explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

654: Nachos

2015-05-14T18:44:39Z

173.245.56.206: tiny little typo removal

{{comic
| number = 654
| date = October 26, 2009
| title = Nachos
| image = nachos.png
| titletext = Hey, gaming on wifi? You have only yourself to blame.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Megan]] and [[Ponytail]] are playing together on an online multiplayer shooter game. Ponytail calls [[Cueball]], who is living with Megan, and easily persuades him to make {{w|nachos}}. {{w|Wi-Fi}} and {{w|microwave oven}}s both use {{w|ISM band|radio frequencies around 2.4 GHz}}, so Cueball's cooking disrupts Megan's connection and allows Ponytail to kill Megan's character.

The title text points out that Megan has only herself to blame, as gaming on WiFi is susceptible to such issues, while gaming with a wired connection (e.g. {{w|Ethernet}}) is not.

Note: If using the microwave actually does interfere with your WiFi, then get another microwave. Not (strictly) because it would mess with the WiFi, but because your microwave has a hole somewhere and is leaking non-ionizing radiation it shouldn't. It won't kill you, but it's not operating at peak efficiency.

Around the time of this comic's release, the XKCD website was temporarily redesigned using Yahoo! GeoCities. Snapshots of the site at the time can be found on the [https://web.archive.org/web/20091027014324/http://xkcd.com/ Internet Archive Wayback Machine].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is on the phone with Ponytail, who's on her computer in the other half of a split panel.]
:Cueball: Hello? ... Oh, hey. Looking for Megan? She's gaming.
:Ponytail: I know. You know what's delicious? Nachos.

:[Ponytail clicks on her computer while talking.]
:Ponytail: When you layer the cheese so it gets on every chip... then smother them in sour cream and salsa...

:Cueball: Mm, that IS delicious. And I've got the ingredients, too!
:Ponytail, on phone: You should make some!
:Cueball: I will!
:Ponytail, on phone: Hurry.

:[Cueball is making nachos in the microwave.]
:Microwave: ''beep beep whirrrr''

:Megan, at her computer: My wifi signal!

:[Ponytail who called is at her computer.]
:Computer: Boom! Headshot.

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

1102: Fastest-Growing

2015-05-12T02:52:11Z

173.245.56.206: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1102
| date = August 31, 2012
| title = Fastest-Growing
| image = fastest_growing.png
| titletext = I lead a small but extraordinarily persuasive religion whose only members are door-to-door proselytizers from other faiths.
}}

==Explanation==
Using percentage of growth can be a misleading value to use for gauging the importance or popularity of something. If you have 5 members and then add 5 more, that would mean you have achieved a growth of 100%.

In the case portrayed in this comic the claim appears to be that the other person's religion grew by 85%. [[Black Hat]] attempts humorously to show the flaw in using that statistic by growing his group by 100% (therefore, presumably, first place), which he simply does by adding his friend [[Rob]] to his religion, and thus increasing his membership from 1 to 2. The other person then says that his religion has a significant number of members (and not just one or two), but Black Hat doesn't care and responds that he hopes they are all okäy with being "in second place" since the main argument from the other guy was about being the fastest-growing.

The title text is a comment by [[Randall]]. He enjoys the irony in converting only the very religious door-to-door {{w|Proselytism|proselytizers}} to his own very persuasive religion. But it is not a missionary religion as he only converts people who comes to him to talk about religion. This would be people who came to Randall to do the same to him. It seems safe to assume he dislikes this type of missionary method.

Another interpretation is that the title text could be another way that Black Hat could take the 'fastest-growing' claim out of context to make it meaningless. By composing his religion of the unwitting proselytizers of other faiths, he can claim the highest ratio of converts to current adherents. Note that the amount of people converted is often exaggerated by groups that try to spread a faith. Although the beliefs spread by his proselytizers vary widely, Black Hat is not concerned with what his so-called followers believe. Thus, he can claim the title of fastest-growing religion without having any value to his religion.

==Transcript==
:[A man with a combover, a book, and a clipboard approaches Black Hat.]
:Combover: You should check us out. We're the fastest-growing religion in the country.
:Black Hat: "Fastest-growing" is such a dubious claim.
:Combover: It's true! We grew by 85% over the past year.

:[Black Hat shouts to someone out of frame.]
:Black Hat: Hey, Rob — wanna join my religion?
:Rob: Sure, whatever.

:[Black Hat turns back to Combover and produces a notepad and pen.]
:Black Hat: Well, looks like my religion grew by 100% this year.

:[Black Hat begins to walk away.]
:Combover: We have 38,000 members!
:Black Hat: Hope they're all ok with second place.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Rob]]
[[Category:Religion]]

911: Magic School Bus

2015-04-26T23:47:53Z

173.245.56.206: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 911
| date = June 13, 2011
| title = Magic School Bus
| image = magic school bus.png
| titletext = At my OLD school, we used Microsoft Encarta 2005.
}}

==Explanation==
"{{w|The Magic School Bus}}" is a series of educational children's books in the US that was adapted in the mid-nineties into an animated television show. The series centers on a class of children whose teacher {{w|Ms. Frizzle}} makes use of the titular magic school bus to take her students on a variety of magical field trips that allow them to experience various scientific topics first hand, such as the inner anatomy of the human body, the effects of friction, what goes on inside a beehive, and many others.

In this comic, however, Ms. Frizzle initially takes the students onto the bus apparently for one of these field trips to explore the way batteries work, but then for whatever reason, she has the students get off the bus again and simply resorts to looking up the {{w|Wikipedia}} article about {{w|Battery (electricity)|batteries}}. The implied joke is that, with the advent on resources like Wikipedia, it's no longer necessary for Ms. Frizzle to take the students on half-hour long trips in the bus to experience whatever phenomenon they are studying that day (which is what the third panel symbolizes) - Wikipedia effectively answers the question quickly and easily. An alternative answer is that Ms. Frizzle has just gotten lazy, and has resorted to looking up the answers to the students' questions on Wikipedia instead of taking them on field trips. The alternative seems more likely, since the third panel shows them still going on an adventure.

The red and white cubed rocket in the bottom of the third panel can possibly be a reference to The Adventures of Tintin, in which Tintin goes to the moon in a rocket that is similar, if not identical, to the one depicted.

The child who is asking the question looks similar to Wanda, one of the regular students in the class who often asked the questions that set the field trips in motion. Ralphie, the student in the second panel with the backward hat, was another student who often asked these questions. The students in the class were shown to be from many backgrounds (i.e. one of the students was black, another was Asian, etc.), something Randall appears not to have added into this comic, despite it being in color.

The title text is a reference to Phoebe, one of the students in Ms. Frizzle's class, who would regularly make a remark beginning with "At my old school..." (Phoebe used to go to a different school, unlike many of the other students in the class) to express wonder at how unusual were the events of Ms. Frizzle's field trips (e.g. "At my old school, we never rode on bees!").

{{w|Encarta|Microsoft Encarta 2005}} was a digital encyclopedia that was often used in school settings for learning with the aid of computers. Arguably, with the advent of Wikipedia, programs like Encarta have become relatively less widely used, which is part of the joke in the title text.

==Transcript==
:[A girl sits at a desk in a classroom, and the teacher stands before her. The teacher has a blue dress and blonde hair piled on her head in a bun. The girl raises her hand, the teacher raises both arms above her head, a pointer in one hand.]
:Girl: Ms. Frizzle, how do batteries work?
:Ms. Frizzle: To the bus!

:[Ms. Frizzle and the children are shown getting onto the bus.]

:[The bus, with Ms. Frizzle at the helm and a child's face in every window, soars through a rainbow void filled with a giant amoeba, a rocket, a big gear, a planet with rings, and a Feynman diagram.]

:[The bus is parked, and the occupants have gotten out. The children stand around Ms. Frizzle, and she stands at a desk with a computer on it, typing.]
Computer: WIKIPEDIA - BATTERIES

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hair Bun Girl]]
[[Category:Wikipedia]]

1516: Win by Induction

2015-04-24T21:23:04Z

173.245.56.206:

{{comic
| number = 1516
| date = April 24, 2015
| title = Win by Induction
| image = win by induction.png
| titletext = This would be bad enough, but every 30th or 40th pokéball has TWO of them inside.
}}

==Explanation==
In the {{w|Pokémon}} franchise, human characters called Trainers capture fantastical creatures from the wild, the titular Pokémon (a shortened form of "Pocket Monsters"), and train them to battle one another. Pokémon are captured and stored in devices called Poké Balls, which shrink the creatures down to pocket size (hence "Pocket Monsters"). When Trainers do battle, the anime's dub has immersed the phrase "''<Pokémon's name>'', I choose you!" into popular culture memory, which is accompanied by throwing the ball containing the selected Pokémon to the ground, which releases the Pokémon at full size.

In this comic, a Pokémon chosen at some point was a {{w|Pikachu}}, which does not intend to engage in the battle himself. Instead, the Pikachu chooses another Pikachu to fight for him. This process then repeats itself. Behind the Pikachu with the Pokéball is a long line of other Pikachu, suggesting that this process has been going on for a while.

Nearby stands [[Cueball]], holding a closed Pokéball, and [[Megan]], looking at her watch. This suggests that Cueball intends to have his own Pokémon fight the Pikachu, but is waiting to see which enemy his Pokémon must face before the battle can actually begin (waiting in vain, if the above described process repeats indefinitely), while Megan (who may have chosen the original Pikachu) is growing impatient with the delay. Given that Cueball is holding a closed Pokéball he has not deployed yet Megan must be his enemy and cannot herself be his Pokémon.

The joke in this comic comes from analogy with the mathematical {{w|proof by induction}}, which is a proof with a base case, followed by a never ending sequence of steps. Each step leads to the next, thus proving something for all cases. This title seems to suggest that the process of Pikachu choosing Pikachu will not end, effectively postponing the battle indefinitely. (The name "induction" comes from logic and discrete mathematics, and is thus unrelated to physical phenomena; but the fact that Pikachu are "Electric-type" Pokémon is most likely a word play connecting the two ideas).

If there were a single Pikachu in each ball, this would spawn an unlimited number of Pikachu forming a single line. Since, as title text notes, there're occasionally two of them in a Pokéball, this would lead to exponential rather than linear growth.

Pikachu was used in one storyline of [[1350: Lorenz]]. See all the moves [[1350:_Lorenz#Pok.C3.A9mon|here]].

==Transcript==
:[There's a long queue of Pikachu extending out of the frame to the left. They are all just out from their ball, at least the last eight Pikachu's open balls lie in two parts on the ground at their feet. They are standing in front of Megan and Cueball. Cueball is holding a closed pokéball while Megan checks the time on her watch. The front most Pikachu, holding a closed pokéball, speaks.]

:Pikachu at the front: Pikachu, I choose ''you!''

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Pokémon‏‎]]

Talk:1509: Scenery Cheat Sheet

2015-04-08T22:20:40Z

173.245.56.206:

Wish he added Big Hero 6 for San Francisco. They did a super good job at getting the map accurate to San Francisco. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.133.129|199.27.133.129]] 19:19, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

One objection: although ''What About Bob?'' was set at Lake Winnipesaukee, NH, it was actually filmed at Smith Mountain Lake, VA. {{unsigned|‎Jstech}}

The Napoleon Dynamite Idaho square doesn't cover Preston, where it was filmed.[[Special:Contributions/199.27.133.121|199.27.133.121]] 06:00, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

The ''Twilight/50 Shades'' area really shouldn't cover eastern Washington and Oregon either. East of the Cascade Mountains is much more like Boise than Seattle. [[User:Tribble314|Tribble314]] ([[User talk:Tribble314|talk]]) 07:12, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
:Tribble314 is completely correct

It gets Forest Gump wrong, that is set in Alabama, including the Alabama gulf coast and not easter Georgia, The Tombstone section is on the wrong side of Arizona and Zorro is set, and filmed, in California. Anything By Mark Twain is too far south, and since Road Runner cartoons all have Saguaro and organ pipe cactus, it is amazing how the map outlines the exact part of Arizona where they don't exist {{unsigned ip|173.245.50.122}}
:It's not about where it's set. It's where it's filmed. And I object to the 'Anything by Mark Twain' on the grounds that it's basically just Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn without say Innocents Abroad or for that matter most of what was written by a guy who did a good bit of traveling in his lifetime.--Dude[[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.183|108.162.237.183]] 09:28, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
::No, the map is about where it's set (generally). ''Star Trek'' wasn't actually filmed in Iowa, part of the movie was set there. In any event, the explanation provides a column for each. - Equinox [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.120|199.27.128.120]] 15:14, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Let's not forget ''A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court''! I'm pretty sure that doesn't fit in 'Anything By Mark Twain'-space. --[[User:PsyMar|PsyMar]] ([[User talk:PsyMar|talk]]) 12:46, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

I never even knew I lived so close to so many awesome movies. [[User:YourLifeisaLie|The Goyim speaks]] ([[User talk:YourLifeisaLie|talk]]) 12:39, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia tells me that there are 3 2005 ''War of the Worlds'' movies. So... [[User:YourLifeisaLie|The Goyim speaks]] ([[User talk:YourLifeisaLie|talk]]) 12:43, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

A lot I'd like to argue with, but without proof (no time to look), I'll skip most except for this: The Twin Cities of Minnesota (Minneapolis & St. Paul) are clearly shown (Mpls. skyline at least) in ''Fargo'', yet the Twin Cities area is barely within ''Fargo'''s border. (Nitpick from the movie: the characters are coming FROM the north but the Mpls view is obviously from the south, I-35W Northbound.) Also, ''North Country'', whose story is based around taconite mining in Minnesota's Iron Range (north/northwest of Duluth), should have been included, and also shows a Mpls. skyline as an establishing shot for either lawyer's offices and/or a courthouse. (And one more thing: Thanks to whoever pointed out that Woodstock, IL is the true filming location for ''Groundhog Day''. I would show it on the map with a dot or star there, rather than the Pennsylvania area is supposedly represents.) --BigMal27 // [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.177|173.245.50.177]] 13:03, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

I think the Oregon Trail section of the map is specifically referring to the video game, because the subtitle below the main text in that map location says "The only part I ever got to." [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.190|199.27.128.190]] 17:00, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Are we going to have a column for the area the square covers on the map? or a place to record whether or not the area covers the filming location or where it was set? [[Special:Contributions/199.27.133.121|199.27.133.121]] 17:57, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

I think the statement "this is where the movies are set, not where they are filmed" completely misses the point. This is a map of where the movies look like they are set. So, some areas are where they are set (if the movie background seems to be where it's supposed to be) and some areas are where they were filmed (if there's an obvious contradiction between location and setting). Hence, The Sandlot, for example... [[Special:Contributions/173.245.48.188|173.245.48.188]] 18:03, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Orange is the New Black is a much more convincing setting for Upstate New York, even though it isn't a movie.

982: Set Theory

2015-03-21T01:23:55Z

173.245.56.206: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 982
| date = November 25, 2011
| title = Set Theory
| image = set_theory.png
| titletext = Proof of Zermelo's well-ordering theorem given the Axiom of Choice: 1: Take S to be any set. 2: When I reach step three, if S hasn't managed to find a well-ordering relation for itself, I'll feed it into this wood chipper. 3: Hey, look, S is well-ordered.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a pun on the phrase "{{w|Proof by Intimidation}}" which normally is a jocular term used mainly in mathematics. It refers to a style of presenting a purported mathematical proof by giving an argument loaded with jargon and appeals to obscure results, so that the audience is simply obliged to accept it, lest they have to admit their ignorance and lack of understanding.

However, in this comic, "Proof by Intimidation" is taken to mean that by intimidating the elements within a set, they will conform to the proof (or, as the title text says, they will become "well-ordered"). This is accomplished by believing that the elements can be {{w|anthropomorphize}}d such that they feel fear. The idea of executing as an example was invented by Sun Tzu in the ancient book {{w|The Art Of War}}.

The {{w|axiom of choice}} (which has been referenced in [[:Category:Axiom of Choice|previous xkcds]]) says that given any collection of bins, each containing at least one object, it is possible to make a selection of exactly one object from each bin.

In the title text, the well-ordering theorem states that every set can be well-ordered. A set X is well-ordered by a strict total order if every non-empty subset of X has a least element under the ordering. This is also known as {{w|Zermelo's theorem}} and is equivalent to the Axiom of Choice.

==Transcript==
:[Ponytail stands at a blackboard, facing away from it. She has a pointer in her hand, and written on the blackboard is some set theory math, although one of the set elements is being pointed into a guillotine.]
:Ponytail: The axiom of choice allows you to select one element from each set in a collection
:Ponytail: and have it ''executed'' as an example to the others.
:My math teacher was a big believer in Proof by Intimidation.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Set theory]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Logic]]
[[Category:Axiom of Choice]]

Talk:1468: Worrying

2015-01-02T17:16:34Z

173.245.56.206:

"Being in the same vicinity as oranges" should be way right on the "Very worried" axis for movies because of The Godfather.

My first transcript and more-or-less complete explanation. :) Hope I'm not stealing anyone's thunder... [[User:KieferSkunk|KieferSkunk]] ([[User talk:KieferSkunk|talk]]) 07:45, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
:The original "transcript" is more like another explanation. It should be changed. Try to see one for another chart comic. [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:32, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Breaking news being important in movies had already been discussed in xkcd #1387

http://xkcd.com/1387/

[[Special:Contributions/173.245.49.128|173.245.49.128]] 09:27, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

925: Cell Phones

2014-11-21T22:12:41Z

173.245.56.206: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 925
| date = July 15, 2011
| title = Cell Phones
| image = cell_phones.png
| titletext = He holds the laptop like that on purpose, to make you cringe.
}}

==Explanation==
After hearing about the "Cell Phones Don't Cause Cancer" study, which refutes a claim made by the World Health Organization (just Google the debate, the comic doesn't focus much on it), [[Black Hat]] plots "Total Cancer Incidence" per 100,000 and "Cell Phone Users" per 100 on the same graph. The graph in frame 3 shows that the number of cell phone users rises after the number of cancer incidence, which makes Black Hat comically come to the conclusion that cancer causes cell phones.

The comic highlights a well-known fallacy known as ''{{w|post hoc ergo propter hoc}}'', often shortened to simply ''post hoc.'' The Latin translates to "after this, therefore because of this," referring to the common mistake that because two events happen in chronological order, the former event must have caused the latter event. The fallacy is often the root cause of many superstitions (e.g., a person noticing he/she wore a special bracelet before getting a good test score thinks the bracelet was the source of his/her good fortune), but it often crosses into more serious areas of thinking. In this case, the scientific research community, which often prides itself on its intellectual aptitude, is gently mocked for being nonetheless prone to such poor reasoning all too often.

The title text refers to the way Black Hat holds the laptop in panel 2, previous to the cell phone causes cancer hypothesis, many people claimed resting computers in your lap damaged fertility. Research has shown this is not due to radiation, but rather to lack of ventilation leading to overheating both laptop and testicles. The original fear gained popular attention due to the same fear of new technology as the cell phone to cancer correlation.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball holds a cellphone. Black Hat is sitting at a desk with a laptop.]
:Cueball: Another huge study found no evidence that cell phones cause cancer. What was the W.H.O. thinking?
:Black Hat: I think they just got it backward.

:[Black Hat turns towards Cueball, holding the laptop with one hand by the upper edge of the screen.]
:Cueball: Huh?
:Black Hat: Well, take a look.

:[There is a plot of total cancer incidence and cell phone users. Cancer rises from 1970 to 1990, then stays relatively steady. Cell phone use rises from roughly 1984, and steeply after 1990, to the present.]

:Cueball: You're not... There are ''so'' many problems with that.
:Black Hat: Just to be safe, until I see more data I'm going to assume cancer causes cell phones.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Statistics]]
[[Category:Cancer]]

1425: Tasks

2014-10-21T17:16:33Z

173.245.56.206: /* References */

{{comic
| number = 1425
| date = September 24, 2014
| title = Tasks
| image = tasks.png
| titletext = In the 60s, Marvin Minsky assigned a couple of undergrads to spend the summer programming a computer to use a camera to identify objects in a scene. He figured they'd have the problem solved by the end of the summer. Half a century later, we're still working on it.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] appears to be asking [[Ponytail]] to write an app that determines if a given picture is (1) taken in a national park, and (2) a picture of a bird. The first question is generally harder for a human to answer, but easy for an app that has access to location information and a {{w|geographic information system}} (GIS). The second one is easy for a human but much harder for a computer. This illustrates {{w|Moravec's paradox}} from the 1980s in a modern context. By the 1950s computers were useful for tasks like {{w|trajectory optimization}}, {{w|Logic Theorist|generating novel mathematical proofs}} and {{w|English_draughts#Computer_players|the game of checkers}}, so such high-level computation and reasoning tasks that were hard for humans turned out to be relatively easy for them. On the other hand it turns out to be hard to "give them the skills of a one-year-old when it comes to perception", as Moravec wrote.

In order to determine whether the user is in a national park, Ponytail plans to determine the user's location using the mobile device. This location will then be cross checked with a {{w|geographic information system}} (GIS) which will be able to determine whether the coordinates lie within a national park boundary.

Determining whether an image is of a given kind of natural object is far more difficult. This task falls into the area of {{w|computer vision}}. One of the goals in computer vision is to detect and classify objects within an image. This is a very challenging task for a number of reasons.

:Firstly, humans use size, edge-assignment, movement, and stereoscopic vision when looking at a scene (not a picture of a thing, but of the thing itself) to discern individual objects and then categorize them as foreground or background.<ref>{{w|Figure-ground_(perception)}}</ref> A photograph, however, is a static, monoscopic image that can only provide size and edge-assignment clues. Humans are only able to discern objects from background in photographs by comparing the photo against all of the things they've seen and everything they've learned about those things over the course of their life and identifying matching patterns.<ref>{{w|Visual_perception}}</ref> Presumably, today's computers do not have nearly the processing power or wealth of data available as the human mind.

:Secondly, the quality of the photograph will have an impact on a computer's ability to match patterns. For example, the object in the photograph might be partially visible or occluded. In the case of a living bird, additional complications arise from the variations among individual birds of the same species and differences in pose (flying, perching in a tree, etc.). Differentiating between visually similar objects can result in false positives. For example, is it a photo of a bird in flight or a plane (or superman!)? Ponytail's estimate of 5 years may be overly optimistic (see [[678: Researcher Translation]]).

Today's state-of-the-art algorithms for solving this kind of task mostly use local features (e.g. {{w|Scale-invariant feature transform|SIFT}} or {{w|SURF}} in combination with a {{w|support vector machine}} or {{w|convolutional neural network}}).

The subtitle refers to "CS", which is a common acronym for "{{w|Computer Science}}", of which {{w|artificial intelligence}} and {{w|computer vision}} are sub-disciplines.

The title text mentions [http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/6125/AIM-100.pdf The Summer Vision Project] and {{w|Marvin Minsky}} of MIT. In the summer of 1966, he asked his undergraduate student {{w|Gerald Jay Sussman}} to "spend the summer linking a camera to a computer and getting the computer to describe what it saw" ([http://szeliski.org/Book/]). {{w|Seymour Papert}} drafted the plan, and it seems that Sussman was joined by {{w|Bill Gosper}}, {{w|Richard Greenblatt (programmer)|Richard Greenblatt}}, {{w|Leslie Lamport}}, Adolfo Guzman, Michael Speciner, John White, Benjamin, and Henneman. The project schedule allocated one summer for the completion of this task. The required time was obviously significantly underestimated, since dozens of research groups around the world are still working on this topic today.

A month this comic came out, {{w|Flickr}} [http://code.flickr.net/2014/10/20/introducing-flickr-park-or-bird/ released] a [http://parkorbird.flickr.com/ prototype online tool] to do just what this comic describes, using its automated-tagging software to answer the bird question.

==Transcript==
:[Ponytail sitting at a computer with Cueball standing behind her]
:Cueball: When a user takes a photo, the app should check whether they're in a national park...
:Ponytail: Sure, easy GIS lookup. Gimme a few hours.
:Cueball: ...and check whether the photo is of a bird.
:Ponytail: I'll need a research team and five years.
:In CS, it can be hard to explain the difference between the easy and the virtually impossible.

==References==
<references/>

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[http://code.flickr.net/2014/10/20/introducing-flickr-park-or-bird/ Flickr: Park or Bird]

Megan

2014-06-23T14:01:40Z

173.245.56.206:

----
{{Infobox character
| image = Megan.png‎
| caption = Megan, seen in [[973: MTV Generation]]
| first_appearance = [[15: Just Alerting You]]
}}
'''Megan''' is a [[stick figure]] character in [[xkcd]]. She is the second-most frequently appearing character, after [[Cueball]], and the most frequently appearing female character. She often appears with Cueball as a couple.

Megan does not necessarily always represent the same character from comic to comic. She is essentially the female equivalent of Cueball, representing the everywoman to his {{w|everyman}}. On the other hand, Megan does sometimes appear to have slightly specific personality traits; she has quite odd habits, and is sometimes shown to be very focused and intent on a goal. She has also been referred to by name in comics from time to time.

Early comics often feature Megan-style characters who may or may not be identified as Megan. [[Randall]] appears not to have standardized his character lineup early in the comic's run, and as a result, early characters sometimes have similar hair to Megan, but some different features.

''Explain xkcd'' originally referred to this character as 'Cutie' (thereby complementing 'Cueball' with a matching first syllable) until it was pointed out that her name was given in [[159: Boombox]].

The name Megan may derive from a lost love of the author's, given that he wrote [[Jealousy|a passive-aggressive toast for Megan's wedding]] in an xkcd comic about how he was madly still in love with her, put across in a way that would generally ruin the day for everyone involved.

==Characteristics==
Megan is distinguished by her black shoulder-length hair which generally appears to be parted in the middle in front, and is draped behind what are presumably her (undrawn) ears.

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[[Category:Characters]]