explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1427: iOS Keyboard

2015-10-20T02:01:58Z

173.245.56.91: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1427
| date = September 29, 2014
| title = iOS Keyboard
| image = ios_keyboard.png
| titletext = More actual results: 'Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You [are the best. The best thing ever]', 'Revenge is a dish best served [by a group of people in my room]', and 'They may take our lives, but they'll never take our [money].'
}}

==Explanation==
It looks like [[Randall]] has been playing with his Apple device after installing the recently released {{w|iOS 8}} update. The comic is referencing the autocomplete function on the iOS virtual keyboard (aka [[1031: s/keyboard/leopard/|leopard]]). A comparable feature is also available on other operating systems, like Android. When the phrase, for example, "Revenge is a dish best served" is typed, the keyboard will suggest “by” followed by “a” then “group” and so on.

The top of the comic, where the keyboard is shown, is a reference to the character Sherlock Holmes, a detective whose most famous line is "Elementary, my dear Watson." In Randall's typing history, the word "dear" is most often followed by "lord" "friend" or "friends," and thus the phone suggests those words as a likely continuation of the line.

The following movies are referenced in the main body of the comic:

{|class="wikitable"
!Movie
!Character & Situation
!Full Quote
|-

|[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086250/quotes Scarface (1983)]
|Scarface is holding an M16, defending his house from Sosa's gunmen, shouting to attackers.
|"You wanna fuck with me? Okay. You wanna play rough? Okay. Say hello to my little friend!"
|-
|[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032138/quotes The Wizard of Oz (1939)]
|Dorothy with her dog, Toto, in munchkin land.
|"Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."
|-
|[http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0000007/quotes James Bond]
|Bond introducing himself, while holding trademark martini.
|"Bond, James Bond." (nothing follows).
|-
|[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379786/quotes Serenity (2005)]
|Wash, at the controls of Serenity.
|"I am a leaf on the wind - watch how I soar."
|-
|[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089218/quotes The Goonies (1985)]
|Mikey standing at the pool in the wishing well, encouraging his troop of misfits to continue on their journey.
|"Goonies never say die!"
|-
|[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120737/quotes The Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)]
|Aragorn, Legolas & Gimli pledge allegiance to protect the ring bearer on their mission to destroy the ring.
|Aragorn: "If by my life or death I can protect you, I will. You have my sword." Legolas: "And you have my bow." Gimli: "And *my* axe."
|-
|[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093779/quotes The Princess Bride (1987)]
|Inigo Montoya facing the six fingered man, the man he swore a vendetta against for killing his dad.
|"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."
|-
|[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084726/ Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (1982)]
|Khan paraphrasing Shakespeare to justify his vengeance.
|{{w|Revenge#Proverbs|"Revenge is a dish best served cold"}} (e.g. [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084726/quotes Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (1982)]: Khan: "...do you know the Klingon proverb that tells us revenge is a dish that is best served cold?")
|-
|[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112573/quotes Braveheart (1995)]
|Wallace rallying his Scottish army before a seemingly hopeless battle against the English.
|"They may take our lives, but they'll never take... OUR FREEDOM!"
|}

An older comic [[1068: Swiftkey]] is also about keyboard predictions, but without any preceding text (by the Swiftkey keyboard application instead of the iOS 8 keyboard).

==Transcript==
:'''Movie quotes'''
:[Top picture shows a line typed on an iPhone.]
:Elementary, my dear
:[Then the next line shows the words suggested by the virtual keyboard.]
:Friend | Lord | Friends
:[Below are the visible part of keyboard. In the second line only the top of the letters can be seen.]
:QWERTYUIOP
:ASDFGHJKL
:[Below is a new sub heading above six pictures arranged in two rows.]
:According to iOS 8 keyboard predictions
:[For each of the six pictures a part of the text is black, and the other part is light grey. Below the black text is written in bold letters.]
:[Picture 1: Cueball stands with a machine gun.]
:Cueball: '''Say hello to my little''' sister and my mom and my dad and my friends
:[Picture 2: A girl stands next to her dog with a basket.]
:Girl: '''Toto, I've a feeling we're not''' going to the gym today
:[Picture 3: Bond talks to Megan.]
:James Bond: '''Bond, James Bond''' yields
:[Picture 4: A pilot operates his plane and talks to Cueball behind him.]
:Pilot: '''I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch''' me play the piano
:[Picture 5: A guy with dark hair stands behind a jagged edge.]
:Goonie: '''Goonies never say''' anything
:[Picture 6: A dwarf with long beard and helmet stands with an axe.]
:Off panel left: '''You have my sword.'''
:Off panel right: '''And my bow.'''
:Dwarf: '''And my''' dad

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Firefly]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Smartphones]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

1590: The Source

2015-10-14T12:14:51Z

173.245.56.91: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1590
| date = October 14, 2015
| title = The Source
| image = the_source.png
| titletext = Why did we even have that thing?
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|First attempt. There may be much more to it...?}}

This comic is about experiencing a high pitched hum in your house. Sometimes not everyone can hear it; however, those who can hear it usually find it immensely annoying. And if you do hear the noise, you would like to locate the source – hence the title of the comic. Hopefully when you do (if you do) find the source you can do something about it, or at least be at ease knowing what caused the noise, and that it was not you who had a hearing problem like {{w|tinnitus}}.

In the first two frames of this comic we see [[Cueball]] trying to locate the direction of the sound, by standing in the middle of the room, turning his head from one to the other side. Finally he walks down a flight of stairs (probably to the basement) and here he locates the source: A machine whose only function is to generate a high pitched hum. Luckily it was thus easy for Cueball to get rid of this sound at the source.

But in the title text he also asks why on earth they had such a machine in the first place. That is somewhat harder to explain. But in real life the hum generator could be a household appliance like a refrigerator, which you cannot turn off, or maybe just a washing machine which will stop making the noise once it is finished. It could also come from outside the house, in which case it will be much harder to either locate the source or do anything about it.

There do, however, exist devices that are meant to create a high pitched hum, that people might wish to install in their house. But these will be humming in the {{w|ultrasound|ultrasonic}} regions and are used for {{w|Electronic_pest_control#Ultrasonic|electronic pest control}}. Maybe someone tried to get rid of Cueball…

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is standing in an empty room looking in the direction of the next frame.]

:[Cueball turns his head and looks the other way.]

:[ [Three smaller panels with the same total height as the first two frames follows. In the first frame Cueball walks on a grey surface.]

:[ In the next Cueball is standing between two doors, looking over his shoulder towards the one to the left , but choosing the one to the right behind which a stair is. He is waking towards this door with his hand out towards the knob.]

:[In the last of these smaller panels Cueball has just walked down to the bottom of the stair.]

:[Cueball walks towards a machine that is standing near a wall connected to a socket in the wall. On the machine it says:]
:High pitched hum generator

:[Cueball kneels behind the machine and unplugs it from the socket in the wall.]
:High pitched hum generator

:[Cueball walks away from the machine, the plug know lying on the floor between the wall and the machine.]
:High pitched hum generator

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

517: Marshmallow Gun

2015-09-03T01:02:46Z

173.245.56.91: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 517
| date = December 15, 2008
| title = Marshmallow Gun
| image = marshmallow_gun.png
| titletext = Except in reality crossing a stream of marshmallows would create a giant Bill Murray.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] has obtained a gun that shoots {{w|marshmallows}} and promptly decides to shoot at [[Megan]]. Having taken the first few hits without much reaction she sighs and then brings out the super soaker, which was first used on her in [[220: Philosophy]], and soaks him with it.

The next day, everyone has such guns and starts shooting marshmallows at each other. We see [[Beret Guy]] and Megan who confront Cueball, saying ''Hey, {{w|noob}}! Eat {{w|Stay Puft Marshmallow Man|Stay-Puft®}}!'' This is like saying ''eat lead'' when threatening someone with a regular gun, since Stay Puft is a fictional brand of marshmallows from the {{w|Ghostbusters}} movie.

Beret Guy realizes that the "streams" of marshmallows are about to cross, and shouts a warning, but it is too late and they cross anyway. This results in something gigantic appearing with a '''Foom''' off-screen. It roars at the three friends. Megan looks up and states that ''this is bad'' as the giant shouts ''You're shooting what?'' Presumably the crossing marshmallows beams have recreated the {{w|Stay Puft Marshmallow Man}} from Ghostbusters. In the movie, crossing the ghost-capturing streams from the {{w|Proton packs}} was "{{w|Proton pack#Crossing the streams|bad}}". But in the end, in which an ancient spirit took the form of this giant Marshmallow Man, the monster was destroyed as a side effect of crossing the streams. The Stay-Puft man sees what they are shooting and is justifiably upset.

The title text is a further Ghostbusters reference, as {{w|Bill Murray}} was one of the actors in the movie. Since the crossing of the streams of the proton packs by Bill Murray and the other Ghostbusters is related to the creation of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in the movie, the crossing of the marshmallow streams in the comic does the opposite and summons an enormous Bill Murray.

==Transcript==
:[A box above the first frame:]
:I got this gun that shoots marshmallows.
:[Cueball removes the red marshmallow gun from a box.]

:[Cueball shoots at Megan with marshmallow gun from offscreen.]
:Pop pop pop
:Whap whap whap

:[Megan facepalms.]
:Pop
:Megan: Sigh.

:[Megan removes a super soaker from desk drawer.]
:Pop pop

:[Megan shoots Cueball (offscreen) with the super soaker.]
:Cueball (offscreen): Augh!
:''Fwoosh''
:Cueball (offscreen): Man, I forgot that was there.

:[A box above the first frame of the second part of the comic:]
:The next day, everyone else got them too.
:[Megan and Beret Guy brandish marshmallow guns.]
:Megan: Hey, noob! Eat Stay-Puft®!

:[Megan shoots a marshmallow gun.]
:Pop pop pop

:[Cueball shoots a marshmallow gun.]
:Poppop pop

:[Megan and Cueball shoot marshmallows into the air, crossing the streams.]
:Beret Guy (offscreen): No! Don't cross the—

:[Between the last two frames is a wide gap with the following text:]
:'''Foom'''
:Giant monster (offscreen): Roaaar!

:[Megan, Cueball, and Beret Guy are all standing with weapons pointed at the ground looking up.]
:Megan: Okay, this is bad.
:Giant monster (offscreen): '''You're shooting what?'''

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]

1086: Eyelash Wish Log

2015-08-26T01:11:28Z

173.245.56.91: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1086
| date = July 25, 2012
| title = Eyelash Wish Log
| image = eyelash wish log.png
| titletext = Ooh, another one. Uh... the ability to alter any coefficients of friction at will during sporting events.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is based on a common belief/superstition that when someone's eyelash falls out, that person can make a wish on it. This comic appears to be a page from the fictitious Wish Bureau in charge of granting said wishes. And of course the wisher is [[Black Hat]] and he has quite a few wishes, most of them based on the previous wish. A common trope in fiction is that wishing for more wishes is prohibited and for many of his wishes [[Black Hat]] attempts to circumvent that.

;January 9: That wishing on eyelashes worked
:This wish is pointless. If wishing on eyelashes worked, then this would do absolutely nothing (because it already works) and if it didn't then nothing would happen because wishing on eyelashes wouldn't work.

;January 12: A pony
:This wish functions as a test to see whether or not previous wish worked. It can be assumed that it did, as Black Hat then continued to make additional wishes.

;January 15: Unlimited wishes
:This appears to have failed, due to the typical ban of wishing for additional wishes in conventional folklore.

;January 19: Revocation of rules prohibiting unlimited wishes
:An attempt to circumvent the ban in the previous wish.

;January 20: A finite but arbitrarily large number of wishes
:Another attempt to circumvent the ban on unlimited wishes.

;January 28: The power to dictate the rules governing wishes
:Yet another attempt to circumvent the ban on unlimited wishes.

;February 5: Unlimited eyelashes
:This wish likely caused Black Hat to grow unlimited eyelashes, which could be quite inconvenient and painful. And, yes, one more attempt to circumvent the ban on unlimited wishes.

;February 6: That wish-granting entities be required to interpret wishes in accordance with the intent of the wisher
:This wish is likely a response to the previous day's misguided wish. It's actually quite a common problem that people making wishes leave them open for misinterpretation.

;February 8: That wish-granting entities be incapable of impatience
:An attempt to prevent whatever being is powerful enough to grant wishes from becoming angry with Black Hat while he tries to manipulate the system.

;February 12 #1: Unlimited breadsticks
:The first wish of this day seems to be a reference to the unlimited {{w|breadsticks}} offered at {{w|Olive Garden}}.

;February 12 #2: Veto power over others' wishes
:A power that could be interesting to have. It also very much fits with Black Hat's character.

;February 19: Veto power over others' wishes and all congressional legislation
:An improvement of the previous wish. This would be very interesting to have indeed, especially if you are Black Hat, because you could veto any federal law, a power normally entrusted only to the President.

;February 23: The power to override any veto
:This wish would allow Black Hat to override vetoes which in addition to the previous wish would effectively make him control the US legislature and, to some extent, also all other governing bodies. (Notably the UN, where the veto powers wielded by the "big 5" cannot be overridden and can have large impacts on global politics.) Note that it will not allow him to turn laws off (veto them) and on again (override the veto) at any moment, as once a bill becomes law it cannot be vetoed. Without the ability to propose legislation, Black Hat's powers are still limited. The wish may also refer back to the February 19 wish: by granting himself veto power over wishes, Black Hat just made vetoes more powerful than wishes; now he is trying to control other people's vetoes as well, lest they one-up him.

;February 27: The power to see where any shortened URL goes without clicking
:This wish relates to a common practice especially in tweets or other short length media where full length specific HTML addresses such as <tt>www.somewhere.com/articles/specificdate/the page.html</tt> would not be feasible. So a more compressed but nonsensical string of seemingly random characters is used which links to a link of the full text address. This creates some problems for people who are security or privacy conscious and prefer to be informed beforehand where they will be traveling on the Internet. The use of shortened URLs is also central to many types of trolls or practical jokes, most notably Rickrolling, by directing someone to a different location than the link would initially suggest. Thus Black Hat might be wishing to be able to tell where the links go for the purpose of avoiding this sort of trolling.

;February 29: The power to control the direction news anchors are looking while they talk
:This wish likely appeals to Black Hat's mischevious side, allowing him to cause news anchors to look at the wrong camera during live broadcast. Repeatedly switching to the incorrect camera would cause havoc in the studio.

;March 7: The power to introduce arbitrary error into Nate Silver's predictions
:A reference to {{w|Nate Silver}}, who is a former writer for {{w|Baseball Prospectus}} working on predicting baseball players' stats and now writes for {{w|Five Thirty Eight}} in which he predicts the outcome of elections based on polling data. This would grant Black Hat the power to influence the result of elections. This would tighten the Black Hat's control of the US even more.

;March 15: A house of stairs
:This wish refers to the {{w|lithograph}} {{w|House of Stairs}} by {{w|M. C. Escher}}, or perhaps another of his lithographs, {{w|Relativity (M. C. Escher)|Relativity}}

;March 23: A universe which is a replica of this one sans rules against meta-wishes
:Another attempt to circumvent the rules against wishing for more wishes.

;March 29: Free transportation to and from that universe
:While the previous wish appears to have worked, Black Hat notes a problem with it: he is still in our universe with no ways to get to the new one.

;April 2: A clear explanation of how wish rules are structured and enforced
:It appears that one or both of the previous two wishes failed, so Black Hat tries to discover exactly what is offending the Bureau. Having clear rules and how they work helps anyone finding loopholes in them.

;April 7: The power to banish people into the TV show they are talking about
:Black hat is obviously fed up of hearing people talking about certain TV shows, and would like to be able to banish them into the show, thus prevent him having to listen to those people.

;April 8: Zero wishes
:An attempt to hack the wish-granting system by using a quite common vulnerability in input validation: an unexpected value. There may be multiple vectors this can work:
:* in many computer systems, 0 is reserved for unlimited
:* the number may be used as a divisor in some equation and this will make the system divide by zero and probably crash
:* there also may be an assertion like "number of wishes granted == 1" which would fail, again crashing the system
:* similarly, if viewed as a computer system, it is possible that the wish decrement is performed after the wish is granted, thus resulting in either -1 wishes (another common placeholder for unlimited numbers), or an integer overflow if the wish counter is stored in an unsigned integer; the overflow can result in an exception, otherwise -1 becomes represented as MAX_INT-1 - basically, an arbitrarily large number.
:However it seems the eyelash wish-granting system does proper input validation on zero because it did not crash or grant unlimited wishes
:This wish may also be a reversal of the January 9 wish. Black Hat is attempting to win his game by introducing a logical contradiction: if he gets "zero wishes", this is one wish granted; however, if it is not granted, then, de facto, he will have been granted zero wishes. This is a common technique used in logical proofs to show that an earlier assumption does not hold (in this case, the possibility of eyelash wishing to work).

;April 15: Veto power over clocks
:Midnight, April 15 is the deadline for filing income tax returns in the United States.
:It may also be that Black Hat, now in control of all human legislation, is attempting to extend this to further control also rules of nature -- in this case: time. The strange wording is likely to be due to Black Hat having consulted with the wish-hacking manual he acquired April 2.

;April 22: A pokéball that works on strangers' pets
:A reference to the cartoon and video game series {{w|Pokémon}}. A Pokéball can be thrown at a Pokémon (or in this case, a pet that the Pokéball thrower finds either annoying or cute) to capture/contain it and/or achieve ownership of it. Unless cheats are used, Pokéballs cannot be used on Pokémon owned by other people in the Pokémon games. Many players wish to obtain the often high-level Pokémon of NPCs, and black hat guy may also be interested in pranking other players by stealing their powerful Pokémon

The title text is another yet another mischievous wish. The coefficients of friction, though usually not noticed as they are unchanging, are all-important when performing physical activities — imagine trying to play hockey on a field of sand or sprinting over a sheet of ice. In addition to the difficulty going where you want or getting any balls that might be in play where you want them to go in a changing friction environment, angular momentum would also be very difficult to control.

==Transcript==
:{|
! align="left" colspan="2" |Eyelash Wish Log
|-style="color: gray;"
|
|align="right"|Wish bureau ID#:
|-
|
|align="right"|21118378
|-style="color: gray;"
|
|align="right"|Date range:
|-
!scope="row" style="color: gray;"|Wisher
|align="right"|Jan-Apr 2012
|}

:{|
!align="left" width="50px"|Date
!align="left"|Wish
|-
|Jan 09
|That wishing on eyelashes worked
|-
|Jan 12
|A pony
|-
|Jan 15
|Unlimited wishes
|-
|Jan 19
|Revocation of rules prohibiting unlimited wishes
|-
|Jan 20
|A finite but arbitrarily large number of wishes
|-
|Jan 28
|The power to dictate the rules governing wishes
|-
|Feb 05
|Unlimited eyelashes
|-
|Feb 06
|That wish-granting entities be required to interpret wishes in accordance with the intent of the wisher
|-
|Feb 08
|That wish-granting entities be incapable of impatience
|-
|Feb 12
|Unlimited breadsticks
|-
|Feb 12
|Veto power over others' wishes
|-
|Feb 19
|Veto power over others' wishes and all congressional legislation
|-
|Feb 23
|The power to override any veto
|-
|Feb 27
|The power to see where any shortened URL goes without clicking
|-
|Feb 29
|The power to control the direction news anchors are looking while they talk
|-
|Mar 07
|The power to introduce arbitrary error into Nate Silver's predictions
|-
|Mar 15
|A house of stairs
|-
|Mar 23
|A universe which is a replica of this one sans rules against meta-wishes
|-
|Mar 29
|Free transportation to and from that universe
|-
|Apr 02
|A clear explanation of how wish rules are structured and enforced
|-
|Apr 07
|The power to banish people into the TV show they're talking about
|-
|Apr 08
|Zero wishes
|-
|Apr 15
|Veto power over clocks
|-
|Apr 22
|A Pokéball that works on strangers' pets
|}

{{Comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Pokémon]]

517: Marshmallow Gun

2015-07-31T21:12:16Z

173.245.56.91: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 517
| date = December 15, 2008
| title = Marshmallow Gun
| image = marshmallow_gun.png
| titletext = Except in reality crossing a stream of marshmallows would create a giant Bill Murray.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] has obtained a gun that shoots {{w|marshmallows}} and promptly decides to shoot at [[Megan]]. Having taken the first few hits without much reaction she sighs and then brings out the super soaker, which was first used on her in [[220: Philosophy]], and completely soaks him with it.

The next day, everyone has such guns and starts shooting marshmallows at each other. We see [[Beret Guy]] and Megan who confronts Cueball by saying ''Hey, {{w|noob}}! Eat {{w|Stay Puft Marshmallow Man|Stay-Puft®}}!'' This is like saying ''eat lead'' when threatening someone with a regular gun, since Stay Puft is a fictional brand of marshmallows from the {{w|Ghostbusters}} movie.

Beret Guy realizes that the "streams" of marshmallows are about to cross, and shouts a warning, but it is too late and they do cross anyway. This results in something gigantic appearing with a '''Foom''' off-screen. It roars at the three friends. Megan looks up and states that ''this is bad'' as the giant shouts ''You're shooting what?'' Presumably the crossing marshmallows beams have recreated the {{w|Stay Puft Marshmallow Man}} from Ghostbusters. In the movie, crossing the ghost-capturing streams from the {{w|Proton packs}} was "{{w|Proton pack#Crossing the streams|bad}}". But in the end, in which an ancient spirit took the form of this giant Marshmallow Man, the monster was destroyed as a side effect of crossing the streams. The Stay-Puft man sees what they are shooting and is justifiably upset.

The title text is a further Ghostbusters reference, as {{w|Bill Murray}} was one of the characters of the movie. Since the crossing of the streams of the proton packs by Bill Murray and the other Ghostbusters is related to the creation of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in the movie, the crossing of the marshmallow streams in the comic does the opposite and summons and enormous Bill Murray.

==Transcript==
:[A box above the first frame:]
:I got this gun that shoots marshmallows.
:[Cueball removes the red marshmallow gun from a box.]

:[Cueball shoots at Megan with marshmallow gun from offscreen.]
:Pop pop pop
:Whap whap whap

:[Megan facepalms.]
:Pop
:Megan: Sigh.

:[Megan removes a super soaker from desk drawer.]
:Pop pop

:[Megan shoots Cueball (offscreen) with the super soaker.]
:Cueball (offscreen): Augh!
:''Fwoosh''
:Cueball (offscreen): Man, I forgot that was there.

:[A box above the first frame of the second part of the comic:]
:The next day, everyone else got them too.
:[Megan and Beret Guy brandish marshmallow guns.]
:Megan: Hey, noob! Eat Stay-Puft®!

:[Megan shoots a marshmallow gun.]
:Pop pop pop

:[Cueball shoots a marshmallow gun.]
:Poppop pop

:[Megan and Cueball shoot marshmallows into the air, crossing the streams.]
:Beret Guy (offscreen): No! Don't cross the—

:[Between the last two frames is a wide gap with the following text:]
:'''Foom'''
:Giant monster (offscreen): Roaaar!

:[Megan, Cueball, and Beret Guy are all standing with weapons pointed at the ground looking up.]
:Megan: Okay, this is bad.
:Giant monster (offscreen): '''You're shooting what?'''

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]

Talk:1363: xkcd Phone

2014-05-02T22:24:04Z

173.245.56.91:

I really dislike the tone of the explanation. I mean it's so negative about the features! Not that they are all useful, but isn't this a wiki and should be neutral? It takes also the fun out of it. I would like a screaming while falling phone and the relativity thing would be great for teaching relativity! [[User:RecentlyChanged|RecentlyChanged]] ([[User talk:RecentlyChanged|talk]])

Where can i get one of these? :D [[User:UniTrader|UniTrader]] ([[User talk:UniTrader|talk]]) 04:11, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the "scream when falling" thing and the "flightaware" stuff can be done somehow with Tasker. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.103.206|141.101.103.206]] 04:23, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

;Designer?

I suspect it was either Black Hat or Beret Guy, but I'm not sure which. A collaboration? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.45|173.245.54.45]] 04:47, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

This sounds like something straight out of aperture. {{unsigned ip|108.162.221.55}}

;Simulates alternate speeds of light

Yes, useless as a feature on all the time; but it would be a cool app. [[User:Markhurd|Mark Hurd]] ([[User talk:Markhurd|talk]]) 05:57, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
:Absolutely. Where can I get an app like that?[[Special:Contributions/108.162.225.157|108.162.225.157]] 06:22, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Travelling at above the simulated speed of light should give an imaginary time dilation, not a negative time dilation.
gamma = 1/sqrt{1-v^2/c^2}
Thus, after such travel, the value of the clock would be a complex number. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.35|108.162.219.35]] 15:42, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

'''Changed the speed of light to 2.99x10^8'''
:You guys should probably clarify that the relativisic affects actually depend on how long your trip is or how long you wait to sync your phone. For relativity to be observable on a 12 hour trip, Minimum speed for a phone would have to be 300 m/s or 3000 m/s for the clock to measure even a microsecond/millisecond difference in time. This is well known thanks to the certain [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation#Velocity_and_gravitational_time_dilation_combined-effect_tests time dilation experiments with planes]. Your GPS chip helps account for an error of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_analysis_for_the_Global_Positioning_System#Relativity 7 to 47 microseconds per day]. My point is in terms of time dilation, relativity mattering depends on how long a trip or waiting for synchronization is. By synching, I literally mean with the atomic time clock or with a GPS satellite. The synchronization of your phone with satellites is actually a couple of hundred microseconds, so normally even a light changing clock might not have as noticable changes as you might think. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.225|108.162.238.225]] 13:49, 2 May 2014 (UTC) --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.225|108.162.238.225]] 13:49, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
Yeah sorry forgot to login. does anyone know how to do the indices formatting other than eg 2.99x10(littlex) rather then 2.99x10^x? [[User:Jonv4n|Jonv4n]] ([[User talk:Jonv4n|talk]]) 06:29, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
: Whassup? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.220|141.101.89.220]] 07:43, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

; relativistic effect
Forgive me if I'm wrong, I'm not a physicist but the above explanation says that relativistic time dilation affects only occur at a significant fraction of the speed of light. It is my understanding that time dilation occurs at any speed, but is only perceptible/noticeable/measurable at very large fraction of the speed of light. Unless I'm mistaken the above it should reflect this. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.91|173.245.56.91]] 22:24, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

'''Phone may attract/trap insects; this is normal.'''
Funnier if you take it as a reference to the [http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2014/04/07/mazda_issues_recall_because_spiders_invade_fuel_tank_causing_fire_risk.html spider problems] Mazda keeps on having...

About the attracting insects ... I would expect this to be normal feature in night. Trapping, however ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 09:08, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
: There are other indications that the phone is at least partly biological, this being the strongest evidence of that. Insects could be the power source for the biological part(s). [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.45|173.245.54.45]] 14:07, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

'''Siri'''

Could the Siri bit be a reference to Portal? When I first read it, I remembered this GLaDOS quote: "Your Aperture Science Weighted Companion Cube will never threaten to stab you, and in fact cannot speak. If your Weighted Companion Cube does speak, please disregard its advice." Could be completely wrong; just a thought. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.51|173.245.54.51]] 10:09, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
:Perhaps Siri is beling likened to the "ATMOS" device in the Doctor Who episode "The Sontaran Stratagem" [[User:Esp666|Esp666]] ([[User talk:Esp666|talk]]) 11:20, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Lamest. Comic. Ever. And I'm not just saying that because he doesn't mention the Ubuntu Touch OS. ''– [[User:Tbc|tbc]] ([[User talk:Tbc|talk]]) 12:22, 2 May 2014 (UTC)''

'''Realistic case'''

Car telephones and the first cellphones were rather expensive, at least in Germany fake "realistic cases" were sold without any working electronics in it. Usage was to impress silly friends.

I thought this was aimed at the iPhone. Apparently these have an elegant case, but I have never actually seen one. Everyone I know covers their iPhone with some hideous plastic monstrosity, since the design is not practical.--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.59|108.162.218.59]] 14:10, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Could possibly be a reference to the "Realistic" brand, which was used on various products sold by Radio Shack (U.S. electronics retail chain) from 1954 to some time in the '90s.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.76|108.162.219.76]] 16:14, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

'''Screaming when in free fall: my first Android app!'''

I love the bit about screaming when in free fall: that was the first Android app I hacked together back in 2009 (based on the tricorder app). [[User:Nealmcb|Nealmcb]] ([[User talk:Nealmcb|talk]]) 13:49, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

'''Title Text'''

Hover-over title text was truncated; love it.
14:43, 2 May 2014 (UTC)[[User:Pocono Chuck|Pocono Chuck]] ([[User talk:Pocono Chuck|talk]])
: you must have an really old firefox browser -- you should update !!! [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.210|199.27.130.210]] 16:23, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

'''Price includes 2-year Knicks contract.''' ... but a contract with the Knicks would only appeal to pro basketball players.

Nonsense. Lots of "regular" folks would buy this phone it it meant they got to play in the NBA. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.84|199.27.128.84]] 16:26, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

"Your mobile world just went digital" is an inversion of the marketing-speak that was common when what we'd now regard as smartphones first began to be adopted by the mainstream (iPhone/G1 era, since Symbians, Blackberries, and early WinMo tended to be business or enthusiast devices). People already ubiquitously e-mailed, browsed the Web, etc...what was presented as 'new' was that you could now do it from your phone. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.58|173.245.54.58]] 19:09, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

I think the "Under certain circumstances, wireless transmitter may control God" statement might be a reference to how transmitting devices have to comply with FCC regulation and not interfere with aircraft or government communications. Perhaps this phone is intended to be noncompliant so as to control high-level electronics, even at supernatural levels. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.66|173.245.56.66]] 21:11, 2 May 2014 (UTC)Dbrak

'''Frictionless'''

You could hold a frictionless phone just by hooking your little finger under the bottom edge, regardless of friction gravity will hold it into your hand. Just like you could leave it in a bowl without it jumping out. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.72|108.162.229.72]] 19:12, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

;Why the hell this funny phone isn't available at the xkcd store?
I would buy if the price would be in the range of other articles there. Just for fun...--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:30, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Talk:48: Found

2013-11-05T03:06:11Z

173.245.56.91:

Talk about bare bones! --[[User:Quicksilver|Quicksilver]] ([[User talk:Quicksilver|talk]]) 15:22, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
Am I the only one who sees a 3 in the grey/poka-dot area? Implying that there is some third person involved in the relationship? That view is supported by the title text, I think.