enhancer/Inferrer thing that Rick Deckard used... It can even interpolate ''around corners''! [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.65|172.71.178.65]] 02:33, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
The title text reminds me of the CSI TV show where a reflection of a faint image would be zoomed in on and the tiny text on the original could be read clearly.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.100.136|172.70.100.136]] 11:13, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
:After casually getting links to potentially follow up on 172.71.178.65, above, one of the interesting ones is: https://www.google.com/amp/s/scifiinterfaces.com/2020/04/29/deckards-photo-inspector/amp/ [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.77|172.70.162.77]] 13:17, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

I thought Randall was poking fun at all the dumb movies and TV programs that have the magic ability to “enhance” images and recover sub-pixel detail. It’s such an egregious plot point that you can recognize computer scientists by their groans in movie theaters. There’s even a TV Trope about it: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EnhanceButton — Also, the infinitely regressing image is called a ''Droste Image''. --[[User:Dúthomhas|Dúthomhas]] ([[User talk:Dúthomhas|talk]]) 08:08, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

This comic reminds me a lot of [[1683: Digital Data]], which is also about degradation of images through re-posting screenshots. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.222.211|162.158.222.211]] 09:27, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
: Absolutely no question, I spent half an hour looking for that one. Added; thanks! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.162|172.70.211.162]] 21:03, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

" This is funny because the default resolution of contemporary camera phones can be too large to meet size requirements for e.g. mobile phone {{w|Multimedia Messaging Service}}, web file uploads, or email attachments, so one or two steps of this awkward procedure are sometimes necessary." - if true (presumedly screen-res and thus screencap-res is lower than the camera output, so after the image viewer is used to effectively downscale (maybe even pinch-zoom in and reframe the image) without using an actual image-editor/cropper app) then I don't see why two steps are necessary. The second scrcap step has the same number of pixels as the first... But, hey, it sounds like a kludge anyway. And I just thought I'd comment, don't mind me. (Can't see how "this is funny because", though. This is lacking all the humour of the almost-literal ''reductio ad absurdum'' already demonstrated and discussed. I don't think many times "This is funny because..." has been a useful thing to add to an Explanation, even if that's the intention of the site.) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.65|172.71.178.65]] 10:57, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

Talk:2671: Rotation

2022-09-13T02:33:11Z

172.71.178.65: